Your follow up strategy is vitally important, and according to the National Sales Executive Association, most companies and salespeople are coming up short.
Today, sales professionals acknowledge the importance of establishing and maintaining relationships with potential clients, however statistics show that 48 percent of salespeople will never follow up with prospects after the initial contact.
As you know, each subsequent contact increases your chances of closing the sale; however, 25 percent of salespeople stop following up after their second contact, 12 percent stop after their third, and only 10 percent make more than three contacts with a prospect.
Statistics also show that 80 percent of sales are made after the fifth to twelfth contact. If your salespeople are giving up too soon, this means there is a gold mine waiting for you just by improving your follow up.
In addition to following up, one of the most important facets successful businesses have in common is the exceeding emphasis they put into customer service. Keeping customers happy and satisfied helps ensure that they will return again in the future. Actually, increasing customer satisfaction by only 5% can raise profits 25-125%.
Customer churn has less to do with price and more to do with poor customer service. Providing excellent customer service can mean the difference between a lost client and a loyal customer. Not only is it far more cost effective to keep existing customers than to acquire new ones, happy returning customers spend 33% more than newly attained customers do.
Although customer retention is vital for successful businesses, an average company will lose approximately 10% of their current customers every year. In fact, increasing customer retention by only 2% per year is the equivalent of cutting company costs by 10%!
In addition to customer retention, customer referrals are a key component in running a successful business. The first step to getting referrals is having happy, loyal customers. Although you can never be certain if a happy, satisfied customer will tell others about their great experience you can be sure that an unhappy customer will tell others about a negative one.
By keeping contact with potential clients, retaining happy, loyal customers and obtaining referrals based on positive experiences, your sales will thrive like never before. Remember to sustain relationships with prospects by maintaining contact that will help build relationships to aid in closing sales.
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