There’s no time to drop the ‘sales’ ball these days, and few second chances. Only 4% of dissatisfied customers complain. The other 96% will not complain, and 91% of those will never let you know that there was a problem — because they are never talking to you again.
While a focus on customer happiness will always stand you in good stead, you need to back up your good intentions with actions.
We’ve all raised eyebrows and rolled eyes when faced with complex and ineffective internal sales processes. And asked ourselves: why does it have to be so hard — and so damned slow?
We’ve seen the frustration on the faces of our sales team members who don’t have a real-time aggregated view of customer data in front of them when they need it. (Or the right information about target prospects at the right time). And we’ve all seen opportunities to upsell, cross-sell — or simply sell — slip through our fingers.
And then there’s the burning desire to do what your competitors can do — run those great, targeted and personalised marketing campaigns that deliver sales right to your inbox (or cellphone). They seem to use their customer data in their long-term sales planning, maintain growth and have better alignment and integration between sales and marketing. So why can’t you?