ch. 9 Customer Relationship Strategies

Expanding Customer Relationships

• Turning new customers into loyal, lifetime customers involves consistently adding value to the product.
• Adding value involves improving a product or service for the customer.

Harnessing Technology for Better Buyer-Seller Relationships

• Salespeople maximize critical buyer encounters to encourage dialogue and involvement.
• Salespeople maintain contact with multiple individuals in the buying organization to influence decisions and manage touch points, ensuring consistent communication.
• Salespeople coordinate and interpret data from buyer-seller contact/collaboration to understand the buyer's evolving needs and expectations.
• Salespeople use relevant understanding/insight to create value-added interactions and build buyer relationships.

Qualitative Relationship Approach

• Non-numerical data to understand how a customer perceives their relationship with a vendor.

Quantitative Relationship Approach

• Numerical measurement expressing the quality of connection between a customer and vendor.

Establishing Customer Relationships

• Build goodwill through continually adding value to the product or service.
• Promptly and thoughtfully handle complaints.
• Process rush delivery requests willingly and accurately communicate timelines.
• Assure customers everything possible will be done to meet their requests.
• Under promise and over deliver.

Customer Satisfaction

• Ensures customer trust.
• Indicates repurchase intentions and loyalty.
• Differentiates the company.
• Improves customer referrals.
• Increases customer lifetime value.
• Reduces customer defections and negative word-of-mouth.
• Impacted by salesperson reliability and responsiveness.
• Sales roles should involve post-sale follow-up activities.
• Sales roles should involve anticipating and adapting to changes in the customer's situation.
• Suppliers gather customer satisfaction information via surveys, feedback, social media, and online communities.

Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

• Represents the total money amount a customer is expected to spend during their lifetime.
• Formula: Average Value of Sale x Number of Transactions x Retention Time Period x Profit Margin = CLV

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems

• CRM dynamically links buyers and sellers, creating a rich communication network to establish lasting, profitable relationships.
• CRM aids salespeople in building and integrating customer information and can be synced with social media.

Traditional vs. Relational Sales Process

• Traditional sales move from prospect to needs discovery, presentation, and getting the order.
• Relational sales focus on earning commitment and building trust.
• In Traditional sales closing the deal is the most important element
• In Relational Sales building and keeping the Relationship is the most important element

Relationship Enhancement Activities

• Activities involve assessing customer satisfaction and building value through follow-ups; these activities also ensure satisfaction.
• Remembering customers after the sale, expediting orders/monitoring installation, and training customer personnel further enhance relationships.
• Correcting billing errors, encouraging/resolving complaints, expanding collaboration, and providing quality service helps manage expectations.
• You should also develop customer service strategies.

Handling Complaints Procedure

• Building the relationship enough so the customer feels comfortable complaining is important
• Listen carefully and get the whole story
• Ask the customer how they would like the complaint to be resolved
• Gain agreement
• Take Action
• Follow through on all promises and add value

Negotiating Resistance with the LAARC Method

• LAARC is an effective process for overcoming resistance.
• Listen (really listen) to the customer.
• Acknowledge the received message and the concern being appreciated and understood.
• Assess via questions to understand better.
• Respond based on understanding of what the buyer is saying
• Confirm with check questions so that the buyer's concerns have been adequately met.

Enhancing Opportunities

• Collaborative Involvement: Buyer and salesperson organizations work together to improve an offering.
• Customers provide product improvement insights.
• Companies hold training sessions, seminars, and social engagement workshops with their customers.
• Service Quality: A salesperson convinces customers service is important, demonstrates it, and maintains a high service level.
• Service Strategy: A salesperson identifies their business, customers, and what's important to them.

Customer Service Dimensions

• Communication involves 2 way information flow between salesperson and customer.
• Resilience is the salesperson's ability to withstand customer's verbal assault and get right back up with the customer with a smile.

Service Motivation

• Service motivation is a salesperson's desire to serve customers daily.

Service Level Agreements (SLA)

• SLAs are commitment between service provider and client.
• SLAs define the expected service level, metrics, and remedies if service levels are not met.

Key Performance Indicators (KPI)

• KPIs measure how effectively a company achieves key business objectives, measuring success and helping determine achievements using SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.