Effective sales professionals display a quality more valuable than an infinite book of leads. Trustworthiness.
Trustworthiness comes from the heart and navigates your journey to customer service excellence. How do you know whether your customers trust you? Your sales results likely tell the story.
But even if your clients consider you an integral part of their inner circle, there's always room for improvement. If you’d like to welcome increased sales results -- and enhanced customer success -- we have four tips to help you.
1) Believe in your product or service.
Sound like a no-brainer? Rate your belief in the offering you present to customers every day. Be honest. Go ahead. No one is looking.
You can’t fake this one. Belief, or lack of it, is in every step you take and every word you utter. Customers know one way or the other. A lack of belief is kryptonite to even the best sales strategy. True faith in your offering, on the other hand, sets buyers' spidey senses tingling.
If you don’t have belief, get it. Insist on more training, or participate in discussions and seminars. Do whatever it takes to rekindle your enthusiasm for the product or service you sell.
2) Be present.
When you are with a client, are you thinking of the bigger customer you’re trying to land? Your next appointment? Your commission? Dinner?
Being 100% present 100% of the time is a challenge, no doubt about it. However, sales professionals thrive on challenge. If you are fully present, you naturally hear more, respond more clearly, and better engage your customer. This will help you develop a stronger relationship with your client and thus deliver excellent customer service.
3) Be deliberate.
You lead every step of the customer service journey. Do you know where you’re going? Every action, every word, every sale is part of a deliberate, disciplined process. If you know every step of the process back to front and are engaged with your customer, you can lead them on that journey in a way that is effective and mutually rewarding.
Before each meeting or phone call, write down exactly what you plan to deliver. Read it aloud once, twice, three times. You can even carry it a step further. At the start of a phone call, say to your prospect, "Here’s why I called," or if you’re meeting face-to-face, "Here’s why I needed to meet with you." Be that deliberate. Why? Deliberate action builds trust and gets results in a way that naturally delivers customer satisfaction.
4) Be disciplined.
Do what you say you’re going to do when you say you’re going to do it. Ensure your follow-up is unbeatable. This type of discipline builds trust and long-term relationships with happy customers. When it comes to trustworthiness, fake it ‘til you make is not only unwelcome, it is counterproductive.
Believe in what you sell, be fully present with your customer, take deliberate action towards customer satisfaction, and deliver disciplined and consistent follow-up. If you take these steps, your customers will know you are trustworthy, and your relationships will be more rewarding -- both personally and financially.
Editor's note: This post originally appeared on the SalesITV blog, and is republished here with permission.
