An effective sales process can be the deciding factor that can make or break a business. Some entrepreneurs focus on optimizing their marketing strategies but neglect how the buyer’s journey affects the sales process, which can be a costly mistake.
This short guide explains the importance of the customer journey in creating an effective sales process. After reading the guide, you’ll understand why you need to understand the buyer’s perspective in order to move opportunities faster through the sales pipeline.
What is the buyer’s journey?
The customer’s journey or purchase journey is the process that the customer goes through when buying a product or service.
A buyer’s journey map shows all the decisions, interactions, and actions from when leads identify their problem to when they buy a solution.
This map is a sales funnel from a sales prospect’s perspective. When you map out their journey, you get an in-depth picture of how potential customers act at each stage.
It also describes how each step leads to the next. This introduction can help sales teams ensure there are no gaps in the buyer’s journey that could lead to loss of interest.
Companies use this concept to find out what challenges their target group faces when making purchases. With this information, entrepreneurs can tailor their sales strategy to address potential pain points and the needs of potential customers.
The stages of the buyer’s journey may vary, but three significant stages are common to all companies: awareness, consideration and decision.
At each stage, customers face unique barriers that can prevent them from making a purchase. Your sales team’s job is to eliminate as many of these challenges as possible.
They need to track how leads are reacting to the company’s sales cycle so they can quickly identify and remove potential roadblocks. Find out more about the three stages of the buyer’s journey below.
Awareness stage
In the first phase, we focus on the potential customer’s needs and pain points. At this point, prospects know they have a unique problem that needs a solution. For example, a digital artist needs a new pen for his tablet or a runner needs a new pair of supportive headphones.
Consideration phase
Consumers consider their options when looking for solutions to their pain points. At this stage, they actively identify and consider possible solutions. They may consider buying new products or parts to repair one of the products they own.
Decision making stage
In the decision-making stage, people choose the product or service that solves their problem at the right price. At this stage, sales representatives have the most contact with potential buyers.
Remember that just because a potential buyer has decided to buy something doesn’t mean they will. Barriers such as paperwork, poor customer support options and maintenance costs can still prevent them from buying.
A guide to creating a sales process from a buyer’s journey perspective
Mapping the sales process requires going through each step and understanding how the steps apply to your business, your sales team, and your buyers. This section describes the steps you can take to successfully map your sales process.
Step 1: Set specific goals
Remember, if you want to know where you are going, you must have a clear destination. This principle is also valuable for mapping the sales process.
You need to set simple and realistic goals for your sales team. This makes creating the framework for the new sales process easier, because you clearly understand what you want to achieve.
Step 2: Informing all stakeholders
Improving the sales process should not be solely the responsibility of the sales team. Instead of leaving everything to them, try to involve all stakeholders.
Reach out to all relevant departments in your organization, such as product, marketing, customer service and IT teams. Even those involved in managing point of sale or POS systems need to be aware of sales process improvements.
All of these departments play a part in your sales process and affect the customer experience. Engage these stakeholders, share your goals with them, and engage them.
Step 3: Underline the steps in the sales process.
The next step is to evaluate all the steps in the current sales process. Take a look at its history and ask yourself the following questions:
What actions were effective?
At what point have the prospects deteriorated?
How long did each step take?
Answering these questions can help you identify areas for improvement. In addition, with the help of stakeholder groups, you can quickly decide which teams will influence each phase and what actions they need to take.
Step 4: Create the buyer’s journey
Now look at your sales process from the perspective of your potential customers.
Take notes on your customers’ actions and feedback on your sales process. Remember to keep buyer personas handy so that your sales team remains customer-focused.
Step 5: Update and track progress
You can start implementing changes when you have mapped the sales process from the perspective of the buyer and the seller.
Remember, you can only determine the success of your new sales process if you test and measure results. You can use a sales process flowchart to identify key action points.
Tips for designing a customer-oriented sales process
Entrepreneurs need effective strategies to implement a new sales process that drives profitability. These tips and tricks can help sales teams improve the impact of the sales process on the entire customer base.
Analyze your sales process
The best way to improve your sales process is to find out what works and what doesn’t. This analysis can help your sales team close deals and satisfy customers.
One effective way to evaluate the success of the current system is to monitor the work of the representatives during the process. Analyze the strategies they use and consider the ones that evoke a positive reaction from potential customers.
+ There are no comments
Add yours