‘’92% of customer interactions happen over the phone.’’
And in this call conversation, if you fail to conduct the communication well, chances are your prospects are going to either hang up, never receive your calls or just complain and spread the word.
It’s never easy to communicate with clients, the reasons for this is multiple, they have multiple queries, some of these queries don’t match the sales pitch you’ve prepared for and more but above all, there is a pinch of nervousness or fear that you might not be able to cater to them well.
Interesting Read : 5 Ways to use Conversational Marketing Right Now
Sales reps like you are under pressure at all times, they need to meet sales targets, they need to capture more leads and while you’re busy focusing on keeping your calm, you tend to not pay attention or rather practice less on how you can engage with your prospects better.
We understand the struggle since we too are a company that prioritizes sales in our goals, which is why we want to share with you a cheat sheet that can make you go from a fearful or doubtful sales rep to a more confident sales rep.
How can we help you through this article?
We will start by sharing with you the top 10 client communication best practices that will enhance your communication skills better
1. Helps to aim at the right target
3. Don’t treat all prospects as the same
4. Communicate the way your prospects are doing
5. Educate yourself on everything in your industry
6. Eliminate close-ended responses
8. Understand and highlight the prospects pain points/issues
9. Conduct a call summary before you end the call
10. Keep your prospects curious
Let’s get started.
If you are selling books, your ideal audience should be people who are bookworms, love reading, and buy books regularly. You can’t sell your product to a person who is not interested in reading or books in the first place. The first thing you need to understand is the person whom you’re calling should be your ideal audience, you cannot sell to a person who is not going to invest in your product, they will just hang up on you when they realize that you are offering them something that they don’t need.
To identify your target audience you need to:
Deb Owen, Owner of Percorso, LLC states,
“Nine out of 10 people want meaningful relationships with brands, but believe only 17% of those brands are delivering. What’s emerging in the marketing sphere goes beyond old-guard tactics of producing products that work and focusing on emotional needs. The new desire of consumers includes a sense of connection. This sense of connection and engagement comes from transcending the brand promise, and beginning to communicate a deeply held purpose behind the brand.’’
If you have told your prospects that you are going to call them on Monday at 9 am, adhere to it, if you tell your prospects that you have a solution that can solve their issues, adhere to it. When you promise your prospects that you will do something, ensure that it is being done. You are working in an era where one tiny bad taste of the brand is soon to be witnessed on social media, you cannot afford this to happen.
Ensure that all promises made are achieved and in case if it’s not possible, apologize to the prospect and state your valid reason.
Interesting Read : Conversational Marketing Dictionary: The Terms You Need to Know
If one of your prospects is looking for a need A and the second prospect is looking for a need B, this doesn’t mean that A and B are the same thing. Multiple sales reps believe that all the prospects that come to them or who are reached out to have one common issue which is wrong in the first place.
Your prospect’s issues are different, their needs are different and you need to understand that they have to be catered to differently as well. Before you just start selling as per your sales pitch, understand what the prospect is looking for, what is the issue they are facing, what they are expecting you to resolve, and based on that your selling strategy should take place.
To understand your prospect’s needs better, hear them out instead of just talking.
If your prospects are speaking to you in a formal tone, you speak to them in the same way, if they are speaking to you in a casual tone, you adjust your tone accordingly. This helps your prospects to understand you better and make them feel that you are engaging with them in a way that they prefer which in turn makes them feel better about you.
The market is going to keep changing, technology will continue to rise, what should remain constant is the information that you will update. Your prospects will change their needs according to the new trend so when they question you about how they can receive this new trend, you need to exhibit your product aligning with this trend.
For instance, say that voice AI search is growing popular, now when you engage with your prospects, they are aware that voice AI searches can make it easy to conduct multiple actions online such searching for things instead of typing them. So your prospects can ask how can your brand indulge in this?
At this point, you can state how the use of voice AI search can help brands to make information more accessible and easy to receive and more.
The whole agenda of the communication between you and your prospects is to retain it longer and if you’re going to answer your prospects in the form of yes or no, the communication will end in less than 10 seconds. You need to communicate in such a way where the conversation continues as per the flow.
For instance, say that a prospect has asked you about a feature and your brand doesn’t have it, don’t leave this question by just saying no, instead you could say ‘I’m sorry we don’t have this feature but we do have another feature that can help you resolve similar issues. Doing this will spark more curiosity and hence the communication gets extended.
Interesting Read : How To Launch A Product Using Text (And Run Your Most Successful Campaign Ever)
It’s not easy to sell to a stranger over the phone but it isn’t difficult. The one tip that will help you continue a great communication with your prospects is to remain calm. When you’re calm, you’ll be able to think better, you will be able to cater to the prospect better and above all when the prospect sees that you’re being calm, they too will calm down in case of complaints or any issue not being resolved.
Lisa K. Mcdonald a brand strategist at CareerPolish.com states,
“My ‘secret’ for engaging target prospects is to talk with them, not to them, in an authentic, transparent, and respectful manner. No matter what your industry, expertise, widget, or offer — you have competition. This creates a selling environment, but people do not want to be sold on something. They want and expect a level of value from you.
“The way I keep my clients: Respect and deliver. It is stated on the company website, and I tell every prospect this as well: I do not tell you want you want to hear, I tell you what you need to hear. This is in line with the authenticity and transparency; I continue to deliver on this after engagement.’’
The product your brand created was done for the purpose of filling in a gap that the competitors couldn’t do. The product is going to help prospects live better and will fulfill their needs better. But for you to bring out this product, you need to first explain to your prospects why they need it. The best way to do this is through understanding what are the issues your prospects are facing in the first place.
When you understand this, it becomes easier to tell your prospects how your product can help resolve their issue. For instance, say that your prospects want to capture more leads and engage with prospects faster, so since your product is a callback solution, you can explain to them how it can help them in conducting better lead generation activities.
In the calls being made to your prospects, there would be multiple doubts that need clarifications or revert and other information that requires action, before you end the call, it would be great if you repeat the same to your prospects as a summary so that they are aware of what action you’ll be conducting and secondly they will be impressed with the fact that you heard them and are genuinely interested to help them.
Before you end the call, ensure that your prospects are impressed by you so that they can engage with you again. To conduct this activity, you could do multiple actions such as keep them curious about any upgrades or new features, make them feel that your brand is better than your competitors by giving them valid reasons to believe the same and more.
‘’41.2% of sales professionals believe that their phone is their most effective tool for the job.‘’
And you have the opportunity to make every phone call right with the instructions, tips, and tricks mentioned above.
When you satisfy your clients over great communication, you are just increasing your chances of closing the deal quicker, with the tips mentioned above, you are bound to conduct this action more frequently.
So what do you think? Was this article insightful? Would you like to add additional tips that worked for you?
We would love to hear from you, all you need to do is reach out to us by tweeting us.
, August 26, 2020, LimeCall Team
Top rated callback automation platform that connects your website visitors to your team within 20 seconds through phone callback and whatsapp driving upto 40% more conversions.
Learn more
