Building Customer Relationships on Virtual Sales Calls
Posted on 10/09/2024 in Selling SkillsSince most, or possibly all, of your sales calls are done virtually instead of at the customer's office, a common mistake is to avoid doing the relationship building that you would normally do if you met in person.
We'd like to use this blog for two reasons. First, please reply and share your advice. For example, what techniques do you use to build customer relationships during virtual sales calls?
Second, we'd like to use this blog to share one of our tips. An effective relationship-building technique that is overlooked by many salespeople is what we call expressing commonalities.
Expressing commonalities is a wonderful technique because it works to both build and strengthen relationships and rapport. And, you can do this virtually by doing some research on the other person before making the sales call. For example, look up the person's information on LinkedIn or see if their bio is cited on their company's website.
Expressing commonalities normally takes place in the opening stage of a sales call and helps warm up the conversation. When used genuinely the commonality you share establishes trust and helps build or strengthen the relationship with the other person.
What might you have in common with this person or with their organization? Commonalities can often be found when you can identify information about their goals, background, network, or interests.
Common goals can refer to personal goals or company goals. For example, your company and the customer's organization value sustainability
Common Background refers to what do you and the other person have in common in terms of your personal background – where you grew up, where you went to school, prior jobs.
Common network refers to someone that this person knows. This may be a referral, a colleague, someone in the same industry.
Common Interests refers to things like sports, hobbies, or travel.
If you can identify one or two of the above things prior to making the sales call, you'll notice how the tone of the conversation becomes warmer and you'll be more successful in the rest of the conversation.