From the course: Account Management: Maintaining Relationships

Why is this important?

- So why is focusing on maintaining relationships with clients you've already sold to so important? You've done it. You've done what a sales person is meant to do, and you've successfully sold your product or service to them. So why bother? We've added our value, so now let's just sit back, count our commission, and maybe put a deposit down on that nice new watch that you've got your eye on. But this is where so many people are going wrong, and this is where your competitors are going wrong too. We need to continue adding value. We need to keep responding promptly, remembering key dates, matching solutions to their problems, being inventive with how we show our product's value, and so on. By doing that, we maintain our relationship with our new client and gain a few key advantages. Firstly, the opportunity to both keep selling to them and also to upsell more to them. They've just purchased your product. They clearly have some confidence in you and your value. So assuming you do deliver on that value, they'll be inclined to buy more. Maybe you sold them the basic package. Why not try and push them at the bigger package now. Maybe it's a service that they'll need more than once. If you did what you said you would, and they need it again, why wouldn't they buy it from you again? So remember, it's easy for the client to just buy the same thing again. They don't have to go back to market and look at other suppliers. The best time to show your value is when you're doing the job. And the best time to solidify relationships is when you're there meeting them and interacting with them not in a sales situation. The second key advantage is to protect this new customer from your competitors. We don't want our competitors getting stronger. So if we retain customers and stop them going back to market, then our competitors miss out on the sale. So we're protecting our market share and we're denying them the growth opportunity. It's a win-win. Thirdly, we want to help avoid buyer's remorse. This is when a customer gets a feeling of regret after having made a purchase. Buyer's remorse is every new customer's biggest fear. They're terrified that you'll just take their money and leave them with a poor product, meaning they'll have to either confront you about the value or ask for a refund. So part of the initial sales process is assuring them that this won't happen. So make sure you're regularly checking in with them and asking if they're happy. Saying things like that new car looks great on your drive, doesn't it? Or you must be really enjoying your new house with this lovely weather? Or it sounds like our engineers have solved those issues you were having, I'm assuming there's nothing that they missed. So the fourth, final and biggest advantage we can gain from maintaining customer relationships is getting referrals. Referrals need no introduction. They're an easy sell and appear out of thin air. So what's not to like? But we won't get referrals if we don't have satisfied customers and good relationships. If you purchased something and you weren't happy with it, are you going to tell your friends and family to buy it too? Or if you had to deal with a sales person you didn't like, or you did like them and now the relationship has deteriorated, are you really going to connect them with your friends and family? The answer to both is probably no. So don't let that happen to you. If they love the product, they'll already be telling their friends and family about it. And if they really like you, then they'll jump at the opportunity to refer you. So with those aside, let's jump into relationship selling and how we can build our relationship with our clients further than we already have.

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