Imagine, you have a great product. The one that really makes lives better. Now you need to raise awareness, right? Spread the love. So you go hire a Sales person. Maybe more than one. They’ve sold you a metaphorical pen brilliantly during the interview. They’ve been allocated a laptop and a phone. They have one simple task - get you customers. What could possibly go wrong?
A lot, it turns out. And it’s not about mishiring or people going stupid suddenly. Most often, it’s about the abundance of skill combined with the lack of business processes.
Let’s unpack it.
Customer is the measure of all things
‘Leaders start with the customer and work backwards.’, goes the first of Amazon’s Leadership Principles, the ‘Customer Obsession’. Business doesn’t exist with no one to consume its products or services. And Sales are at the forefront of communicating this value for potential clients. And enhancing it with the current ones.
Rapid technological development dictates that companies are to be online 24/7 and accelerates customer interaction drastically. At least 43% of Capgemini respondents expected investment growth in multi-channel access. Communication channels become more robust than ever before. So does customisation demand.
Organisations that work on optimising customer satisfaction tend to provide up to 400% (and steadily over 200%) of return to shareholders, according to Medallia. In other words, keeping clients happy pays off. Oddly enough, when the individual channels show decent satisfaction scores, the overall result might not add up, McKinsey points out. And here’s where your Sales team experience, goal alignment, customer journey understanding come together to build the perfect processes for your company.
The same report from McKinsey also demonstrates that the satisfaction in the most important journeys is low (up to 40%), especially when money is at play. That doesn’t come as a surprise. So the most sensitive matters is where the business should allocate its biggest effort to optimise the processes.
The trap of coddling the customer
And here sometimes lies madness. Clients are treated with kid gloves. They are overindulged. Given dessert before soup. You know what I mean. What’s forgotten that the customers still need to go through all steps to start using your product.
Overpromising and delaying the necessary only works that far in raising the satisfaction score. And expanding on the dessert metaphor, the dentist visit would be painful. And expensive. At the same time, 80% customers value knowledgeable assistance, speed and efficiency the most in their experience, according to PwC. Not the immediate ‘yes’ but qualified help.
One company slaps the manual band-aid on a gaping wound in acquisition process each time a customer shows a tiniest sign of dissatisfaction. Clients a held to different standards and arrive to the first payout in various states of completeness. On the day when the financing is first requested hell breaks loose because the essential information is missing. Customers are enraged, Sales spends countless hours on the phone with them and runs around between other teams to facilitate the payment.
In another organisation Sales plays the whisper game with Product and Data. Customer requests are sent through as-is with no requirements gathering. No consulting with other teams or discussing the timelines. In turn, the customers are promised perfect execution for each request. And sales have their best interests at heart there! But the Product and Data teams are swamped, planning is disrupted and the clients can only hear ‘yes’ for so long before wondering about results.
Bridging the gap
Be honest with yourself. Look at your goals and metric targets. Know your audience. Clearly define the user journey must-haves and the compromise areas. There are now ‘good’ or ‘bad’ KPI values, there are ones which are acceptable or unacceptable within your business model.
For example, if the product is tailored financing solutions for high-quality customers, the longer onboarding and thorough compliance are totally expected. Here, the default rate is kept as close to 0% as possible. So, comprehensive acquisition and payout processes should definitely be designed.
On the other hand, when the business is providing small loans to individual customers, the risk is much higher. So is the default rate. And that’s fine, as this is already reflected in the interest rate. Customer onboarding is less rigorous, compliance and payout are streamlined. At the same time the collection is more robust.
In both cases, the Sales team sells a financing product. And they might be hired initially exactly with this vague description. But the processes cannot be more different. It’s not about the skill, but clear communication. As well as alignment between the company’s goals and those of the Sales department itself.
Leaving the Sales team to their own devices with ‘you know better how to sell’ is a recipe for disaster. Instead, talk to them regularly. Explain the business model and the goals. Define clear customer characteristics. Provide constructive feedback and deal with the bottlenecks. Listen to Sales feedback - maybe your ideal client is as rare as a unicorn, and together you can create a more realistic profile.
Don’t forget that 75% customers worldwide and 84% in Germany would still want human interaction as technology advances, as reported by PwC. Sales is one of your strongest allies in providing superb experience, as long as the company does its best to build outstanding processes with them and for them.
