Great ideas from early stage tech Start-ups will not evolve unless there is a great strategy to attract and engage with potential customers. Here we will discuss the 4 key elements to take into consideration when setting up the process to attract prospects and create long lasting relationships with your customers:
1) Be truly customer centric
A lot of companies often brag about how "customer centric" they are but in reality they only talk to them when the customer wants to shut down their membership or service.
The trick is ALWAYS think about the customer. Whether your marketing team is writing any piece of content, your sales team decides to change the sales deck or there is new product releases coming up, you team should always think "would our prospects/customers enjoy this?". If you get this right within your company culture you are most likely setting up your team for success.
2) Products and services are not enough. Step up your communication game
Consumers have the power now. The access to information the internet has facilitated has completely changed the way customers buy. Nowadays, anyone can easily make a quick search in Google on whatever product or service they need and instantly have access to multiple providers, customer reviews, websites, etc. How has that changed the customer buying journey? well, by having access to all this information customers get to decide and no longer companies have competitive advantage by just offering their products and services.
Communication has become the key for succesful brands to expand. Sharing knowledge and creating multiple touchpoints with prospects even way before they get to visit your website help everyday companies like Airbnb, Booking or Amazon to exponentially increment the traffic on their websites and consequently increment their income. Today we are living in the era of Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. Don't fall behind ;)
3) Consultative selling over pushy hard closers
Understanding again the power buyers have in today's world, sales teams need to throughly shape their initiatives around the buyer expectations. The old-school type of car selling where the sales rep was expected to push hard in order to get the close is no longer applicable. Buyers today need sales consultants that genuinely try to understand their reality, become partners that seek for success of both parties and most importantly, sales people that actually care about them.
4) Onboarding consultants instead of support reps
Post sales can sometimes be the most traumatic experience for buyers when the company who provides the service only have a troop of support reps available for the customer after the sale is made. Don't get me wrong, having a support team full time dedicated to solve mostly technical questions for customers is vital. Nonetheles, it is not enough if your goal is to have customers that actually succeed with your product or service.
Just like during the sales process, every company should have in place a team of "Account Managers" that don't necessarily focus on solving support questions but acts as an assigned consultant for every account. This person should invest time in understanding the customer reality, needs, challenges and goals of the customer. Also, support the implementation of the technology provided in a way that works specifically to each customer expectations and follow each customer process along the way. At the end, this is the only way to make sure customers will buy again from you. Isn't that what you want?
