Marketing and sales leaders want to position their business in the most positive light possible.
Customers on the other hand, want reality.
Your business can quickly convert Prospects to customers, by demonstrating 'after sales' before an actual sale.
1. Enable prospects to be a customer before they are one
Let customers experience the joys of a sale before selling. Adapt strategies that enable customers to experience what it is like to be a customer before they are a customer. How?
With the help of CRM solutions, you can schedule activities ranging from:
- Demonstrations
- Free trials
- Proof of concepts (POCs)
2. Validation builds foundation for loyalty
Validating your product or service from peers and other customers is now besting the traditional approaches of case studies and references. This is because reviews deliver a perception of unbiased insight apart from the information spewed by marketers.
Often, reviews that look beyond features and help provide an understanding of on boarding process and Support experience are rated much higher. You can start a validating journey with the help of CRM software by :
- Deploying campaigns that exhort existing customers to provide reviews on key review sites.
- Supporting online communities.
- Developing prospecting events that current customers actively participate.
3. Give Full Support to Trial, Freemium and POC prospects
Companies usually treat trial, freemium or POC prospects as step children. Don't.
By giving full and unconditional support to these prospects through CRM for service, you will reinforce point one. Many businesses don't consider these prospects to be customers, and they assign limited support responsibilities to lower level teams. While such support may be costly, you should realize that what these prospects are searching an 'after sale' support experience when they become a customer.
You need to complement ongoing support initiatives with sales professionals merging sales and service in a single platform, as they are more aware of their prospect's specific needs.
4. Strike the Right Balance
Revealing too much about your service/product may overwhelm prospects who are just in the exploration phase. Plus, some restricted access may add the perception of value to your offerings. This helps continually building faith and attraction when sharing insights that match relevant needs. To understand what to share and when, you can classify your collateral into:
- Publicly available — Experience content that shows how you engage with customers to ensure success. For example, onboarding kits.
- Situationally available — Made accessible based on specific touchpoints during the buying process. For example, service guides that provide deeper understanding of a service/product/best practises, after submission of a proposal.
- Time-bound access — Limited period offer of Trials or POCs.
Bringing 'after sales' forward in a buying journey will help customers overcome doubts about potential ROI downsides and risks. This will help them develop more confidence in your brand and result in faster sales cycles.
