The Ingredients of a High-Performance Sales Culture
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
As we have shared previously, we are doing a series of posts of what we have observed superior sales organizations do to shape a High-Performance Sales Culture. Each post will feature one ingredient, followed by a few questions to challenge your thinking.
The first ingredient of a High-Performance Sales Culture is Customer Experience. Customer Experience (CX) is the ultimate barometer of success. Superior Building Materials sales organizations ensure everyone in the organization takes ownership for their role in connecting with, creating and enhancing the customer’s experience with your organization.
Here are some of the things these companies do to be customer-centric:
- They continually judge their performance through the eyes of the customer. Through “Voice of the Customer” feedback, they anticipate what customer requirements will be and involve the customer in every facet of the business.
- They define SELLING as “the satisfaction of customer requirements.” In light of that definition, selling is the responsibility of everyone within the organization. Everyone touches the customer directly or indirectly. Everyone is a link in the chain of providing value to customers. Customer intimacy is desirable and pursued.
- They map out the customer ‘journey’ and examine the factors and ‘touch-points’ that drive satisfaction and retention. They dig deep into all the touch-points of the customer experience to determine where the bottlenecks and areas for improvement exist.
- And, if a commitment or deliverable is not right the first time, they make things right in order to build long-term loyalty and customer retention. In other words, they recover well.
Questions to reflect on:
- How frequently are you formally reaching out to your customers to get candid feedback?
- How do you share your results with your teams and what actions do you take?
- Does every department in the company recognize their role with the customer?
Next Up: Sales Leadership