4 Ways to Give Your Sales a Human Touch

Your customers have free access to product information and are able to get an overview of alternatives completely independently. They know their requirements in detail and choose the right option in the end. What role can you still play as a sales representative in this process?

A valid question and our answer may surprise you: Nothing works without you! Despite free access to a plethora of information and digitally transformed sourcing processes, your customers have rarely been as confused as they are today. This wealth of information, available at the touch of a button, is increasingly unsettling customers’ buying behaviour.

This is where you come into play! As a sales professional, you assist your customers and bring the human factor back into a business world that, with all its digital possibilities, not only makes work more efficient but also occasionally paralyses people. The time is ripe for the human touch in sales. To that end, we have researched the most important strategies for your sales success.

1. Focus on Personal Contact, But Not Always

Do your customers prefer making personal contact with you or do they prefer to do business digitally? It’s all about having the right mix. For 76 percent of your customers, personal contact with you is number one when it comes to buying a new product. By contrast, only 15 percent of customers want to make direct contact with a sales representative if it is a repeat purchase.

Standard sales transactions can be handled effectively via digital channels once your customer has opted for long-term cooperation with your company. Especially when it comes to ordering routine products, every online shop beats manual order processing by phone or email when it comes to efficiency. Nevertheless, as soon as contractual conditions change or a new product is just around the corner, 52 percent of customers prefer personal contact.

Did you already know how artificial intelligence (AI) enhances your sales talent? Machine learning trains your negotiating skills on the phone, smart CRM tools optimise your sales strategy, and intelligent assistants support you with customer calls. We have summarised the most important AI innovations for the sales area in this blog post for you.

2. Reduce Information to Its Core

What if your customer cannot make up their mind? In this case, sales representatives tend to quickly provide further information. A dozen white papers, regular invitations to webinars, numerous case studies: Distribution by email and the company’s website costs practically nothing anyway – digital makes it possible! The problem, however, is that the bigger the flood of information, the more difficult it becomes for your customer to make a decision.

It gets even more complicated when you say yes to every customer requirement. More information and more options increase the complexity of the already difficult decision-making process. Here, you can profile yourself as a trustworthy person by giving concrete answers to specific questions. If your customer is looking for as much information as possible, they can check Google themselves. However, when it comes to receiving an honest answer, human empathy and sincerity are required. And only you as a sales expert can do that in a personal dialogue.

3. Demonstrate Commitment With Every Step

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The multitude of product alternatives leads to a phenomenon that is especially well known in the B2B environment, namely post-purchase anxiety. Customers struggle with the question of whether there might have been a better alternative product. This question is of great relevance because your client’s personal reputation, and, in the worst case scenario, their career perspectives, are at stake if they make the wrong decisions.

Support your customers to enable them to make a reliable decision at any time. Focus on showing commitment from the first step in the sales cycle. Only make recommendations that you can back up with plausible facts. Adopt a cautious approach rather than relying on pure actionism and premature conclusions. Each person needs time to reach a good result when it comes to decisions of great importance. Grant your customer this time and take it for yourself – this is the human way and a great means of building trust.

With modern communication solutions such as NFON’s cloud telephone system, you can organise your sales processes even more efficiently. Would you like to get to know the benefits of NFON? We’ll give you advice on the next generation of communication – free of charge and without obligation. Discover the freedom to communicate your way and sign up for our advice!

4. Establish a Direct Line to the Sales Team

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ith marketing automation solutions, you can automate many steps in the early stages of the marketing and sales funnel. Potential customers browse your company’s website and download information to help them prepare for the purchase decision. However, they themselves decide when to reveal themselves to your company, for example, by filling out a download or contact form.

This is the first point of interaction between your potential future customer and your company. This is the moment when it’s paramount to get the right mix between necessary restraint and personal relationship building: Show that people like you stand behind your brand and offer your customers personal, non-binding contact options as early as possible, such as a free telephone consultation.

As in many business areas, the last few years in sales have been characterised by the trend towards self-service. However, sales experts now tend to bring options for personal contact back into play as soon as possible. Digital marketing and sales campaigns almost always run via email, but emails are overlooked far too often. In contrast, a personal contact person signals reachability, service orientation and humanity – all things that every customer appreciates time and again in a digitalised world.

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