What Salespeople Can Learn From Customer Service Reps

Improving Sales by Learning from Customer Service

Selling a product or service isn’t just about getting customers to buy. Sometimes, salespeople focus so much on making the sale that they forget there’s a real person behind the purchase. This is often called the “selling and forgetting” syndrome, and it happens when salespeople follow a strict process to get the sale but then neglect the customer afterward.
But it’s not entirely the salespeople’s fault. Sometimes, it’s because businesses reward their sales teams based on how many sales they make, without considering what happens after the sale.
Sales teams can actually learn a lot from their customer service counterparts, and here’s how:
1. Listening: Customer service reps are great listeners. They pay close attention to a customer’s problem before finding a solution. Good listening helps them understand and meet the customer’s needs.
2. Empathy: Customer service deals with upset customers who are often frustrated. They need to show empathy and calm these customers down. Sometimes, all customers want is to be heard and receive an apology. When salespeople learn empathy, customers become more receptive and less resistant to sales tactics.
3. Under-Selling: Salespeople often focus on making the sale and forget about the person behind it. Customer service reps, on the other hand, continue to care for customers after the sale, dealing with their real-life issues. Acting like a salesperson who cares about more than just the sale helps engage customers, build brand loyalty, and opens up opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling.
When your entire team, from salespeople to customer service reps, sees customers as people to help rather than just sources of revenue, it changes the customer-business relationship. Instead of short-lived relationships with one-time customers, you create a stream of loyal, repeat buyers.
So, when was the last time your sales team spent time learning from customer service? What could your team gain from listening, empathizing, and focusing on more than just making a sale? It’s worth considering to build stronger customer relationships and boost sales in the long run.