In a world of social media and email, a world of instant contact and instant replies, a world that’s fast paced and often more careless than carefree, we shouldn’t be surprised that opportunities pass us by each day because we don’t stop and think about our customers and properly engage with them to understand their problems.
How many of you can honestly remember the last time you picked the phone up to speak to your customer to see how they were? Popped in to see one of your customers for a cuppa to ask them how they are doing and what’s changed for them?
Many of you may think you don’t need to, as sales are still coming in and life’s about doing less not more surely, automation is king I hear you say?
Well, yes that’s true … but then COVID came along like a lightening bolt and changed the world as we know it overnight, forever! There’s no going back to ‘normal’, the world has changed and it has changed for good. So what do we do now?
It’s time to pick up that phone and talk to those customers that are still there buying from you. You will be amazed what you learn…
- Take some time don’t rush the call, once you have them make sure you get as much information out of the them as possible. Find out what you’ve done well, what you haven’t. The latter are opportunities for you to upsell or to increase the scope of your products and services.
- Speak to as many as you can and keep an eye out for trends, as these may give you confidence to start offering new services or products or on the other hand that you have some service issues that need fixing quickly.
- Talk to your customers about the pandemic, how has their world changed and how do they think it will continue to change.
- Try and work out where you fit into that new world does this mean more business or less business for you?
This exercise will certainly give you more questions than answers but it will give you a starting point and information that will begin to shape your business future. You know what industries to look for and which ones to avoid. You already have a good idea of their needs and their pains and you know the first thing to do when you meet them…. LISTEN!
To finish up we are going to leave you with our four value bombs for igniting your sales revenue for 2021 out of listening to your customers:
- Listen to understand what’s important to your customer and what challenges they are facing
- Find the opportunities that exist for you to UPSELL your services or products to solve these challenges
- What trends do you see across your customers that could open up new products or service lines
- Where else do the customers that you can upsell to and sell new products and services to also exist
If you haven’t already check out one of our latest Sempar Talks episodes here where Steve shares four questions you can ask your customers to unlock revenue and grow your business. By talking to your customers and listening to what they’ve got to say, you can identify trends and opportunities for offering new products or fixing issues before you lose business. Understand your customers’ needs and ignite your sales revenue for 2021.
Now get out there and start listening to your customers to grow your businesses.