From the course: Account Management: Maintaining Relationships

Become an active listener

From the course: Account Management: Maintaining Relationships

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Become an active listener

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- Whether you're developing your personal or professional relationships with your existing customers, you must be an active listener when engaging with them. This is a sales basic that so many fail on. We as salespeople think we need to constantly be pitching, constantly showing value and constantly telling our customers why they should be buying from us. But that's not the case at all. We should be listening for what their problems are and then providing solutions to those problems. We should be having conversations, not sales pitches. And whilst this was true before we made the sale, it's even more important after we've made the sale. They've heard your pitch. They've sat through your presentation. They've met your colleagues. They're customers now. They've become someone who's put their trust and money with you to solve their problems. And so if we want to continue solving their problems, and by that I mean selling to them, then we need to listen to how their current problems are changing and how new problems are arising that we might also be able to solve. So how can we do this? Firstly, as I mentioned earlier in the section, ask for feedback and don't ask for feedback and ignore the bad stuff or things that you've heard before. Listen to what they're saying. And secondly, ask why they feel the way they do. Ask why that piece of feedback is important to them. Ask why that complaint is a problem for them. Ask why they bought from you and not from your competitor. Ask why they're happy or unhappy with your service so far. Knowing this stuff gives you the power to continue to delight, protect your relationship, and as we covered earlier, continue to add value.

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