Scrutinize Each Customer Touch Point

4 Motivating Reasons That Will Grow Profit

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Improving sales performance is without question at the top of the goals of many business owners and sales management.  Under pressure from monthly profit targets, many of my clients are looking for tactical solutions; things that have a quantifiable, immediate impact on the key drivers of sales, i.e. revenue growth, lead-to-closed sales or margin increases.

I want to cringe every time I hear a business owner say, “We’ve got great customer service”.  For years now, I’ve been encouraging and teaching a more comprehensive approach to profit and cash achievement.  What if you stopped concentrating on selling more stuff and focused on improving your customer’s experience?

Let’s admit it, happy customers are repeat customers.  And repeat customers are inclined to buy more and more often.  Research shows, and I think you all know intuitively, that the buying process and interaction with your organization has a significant impact on customer loyalty.

Additionally, I discovered over 25 years ago in the business I owned at the time that sales and margins grew when my initiatives were centered on customers instead of internal processes.

Here are 4 motivating reasons why business owners and sales managers should improve the customer experience at each ‘touch point’ and how they affect sales.

1. Increase Customer Loyalty: You have all heard the 80/20 rule, i.e. 80% of your future revenue will come from 20% of your current customers. That’s assuming you can keep that 20%.

Customer loyalty is decreasing and a chief cause is that your customers are not satisfied with some part of their overall experience with your organization or processes.

You may not think that this is directly related to sales, but it does have a direct, quantifiable impact.  More importantly, it tends to impact the types of sales that are central to long-term growth and profitability.

2. Increase Referrals: Referrals are essential for any sales organization, and they should be a significant part of your sales today. If they’re not, you’ll be required to grow or maintain your business from two of the most difficult, challenging and unproductive approaches there are; cold calling and advertising.

But a customer’s willingness to refer business to you is clearly dependent on their overall customer experience in doing business with your organization.

3. Shorten Your Sales Cycle: By consistently executing an excellent customer experience, you will reduce customer loss, have a more productive sales staff and grow revenue and margins faster.

Research also shows that approximately 50% of all repeat business with existing customers happens within three months of the initial purchase, compared to about 20% of business from new customers.  The inference here is that by improving the customer experience you will increase customer loyalty and be able to exponentially increase the amount of business that closes within sales cycle, i.e. monthly, quarterly, etc.

4. Be a Trusted Partner: Down deep, I believe all business owners want their organization to become known as a trusted repeatable resource to their customers. Yet, few actually accomplish this goal.

Do the majority of your customers consider you only as a vendor, supplier or one of many stores to shop?  By improving the customer experience at each touch point, you can avoid the vendor only relationship and become a trusted partner.

Volunteer advice and insight, help customers think about their problems, needs and wants differently, and ask thoughtful questions based on your experience.

So, how do you discover what needs to change, to improve, with each touch point of your customer’s experience in doing business with your organization?

Simple; ask!  Ask your customers.  Not just once in a while, but virtually every time.  Ask your employees; there may be some touch point that they know is an irritant to customers or cumbersome and / or may be unnecessary (because we’ve always done it that way??).

If improving sales performance is your goal, please know that it doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  Many factors impact overall sales performance.

But few have as great an impact as a pleasing customer experience, which directly impacts overall sales performance, customer loyalty, referrals, the sales cycle and your position as a trusted advisor.

To get more information and receive other no-cost special audio downloads, reports, articles, blog posts, and more, visit Ron Hequet where I cover valuable topics that every person wanting to grow their business or career needs to know.  And, if you’re ready to take your business to the next level, get a free assessment from me personally at Free Business Assessment or for those wanting to build your career go to Complimentary Coaching Assessment