Identifying challenging steps in the sales process – creates more sales in the end?
Different organizations have different processes of how to approach different tasks. A process is a series of different steps which try to reach something at the end. The sales are not an exception to this. The sales process can be considered a cyclic process where one can move forward or backward in the cycle and the steps will follow each other in the same order. There is a lot of information regarding sales processes and how should it be constructed, still there are very little information and guidance on how to utilize them (Care et al., 2008). Sales organizations´ work is based on the process. Every qualified sales organization has an updated sales process in place and following each step in it they believe to achieve better results in the end. The sales process should aim to ensure systematic and clarity of the sales work.
During COVID-19 the ways of doing sales have been in turbulence. Face-to-face meetings have changed to meetings held remotely overnight. Managing current customers has been “easy” but how it is possible to gain new ones and especially deepen the relationship? Sales organizations have started to use new technologies and tools in sales rapidly. The sales process itself has stayed the same, only the tools have been changing. Doing sales digitally and remotely is also a good thing. Time that is saved from the traveling to a customer can be utilized in other parts in the sales process.
In the study of the thesis in sales organization of the global logistics service provider, the sales process was researched. Especially the most comfortable steps as well as the most challenging steps were identified. With the information received the organization will be able to point out the “obstacles” in the process and hopefully reach more sales. The data was collected by using a Webropol-survey (quantitative) and group discussions (qualitative).
Importance of defining customer
All salespeople have gained a lot of contacts during the years. From this mass salespeople should select the ones that needs to be targeted and eliminate those which are not suitable for company´s needs or the customer may not even need the product/service (Chunawalla., 2009). Not every lead convert into a winning customer case but is important for companies to return them possibly some point into the future. Usually, the most promising are the current customers. Those are at the same time the ones which need less time and money to get more sales. According to Mathur (2011) following are useful points for salespeople to consider:
- Does the prospect meet with the company´s policies?
- Does the product fulfill a need of the prospect?
- What is the current and future value of the prospect to the company?
Customer implementation
Too often salespeople think that the work is done when the sale is done, and then the customer is forgotten. This is a big mistake. Customers expect that the promised product/service is in place and fulfill their needs. If the service level and caring needs to show towards customer, sales company and different stakeholders need to have the information about the agreement made with customer.
Nurturing customer may lead in the best case into more selling. Customer needs to feel important and especially in the beginning of the cooperation, the expected service level must be met. Customer is waiting for the promises to be honored. Sales organization to be able to fulfil the expectations, needs to have correct data available across the company´s departments. Logistics and payment terms need to be agreed and sales tools, including credit notes, to be issued as well as customer´s to be able to issue. Robust data and electronic tools have been seen as an advantage of companies in sales and distribution in terms of improving productivity and profitability (Strudy, 2012).
Internal information
Every day, lot of information is passed forward inside organizations and the decisions made are based on the information received. Even the smallest decision is based on information. It can be harmful and costly to companies to have poor communication and lack of proper communication tools.
When considering salespeople, there are lot of information they have to gather from prospects and current customers not forgetting the information they need to share with different stakeholders in their company. Salespeople need to collect all the necessary data from the customer to be able to help his/her own company to serve the customer in the best possible way. All the parties in the chain needs to have correct and robust information to act according to agreements and promises to the customer (Logistiikan Maailma, 2022).
Conclusions
Sales process intends to give the sales work clear structure. However, can we expect following the steps in the process to make salespeople to succeed better and result possible more sales? Yes, it can be easily proved. If not to follow the steps and have a systematicity in your sales work, salespeople will be most likely to fail – no doubt. All the steps in the sales process creates value to the next steps. The following examples show the interconnectedness of some steps:
- failing in defining customer, the customer is not suitable for the company and cannot be served the best possible way
- after getting the sale, sales organization lacking customer information will result broken promises and a lot of work for sales company
- correct information through the process is essential for profitable business. Internal stakeholders need to have robust information regarding customer needs to build service/product accordingly.
When you are passionate about something, you usually tend to do the things with devotion. When you are passionate salesperson you most likely follow the guidance in the best possible way, including the steps in a sales process. Systematic way of working will give an image outward and inspire confidence in the field amongst possible customers, meaning more sale!
References
Care, J., Bohlig, A., (2008) Mastering Technical Sales: The Sales Engineers Handbook. Artech House. Available https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/turkuamk-ebooks/reader.action?docID=456890
Chunawalla, S. A. (2009) Sales management with (personal selling– salesmanship). Global Media. Available https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/turkuamk-ebooks/reader.action?docID=3011404
Logistiikan Maailma (2022). Available https://www.logistiikanmaailma.fi/en/logistics/logistics-and-supply-chain/information-money-and-material-flow/
Mathur, U.C., (2011) Sales and Distribution Management. New Age International Ltd. Available https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/turkuamk-ebooks/reader.action?docID=3017439
Strudy, G., (2012) Customer Relationship Management using Business Intelligence. Cambridge Scholars Publisher. Available https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/turkuamk-ebooks/reader.action?docID=1080874