Customer Journey

Interest

Marketing Collateral

Marketing collateral helps you tell a consistent brand story and educates your potential customers on the business, products and services. A professional marketing agency helps create consistency across all collateral, ensuring that it speaks to the business goals and objectives and that the look and feel are aligned with the business’s brand identity.

Plan of Action

Different types of “Marketing Collateral” are useful for different purposes.

Map out the pieces you require according to the information consumers need at each stage of the sales cycle.
- Marketing Collateral:
  - Marketing collateral is best aligned with the awareness stage of the customer journey when you are communicating to a broad audience over multiple channels.
  - Communicate using bite-sized messages that audiences can easily digest.
  - Written content is good, but rich content, such as visual, audio, and video, is usually better.
  - Avoid content that is loaded with sales messages, this may put people off.
  - Avoid content solely focused on your brand and company, as this will become stale quickly.
  - Use marketing collateral that provides value to the consumer.
  - A visual blog post with well-sourced facts and figures or infographic can help consumers recognize your industry knowledge and seek out more insights. These types of marketing collateral help deepen awareness of your brand and position your company as an authority.
- Sales Collateral:
  - Sales collateral is aligned more closely with the Consideration and Decision stages of the consumer journey.
  - Here is where you identify or reaffirm the customers problem and present your product/service as the best possible solution.
  - Again, here visual content helps tremendously. Even if you’re selling sophisticated technical products, photos or videos of them in action can help consumers visualize using them and predispose them more favourable to buy.
  - Depending on the product, written case studies, line cards, sales sheets, spec sheets, and product brochures can be very effective. But to cut through the marketing clutter, incorporate striking visuals to bring your product or service to life.

Think about what questions prospective customers ask at each stage.
- Use your pre-decision engagements to gain insights about what information your customers may need to move them from one stage to the next.
- Develop a roadmap on what information consumers seek at each stage, ensuring that each piece is optimized to push them further along. If you’ve done so effectively, you’ll find the consumer purchase decision-making process takes less time, as well as an increase in sales, which is the ultimate goal.

Interest

Value Proposal Presentation

To make a winning sales presentation, you need a winning value proposition. A good value proposition will communicate the key reasons your customers should engage with you and demonstrate why you have the right solution for a particular client’s problem. The value proposition should always be the hero of your presentation.

Plan of Action

Top-down value proposition process

When to use it?

Use the top-down process if working in a very large group, or where consensus is hard to build.

List the possible answers to the questions you will need to answer for your prospective customer:
- why us?
- why change?
- why change to us?

If you are the same as your peers; under 5 if you have a weakness.
Multiply the two marks together to get a score out of 100 for each possible value proposition item. The highest 3-5 are great candidates to be included in your value proposition.
Filter the list. Remove any items that do not clearly differentiate you from your competitors or any other available alternatives.
Remove items that aren’t provable or cannot be easily established.
Remove items that are self-defeating.
The remaining top 3-5 items are your value proposition.

Bottom-up value proposition process

When to use it?

Use the bottom-up value process with smaller groups, or where a more iterative approach is required.

Write out each argument for choosing your solution or type of solution onto a Post-It note, features that your competitors don’t have, statistics, reviews, awards – items that might warrant a slide in a sales presentation.
Add items that are the opposite of your competitor’s weaknesses.
Group the Post-It notes together into logical subjects or themes. These arguments form the basis for your value proposition.
Provide a header for each argument – the headers will become part of your value proposition, so make sure that they are persuasive.
Remove anything that does not differentiate you, or that is not provable, or that might be self-defeating.

Once you have your value proposition, you need to sort the information into the right order. Sometimes, there’s a logical flow to the story – maybe one section contains material that explains how the solution works, so ought to be placed first.

Some value proposition statements – things such as ‘future proof’ or ‘low risk’ often naturally fit at the end of the story, and should go last. It’s worth remembering that the first and last items in any list are remembered better than the others – so place strongest arguments there.

Use these items to structure your sales presentation into sections and present your material using the value proposition in order to make sure that your content is directly relevant to your prospects and focuses on the benefits they will receive.

Each value proposition point will act as a section for your presentation, and all of the slides within that section should be proof points that justify your claim.

In terms of structure, after your introduction, your presentation should follow the sequence:

Show the value proposition
Prove how you can deliver each part in turn
Close by recapping the value proposition and asking for commitment

Interest

Pre-decision engagement

Buyers want to buy, but they don’t like being sold to. They do, however, appreciate being helped by a trusted advisor. A consultative approach will lead to more sales if you ask questions and listen to what the buyer is telling you.

Plan of Action

Qualify leads
- Take significant time and energy up front to understand a customer’s needs fully and design personalized strategies.
- Qualifying leads allows you to identify which customers are most likely to complete a sale.
- When prospecting, reviewing and researching leads, consider factors like needs, budgets and deciding power.
- Cold calls, customer surveys and online research can give you valuable information about a potential customer.
- Ensuring the viability of a lead can save you and your sales team time and help you spend more energy on customers with high potential.

Gather information
- In your initial conversations with a potential customer, gather all the information you can.
- Determine how your product best applies to them and what solutions you’re able to offer.
- The information you gather in this stage can help the sales team create informed, effective and personalized value propositions later in the process.
- It can also help you design solutions that best fit clients’ requirements and needs.
- Communicate with decision makers about their exact goals and concerns and ensure thorough understanding before moving on to the next phase in the sales cycle.
- Focusing on collaboration and reciprocal information sharing can improve your relationships, strengthen your sales numbers and lead to increased customer satisfaction.
Demonstrate your product
- Demonstrations and interactive presentations can give your customers a better sense of the services you offer.
- Offering personalized and informative demos helps show prospective clients the benefits of your product and its applicability toward their operations.
- Try to create presentations that encourage engagement, respond to the customers’ needs directly and incorporate discussion points from previous pre-decision engagements.
- Demonstrations can offer excellent opportunities to share exactly how your product or service responds to specific functionality requests.
Prepare a customer proposal
- After customers have engaged with your team and your offerings, help prepare a proposal that facilitates their transition to the next phase.
- Thorough understanding of your customers’ needs can help you create thoughtful offerings and move them forward in the sales process.
- Typically, after delivering the proposal, you can begin to engage your customer in the decision process.

Interest

Warm calling

Warm calling refers to getting in touch with a prospect or customer with whom you or your company has had some prior contact. Since these customers already know the business and what you do, you will be provided with higher-quality leads with more buying intent.

Plan of Action

1. Identify good fit companies.

The best prospects are the ones that look like your best customers.
They have similar pain, which means they’ll be easier to sell to and have higher retention rates.

2. Research the company.

Preparation is essential in warm calling, you can’t deliver value if you don’t know what your prospect cares about.
At a minimum, you should know how many years the company’s been in business, the number of employees, their location, and their value proposition.
Knowing these basics is important as it helps you determine the type of problems this business is likely to face and tailor your introduction.

3. Research the company’s executives.

Always do research to find out if you know any of the prospective companies’ senior executives or know anyone who does.
Try and find some information that will make it easier to connect.
Educational background
LinkedIn photos for clues to their personality
Try to determine the most critical problems an executive in this role would have.

4. Perfect your opening.

Calling an executive is theater. You have 15 seconds to capture their attention and demonstrate value.
It’s important to sound powerful and in control.
It’s crucial to sound assertive — prospects are more likely to respond to someone who’s confident and authoritative than a rep who’s clearly nervous.

5. Be human.

A sales rep’s secret weapons are voice tone and a sense of humor.
Your voice tone can put people at ease or on edge, and an ability to make people laugh will go farther in making them trust you than any sales pitch.
Prospects are extremely busy, so be as pleasant as possible and show that you understand the demands of their positions.
Smile when you’re warm calling (they’ll be able to hear it!), especially if it’s early in the morning.

6. Prepare your talking points ahead of time.

Referencing a piece of specific, non-generic information and asking a great question establishes a level of trust and opens the door for a professional conversation.
The key is to get as detailed as possible on a topic with which the executive is familiar.
This hyper-tailored opening can change the game. It complements the prospect, engages them right away, and leads to follow-up questions about why the company chose this strategy or point of view, whether it succeeded or failed, what they plan to do next, and how you can help.

7. Ask open-ended questions.

Even though you know the prospect is a good fit, you still need to assess their interest and need.
By asking open-ended questions instead of yes/no questions, you’re prompting the prospect to better engage with the conversation.
This gives you an in for understanding what matters to them so you can better help.

8. Listen for triggering events or pain.

As you guide the conversation with open-ended questions, you should be digging for their pains, the things that keep them awake at night.
These are the things that your product/service may be able to solve for, and if you can prove this in their words, you’re more likely to win them over.

9. Keep the call under five minutes.

Even though you may find that your product is a great fit, a warm call is still an interruption.
Use your best judgment if the conversation is flowing well, but be respectful of your prospect’s time.
Your first call is just an opening, so don’t worry about cramming in as much information as possible.
Find out which other stakeholders should be included on the email, then let your prospect know that you’ll be their point of contact for solving their business pain.

10. Follow up with an email.

Following up with an email enhances your visibility.
In your email, thank them for their time and provide additional ideas for solving their biggest business pain.

11. Call again.

Call four times in 12 days. This cadence doesn’t cross the line into “harassment” territory, but it does give you a pretty good shot of connecting with your prospect if they have any interest in talking to you.
Don’t forget to vary the times at which you call. Trying them at different points in the day helps you catch them when they’re most receptive.
Make calls in the morning before the craziness of a workday hits an executive’s desk.

12. Define a tangible next step.

Every communication you have with a prospect should be designed to drive the sales process forward or determine if you should disqualify them.
Include one clear ask in your follow up email so your prospect knows what’s coming next.
Even if the response is negative, you’ve laid the foundation for a future relationship.

Interest

Follow Up with Leads

Following up is an essential aspect of any business. It showcases your care and commitment to the customer or potential customer, which impacts the customer experience.

The follow-up adds value to the service or product the customer purchased from you and allows you to build a great relationship with your customers that could lead to the success of your business.

Plan of Action

1. Segment your leads

Each type of lead will require a different level of messaging.
Organize the leads into at least three groups: Hot, warm, and cold.
Move leads from group to group as you get to know them better and move them closer to qualification.

2. Respond in a timely fashion

Arrange for a thank you or welcome email or phone call to be made within 12-24 hours after a lead comes in.
Offer to answer any questions they may have to demonstrate the care and attention you provide to each customer.

3. Nurture your leads with useful content

Always focus on adding value.
Blog posts, infographics, helpful stats, success stories, and downloadable guides are all great options.
Leads aren’t going to become customers after one interaction, so focus on nurturing the lead, or “warming” them up.
Focus on small steps, like downloading a brochure, case study, video or blog post.

4. Personalize your communication

Personalize your correspondence by including the recipient’s name in your emails.
Send them information based on the pages visited on your website.
Respond personally to an online inquiry instead of pushing canned responses.

5. Use various communication channels

Leads have a preferred way of communicating and quite frankly, you have no idea what that is at this point.
Use social media, email, and phone calls to connect with potential clients.
Be readily available no matter your lead’s preferred medium.
Respond to social media messages quickly, answer your phone and return calls promptly, and check your inbox.
Email: Emails are slightly less invasive than phone calls, and give the lead the opportunity to read and respond at their convenience.
Phone: Phone call conversations are a great way to show your prospect your expertise and demonstrate that you want what’s best for them.
Text message: Sending text messages may be better for leads with whom you’ve already communicated. Pay close attention to your conversations with them and base your follow up texts on those needs.

6. Create a follow-up schedule

It typically requires 7-10 touches before a conversion happens.
Creating a follow-up schedule will ensure you remain consistent with your communications and prevent you from letting the leads you worked so hard to attain fall through the cracks.
Your communications calendar should aim to keep you top of mind with your leads but not become a nuisance.
Your schedule might look like this:
Emails: once per week
Phone calls: once per month
Face to face: once per quarter
Anything more than that and you run the risk of getting rejected.

7. Track communications

CRM systems allow you to keep a record of all customer contacts and engagements and the results of those communications.
If you don’t have a CRM, create a spreadsheet that includes your prospects’ contact information and notes regarding the dates and methods used to nurture those leads.

8. Learn when to abandon lost causes

Three qualifying categories to consider:
Do they have the means to make a purchase?
Are they motivated
Are they the decision-maker?
If you discover they’re not qualified at this time, don’t toss their info! Put them in a “to be followed up with later” file and create a campaign to target those leads which you’ve put on the back burner down the road when their circumstances may have changed.

Decision

Competitive and flexible pricing

The main benefit perceived in the competitive tendering process for the customer is value for money. It is thought that a more competitive process will drive down prices and drive up added value, as businesses all strive to showcase themselves as the most attractive choice for the contract.

Plan of Action

Developing a pricing strategy can be one of the most challenging tasks a business faces. Prices need to be set high enough to cover the product costs while delivering profit to the business. Yet, the price needs to remain within a range that customers are willing to pay. A flexible and yet competitive pricing strategy allows a business to quickly adjust pricing as necessary to accommodate a changing business climate or to overcome competitive challenges. A flexible pricing strategy also empowers customers to negotiate pricing based on their business size or buying power.

Analyse the Competition
- Visit the websites of your competitors, and note the prices that they are selling similar products and services for.
- If your competitor’s pricing is not available on their website, work with others in the industry to inquire about competitor’s pricing structure. Is the competitor the low-cost leader or known for its top-of-the line service?
- Understanding how your competitors position themselves in comparison with your business will help you develop your flexible pricing strategy.
- Keep track of your competitor’s pricing patterns for future reference and monitoring throughout the year.
- Determine Product and Services Costs
- To set a flexible pricing strategy, you must first understand the product and services costs and related selling and overhead expenses.
- Combine the development costs, development, professional services, support and general admin overhead and the selling or go-to-market expenses to arrive at the cost it takes to develop, support and sell a product.
Determine Pricing Objectives
- Setting the right flexible pricing strategy for your business has an impact on the overall revenue for the business.

- Use the business objectives or required metrics to establish an overall EBITA for the year.
- The profit required by the business can help you determine the amount of margin needed to meet the EBITA objective.

Use the initial product or service price to develop a flexible selling price range that delivers the profits required by the business yet accommodates different customer purchase situations.

Decision

T&C negotiations & aligned agreement

The voluntary participation of all key stakeholders is fundamental to a collaborative approach to managing conflict and developing agreements that suit both parties. One group’s decision to negotiate is only effective if the other parties also feel it is in their best interest.

Plan of Action

The Basics of Contract Negotiation
- A good contract negotiation benefits both the parties and achieves a fair deal.
- A negotiation that tries to push the other party to the wall is the worst type of negotiation.
- You should negotiate with an objective to build a business relationship with the other party and create a contract that helps both of you meet your respective business goals.
- A contract negotiation involves working out a lot of details, especially concerning risks and revenues.
- In the process of negotiation, each party will need to compromise on some aspects so as to get something it considers more important.

Usually, contract negotiation is done in two stages:
- Negotiation of simple business terms.
- Negotiation of legal terms.
The Objectives of Contract Negotiation
- Explain all the important terms and conditions of the contract.
- Define goods and services that are the subject matter of the contract.
- State the compensation in clear terms including the total cost, payment schedule, and terms of finance.
- Acknowledge all the important dates including the date the contract comes into effect, the end date of the contract, and any potential renewal date.
- Identify risks and liabilities the contract may involve, and find ways to address them.
- Define what parties can expect from the relationship now and in the future.
How to Plan Contract Negotiations
- List and Rank Your Priorities
- Make a list of your priorities, and rank them along with viable alternatives.
- Since you can’t negotiate all aspects of the contract at once, you should try to negotiate the important items first before moving on to the less important ones.
- You can also consider giving up some of the less important items in order to get the ones at the top of your priority list.
- Know Your Bottom Line
- Define your bottom line, such as a certain cost you cannot exceed or a high priority item you cannot compromise on.
- This will help you know when you need to walk away from the negotiating table.
- Set the Benchmarks
- You may want to set standards for measuring the other party’s performance.
- This can include time constraints and product quality.
- Once you know the benchmarks, you can negotiate a fair penalty for not meeting them.
- Assess Risks and Liabilities
- How will you handle issues like unforeseen costs, regulation violations, and insurance coverage of contract workers?
- Try to think of things that may go wrong and the provisions you should have in place to tackle them.
- Determine Whether You Need a Confidentiality Clause
- If the deal involves any confidential information, you may want to make sure the other party does not disclose it to someone else.
- You can do this by adding a non-disclosure clause to your contract.
- Walk a Mile in the Other Party’s Shoes
- Put yourself in the position of the other party, and think how they would negotiate the deal.
- This will give you an idea of what’s important to them and what they might be willing to concede.
- Select Your Negotiating Team
- Choose who will participate in the negotiation from your side.
- Ideally, you should have a team of at least two and not more than four members.
- Sometimes, you may want to keep a senior person out of the team so that the team can defer a decision or get some time to consider a proposal.
- Assess Leverage
- Consider the factors that can affect your bargaining power. For instance, if you are in a rush to reach an agreement, you may be easily pressured to sign a less-favorable deal. On the other hand, if the other party is in a hurry, you may find yourself in a better position. Similarly, if you offer unique goods or services, you may have a better bargaining power. Think of all such aspects you can leverage.
- With proper preparation, you will be able to negotiate terms and conditions of a contract that will meet the needs of both parties and ensure a long-lasting business relationship.

Decision

Acceptable delivery project deadline

Aligning project delivery with customer expectations. This is an important project metric that affects customer satisfaction. It must be noted that the project deadline needs to be realistic for both parties.

Plan of Action

Listen to your customers
- Communicating with your customers is not a one-way street. While clear communication is essential on your part, it is just as important to make sure you listen carefully to every little comment the customer makes.
- This will help to resolve any potential red flags on the spot, before they become a real problem. And it’s not just the big things that matter. The little things do too.
- Putting yourself in your customers shoes and thinking “how would I feel if I was them” can help shift the perspective.

Respond to customer enquiries as quickly as possible
- Customers can have questions right the way through the project delivery process, from the project development phase to after completion. How you respond to these can play a big part in shaping the customer’s perceptions.
- Always reply to customer concerns and queries promptly, regardless of how serious you think the problem might be.
- If a customer has contacted you, it means that they have a question or query which it’s important they get an answer to.
Keep the customer updated
- Most customers will understandably want to know the status of their projects as they proceed and if there is any sort of change to the project plan.
- Regular status updates will put the customer at ease and in control.
- Keeping the customer in the loop in this way can help to troubleshoot potential problems and make them more trusting of your work.
Don’t make promises you can’t keep
- We all want our customers to be happy, but making promises you can’t keep will always cause disappointment further down the line.
- The rule is that if you agree to it, make sure you follow through.
- If you don’t think you can deliver an extra request by a given deadline, saying so upfront is far better than making a promise and then failing to deliver.
- Even if a request seems unimportant to you, it could be a big deal to the customer.
Be consistent
- Deliver status reports when you say you will.
- Arrange and attend regular progress meetings.
- Do your best to hit the deadlines you set.
- This kind of consistency breeds confidence in your team members and your customers.
Keep the project moving
- Carefully monitoring the use and availability of resources is the key to keeping the project moving.
- There should be no excuse for a project stalling.
- If the customer lacks the funds to keep the project going, that’s one thing, but if the project stalls due to poor scheduling or forecasting on your part, you have to expect customer satisfaction levels to fall.
- Effective planning, scheduling, monitoring and forecasting of all your resources prevents over and under-utilisation and ensures the required skills are always matching the right tasks.
Monitor the project’s scope
- Experienced project managers will know just how quickly projects can grow beyond their original scope.
- Keeping your team focused and working within the project’s scope is key to its timely delivery.
- If there are additional items that are out of the project’s scope but still necessary, orders will need to be changed which could impact on the project’s profitability.
- Monitoring the scope of the project closely will ensure the right tasks are completed on time and any additional items are paid for.

Decision

Ongoing contact

It is essential to stay in touch with customers and target other potential customers within the organisation. By showcasing your knowledge of the business and explaining why it would benefit them to speak to you, you could target more of the right audience. Be persistent and patient.

Plan of Action

Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
- When you’re in an active sales process, err on the side of too much communication.
- Reach out and update them about what’s going on, what their options are and what you recommend they should do, so they don’t have to constantly track you down to understand what’s happening.

Tell the Truth
- Life happens, and you need to be upfront about any challenges or snags you hit along the road.
- It’s better to face the music than risk further negative consequences by delaying bad news.
- Once trust is broken with your client, it’s very difficult and time-consuming to earn it back.
Empathy
- Understand your clients.
- Show empathy towards their needs and try to see the situation from their perspective.
- Know what they want and help them get it.
- Take notes and make sure you have a system to keep track of them so that when your client comes back in five years, you remember who they are.
- Needs evolve, of course, but don’t start from zero if you can possibly avoid it.
Make Their Lives Better
- Add value to people’s lives.
- Acting as a guide and sharing your industry expertise will help them remember you as a trusted, valuable resource.
- Your clients should know they can turn to you with any questions related to your area of expertise, even if it’s not directly about your transaction.
Reward Your Loyal Customers
- Once your customers become repeat clients or have referred friends and family, make sure to thank them.
- Whether it’s a special offer, a thoughtful gift or even a handwritten note, make sure you’re thanking your VIPs and not only contacting them when you’re trying to sell something.
Stay In Touch
- When the transaction is over, keep the conversation going.
- Keep track of important milestones and dates (like the anniversary of their close date, or their birthday, or six months since your last communication) and reach out with a personal note, a card or a phone call.
- In between those personal touches, send them helpful, engaging content via email and social media.
- These points of contact serve as reminders that you gave them great service and that you’re still available as a trusted expert to answer any questions they might have.
- By reaching out with interesting content rather than explicit sales messaging, clients are less likely to tune you out and more likely to think of you when they need your services again, or when a friend does.

Decision

Delivery of Technical pre-sales & architecture documentation

Establish trusted advisor relationships with decision makers and senior buyers. Confer with customers, prospects and salespeople to collect the necessary business information. Penetrate and expand accounts through sales and operational, strategic account solution plans.

Plan of Action

Benefits Of Technical Documentation
- Great technical documentation guides your audience and empowers them to use your product, without frustration and difficulties.
- Technical documentation is not only important for customer support but plays an integral part in building your brand and trust.
- It helps the intended audience understand the processes and solve difficulties when using your product.

Technical Documentation Improves Customer Retention
- Well-written technical documentation refines the user experience and resolves possible issues when using the product.
Good Technical Documentation Saves Time and Effort
- With the absence of well-defined and clear documentation, you might end up spending extra hours dealing with the technical difficulties of your product.
- A structured technical document can save time and boost productivity.
Technical Documentation has the Potential To Elevate Your Sales
- Well written technical is one of the best ways to let the product talk to your users and solve all queries at their convenience.
- Creating technical documents that are attractive, interesting, and easy to navigate will help users understand the product better in less time, helping them to set up the product faster and use it with optimization.
- This, in turn, results in higher ratings, more positive reviews, and – increased sales!
Define your audience:
- Learning about your audience is very important to identify if your documentation is aimed at developers, employees, users, etc!
Be clear about what you want your reader to do after you end:
- Technical documentation is all about the subsequent behavior of the reader.
- Express your intent so the user is clear about what they will be able to achieve after they are done reading.
- If you are clear about the final objective of the document, you will find it easier to write your piece.
Use an outline for the documentation:
- Writing technical documentation without a structured outline can be tricky to follow.
- Therefore, having a skeleton around which your documentation grows is highly recommended.
- You can use headings, categories, sub-categories, and topics to organize and club your documents logically.
Use illustrations & captions in your content:
- An illustration or diagram provides directions on ‘how to use a particular product or technology’ in technical documentation and without proper captions, the purpose of these images goes in vain!
- Images also help break the constant monotony of words and make the document interesting.
- Captions can help bring context to the product diagrams and illustrations with clear directions.
Re-read and revise:
- Re-read and revise your technical documentation again & again to ensure you have got everything right!
- You can also ask a colleague or a superior to proofread your work to make sure that you haven’t missed out on anything.
- A review and revision process would guarantee the accuracy of the material getting published.

Decision

Be Consistent

Consistency adds value by establishing trust. This, in turn, leads to better customer service, greater customer satisfaction and ultimately creates business loyalty. Consistency is how you plan, not what you plan.

Plan of Action

Prioritize Your Customer
- Love them first.
- Treat them with respect and dignity.
- Don’t try to get them off the phone as quickly as possible, or rush through your emails just because you have another one 10 seconds later.
- Think about what they really need, and deliver it with precision.
- Don’t just say that you’re sorry that they had a bad experience – actually show them that you genuinely care what they think and how they feel.
- If you can truly show that you care – whether it is a B2C customer, a B2B customer, or prospects looking for sales leads, then you will rise above the rest.

Keep to Your Promises
- Your promise is the basis of your customer relationships – from the ad that pulls someone in to buy your products or services. To the guarantee that backs up your product or service when it fails for any reason, you need to keep your promises – or you won’t keep your customers!
- Research shows that the number one thing customers want is for you to understand their needs and keep promises regarding service.
- First and foremost, you have to know what your audience wants and then deliver on it.
- To learn more about what your customers “say” they need, you should have a clear understanding of what they “do”.
Set Clear Expectations
- Customer service is one of the most important aspects of your business and it can make or break your brand.
- It’s important to set clear expectations for both yourself and your employees.
- These expectations should be set for every interaction with each customer and for every employee.
Employee Training
- Training your employees is a great way to provide consistency in customer service.
- Training your employees on how to deliver quality service will give you more loyal customers and more end consumers.
- The success of every project depends on one key factor: employees. You can have an amazing idea, talented people, and supportive investors. But if your employees make a mistake in customer service, your project will be unsuccessful.
  Benefits of training the employees;
- Passionate about people and treating guests with kindness, dignity, and respect.
- Self-motivated to ensure retail store standards are met and exceeded on a daily basis.
- Able to work a flexible schedule or as-needed availability.
- Professional appearance at all times.
- Strong interpersonal skills and ability to manage emotions during challenging encounters with others
- Physical ability to perform job tasks according to company policies, practices, and procedures.
Know Your Customers
- It’s about knowing your customer to serve them exactly how they want so you can make them happy.
- This is really important for any business, but especially for brands with loyal customers of all ages.
Standardize Processes
- Standardizing processes for customer service will ultimately improve the quality of customer service you provide.
- Standardizing your processes will ensure all personnel are using the same approach to solving problems.
- Every task that is performed in day-to-day operation will be more efficient and effective.
- When performing each process step by step versus deciding everything they do on their own.
- Not to mention the overall improvement in quality control and accuracy.
Rectify Mistakes
- In order to provide better customer service, it’s essential to rectify mistakes.
- When you rectify mistakes, you can improve customer satisfaction, reduce customer complaints, and ultimately provide better customer service.
- Your business model should be of a company that doesn’t negligently dismiss its mistakes.
- This is one of the first places where you can truly lead and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

Decision

Demonstrate Openness & Transparency

Be truthful and accurate. Billing transparency is significant in overcoming client dissatisfaction, especially regarding vague bills. The touchpoint where your client pays for your services presents an important moment of truth. Begin by being upfront about your pricing, explaining costs, fees and specific deliverables.

Plan of Action

1. Be Truthful and Accurate :–

Billing transparency is significant to overcoming client dissatisfaction about vague bills.
The touchpoint where your client pays for the services you offer presents an important moment of truth.
Begin by being upfront about your pricing, explaining costs, fees and specific deliverables.
Follow through by ensuring your invoices reflect the specific services delivered, as well as clear insight to your terms.

2. Keep the Promises you Make :–

Making sure that whatever is promised to the customers is delivered is key to customer satisfaction.
When services promised are not delivered, the customer feels cheated and loses faith.
If there are reasons that services are not going to be delivered as expected, make sure your customer understands why.

3. Maintain Two-Way Communication :–

Good communication is a two-way channel. Whenever there is a one-sided conversation, the communication loses its value and impact.
Listen to the customer and let them know that someone is working to make their experience better.

4. Be Timely and Responsive :–

Responding as quickly as possible to client phone calls and emails is not just a suggestion, it should be a requirement.
According to a 2015 survey, 42 percent of customers who contacted a company via email or phone expected a response within one hour.
You need to be accessible to your clients and make sure they understand your stated response time.

5. Tell them about mistakes :–

Mistakes will happen. When they do, don’t hide, communicate.
The sooner you address the issue by solving the problem or giving a concession that they can live with, the sooner you can move on.
Acting quickly to remedy the mistake and taking steps so it will not happen again is the message you want the client to hear.

6. Share the knowledge :–

Your customers hired your company for the expertise and knowledge of the team.
Knowledge hoarding is counterproductive to building a strong relationship with clients.
Give them the information they need to make better decisions.

7. Inform your customers of change :–

You’ll win your customers’ trust and foster greater relationships if you keep them up-to-date on changes (good or bad) happening within your company.
If your business model, products, services, or pricing changes, make sure you are open and timely about it.

8. Listen to your customers :–

A large percentage of customer complaints are just about the fact that no one “listens” to them.
It is a big relief for a customer to know that someone is listening to them and trying their best to resolve issues for them.

9. Thank your customers :–

One way to create a positive experience for customers is always to say “thank you.”
Kindness and gratitude for a client’s business are a sure way to further engage them for the long term.

Decision

Be Personable

The cornerstone of any good relationship, regardless of whether it’s personal or within a business setting, is great communication. Instead of only telling customers why your product is good, also allow them to talk to you and tell you what they need.

Plan of Action

Listen
- Being personable isn’t just about talking; it’s about listening. And listening is so much more than simply not talking.
- Listening, involves showing the speaker you’re paying attention to what they’re saying, processing it, and responding appropriately.

Talk through body language
- Nonverbal communication accounts for around 55% of the meaning of a message, so if you’re actively listening, you need to show it.
- Use direct eye contact. Although try not to stare too much. Feel free to blink and shift your gaze from their eyes occasionally.
- Tilt your head; this is a sign of empathy.
- Minimize distractions. Avoid looking around the room, staring off into space, and perhaps most importantly: checking your phone.
- Respond with your body. You can do things like nod your head to express agreement or to show you understand or smile when they’ve said something funny or clever.
- You don’t need to overdramatize your actions, but in general, your body should work with your mind to show that it’s listening and processing.
Verbally communicate
- On top of non-verbal queues, you’ll also want to incorporate verbal queues.
- Responding to others with the occasional “of course,” “amazing,” or “I understand” shows people that you’re paying attention and comprehending what they’re saying.
Encourage conversation
- Asking questions is a great way to demonstrate engagement, but one question is never enough.
- Probing questions is always the best route to take – especially in the workplace, where people may need a little more encouragement to open up.
Show empathy
- Sympathy and empathy often get confused, but they’re two different things.
- Sympathy is showing concern for another person when something bad happens.
- Empathy is having the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and identify with their experience.
- If you can’t relate to the situation, asking questions can still demonstrate empathy because you’re showing them you want to understand how they feel.
Use people’s names
- “Using people’s names makes them feel acknowledged and respected.
- It’s a nice touch that makes your interactions with people warmer, friendlier, and more engaging.
Remember things about people
- Personable people don’t just hold engaging conversations, they can recall them later on.
- Personable people can show deep understanding through frequent recall.
- If you struggle with remembering smaller details or simply want to make things easier, you can write down important information after the fact as a reminder.
Use touch
- Touch is a great way to show connectedness with the person you’re either speaking with or listening to: a light touch on the arm says ‘I understand’ or ‘I know you can relate.’
- Now it goes without saying that discretion is key here. Read people’s body language to make sure they are always comfortable.
- If they shrink from you or flinch when you touch them, then don’t do it again.
- If you’re unsure if touch is appropriate at any given moment: assume it’s not.
- It’s always better to touch too little than too much.
- Overplay this card, and you may find yourself called in for a meeting with HR.
Stay positive
- Smiling at someone is an incredibly welcoming gesture that makes you seem more approachable.
- Make sure that yours is the real deal: a genuine smile involves your mouth and eyes.
- The same goes for communicating with people: when you’re happy, it makes other people feel positive, and they enjoy being around you.
- Personable people can find humor in a situation (even if it is a bad one) and give off the impression that they’re happy and content.
- Talk about the good things, find the funny side when things go wrong, and show empathy in bad situations.
Help others and ask for help
- Building confidence in yourself is important, as is building confidence in others.
- Make others feel important by acknowledging and complimenting a job well done – and if you need to critique someone, do it constructively and kindly.
- This means sandwiching criticism between positive feedback and proposing a helpful solution.
- While offices are often highly competitive, individualistic places, it’s better to avoid getting sucked into this mindset.
- Personable people lift others and, in doing so, lift themselves.
- Offer to assist people as much as possible – and don’t be afraid to ask a favor or two of your own.
Be consistent
- Being personable is not limited to in-person interactions.
- You want to be sure that your personable attitude doesn’t fall by the wayside the second you’re communicating via email or your team chat app.
- Consistently presenting a personable attitude, regardless of the communication medium, is key.
- While intention and tone are more difficult to distill in text format, you can account for this by using a more empathetic writing style.
- If you’re worried you may sound brusque, don’t hesitate to add an emoji or GIF to lighten the tone and add a visual element to your message.
- This isn’t appropriate for all clients, but what’s a gif between colleagues?

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Customer collaboration across business levels

Why is collaboration relevant in a company’s various functional areas?
Collaboration helps ensure team members are on the same page and that sales processes are aligned with the customer journey.

When collaboration is done right, we can finish crucial projects and meet deadlines efficiently. With multiple individuals working on a project, the workload can be divided equally and effectively between those with the time and expertise to handle specific tasks.

Plan of Action

1. Make sure everyone is on the same page

Explain the roles everyone needs to play to achieve the common goal and speaking in terms everyone can understand.
No one can follow the same mission if they each call it something different.
Create a shared language among all teams—technical or not—so that everyone understands the importance of the mission, how they play into it, and why their role matters.

2. Encourage consistent open communication

Promote a culture of communication.
Share all the timelines and work goals associated with different departments.
Building a healthy understanding of each team’s role in the organization, and how no single team could exist without the others.

3. Practice transparency—from the top

Leaders also need to share and admit their own failures—their weaknesses—their human-ness.
When teams see that it’s OK for their leaders to be human, they’ll feel less defensive, and more collaborative.

4. Enable empathy and understanding

Provide avenues to help teammates get to know one another on a more personal basis.
This creates personal understanding.
When you know where someone is coming from you’re more likely to make allowances, help, and communicate when needed.

5. Lead by example

Executives cannot expect teammates to do things—communicate, practice transparency, offer supportive feedback, and collaborate across departments—when they’re not doing these things themselves.
Executives must champion whatever change they want to make in their companies.
If they aren’t walking the walk, there is no reason anyone else should.

6. Encourage open feedback

Create a culture of collaboration.
One where people feel encouraged and safe expressing their opinions and even failing once in a while.
Real innovation happens when people feel safe trying new things—taking chances—and trusting other people to have their back.
Polite collaboration can get things done. But honest and forthright collaboration can get things done better.

7. Create a sense of community and collaborative culture

Do daily stand-up sessions where each teammate can do a quick review of their tasks for the day and acknowledge when they have free time to help others who may be experiencing task overload.
Allowing teammates to understand the work levels of each person, and to experience true appreciation for those who stepped up to help when they had the capacity to do so will go a long way towards more effective collaboration.

8. Share technology and information

Make it easy for teams to approach one another about shared access to people, software, and information.

9. Get to know other departmental processes

Acknowledge the places where your work overlaps with other teams or departments.
Understand the work that both need to do for those intersections to mesh successfully.
Appreciate the whole business process, not just your part of it.

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Hospitality & Account Manager visits

Key account management helps you understand your target customers better so your sales team can upsell products and solutions. Key account management builds trusted relationships with clients, leading to greater satisfaction. Happy customers share those experiences and recommend you to other potential customers.

Plan of Action

Good hospitality will separate you from the pack, It will help your business grow

Focus on a particularly exciting and/or unique aspect of your product or service, and ensure that you demonstrate this to your customers.
In order to make yourself stand out from the pack, you need to go above and beyond. Customers expect good service and good experiences – it’s what they’re not expecting that will truly give your business a boost.
Modern hospitality isn’t simply about defining a standard and delivering it, it’s the art of understanding customer needs and expectations – then exceeding them.
At a time when we have more data than ever on those we serve, it’s important to make the service personal, connect with people, remember what they liked and form a relationship. Let your customers help you define your standards.
It is important to be open to suggestions, show you are flexible and approachable by always listening. Incorporating ideas from others is a key strategy for growth and creating a positive impact.
No one is closer to your customer experience than your customers. They live it, and for the time they are with you, are in it from start to finish.
Make every single touch point remarkable and positive, and you can’t do that without listening to them.
Their feedback is the most valuable asset you have, it’s an insight into the user experience that otherwise would cost thousands to discover.
Review all feedback, it is important to action both positive and negative feedback as the areas your relationship and engagement is weakest in offer the greatest opportunity for improvement.
If you built strong relationships with your customers, then they are more likely to be open and constructive in their feedback.

Key Account Managers

Get to know the customer.
- A key account manager must have an intimate, sophisticated understanding of there account’s strategy, market position, finances, products, and organizational
- They must use this knowledge to make business cases showing how price changes, customization, and add-ons will add value.

Cross-functional collaboration to benefit the customer.
- Key accounts don’t usually buy off-the-shelf.
- They want a custom blend of products and services tailored to their needs.
- It is crucial for a KAM can work across the organization to develop these offerings.

Effective leadership of the key account team.
- A KAM needs leadership abilities to guide their team members (which might include a salesperson, marketer, technical support, implementation, and/or onboarding specialist).

Coordination and planning of activities for complex accounts.
- Key account programs have a lot of moving parts.
- KAMs should be capable of planning short-term and long-term plays, carrying them out, analysing the outcomes, and applying those takeaways to their future strategies.

Strong business acumen.
- A KAM should develop dynamic business acumen — an understanding of how a company makes money — to tell how its customers make money or keep tabs on any business changes.
- Must be able to use this knowledge to solidify their position as a trusted resource and advisor for their clients.

Ability to use analytical skills to support a variety of clients.
- Key account managers should also have an analytical mindset.
- They must use their analytic skills to create and present business cases.
- They need to be able to think quickly and apply their knowledge to various clients and markets and be confident when presenting the information.

Clear written and verbal communication skills.
- Key account managers are responsible for keeping clients and other stakeholders updated about any issues.
- Key account managers are required to make oral presentations.
- They need to be able to write and speak clearly.

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Provide professional services

Customising B2B professional services is a knowledge-intensive process that requires the coordinated efforts of individuals with specialised knowledge and skills.

Plan of Action

1. Research your Buyers and their Needs.

All buying decisions begin with emotions.
If you understand the emotions your potential client brings to the negotiating table and how they affect the decision-making process, you’re more likely to be successful.
When selling to multiple buyers, remember that they may each have a different emotional reason for wanting or not wanting to move forward.
Ask high-quality questions to build engagement and develop trust with buyers
Ask insightful, strategic questions that show you’ve done the research, understand their business and competitive landscape, and seek to better understand them.
Sophisticated buyers can spot a fraud a mile away and won’t waste their time engaging with someone who doesn’t understand their industry and needs or know how to solve the complex problems they regularly deal with.
You need to know their business for yours to be successful.

2. Provide Real Value.

You’ll open more doors and build better relationships by sharing relevant knowledge that adds value to your buyer today than by spamming potential buyers with sales and marketing messages focused on you and your organization.
Providing resources like case studies, white papers, books/e-books and links to podcasts that you believe can improve your potential client’s current situation shows that you are invested in their success.
Make sure you have a clear value proposition. If you show the client how their work with you maximizes long-term revenue, you’ll be selling from a position of strength.
All the other bells and whistles of your services are probably great, but long-term revenue speaks to the heart of ongoing success for your client.

3. Be proactive with New Opportunities.

Marketing doesn’t close deals. It build awareness and creates preference — but closing deals requires that you actually ask for the business.
You don’t have to accept the construct of a professional buyer (i.e., procurement).
It’s OK to challenge assumptions and requirements in an RFP and reposition a sales conversation through the lens of the value you’re able to provide rather than the cost of an hour of your time.

4. Let Current Clients Speak for you.

The fastest way to improve sales is to deliver great service and value to your current clients.
They will be your best advocates, selling you better than you can sell yourself.
Don’t forget to ask them for referrals!

5. Focus on quality.

The quality of the prospects in your funnel is more important than the quantity.
If a potential client is difficult to deal with during the sales process, they probably aren’t going to magically become more pleasant to deal with after you sign the contract. The cost of acquiring a difficult client can often outweigh the revenue.

6. Pay Attention to Timing.

With a sales cycle that can span a year or more, the time to start prospecting was probably 18 months ago — or today, if you haven’t started yet.
Selling professional services is largely about building trust-based relationships with potential clients, and you can’t rush that.
When you have meetings, always be early. For sales leaders, it’s easy to get bogged down with other calls, projects, etc. But your buyers don’t care about that. They want to know that you keep your word and they can trust you. If you show up when you say you will every time, that consistency reinforces trust in the mind of your potential clients.

7. Create Multiple Options.

Build multiple entry points into your sales funnel. Not all buyers will enter the conversation having the same level of interest, information or inclination to buy, so plan for varying stages of engagement.
Create multiple irresistible opportunities for your potential clients to consider. This allows you to build trust by engaging them in smaller, short-term engagements that are lower risk and easier for them to say yes to.
Once you’ve proven your value in these smaller engagements, you can scale and grow the relationship and scope.

8. Be persistent.

The sale is often made after the fifth, seventh or even 12th attempt.
If you give up after two or three calls, you’re simply giving buyers away to the competition.

9. Set limits.

Learn how to say no. Just because you’re hungry for business doesn’t mean every client is right for you.
Don’t try to be all things to all people.
Specialize and focus in the areas you add the most value. Buyers love specialization because they equate it with expertise, whereas generalists may be thought of as average. And average doesn’t create sales momentum.
Also, don’t give away high-margin (i.e., strategy, consulting, etc.) work just to get low-margin (i.e., print production, etc.) work. It starts your relationship off poorly with new clients and forces you into selling commodities instead of selling value.

10. Be intentional.

Design an intentional process that not just supports the onboarding of your new client and the delivery of your contracted services but also provides opportunities for you to surprise and delight your client over time and keep them engaged with you across multiple levels of their business and yours. That level of intentionality will help you retain more clients over the long term.
There’s no silver bullet that will guarantee your success. But if you follow these tips, you may have a greater chance at closing more, and better, deals and building stronger client relationships.

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Delivery of project on quality metrics

Quality metrics are crucial in project management. This is defined as the description of the attributes of the product or project. It also aims to measure the attributes defined by the project manager. Examples of quality metrics include cost control, on-time performance, failure rate and defect frequency.

Plan of Action

1. Listen to your customers

Communicating with your customers is not a one-way street. While clear communication is essential on your part, it is just as important to make sure you listen carefully to every little comment the customer makes.
This will help to resolve any potential red flags on the spot, before they become a real problem. And it’s not just the big things that matter. The little things do too.
Putting yourself in your customers shoes and thinking “how would I feel if I was them” can help shift the perspective.

2. Respond to customer enquiries as quickly as possible

Customers can have questions right the way through the project delivery process, from the project development phase to after completion. How you respond to these can play a big part in shaping the customer’s perceptions.
Always reply to customer concerns and queries promptly, regardless of how serious you think the problem might be.
If a customer has contacted you, it means that they have a question or query which it’s important they get an answer to.

3. Keep the customer updated

Most customers will understandably want to know the status of their projects as they proceed and if there is any sort of change to the project plan.
Regular status updates will put the customer at ease and in control.
Keeping the customer in the loop in this way can help to troubleshoot potential problems and make them more trusting of your work.

4. Don’t make promises you can’t keep

We all want our customers to be happy, but making promises you can’t keep will always cause disappointment further down the line.
The rule is that if you agree to it, make sure you follow through.
If you don’t think you can deliver an extra request by a given deadline, saying so upfront is far better than making a promise and then failing to deliver.
Even if a request seems unimportant to you, it could be a big deal to the customer.

5. Be consistent

Deliver status reports when you say you will.
Arrange and attend regular progress meetings.
Do your best to hit the deadlines you set.
This kind of consistency breeds confidence in your team members and your customers.

6. Keep the project moving

Carefully monitoring the use and availability of resources is the key to keeping the project moving.
There should be no excuse for a project stalling.
If the customer lacks the funds to keep the project going, that’s one thing, but if the project stalls due to poor scheduling or forecasting on your part, you have to expect customer satisfaction levels to fall.
Effective planning, scheduling, monitoring and forecasting of all your resources prevents over and under-utilisation and ensures the required skills are always matching the right tasks.

7. Monitor the project’s scope

Experienced project managers will know just how quickly projects can grow beyond their original scope.
Keeping your team focused and working within the project’s scope is key to its timely delivery.
If there are additional items that are out of the project’s scope but still necessary, orders will need to be changed which could impact on the project’s profitability.
Monitoring the scope of the project closely will ensure the right tasks are completed on time and any additional items are paid for.

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Promotional Support (if needed)

The purpose of B2B marketing is to make potential customers familiar with your brand name, the value of your product or service, and convert them into customers.

Plan of Action

Different types of “Marketing Collateral” are useful for different purposes.

1. Map out the pieces you require according to the information consumers need at each stage of the sales cycle.
Marketing Collateral:-

Marketing collateral is best aligned with the awareness stage of the customer journey when you are communicating to a broad audience over multiple channels.
Communicate using bite-sized messages that audiences can easily digest.
Written content is good, but rich content, such as visual, audio, and video, is usually better.
Avoid content that is loaded with sales messages, this may put people off.
Avoid content solely focused on your brand and company, as this will become stale quickly.
Use marketing collateral that provides value to the consumer.
A visual blog post with well-sourced facts and figures or infographic can help consumers recognize your industry knowledge and seek out more insights.

These types of marketing collateral help deepen awareness of your brand and position your company as an authority.

Sales Collateral:-

Sales collateral is aligned more closely with the Consideration and Decision stages of the consumer journey.
Here is where you identify or reaffirm the customers problem and present your product/service as the best possible solution.
Again, here visual content helps tremendously. Even if you’re selling sophisticated technical products, photos or videos of them in action can help consumers visualize using them and predispose them more favourable to buy.
Depending on the product, written case studies, line cards, sales sheets, spec sheets, and product brochures can be very effective. But to cut through the marketing clutter, incorporate striking visuals to bring your product or service to life.

2. Think about what questions prospective customers ask at each stage.

Use your pre-decision engagements to gain insights about what information your customers may need to move them from one stage to the next.
Develop a roadmap on what information consumers seek at each stage, ensuring that each piece is optimized to push them further along. If you’ve done so effectively, you’ll find the consumer purchase decision-making process takes less time, as well as an increase in sales, which is the ultimate goal.

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Be Consistent

Consistency adds value by establishing trust, which leads to better customer service, greater customer satisfaction, and more confidence in the business. It starts with you. Consistency is how you plan, not what you plan.

Plan of Action

1. Prioritize Your Customer

Love them first.
Treat them with respect and dignity.
Don’t try to get them off the phone as quickly as possible, or rush through your emails just because you have another one 10 seconds later.
Think about what they really need, and deliver it with precision.
Don’t just say that you’re sorry that they had a bad experience – actually show them that you genuinely care what they think and how they feel.
If you can truly show that you care – whether it is a B2C customer, a B2B customer, or prospects looking for sales leads, then you will rise above the rest.

2. Keep to Your Promises

Your promise is the basis of your customer relationships – from the ad that pulls someone in to buy your products or services. To the guarantee that backs up your product or service when it fails for any reason, you need to keep your promises – or you won’t keep your customers!
Research shows that the number one thing customers want is for you to understand their needs and keep promises regarding service.
First and foremost, you have to know what your audience wants and then deliver on it.
To learn more about what your customers “say” they need, you should have a clear understanding of what they “do”.

3. Set Clear Expectations

Customer service is one of the most important aspects of your business and it can make or break your brand.
It’s important to set clear expectations for both yourself and your employees.
These expectations should be set for every interaction with each customer and for every employee.

4. Employee Training

Training your employees is a great way to provide consistency in customer service.
Training your employees on how to deliver quality service will give you more loyal customers and more end consumers.
The success of every project depends on one key factor: employees. You can have an amazing idea, talented people, and supportive investors. But if your employees make a mistake in customer service, your project will be unsuccessful.

Benefits of training the employees;

Passionate about people and treating guests with kindness, dignity, and respect.
Self-motivated to ensure retail store standards are met and exceeded on a daily basis.
Able to work a flexible schedule or as-needed availability.
Professional appearance at all times.
Strong interpersonal skills and ability to manage emotions during challenging encounters with others
Physical ability to perform job tasks according to company policies, practices, and procedures.

5. Know Your Customers

It’s about knowing your customer to serve them exactly how they want so you can make them happy.
This is really important for any business, but especially for brands with loyal customers of all ages.

6. Standardize Processes

Standardizing processes for customer service will ultimately improve the quality of customer service you provide.
Standardizing your processes will ensure all personnel are using the same approach to solving problems.
Every task that is performed in day-to-day operation will be more efficient and effective.
When performing each process step by step versus deciding everything they do on their own.
Not to mention the overall improvement in quality control and accuracy.

7. Rectify Mistakes

In order to provide better customer service, it’s essential to rectify mistakes.
When you rectify mistakes, you can improve customer satisfaction, reduce customer complaints, and ultimately provide better customer service.

Your business model should be of a company that doesn’t negligently dismiss its mistakes.

This is one of the first places where you can truly lead and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Demonstrate Openness

Be truthful and accurate. Billing transparency is significant to overcoming client dissatisfaction. The touchpoint where your client pays for your services presents an important moment of truth. Begin by being upfront about your pricing, explaining costs, fees and specific deliverables.

Plan of Action

1. Be Truthful and Accurate :–

Billing transparency is significant to overcoming client dissatisfaction about vague bills.
The touchpoint where your client pays for the services you offer presents an important moment of truth.
Begin by being upfront about your pricing, explaining costs, fees and specific deliverables.
Follow through by ensuring your invoices reflect the specific services delivered, as well as clear insight to your terms.

2. Keep the Promises you Make :–

Making sure that whatever is promised to the customers is delivered is key to customer satisfaction.
When services promised are not delivered, the customer feels cheated and loses faith.
If there are reasons that services are not going to be delivered as expected, make sure your customer understands why.

3. Maintain Two-Way Communication :–

Good communication is a two-way channel. Whenever there is a one-sided conversation, the communication loses its value and impact.
Listen to the customer and let them know that someone is working to make their experience better.

4. Be Timely and Responsive :–

Responding as quickly as possible to client phone calls and emails is not just a suggestion, it should be a requirement.
According to a 2015 survey, 42 percent of customers who contacted a company via email or phone expected a response within one hour.
You need to be accessible to your clients and make sure they understand your stated response time.

5. Tell them about mistakes :–

Mistakes will happen. When they do, don’t hide, communicate.
The sooner you address the issue by solving the problem or giving a concession that they can live with, the sooner you can move on.
Acting quickly to remedy the mistake and taking steps so it will not happen again is the message you want the client to hear.

6. Share the knowledge :–

Your customers hired your company for the expertise and knowledge of the team.
Knowledge hoarding is counterproductive to building a strong relationship with clients.
Give them the information they need to make better decisions.

7. Inform your customers of change :–

You’ll win your customers’ trust and foster greater relationships if you keep them up-to-date on changes (good or bad) happening within your company.
If your business model, products, services, or pricing changes, make sure you are open and timely about it.

8. Listen to your customers :–

A large percentage of customer complaints are just about the fact that no one “listens” to them.
It is a big relief for a customer to know that someone is listening to them and trying their best to resolve issues for them.

9. Thank your customers :–

One way to create a positive experience for customers is always to say “thank you.”
Kindness and gratitude for a client’s business are a sure way to further engage them for the long term.

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Be personable

The cornerstone of any good relationship, regardless of whether it’s personal or within a business setting, is excellent communication. Instead of only telling customers why your product is great, allow them to talk to you and tell you what they need.

Plan of Action

1. Listen

Being personable isn’t just about talking; it’s about listening. And listening is so much more than simply not talking.
Listening, involves showing the speaker you’re paying attention to what they’re saying, processing it, and responding appropriately.

2. Talk through body language

Nonverbal communication accounts for around 55% of the meaning of a message, so if you’re actively listening, you need to show it.
Use direct eye contact. Although try not to stare too much. Feel free to blink and shift your gaze from their eyes occasionally.
Tilt your head; this is a sign of empathy.
Minimize distractions. Avoid looking around the room, staring off into space, and perhaps most importantly: checking your phone.
Respond with your body. You can do things like nod your head to express agreement or to show you understand or smile when they’ve said something funny or clever.
You don’t need to overdramatize your actions, but in general, your body should work with your mind to show that it’s listening and processing.

3. Verbally communicate

On top of non-verbal queues, you’ll also want to incorporate verbal queues.
Responding to others with the occasional “of course,” “amazing,” or “I understand” shows people that you’re paying attention and comprehending what they’re saying.

4. Encourage conversation

Asking questions is a great way to demonstrate engagement, but one question is never enough.
Probing questions is always the best route to take – especially in the workplace, where people may need a little more encouragement to open up.

5. Show empathy

Sympathy and empathy often get confused, but they’re two different things.
Sympathy is showing concern for another person when something bad happens.
Empathy is having the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and identify with their experience.
If you can’t relate to the situation, asking questions can still demonstrate empathy because you’re showing them you want to understand how they feel.

6. Use people’s names

“Using people’s names makes them feel acknowledged and respected.
It’s a nice touch that makes your interactions with people warmer, friendlier, and more engaging.

7. Remember things about people

Personable people don’t just hold engaging conversations, they can recall them later on.
Personable people can show deep understanding through frequent recall.
If you struggle with remembering smaller details or simply want to make things easier, you can write down important information after the fact as a reminder.

8. Use touch

Touch is a great way to show connectedness with the person you’re either speaking with or listening to: a light touch on the arm says ‘I understand’ or ‘I know you can relate.’
Now it goes without saying that discretion is key here. Read people’s body language to make sure they are always comfortable.
If they shrink from you or flinch when you touch them, then don’t do it again.
If you’re unsure if touch is appropriate at any given moment: assume it’s not.
It’s always better to touch too little than too much.
Overplay this card, and you may find yourself called in for a meeting with HR.

9. Stay positive

Smiling at someone is an incredibly welcoming gesture that makes you seem more approachable.
Make sure that yours is the real deal: a genuine smile involves your mouth and eyes.
The same goes for communicating with people: when you’re happy, it makes other people feel positive, and they enjoy being around you.
Personable people can find humor in a situation (even if it is a bad one) and give off the impression that they’re happy and content.
Talk about the good things, find the funny side when things go wrong, and show empathy in bad situations.

10. Help others and ask for help

Building confidence in yourself is important, as is building confidence in others.
Make others feel important by acknowledging and complimenting a job well done – and if you need to critique someone, do it constructively and kindly.
This means sandwiching criticism between positive feedback and proposing a helpful solution.
While offices are often highly competitive, individualistic places, it’s better to avoid getting sucked into this mindset.
Personable people lift others and, in doing so, lift themselves.
Offer to assist people as much as possible – and don’t be afraid to ask a favor or two of your own.

11. Be consistent

Being personable is not limited to in-person interactions.
You want to be sure that your personable attitude doesn’t fall by the wayside the second you’re communicating via email or your team chat app.
Consistently presenting a personable attitude, regardless of the communication medium, is key.
While intention and tone are more difficult to distill in text format, you can account for this by using a more empathetic writing style.
If you’re worried you may sound brusque, don’t hesitate to add an emoji or GIF to lighten the tone and add a visual element to your message.
This isn’t appropriate for all clients, but what’s a gif between colleagues?

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Correct language & effective communication

7 Rules for Effective communication:

Personalise the interaction.
Avoid negative phrases.
Use positive language with a touch of empathy. *Listen closely and avoid interrupting the customer.
Use consistent brand vocabulary. *Give thorough answers to technical questions.
Make communication clear and concise.

Plan of Action

1. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

When you’re in an active sales process, err on the side of too much communication.
Reach out and update them about what’s going on, what their options are and what you recommend they should do, so they don’t have to constantly track you down to understand what’s happening.

2. Tell the Truth

Life happens, and you need to be upfront about any challenges or snags you hit along the road.
It’s better to face the music than risk further negative consequences by delaying bad news.
Once trust is broken with your client, it’s very difficult and time-consuming to earn it back.

3. Empathy

Understand your clients.
Show empathy towards their needs and try to see the situation from their perspective. li>Know what they want and help them get it.
Take notes and make sure you have a system to keep track of them so that when your client comes back in five years, you remember who they are.
Needs evolve, of course, but don’t start from zero if you can possibly avoid it.

4. Make Their Lives Better

Add value to people’s lives. li>Acting as a guide and sharing your industry expertise will help them remember you as a trusted, valuable resource.
Your clients should know they can turn to you with any questions related to your area of expertise, even if it’s not directly about your transaction.

5. Reward Your Loyal Customers

Once your customers become repeat clients or have referred friends and family, make sure to thank them.
Whether it’s a special offer, a thoughtful gift or even a handwritten note, make sure you’re thanking your VIPs and not only contacting them when you’re trying to sell something.

6. Stay In Touch

When the transaction is over, keep the conversation going.
Keep track of important milestones and dates (like the anniversary of their close date, or their birthday, or six months since your last communication) and reach out with a personal note, a card or a phone call.
In between those personal touches, send them helpful, engaging content via email and social media.
These points of contact serve as reminders that you gave them great service and that you’re still available as a trusted expert to answer any questions they might have.
By reaching out with interesting content rather than explicit sales messaging, clients are less likely to tune you out and more likely to think of you when they need your services again, or when a friend does.

RELATIONSHIP STRENGTHENING

Proactivity

Proactive account managers are less likely to get caught off guard, which can help mitigate risk and turn challenges into opportunities. This also saves time and money. Trying to solve a problem after the fact is often a waste and impacts the customer experience.

Plan of Action

1. WORKING AS A TEAM

The most successful salespeople develop strong and lasting relationships with their customers.
They focus on solving problems, not just making a transaction.
They become an adviser their clients rely on for accurate information and solutions to address their needs.
They are responsive and do not leave their clients hanging for answers.
They anticipate opportunities for your customers and present new ideas when your customers are most likely ready to consider them.
Successful sales and marketing team members work closely together to create synergies among all the communications being used to connect with customers.
Production and service teams must also work in sync with sales to deliver the quality order that has been promised the customer.
There is nothing worse for the client relationship than a salesperson making a promise that production cannot honor.
Enterprises that effectively calibrate and coordinate their ability to supply goods and services the customer demands will be the most successful over the long term.
Sales relationships that have been strategized throughout the enterprise provide the best opportunities for gaining accurate customer intelligence on product specifications and anticipated sales volumes. The same things hold true for those selling services.

2.BUILDING TRUST

When working with clients who have a long-standing relationship with your organization, do not take them for granted.
When there is a glitch in service or delivery, client relationships can be jeopardized. Clients make buying decisions based on trust. If something significant interferes with the trust relationship, the entire account can be at risk.
It may be a missed delivery, inferior product quality, service glitches or price points that are too high. When this occurs, it can be easy for everyone to assume that the relationship will resolve the issue. But when it does not, everyone must remember that business is business.
The personal relationships developed with care over time can vanish when suppliers make mistakes. Both parties have their own jobs to protect and their own internal political challenges.
Often the best approach is for a vendor to operate on a “no surprises” basis with clients. When they know there might be an issue with service or delivery, the sooner they alert the customer the more options they have to maintain the trusted relationship.
Understanding the latitude and flexibility you each have when there is a problem can move you faster to finding a resolution. Perhaps it is offering a price discount for accepting some reduced quality options or including additional merchandise in the order to offset the inequity.
No matter what, your client problem needs to be resolved effectively before it becomes a social media nightmare or results in the loss of a major revenue stream to your enterprise.

3. MANAGING RELATIONSHIPS

Building and managing relationships with your prospects and key referral sources requires effort.
It is more than simply having them on your mailing list or emailing them newsletters or updates.
More personal and consistent one-to-one relationships are a must in achieving your mutual goals.
You have to move from passive order-taking to developing a customer relationship focused on knowing their interests and requirements.
Then, match your outreach and communications to move them through their decision-making cycle.
Reassess your prospect management to determine if you are relying on stale efforts that do little to move the sale forward or deepen your relationship.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is imperative to managing interactions with current and potential clients.
Leveraging your CRM tools helps you stay on top of customer follow-up.
This requires an investment of time in capturing information into the system.
Once you do this, you can take advantage of opportunities to use its robust capability for data capture and market segmentation options.
Take time to review the effectiveness of your approach to customer relationship management.
Don’t take your client relationships for granted. Just like any relationship, they need to be nurtured to be preserved and grown.
Actively managing your customer and prospect interactions creates more opportunities for engagement.
Each engagement takes you one step closer to closing another sale or selling a bigger deal than you can currently imagine.
Being your customers’ subject matter expert, anticipating their needs before they do and doing their homework for them is essential to successful and lasting customer relationships.
Improving your customer’s experience will build word of mouth about your effectiveness as a true sales professional.

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A High-Performance Website

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Employees as ambassadors

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Quick Elevator Pitch: Why Adapt IT ?

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Products portfolio vs customer problem

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Trust, Credibility & Likability

How can you increase your likability?

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