Fostering Good Sales Practices With Effective Training
Sales training is an important component of corporate Learning and Development initiatives these days. This is because a lot of things have changed. Now, with the coming up of smartphones, selling has become more customer-centric. It’s because the customers have so many brands available to them. Here's how your sales can surge upwards.
Tips To Increase Sales With A Well-Trained Team
1. Product Knowledge
The internet has not only made products accessible to customers, but it has also made sure that customers can read product reviews before buying them. Therefore, companies have a lot at stake and must teach their staff how to sell the products. You cannot take customers for granted because, due to the internet, they have researched the products. Salespeople should know that because, unlike in earlier days, they are not selling products to an oblivious customer but to an omniscient one with all the necessary product knowledge. Things have changed and, now, online sales training involves researching the customers to gather information about them, like whether they need the product.
2. Easy Access
In the case of an offline shopping experience, all the company contact details should be easily accessible. The customer must also be able to write an email if they do not want to buy a single item and instead make bulk purchases. If the customer wants to book an order, they should be able to access you via phone or a chatbox where they can leave a message. If someone is not available to pick up the phone during working hours, it’s a dismal response for the customer.
3. Online Shopping
Customers now also have a choice whether to buy online or to visit an offline store to buy a product. Therefore, salespeople should be trained to ensure how to make the experience delightful for customers who have the luxury of buying online. The advantage of buying online is saving time and money. But it also has a disadvantage if the customer does not have much information about the quality of the product. Hence, reviews by other customers are necessary, and the product description should mention its ingredients and specifications.
4. Positive Memory
The in-store purchase experience should be nice and pleasant, and customers should be shown the products they need. The customer must have a certain level of trust in you so that even if they are not keen to purchase something now, they do so in the future. Everything is important in building a positive customer experience, like, for example, the look of the store. Most customers decide whether to enter a store depending on the product display.
Apart from that, the way the customer is greeted and whether they are explained how to use the product are also important factors. The customer will be delighted if the sales rep has sufficient knowledge about the product, like what the different brands are and how yours is the best. So, it all depends on the sales rep; they should always be calm while dealing with customers. Customers might purchase something from the store now or in the future, but a good experience always stays in their minds.
5. Timely Help
When customers need help offline or online, it’s the job of the sales rep to help the customer. In a brick-and-mortar store, the customer can easily get help because there are so many reps to assist him. But in an online store, it can be quite perplexing for a customer who wants to make a purchase decision but has got last-minute questions. Therefore, it's crucial to ensure customers' queries are answered on time when selling online. In that case, they should get assistance from a chatbot or a human operator.
However, it's important that they connect to a human when an AI-based chatbot cannot answer them. Any kind of delay and the customer won’t buy from you again.
How Can eLearning Help?
When training product reps, companies should ensure they have all the required product knowledge. It's the management’s job to see that the sales reps don’t have any dearth of product-related knowledge. Therefore, such reps must be given free product samples to take home and try for themselves. This provides them with in-depth information like nothing else. The team can also be given eLearning-based training videos, which they can use to study the products.
The sales reps can also be given prizes if they surpass others in contests for product knowledge. When sales reps are trained in eLearning-based quizzes and are offered prizes, they tend to remember more. The company can also see that new sales reps are paired with veterans and tested for their product knowledge. This makes for good revision because they can test whether they have ample product knowledge.
