Written by Sean McPheat |
One of my trainers had an interesting conversation with a salesperson on a recent course. The discussions revolved around how close we should get to a customer’s business and whether there is value in knowing how the customer really thinks about us.
The salesperson agreed up to a point but said he didn’t know how to get this knowledge, as many of his customers wouldn’t offer any help when they carried out customer satisfaction surveys.
So I thought it appropriate to cover a few ideas that you could use if you feel that it’s very difficult to know what customers actually think about you and your services.
Firstly, why is it important that we know what they think? Well, it helps you understand what your customers value, what they see as important in their relationship with you, how their operations tick, what markets they work in, what their customers think of them, what drives their business and how they operate efficiently and effectively. I’m sure you’ll agree that those reasons are enough to make is want to know what our customers really think of us!
Here are some ways of finding out. Use the ones that would be applicable to your market and customer-types:
These are naturally more formal than just asking the buyer what they think of you. They allow you to form a much wider picture of how you are helping customers achieve their goals and help you to determine the future set-up of your operations so you can support the direction your current and future customers will want to be going.
By analysing the results from the processes mentioned above, you stand a much higher chance of maintaining customer loyalty as you find out specifically what your customers and prospects really think about you. And that knowledge could be worth its weight in gold.
Happy Selling!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training | Image courtesy of Dollarphotoclub
Originally published: 3 December, 2014
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