At first glance, today's topic is not clearly related to this series. However, looking a little behind events (or sales figures) and trying to figure out why our customers buy only once, there are probably two reasons why they don't choose us again.
The two reasons already mentioned in the introduction may be:
As the topic of the blog is devoid of product quality issues, we assume that the buyer has no quality objections. So there is one reason they are not buying from us again: there is no order in our (cross) sales!
Cross - selling or upselling (selling a different or higher value version of a given product, eg. bigger packaging, more extra, higher performance, etc.) are two methods that increase the efficiency of our sales. In the case of cross-selling, we resell to an existing customer (by extending an existing contract or recommending an ancillary product), whereas in the case of upselling, we offer a more valuable product. Today, we will be focusing on cross-selling and highlighting why it is worthwhile for all companies and how we can leverage the power of cross-selling.
An important feature of cross-selling is that we sell in an environment and to a customer who already knows our product or service. As a result, the company does not have to spend on launching a campaign, somehow finding a buyer, fighting competition, paying for media, etc. but reaches the customer through effective direct communication channels, such as a phone call from the sales person or an email or mail to the person you want to sell to. It is easy to see how much cheaper this form of communication is compared to any other marketing activity or promotion. At the same time, the sales process should include the steps of cross-selling to ensure that the direct communication mentioned above takes place and, where possible, ends with good results.
There are positive and negative examples of cross - selling from the financial - insurance industry, especially from consultants who do actual selling. The case of insurance contracts is also obvious, because most insurance contracts have a definite expiry date, and the possibility of cross-selling is also powerful. For example, if a customer is buying a home loan related product, they may still need: loan coverage and / or life insurance, unemployment insurance, accident insurance, home insurance. There are already 4 products that can be offered to the customer immediately! A professional salesperson will record these and make a quote. However, this client may also have an investment, car insurance, or other financial products whose expiration date can be known. In this case, the consultant needs to contact the client well before the contract expires, and suggest an extension or a new contract to the client. At the same time, let us make a brief calculation to understand why it is not possible to handle such cross-selling tasks without the right tools!
From the above two figures (which may be approximating the reality, by the way) it is clear that 600 different offers have to be made for different products at different times to different clients. It can be stated that recording such a large number of times, calls, documents and e-mails is a task that is impossible to do without proper IT support. Let's look at a system that properly supports cross-selling!
It is not only important to alert the sales team of expiration dates, upcoming calls or offer deadlines when supporting cross-selling. While this basic function is the basis for exploiting the potential of cross-selling, all such inquiries result in some kind of outcome from which further tasks emanate. In the case of inquiries, there are two possible outcomes: the customer either accepts the offer and the solution offered or rejects it. Let's take a closer look at the tasks that can arise in each case:
In this case, the list of failed cases does not necessarily have to be expanded with the given request. Rather, it is recommended that sales reaches out again with another product or another version of the same product, say after two weeks. Or, if the business has several types of contracts to be handled, then of course sales should also contact the client for those contracts. Both outputs generate additional tasks that should be part of the sales process and should therefore be handled in the same process management solution as other operational processes in sales.
In this case, depending on what product is sold, the process will either go to the next stage of the bidding with the sales support system, or sales will have to "arrange" and / or send the contract to be signed to the buyer. In this constellation, therefore, the sales process must be continued and the proposed product sold. In this case, too, we can talk about running the sales process, especially if it is accompanied by documents and events.
It is important to note that it is very important for efficiency that the customer database can be segmented, so that it is easy for a professional salesperson to determine which additional products to offer to which customers. As described in the previous example, sales can offer different products to different customers, so it is essential to keep track of customer data including their buying history. In a sales workflow environment, all sales activities can be recorded, so the sales team can check the exact client history anytime. And if there is a change in the sales team, the new colleague will be able to get familiar with sales and client history quickly and efficiently. Take one step further towards automation and let algorithms decide which product would fit given customers or customer segments - it can also be done with a workflow system.
As you can see, cross-selling, in addition to being a highly profitable and therefore "must-have" component of your sales strategy, places a lot of work on your sales colleagues. Keeping tasks in mind, or even just following events accurately without using a well-designed sales system, is certainly impossible and cross-selling efforts will be wasted. That is why it is extremely important to put in place a sales system that supports all of these activities. But let's not forget the administrative background of sales, which tends to be salespeople's worst nightmare. Most salespeople simply hate to administer. Therefore, when choosing a sales system, we suggest to pay particular attention to ensuring that sales documents are fully managed, and salespeople are assisted with their administrative work - so that the new system will not be just an extra burden, but also an enabler of easier administration.
