How often you see your customers will depend on what you’re selling. If you’re in a short sales cycle business with a high volume of customers, even spending time on the phone with them all may be a very poor use of your time.
But if you’re selling solutions that require what the customer might consider to be a real investment, you ought to throw in some cuddleware as part of the deal. You also ought to keep that up long after the sale has closed because upgrades and expansions are all over your medium-term horizon and almost guaranteed in the long-term if you get this part right now.
Getting it right
Timing is optimum immediately after a sale to give your customer some extra care and attention. Visit them, and if you can, spend some time with the people who are specifically using what you have sold. Make the purpose of your visit that of ensuring either that the customer is happy or of getting full details about problems or concerns first-hand. Do this and you’ll create a sense of control which will be remembered and will be a big help when it comes to future sales.
Seeing them too often
If you find that a growing amount of your leisure time seems to be spent hanging around your customers’ hall ways, you probably want to step back a little. Bear in mind that though you may get along famously, they are your customers, not your friends – and the middle of the working day is never a great time for a social call.
Not seeing them often enough
Some customers appreciate weekly visits and some only want to see you once per year. Work that out with them. About the only thing that is worse than the salesperson who visits too regularly is the one who is too hard to reach. It doesn’t matter how busy you are; you have to find a way to fit into your customers’ rhythms and ensure that you’re there for them when they need you to be.
Never seeing them at all
What are you, a ghost? What was your assumption, that the product they bought from you was the last purchase they were ever going to make? If your customers ever have reason to wonder what your name was, you are practically begging to be a loser in sales. Nurturing those who have bought from you before is the quickest and easiest way to ensure they will buy from you again.
Colin Browne is one of the founders and former publisher of SALESGURU and is now based in London as a freelance sales consultant, writer and speaker. Visit his blog here.
