Ten Online Solutions for Creating a Customer-Centric Sales Organization The past few years have brought massive new technology into the day-to-day life of the average sales rep. The challenge for most sales groups is to use that technology to focus on the needs of their customers. Here’s how to use today’s high tech tools to build better customer relations: 1. Conduct more online meetings. Your reps’ ability to serve your customers is directly connected to the number of sales calls, sales meetings and training sessions that your reps can attend. However, as companies go global, travel budgets gobble up sales margins and can run reps ragged. Moving meetings online lets your reps spend more time with your customers and makes it possible for them to attend key in-house meetings even when they’re on the road. 2. Store more presentations online. You want reps spending time with your customers rather than “reinventing the wheel” every time they need to give a presentation. Since most of your presentation materials are already on a computer anyway, why not store the most effective materials online where everyone can benefit? A collection of winning sales resources can range from something as simple as some standard slides to something as robust as an entire library of archived Webinars. 3. Launch sales-oriented blogs. Web-logs (or “blogs” as they’re commonly called) are web sites that contain dated entries (the most recent first) in the form of an online journal. Either individual sales reps can build their own blogs or you can have a group blog with contributions from the entire team. Blogs can be an excellent vehicle for sharing (with customers and other reps alike) relationship-building information like customer successes, product tips and creative ways that customers are using your products or services. 4. Enhance your online support capability. A good way to lose a customer for good is to add insult to injury. If a customer is having a problem with your product, the last thing you want is for the customer to get even more frustrated when they’re looking for help. Take a hard look at the customer support segment of your website. Does it force customers to dig through half-a-dozen screens to find the number for telephone support? Is your list of “Frequently Asked Questions” full of questions that no customer would ever ask? Consider a feedback mechanism asking if the support content or FAQ addressed their issue. 5. Keep your reps more connected. Taking care of customers is all about communication, so you can’t afford to have reps that can’t communicate when they’re on the road. Make certain that every rep’s laptop supports wireless Internet, both through hotspots and, if it’s available in your area, a digital cellular network. And don’t forget to provide the reps with any technical training they might need in order to stay connected. 6. Increase your e-mail effectiveness. Some reps mistakenly think that customer emails should be as breezy and informal as interoffice chitchat. Wrong. A poorly organized email, filled with spelling errors, reflects poorly on makes your entire organization, and erodes credibility. By contrast, an email that’s succinct and well written tells customers that you respect and value them. So provide your reps with guidelines to make emails more effective. And make sure the guide contains plenty of good examples for reps to leverage. 7. Share extended contact information. Most CRM systems keep track of existing customers' contact information, but there may be untapped resources that can help you build new customer relationships. For example, suppose one rep has a golf buddy whose wife is the CFO for a potential customer? How can the rep assigned to that customer be aware that there’s a “back door” into the customer if reps can’t share their personal contacts? Encourage your reps to help each other by add a field to your CRM system for sharing potentially valuable social contacts. 8. Improve your online search skills. The more your reps know about your customers, the more valuable they’ll be in meeting those customers’ needs. A wealth of information is available on the web about your customers’ organization and even their personal lives. Finding the right information quickly and easily can take some practice, though. Create a guide for effective online research showing the search techniques that increase the number of useful “hits.” Provide training on effective use of the most useful sources (e.g. like www.hoovers.com and www.sec.gov). 10. Move sales training online. It’s difficult for reps to be customer-focused if they’re constantly scratching their heads in response to customer questions about your products and services. While interpersonal sales skills, like rapport building, are best taught in a classroom environment, online sales training offers a wonderful opportunity for reps to learn more about your company’s offerings. To try a 15-day trial of Macromedia’s Breeze web conferencing solution, click here.