Would you like video to go with your order for audio? When it comes to products and services it’s important to offer your potential customers a suite of services.
Voice and Video Products – Can I get video to go with that?
Would you like video to go with your order for audio? When it comes to products and services it’s important to offer your potential customers a suite of services. Don’t ask and you don’t get!
When it comes to sales it is important to consider your reputation, credibility and return customers. If you oversell products and go too big on a solution it has the potential of coming back to bite you.
Have you ever been in a situation where you asked, “why do we have all this equipment”? Upsizing and going in for the oversell could leave both you and your company looking like vultures. Did you listen to the voice of the customer? What were their needs and concerns? Or was the voice an internal voice looking at the potential to upsize and oversell?
According to Latest Share News, opportunities in the video conferencing market is increasing. “With increasing globalization, most organizations are shifting toward conference meetings in order to enable faster decisions and reduce traveling hassles. Additionally, in order to extend their reach globally, organizations around the world are increasingly focused on curtailing costs related to their means of communication. This has created immense opportunities for the video conferencing market, leading to the development of advanced conferencing solutions. Due to the availability of cloud-based solutions, which help organizations reduce their initial investment, the penetration of video conferencing solutions is estimated to increase substantially in the coming years. The following blog takes you through a journey of the key points to selling that is centred around education, training and the voice of the customer”.
Video conferencing solutions. If you don’t use it you lose it!
Correct, if you don’t use the products that have been sold, the customer will lose the knowledge, will not use the products and you will lose the business. It is important to help potential customers identify their needs. Following this, you can assist with demonstrations and improve your sell with providing the customer with appropriate choices and an understanding of the ‘what and why’. These actions are only successful with staff who have been educated on the product and able to take a proactive approach to supporting customers with understanding their core requirements and how to complement their future roadmap.
Solution, usage, repeat.
From experience and observations, the best service is listening to the voice of your customer, providing a solution and ensuring the solution is then adopted into the business. Drop your outdated sales pitch and talk to the needs of the customer and their customised solution. Once the solution has been adopted and the business becomes more familiar with the products and technology there is a greater likelihood that they will expand their solution and start to expand their requirements and appetite for technology.
Let’s break it down…
Education and adoption.
At CommuniCloud, training and adoption is a core element and essential to excellent customer service. It is important that you provide the relevant training and education to ensure successful adoption of services. Upskill and educate your staff to ensure they can offer a mix products with services. This will provide your business with a potential boost of revenue and a competitive edge.
Selling voice and video conferencing products and services.
How can you sell something that you don’t understand? Chances are you might fluke it but chances are your luck will run out. Don’t fake it until you make it! It is important to spend the time ensuring that your sales team understands the products and are fully trained so that they can use the products. Don’t rely on your support desk and technical team to plug the holes. That’s poor form when working in a team environment. It’s also poor form when the customer finds out that you have oversold and underdelivered.
Understand the pain points.
Take the time to listen and target your conversations to address the pain points. Time is money and money is time. In today’s environment, we don’t have the time or patience for someone to try the hard sell and tell us what we need. We want answers on how we can resolve pain points and value add. Ask the customer what they are hoping to achieve.
Do you offer hybrid solutions? We do!
At CommuniCloud, we provide products and services combined into innovative offerings. This approach can help companies attract new customers and increase demand among existing ones by providing superior value.
Enthusiasm might just get you across the line.
It’s time to get enthusiastic. Get out there and understand the details of your product. Understanding your products will allow you to persuasively present the features and successfully share the benefits with the customer.
I didn’t ask for that.
Listen to your customer and in turn you will instil trust, buy-in and create a positive customer experience. It is imperative that you take the time to understand what the customer needs, their wants and core requirements. You will find there are some must have’s and some nice to have’s. With this knowledge, you can work to pitch a solution that aligns to the customer needs and business process.
Skilled staff.
Don’t send a boy/girl to do a man/woman’s work! Ensure that you send in appropriately skilled staff to get the job done. Make sure they have the appropriate skills for sales which include some of the following core skills:
- Researching Prospects – chances are your prospect knows plenty about you, your firm and your competition
- Planning Meetings
- Creating Rapport
- Asking Questions
- Listening Actively
- Presenting Solution
- Asking for Commitment
- Building Relationships
- Outgoing and likable personality
- Confident and authoritative speaker
- Strong presentation skills
- Confidence in your own abilities
- High degree of self-motivation
- Passion for selling
- Personal ambition
- Resilience and persistence
Understand your customer.
If you understand your customer, understand what will benefit the customer; the benefits in turn will come to you.
“Understanding your customers helps you to sell more. The more you know about them and their needs, the easier it is to identify opportunities to sell them new products and target them with appropriate offers. Profiling existing customers also makes it easier to find new ones. You can look for similar prospects, and sell to them in a similar way”.www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/identify-and-sell-more-to-your-most-valuable-customers/
Give me the short of it – wrap this blog up!
At the end of the day knowledge is power. Knowledge of products creates a powerful connection for your clients and puts you ahead of the competition. Educate and empower your staff to have the ability to be agile and understand both the changing market needs and the constant evolution of technology. Subject matter experts provide a sense of trust and customers will feel safer and validate their decisions with a perception of minimising risk.
Don’t believe me?
Investing time into the education of your team and enhancing their skills is not uncommon. Look at Apple and their investment into staff skill sets and technical knowledge.
Others are doing the same. Product Knowledge Is Just a StartMeanwhile, Tech giant Apple, focuses on building its sales staff’s knowledge continuously so they are able to stay in the know on the latest gadgets and explain why Apple is the better choice. Apple also created the ‘Genius Bar’ – a dedicated spot within every store where customers can go for technical help and advice. – www.cbsnews.com/news/are-you-upselling-or-just-upsetting-your-customers/
Don’t underestimate the value of investing in your staff and providing suitable training.
Training is invaluable to educate employees, use product knowledge and actively put their knowledge into practice.
Value your employees as they are the face of your business.
Don’t forget that your employees are your brand. Do you live to work? Or work to live? Don’t take the risk with employees on questioning where they sit. Invest in your staff and reward them with incentives and rewards. Don’t get bogged now in the monetary value. It’s certainly a key aspect but don’t underestimate the power of valuing your employees and their contributions.
Upselling can be a disaster or a success.
Upselling can work well or it can be as bad as suggesting that your girlfriend wear the dress that looks like you are trying to stuff a sleeping back bag back into its cover. Just add some earrings and it will be the perfect outfit. Hmm… I don’t think so. When going in for the upsell don’t apply old methodologies that will put you at risk of falling into it reputation for being an old marketing ploy. Used in the right situation it can be extremely effective. Stop and reflect on your previous experiences. Apply past and unpleasant experiences of upsell tactics that were unwelcome, annoying, ludicrous; now add your education and knowledge and fire off a modernised upsell.
- Have you considered offering a hybrid solution.
- Don’t just think of the immediate needs think of customers roadmap and how you can assist with future proofing.
- What is the actual solution the customer is seeking?
- Is the customer experiencing issues? Do they know the root cause? You could be selling the wrong solution!
There is a reason why we have verticals within business.
Techno’s generally are good at building and supporting the product. Sales are good at swimming with the sharks, engaging with strangers and selling! Both positions require specific skill sets and training. Don’t underestimate the uniqueness of your position and don’t assume it’s a one-man band and everyone can jump between roles.
Remember – at the end of the day you don’t know what you don’t know. Make sure your employees know!
Keep reading to learn more on how not to make a mess of your next video conference. Warning! How to make a mess of your next video conference