With digital transformation continuing to disrupt nearly every industry, companies must change their selling approach to compete and ultimately to thrive. Serving the customer no longer means changing internal processes to reflect greater efficiency.
Instead, reaching savvy customers with access to increasing amounts of technology means creating more customer-centric experiences. In other words, sales representatives must get to know their prospective customers at a deep level before attempting to pitch or sell them anything.
How to Turn an Ordinary Customer Experience into an Exceptional One
Customers now control brands and not the companies themselves. It has never been more important for companies to nurture customized and positive relationships with their customers. That means doing away with organizational, technology, and data silos to truly gain a better understanding of customers and deliver the personalized experience that they demand and expect.
When purchasing a new product or service, today’s consumer expects an experience and not just an impersonal sales transaction. Customers are especially uninterested in any type of sales experience that feels like it violates their values. The new approach requires a commitment to remain involved at every stage of the buying journey and to integrate new and better marketing and sales technology solutions that solve a problem and remain consistent with a customer’s value system at the same time.
Customers Desire and Demand Value
In addition to companies delivering value by selling a product or service that addresses a pain point, consumers expect companies to value them as individuals and to show appreciation for their loyalty. It’s not enough for brands to present them with a solution. Consumers expect sales organizations to understand their motivation for buying in the first place. That means everyone involved in the customer buying journey, not just the final salesperson, must provide some type of value.
Brands can help their sales team meet customer expectations for the 2020s by empowering them to adjust strategies when necessary. It is more important than ever to create human personas enable salespeople to deliver an authentic, mutually beneficial buying experience to their customers.
Create Better Digital Experiences Too
In an era where there seems to be a smartphone application for everything, brands must take care to develop apps that deliver a personal, engaging, and instant experience every time. That means making it easier for customers to find what they need, offering personal recommendations, making it easy to connect to a live customer service agent on the other end to clear up any questions, and providing several convenient ways to pay. Customers aren’t going to stick around to power through a cumbersome app, which means companies may never have another opportunity to reach them if they quickly move on to something else.
Unlock Customer Insights with Data and Technology
Knowing customers means more than just picking up bits and pieces of their interests and motivations. New analytics and marketing automation tools make it simple to obtain a much fuller and more accurate picture of every customer. This tool allows for direct integration with marketing cloud programs to provide consistent data. With this degree of accuracy, brands can maintain consistency with email marketing, ad campaigns, and other methods of connecting with today’s busy yet demanding customer.
For example, a new and direct integration between Google Analytics 360 and Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows marketers access to complex segmentation and analysis of customer interactions. The insights from these multiple data sources, combined with artificial intelligence, digital insights, and customers preferences become extremely powerful.
