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Triumph through the Recession
Engage your Existing Clients to help you
Colleen Francis, Founder and President of Engage Selling Solutions have some excellent advice for Sales leaders in an article she titled: “Keep Customers, Kill the Recession.” She talks about the additional challenges sales people face today in bringing new customers on board. Colleen believes there is an easier way. How?
Engage your existing clients to refer more business your way. How? Providing service excellence to your existing clients shouts “stick with us” louder than anything else. The benefits of retaining existing clients are numerous; just to mention one – the estimated landing of a new account costs 5 to 20 times more than selling into an existing relationship. This will vary according to industry.
When looking at best practice in client retention you find that top companies do a number of things:
- They measure the status of their client service regularly. You can do this by hiring a consulting firm to do this research for you.
- “Out-service” the competition. Find out what your competitors are doing well and outsmart them. Do you have a toll-free help line or a user-friendly web site?
- Your sales staff needs to know their clients and show their appreciation.
It is not a myth that service sell. Your Sales Manager should instill quality service in his sales force. If they consistently deliver this there is no reason why they cannot ask for referrals with the greatest of confidence.
As CEO and leader, how well do you know the CEO’s of the top clients of your company and how often do you network with them?
