BY Rachel Cagle
After closing a sale, you may be tempted to just sit back and relax after a job well done. The thing is, you’re not done yet, and you won’t be until your sales relationship with that client ends.
When salespeople overlook the customer service portion of their sales process, it can cost them 88% of future prospective sales, says Thomas Moroney, writing for Customer Think. How? Well, it’s highly likely that if one of your clients is unsatisfied with your customer service and they don’t feel heard, they’ll turn to social media or other review sites. There, even if you take action on a bad review; the client will still get the satisfaction of knowing everyone else in the world can see it. And 88% of people base their buying decisions on customer service reviews they see online.
You need to prevent bad reviews, and that means following a few steps, says Moroney.
Don’t Overreach
Now, the 88% statistic may scare some salespeople into reaching out to their customers far too often in an attempt to seem available. If you’re constantly reaching out with nothing to say except, “Just checking in!”, your prospects will likely consider your email to be spam and get annoyed as these messages fill their inboxes and answering machines. Any reliability you’re trying to showcase is going to be overshadowed by those negative feelings. So, don’t reach out unless you have some useful information to give your clients. Otherwise, just be receptive and respond to their outreach in a timely manner and they’ll know you’ll be there to help when they need you.
Personalize
Your clients may have similar business needs, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the same in every way. Some may be more introverted and prefer corresponding via email while others prefer talking on the phone. There are clients who will reach out to you at the slightest inconvenience and some who won’t give you any feedback unless they’re asked to fill out a survey. You need to get to know your clients on a more personal level and create their individual customer service plans accordingly.