Deliver Sales Through Service

What could an effective telesales operation do for your business?

Customer service is often considered to be a warm and fluffy role separated or removed from the hard and competitive environment of sales. But actually sales and service are inextricably linked and a profitable business can’t have one without the other.

Poor service leads to poor customer satisfaction and customers tell others about their customer service experiences both good and bad. They may also do the talking with their feet.

Bad news travels fast and statistics show that a dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their experience and around 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people. Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs.

It’s clear that delivering a quality service plays an important role in an organization’s ability to generate income and revenue. Improve the customer experience and you can measure the positive impact on your customer retention, your referrals and your bottom line!

Sales and service is a winning combination. A good sales representative can sell anything once. But if you want to get that customer to come back again and again and recommend you to others the customer has to experience outstanding service.

Sales people need to deliver excellent service as part of the sales process. It’s not about diving in to close the sale or hit targets by achieving a one off sale. It’s about putting the customer first and genuinely delivering what the customer needs. That’s what will keep the customer coming back.

Customer service people when answering a customer’s query or solving a customer’s problem have the opportunity to help the customer further by looking for ways to genuinely add value to the customer experience with other products and services.

It’s not about making service people sell per se. It won’t work if at the end of a service call the customer is merely offered an upsell. The challenge is to make this a natural part of the conversation and for service personnel to want to help the customer in this way.

If you really understand your customers you can anticipate their needs and provide solutions that offer a real benefit to them. Customers appreciate the genuine attention. It shows you have listened, you care and you value their custom. That alone can differentiate you from your competitors.

Customers want to buy from companies who they feel can BEST solve their problems.
Delivering sales through service becomes a commercial philosophy with the customer at the heart of the organisation.

“There are many who subscribe to the convention that service is a business cost, but our data demonstrates that superior service is an investment that can help drive business growth. Investing in quality talent, and ensuring they have the skills, training and tools that enable them to empathize and actively listen to customers are central to providing consistently excellent service experiences.”
Jim Bush, Executive VP at American Express