Paul Black, co- founder of sales-i, argues there’s no shame in knowing your customer’s shoe size
As the economic slowdown really starts to bite, and sales teams delve deep into their consciences about wasting fuel on poorly planned customer visits, market analysts are reporting a new peak in interest in customer relationship management (CRM) aids.
Here at sales-i that trend is becoming ever more evident as more and more of our clients are now making use of our inbuilt CRM functionality. This gives them sales record background information about customers; keeps track of client interaction, while also giving complete visibility of sales and customer buying behaviour with our core sales intelligence system.
When times are hard, deftness is crucial. Sales teams need to pull every trick out of the bag to secure repeat orders and increase their penetration in existing accounts.If a customer has been complaining to the customer service desk about a faulty printer, or has indicated a growing interest in rival supplier promotions, your best chance of turning the situation to your advantage will be if you are armed with this information ahead of your next sales call, or are able to plan a pre-emptive, off-diary meeting.
Every little helps
Our CRM capabilities are cleverly integrated with core sales data and extended to mobile workers on their smartphones or Blackberries, so sales teams find they can dispense with laborious paperwork, because key data can now be logged and accessed on the fly. While the hard data (ie actual sales figures) are clearly the most important tool a sales team can have access to, the ability to combine this with ‘soft’ information (personal details about the main contacts and a history of recent correspondence and meetings) can make all the difference when closing a deal.
Having a 360-degree view of the customer, which any ambitious salesperson should strive to have, provides the best possible opportunity to meet objections head on and drive through new business
While, given a choice, most sales people will focus on hard figures rather than soft, personal information (ultimately it’s more important to know that the customer has stopped buying toner, than that he’s vegetarian with a golf handicap of 14), having the best of both worlds will give one sales team the edge over another. And in an unforgiving business climate, every little helps
