Digital Body Language: Are Your Sales Reps Missing Vital Cues?

Digital Body Language: Are Your Sales Reps Missing Vital Cues?:by John Garrish
There was a day, not too long ago, when sales professionals could read the body language of their customers.  Quite literally – they could see crossed arms, raised eyebrows, and hear the sigh of exasperation if their pitch was off key, or if the customer was not hearing the answers they needed.
Today?  As the practice of sales becomes more mobile, social and online, most of the cues that sales reps used to rely on are completely missing.

• When you’re having a sales call over the web and teleconference, and the customer has you on mute while they talk, how do you discern their reaction?
• When you get a short, polite email in response to your latest presentation, what does it mean?  Are they happy and busy, or unhappy and shopping around?
• When you don’t get a key influencer to a meeting, does it mean they are leaning against your solution, or do they just have a calendar conflict?

As a sales rep in today’s frenetic, connected business environment, how do you compensate for these missing cues?
The new role of CRM
CRM historically has been an “after the fact” tool for sales professionals.  Sales reps would track and report their progress, enter go-forward plans and make forecasts.  It was – and is – a management tool to apply a standard company process to the often chaotic and confusing world of selling.  Before the explosion of social channels, smartphone connectivity and hyper-empowered buyers, this was state of the art and it worked.  Very few companies today don’t have some level of standardized, CRM-based process for their sales teams.
Today, however, sales reps need more.  The blind spots are big, and growing.  The next generation of CRM that is now emerging remixes social, mobile and analytics to solve this problem.
Social collaboration is more than socializing
For sales reps, social collaboration tools must support their business goals.  They are finding new deals, closing deals faster, making sales opportunities bigger.  The next inning of social incorporates the free-ranging, unbounded communication style of social tools (which is imperative to break down company silos), but also ties these conversations into core business records.  Collaboration becomes the “muscle memory” of the sales org, and maintains customer continuity even when reps change territories or new reps get hired.  Getting smart on an account contextually combines the chatty realness of a water-cooler conversation, with the structured chronology of the customer – all in one context, companywide.
Mobile is job one
True love is a sales rep and his/her iPad.  The next inning of CRM starts with mobile tools as the primary interface.  Customers are interacting with brands constantly and if sales reps aren’t connected continuously they will miss out.  Catching conversation nuances, and engaging, are the catch phrases for building the new digital relationship.  Mobile access has always connected reps outside the office.  Now it connects them in meetings, in the hallway, and in front of the customer.
Analytics is standard equipment
As the volume of customer touch-points and interactions increases exponentially, sales reps lose their ability to keep up.  There is simply too much.  The new CRM helps the rep compensate for being – well –  human.  Subtle customer engagement touch-points can be cross-checked with buying profiles, history, location and projections.  Real time alerts become the “check engine light” for sales reps to quickly process the meaning behind a waterfall of customer inputs and sentiment, and take smart action before customers lose confidence.
Trust is the new Customer Satisfaction
Some values never go out of style.  Delivering on customer promises has always been important, and now the margin for error is even smaller.  Customers engage in real-time and see one company, not 12 divisions, 5 teams, or 4 geographies.  They don’t understand, or care, about how a company is ’organized’ to serve them.  They just want answers and service and real solutions to their needs.  Conversation only goes so far.  Responding quickly, in the customers’ channel of choice is critical, but it is not enough.  Brands still need to deliver a unique price or offer, a replacement part, a billing reversal, an onsite service technician, or a custom configuration.  The mismatch between words and deeds is sharper than ever, and the new CRM binds interaction excellence to operational excellence.  The end to end package matters more than ever. Sales  is a tough job – with the rise of the empowered mobile and social customer – tougher than ever.  Understanding the new digital body language is the key to unlocking new levels of performance. The new generation of CRM tools with a 360 degree view of the customer are designed to tackle this challenge and make sales reps even more successful.
How do you equip your sales managers for digitally-centric buyers?