How Not to Propose on the First Date: Your Guide to Effective Customer Relationship Management

If you went on a first date with someone, and they suddenly proposed to you, what would you do? We imagine you would turn around and get away as fast as you could. 

 It’s likely that even if you liked the “keen dater” in question, their willingness to make a life commitment without knowing you would put you off. 

 Putting this scenario into a business context: If you come on too strong with your prospects and push them too hard, you may drive them into the arms of your competitors. Overdeliver or take the hard sales approach too soon, and you will run into problems. 

 When it comes to managing customer relationships effectively, getting to know your prospects’ wants, needs, and pain points before making a proposal is the way forward. 

 Here are some things you should consider to help you woo your prospects and consistently manage your customer relationships for the best results. 

Only fools rush in: Building a rapport will get results 

If you want to deliver a product and service that results in mutual success, it pays to build a rapport with your customers before making a big sales push. 

 Not proposing on the first date not only makes the customer feel at ease. Taking a more gradual approach will also give your company a chance to plan how to deliver a product that will benefit their organisation long term. The result? You’ll offer them genuine value while creating much better customer experience outcomes. 

 Rushing into marriage comes with many risks:   

• A dissatisfied customer 
• A poor customer experience 

• A loss in the sale 
• A poorly implemented product that will strain the relationship further down the line 

 While it might be tempting to rush in and make promises to a potentially lucrative lead, painting a panoramic picture of your customers’ culture, goals, and business model will give your lead nurturing strategies a clear-cut direction. 

Profiling your prospects will yield the best results 

Instead of your sales reps hounding prospects for orders right off the bat, getting an idea of what your customer is likely to engage with most will lead to a much bigger success story, as the customer is more likely to be happy with the product. 

 When you arrange a “date” with a customer and begin to ask for orders, both the business and the customer have a clear idea of what a product looks like and how it will improve their day-to-day operations. In this sense, you are not proposing too early. 

 By conducting your research and using your customer insights to create a profile of your prospect, you will gain the power to approach them in a way that is likely to result in an initial sale while building a lucrative long-term relationship. 

 At workbooks, we are firm believers that courting prospects are more likely to lead to a successful outcome. Our CRM technology helps us (and our clients) do this, by tracking which pages on our website prospects are visiting, helping us understand their interests and needs.  By surfacing this information to the sales team in CRM, it helps them  have a much easier ‘first date’ as they have a clearer understanding of the customer’s needs and can tailor the conversation accordingly.  

Working with a CRM will help you woo your customers time after time 

Eighty-two per cent of sales representatives report a significant improvement in data quality by working with a CRM solution. 

 A CRM system means your entire sales team can profile a customer, getting a real sense of your prospects’ needs before jumping in. 

 CRM systems offer a level of insight and vision that boosts internal collaboration, improves decision-making, and allows you to get under the skin of every potential customer that comes your way. 

 For instance, when a prospect becomes sales-ready, the sales rep can see their entire journey through the business. Armed with CRM tools and insights, a sales representative can see where a prospect has engaged on the website (or various other touchpoints) and see what content they have downloaded.  

 However, when leads have not scored high enough to convert into opportunities having a CRM is vital for lead nurturing. At workbooks having a lead scoring system allows us to nurture prospects who have not yet reached the point threshold by placing them into workflows. Workflows allow for leads to be nurtured over a series of weekly emails designed to push leads over the point threshold. 

 As a result, the sales rep can share content and communications that are likely to resonate with the customer most while recommending products or solutions that will best meet their needs. Rapport is established early on, and when it’s time to propose, everything feels right. 

 Our cutting-edge CRM solution will give you the tools required to improve the way you execute your sales processes while enhancing forecasting with greater pipeline visibility and boosting productivity with automated workflows. And with optimised mobile access, you can access a wealth of vital data, insights, and information wherever you are in the world. 

 When it comes to getting the big proposal just right, a CRM will provide all of the insight you and your sales team needs at the swipe of a screen or the click of a button. So, next time you’re managing a customer relationship, your first date will go off without a hitch. 

 For more customer relationship pearls of wisdom, read our guide to choosing the right CRM for your business. 

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SOURCES: 

The PDF 

https://emailanalytics.com/managing-customer-relationships/