Wednesday, November 10, 2010

5 Real Benefits Your Business Will Get With Sales Training Courses


By Tim I Millet













Have you considered sending some of your team members to sales training courses? If you are involved in sales in any way, you need effective training for your staff. Like all forms of communication, the sales dialogue has a unique purpose and therefore has different rules from some other forms of communication. An outgoing and friendly person may not actually be an effective salesperson especially if the person is consistently unable to close the deal. Here are five reasons you should send your sales team to sales training courses:
Increased Sales
Obviously, the first reason your business will benefit from implementing ongoing sales training courses for your sales team is that sales will naturally increase, leading to greater profits. The more understanding your staff members have of the sales process, the easier it is to convert customer enquiries into sales. As your staff learn sales skills, like starting the sales dialogue, discovering the reason for the purchase, and closing the deal, you will definitely increase your sales.
Better Customer Service
Increased customer service can be a surprising by-product of teaching your staff better sales skills. Many managers are surprised at the way customers respond to the increased interpersonal communication skills staff have when they learn better sales skills. When staff learn to pay more attention to the signals the customers send out, the customers receive better customer service and are happier. Happy customers are the best marketers for the business.
Greater Understanding of the Links between Customer Service and Sales
Many business leaders think that customer service and sales are actually different departments and have no relationship - in reality the sales and service should never be seen as separate issues - customer service is about understanding the customer's needs, and sales is about selling products that meet those needs. When you link the two processes in a closer way, you will find the business benefits from happier customers and increased sales as the sales team can be selling products to suit the customers..
Greater Understanding of What Makes a Customer Buy
Without understanding why people buy the product, it is almost impossible for the salesperson to close the deal. A good sales training course which is clearly linked to customer service will encourage your staff to consider the underlying and psychological reasons people will make a purchase. This increased understanding of customer behaviour can help create an environment where your customers feel comfortable and confident buying from you.
Up-Selling, Cross-Selling and On-Selling to Other Products
Another benefit of increasing the sales skills of your staff by attending sales training courses is that the staff are far more likely to introduce the customer to other products in your portfolio. For example we think of up-selling as the typical "Do you want fries with that?", but it can be much more complex than that. Great sales people will focus on all products and opportunities that benefit the customers and give better customer service.
What are you waiting for? Start sending your sales team to training courses to reap the benefits for the business.
Timothy Millett, head trainer at i perform, has extensive expertise in performance training, sales training and customer service training. Tim has helped participants from organisations such as SWIFT and UBS achieve peak levels of personal performance. For more information please visit Leadership Training.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Customer Support







Customer support is the process of provision of service to customers before, during, and after they make a buy. It has to do with a businesses' Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which itself involves interaction with the customer to provide all the necessary assistance required by the customer. Experiences have shown that the more the quality of support time given to a business' clients, the lesser the overhead of the company and plenty of time is also saved in the process.

Customer service could come in more form than one. Automated means otherwise known as self service directs the customer through a sequence of steps towards solving a problem. A human can also render this support service, one of the reasons why we have Sales and Service Representatives.

The internet is one very good means of an automated customer service. It has a very wide reach and accessibility. Little wonder every business today utilizes it to it's advantage. The major challenge though has been to make it as personal as possible. Some customers argue they could be shortchanged by the customer service support assistants. But some entrepreneurs say this lack of visual and and tactical presence makes it even more crucial to create a sense of personal human-to-human connection.

The customers, i would say, are always right, and should always get the best of service via excellent support systems. This would of course come about if the company has a unique customer value proposition. This is where the company remembers that the customers are human, have feelings and remember things. Your business will alway be the better for it if you remember this and always ensure your business delivers on it's promises.

All in all, without the customer businesses would not be there. Customer support thus plays an important role in a firm's ability to be. Customer support service should be an integral part of every company.



Customer Service- the Dell Way

The Dell computer business was built on the principle of touching the customer directly. The company simply used the internet to simply extend this principle. As a technology company, Dell recognized that commerce should be a combination of interaction over the internet and personal contact. Not a matter of either-or. It combines internet service with personal contact in progarms that give its customers the benefits of both kinds of interaction.

A good way of doing this would be for firms to move pure transactions to the internet, use the online communication for sharing and routine information, then reserve physical interaction for activities that add the most value. Sales personnel do more of consulting work as the net is used simply to make reservations, place product orders, assess product value and price performance, check order status, and diagnose and solve simple problems.

In Dell employees also require and use technical support. Technical support is a range of services providing assistance with technology products. It specifically helps the user solve a specific problem with a product, rather than provide training, customization or other support services.

Dell uses electronic newsletters to stay in contact with customer segments, and offer targeted news and promotions for suscribing customers. In all this, there is good flow of customer feedback, which helps them continually improve their processes. According to them, it gives them the competitive advantage.

To this online support, Dell makes its online presence highly interactive and customized. This has been a key to acquiring more customers at lower cost and retaining them through higher satisfaction. This interactive customization gives the customer all the support he/she could wish for and truly makes the customer king.