In my last blog post I talked about different ways for employing lead, prospect and customer feedback to improve understanding of customer needs (defined here as leads and prospects too). One of the points I made in the post was that studies show that business buyers often are 60% of the way through the buying process by the time they contact you. SaleForce recently blogged about this phenomenon in a post titled: "Why is Your Sales Message Irrelevant? (And 5 Other Questions to Close Deals)". Article link here: http://blogs.salesforce.com/company/2013/07/why-is-your-sales-message-irrelevant-5-big-questions.html.
I wanted to share their perspective, as I think it butresses my thesis on why sales organizations should be acquiring structured feedback on leads, prospects and customers. An excerpt follows:
"Your sales message is irrelevant. Today's customers are better informed and more connected than ever before and to sell effectively, your message needs to be tailored. And your sales team--as well as your entire organization--needs to be plugged into what matters most to your customer (emphasis mine). According to CEB, “Today’s business buyers do not contact suppliers directly until 57 percent of the purchase process is complete.That means for nearly two thirds of the buying process, your customers are out in the ether: Forming opinions, learning technical specifications, building requirements lists.”
Today’s informed customer presents greater challenges, as well as exciting opportunities.
Traditionally, salespeople have relied on call scripts and data sheets. In today’s world, the empowered customer demands a tailored message as relevant to their needs as the results of a Google search But to improve sales performance, your salespeople must understand their prospects and customers including what they know (emphasis mine), and provide them with the best customer experience during the buying process--it’s a tall order!
The demands of the customer experience require tools that allow your reps to be in tune with the market, your customer’s buying profile, and the tactics to win."
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My primary point in my earlier post was that sales organizations need feedback processes (illustrated above) in place to quickly assess and distribute "customer understanding" to sales reps. And those processes should tie directly to the work individual sales people are tasked with. For instance, individual results of a lead qualification survey should be delivered directly to sales reps making phone calls - prior to those calls being made. The lead qualification data the survey provides would allow sales reps to better position themselves as consultative sellers, have more individualized customer knowledge at hand (making calls more efficient and effective) and to be more effective users of customer time in the selling process.
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Stewart Nash
www.linkedin.com/in/stewartnash/
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