The second part reflects a monumental shift in how businesses engage in adopting new technologies — a model known as “land and expand.”
In short, it’s that what the customer is looking for is a partner that wants to help in the sales process because there are so many unknowns in the procurement of services that you become a partner in mitigating risk as well as delivering solutions.
By helping the customer vet a product you build trust and credibility, and if the process goes well you all but lock yourself in as the vendor of choice.
The risks are inherently higher because the sales process lengthens and there is a distinct possibility that the product or service won’t catch on. But really it comes down to you as the partner providing the insight on which products they should try and then being aligned in the rollout, education and adoption process to make sure the solution does what it was intended.
It Comes Down to Being Creative
In the end, it all comes down to creating value. Always ask yourself this question as you are working with clients: What is our organization adding to the equation? And more importantly… Does the client need me to successfully get from where they are to where they want to go?
In our example, just quoting and selling “Cisco Webex” makes that partner one of about 30,000 potential suitors in the United States. If your value is nothing more than being there at that moment then you have very little to stand on.
Related: Is Content the New Sales Call?
However, if you help that client take that baseline of knowledge and put it to use to deliver something that truly solves an organizational problem, you are making yourself invaluable. This is precisely why being creative is at the center of delivering value and creating customer experience in a marketplace where the rules have changed.
How does your business add creativity to deliver better customer experience?
Information to Drive Inspiration
The desire to pay attention to your customer is a noble one. In fact, I believe wholeheartedly that customer experience is the future of marketing. That is because it is only with our customers as ambassadors and a source of revenue that our businesses will thrive.
Having said that, what it means to pay attention to the customer has changed. Most notably the customer’s needs from its providers have changed and therefore your business must change with it. What used to be the high-touch sales method of product overviews, long lunches and happy hours has shifted from the core of relationship selling to a mere side show.
Related: Seller Beware in the Economy of Choice
These days, customers are seeking more and more of their own information on just about every product and service on the planet long before they even let their vendors know what they are looking for. With this a business must change from what relationship selling was to what it is.
New Approach to Relationship Selling
So with so much change in the customer landscape, what makes a business partner valuable today? To make it as simple as possible I have created two buckets where businesses should focus their customer engagement:
Information: Like I’ve said many times before, consumers are seeking out information on their own. As a vendor, you should seek to become a supplier of valuable and practical information that helps drive your customers toward a purchase decision. If you aren’t the source of information, it may be a good idea to ask yourself who is. Chances are it is another supplier, which is the last place you want your clients to be gathering their information.
