There were no cloud-based subscriptions earlier so apparently, customers had to install the s/w on their server.
Those days, I don’t think anyone ever cared if the customers were able to achieve their requirements or the product was useful once the purchase was made!
Even though the product was bad, in the 90s, if you had a good sales team, you could have been lucky.
Of course, there was no Gartner, G2 crowd, or Capterra’s to share your reviews or your thoughts on a solution.
But those days didn’t last and we entered the world of the internet/cloud and slowly someone was born ‘SAAS’ the legend!
We could just search for our favorite software and pay for it and start using it. (Amazing, isn’t it?)
For the first time, we didn’t think about the switching costs since you could easily find another solution at your fingertips with just one click.
For the first time, you didn’t have to pay for what you didn’t use, a mind-boggling change made by Software as Sales.
For the first time, people started worrying about customer retention along with product sales.
The struggle wasn’t just to bring in the customers but to keep them happy so that you can keep yourself alive.
The sales department became major and the bloodline of the organization or someone responsible for keeping the company running, to sell what you have made for the people out there.
In short, if the sales team was good, it kept the company alive.
There is good Product, Marketing and Sales department behind every successful company.
The product team builds the best solution available in the market and the marketing team brings in the leads by spending the lowest cost possible.
For the first time the click your customer made mattered the most and you had to pay for that click as well. For the first time, you paid google to make your customers test your solution and you had to depend on the best CRM available in the market to make sure we converted them to a paying customer because each one of them mattered. Such a scary change yet I would like to call this “Customer’s ERA”
Now let me share few things which will help you to keep your customers happy while testing your solution.
The magic lies in the Follow up:
Have you ever wondered what’s the importance of customer follow-ups/if follow-ups are more like a nuisance?
Well, I would say that does the opposite of what you might expect. It will always help you achieve more deals or to get more clients.
I have never heard, or I have never seen a deal fell through because someone did a lot of follow-ups.
If they aren’t purchasing your product that’s probably because they never had an intention to purchase the product in the first place or they might have a strong reason for not saying yes to you guys (probably additional feature requirements which was a deal-breaker, product dissatisfaction etc.)
I wouldn’t say there is this one single follow-up strategy that you could use for all your prospects/prospective customers. But I can help you with some of the strategies that you could follow to increase customer conversion.
Don’t be afraid to hear “NO”
Almost all of us are afraid when it comes to the follow-up stage of the sales process. You could hear a lot of “no” or watch customers disconnecting the call every time you call them.
But if you could manage to get a “no” from someone, I would say your follow-up was successful. I did try reaching the prospect and if he said ‘NO’ that’ means he is not working on the project, and you could concentrate on the ones who are interested in your solution.
But unless you get that NO, you would never know! Just keep on knocking on the door till it opens (once a week preferably).
Failing to do those follow-ups would make you lose 70 to 80% of your potential sales. Your intention is not to annoy them or waste their time, instead, you are trying to reach them to explain the solution you have with you can help them grow their business or make their life easier.
There is a poem by Rudyard Kipling called ‘IF’, where he says “If you can meet success and failure and treat them both as impostors, then you are a balanced man, my son.”
If you manage to get a yes or a no both means you have been successful in what you were trying to accomplish. You will get that customer today and if not possible tomorrow, once he is looking for a solution you have with you.
Know when to stop!
Of course, you should stop after a certain period if you don’t get an answer. Don’t make it to a point where it’s too pushy or pointless.
My suggestion would be to send 5 to 6 follow-up emails and calls (once a week) and then sending one final email asking him to reach out to you guys if he is looking for a product that you offer (this is where you sent your breakup message🙁-I don’t personally like this part!
Now that we have discussed the follow-up process let’s see what’s the rest of the major process that you have to do to convert a prospect to a customer.
Make use of CRM!
You should utilize a CRM to send them emails or messages which would give them more information about the solution that you have to offer and to get them notified about the purpose of follow-ups.
Also, you should make use of these CRMS to keep track of the leads that come in and generate reports based on the analysis.
Sales Team
Now if you do have a couple of sales technicians to do the follow up the most important thing would be asking your prospect is the “right questions.”
Sales are more like dancing or swimming; you can’t do it unless you practice it.
You can Of course give them training documents to explain everything in detail but make sure you don’t put them into training where you give theoretical class for the first 15 to 30 days and then put them into production. It won’t really work with sales, you must have them talk to the prospects and have real-time experience, that’s the only way they could learn.
Try handing over small deals first and then slowly bigger deals, and give continuous coaching classes based on the work they have done.
Train them to accept if they don’t know an answer for a question the prospect asked them, train them to always give the right answers to their prospects, and normalize saying “can I check with my team and get back to you on this.”
We don’t require them to have an answer to all the questions, instead, we would need a person with the right attitude.
Follow-up Emails.
Try sending at least 6 follow-up emails (once a week) and don’t do it just for the sake of following up.
Your emails should always offer value to your prospects, for example, a case study, webinar, or help doc which explains how your product works.
Try sending something based on what they need (you could always check their previous interactions) which would end up pushing them to answer your emails or messages.
The email text box is not your diary, don’t even dare writing your cute short story there, keep it simple and straight to the point!
Always let them know of your schedule so that if they want to give you a call to discuss this further, they should know how to and when.
Subject Line is important, try using relevant subject lines which would make them open the emails but don’t ever use a misleading subject line just to make them read your emails which would have an adverse effect.
If they show you any sort of interest, make sure you do enough follow-ups at the right time. (doesn’t mean you send too many emails or end up calling too many times-NO)
If you get a no, STOP, send them a breakup email asking them to reach out to you if they are looking for the product you have to offer.
What if you get a “not now” or “maybe”
If your prospect says he is not looking for this solution now, try having a task scheduled for him after 3 months or 6 months, don’t be disappointed at all when you get a lot of “not now” or “maybe”.
I have had a lot of customers who came back and purchased the solution later.
The decision-maker:
Always target the decision-maker, your sales team should have the ability to identify the decision-maker which will give you a chance to close a deal much faster.
Try providing a product demo based on his requirements and show him the value of your solution wherever or whenever you get a chance.
Friction points
Of course, there would be a lot of reasons which would make you lose the deal, sometimes it might be pricing, sometimes it might be a feature or ease of use, or much more.
Try sending him customer reviews and showing the value of the product, try offering discounts if available, and don’t be too pushy at this point as well. Always try to know the exact requirement of the customer and we should target their needs.
Putting a deadline on discounted quotes:
Putting a deadline on the deal would create urgency and would push the customer to make the purchase as soon as possible. Always make sure that you give your client enough time to test your product and once you provide the quote create a sense of urgency or put a deadline for the quote validity.
Customer Success:
So once the customer purchases your subscription make sure you make him feel at home, most of the customers end up saying that the experience they had while on trial and after the purchase was different. Now they have paid for your service, make sure you serve them well.
Make sure you have a customer success team and as soon as they purchase the subscription you should introduce the customer success manager who would be responsible for the customer follow-ups and the first point of contact for the customer.
Sale follow-up or customer follow-up, the way you interact with them always matters. You could define customer service simply like this “treating them like humans.
The way you ask them “how are you doing today” or Is there anything else we can help you” that’s matters a lot.
The tonality for your voice or sleepy voice could burst the entire bubble you have created and end up making the customer disconnect the call as well.
If they are placing a feature request or facing any sort of issues with your product don’t tell the customer what you can’t do, instead, tell them what you are going to do about it or what’s the alternative to achieve what they are trying to do with your solution.
No one is interested in paying for service and hearing what we can’t do when they have raised an issue with your customer support.
Now, I cannot say that you will end up finding a satisfied customer always at the end of the call or chat or email.
How you respond to them and what you say matters. Sometimes even though certain things don’t work, you could still have them at peace by explaining how hard your team is working on it and by apologizing at the right time, and by being human and considering them as humans as well.
I will be back with the rest of the major strategies soon!
