The Fine Art of Convincing Customers & Converting More Calls

Depending on your business sector, conversions can happen at any time up and down the sales funnel. From an initial visit to your website or social media page to the first - or fifth, or fifteenth! - call to your company number, every interaction you have has the potential to turn a caller into a customer. Whether you achieve this - and how quickly you make it happen - usually comes down to how convincing are your sales team and service proposition. The difficulty comes in making sure that every aspect of your sales process and marketing tools are aligned to show the best of your business. They must clearly demonstrate what you do and why it's a smart decision to buy from you. When every platform pulls its weight, your business becomes a much more compelling proposition and more potential customers will make that conversion. [caption id="attachment_3150" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Image Credit: Flazingo[/caption]

What Convinces Someone to Become a Customer?

As we already know, this varies greatly by business type, location, your marketing budget, the quality of your sales team, and many other important factors. That being said, there are some common denominators that convince people to buy in almost any situation. That being said, there are some common denominators that convince people to buy in almost any situation. Consider the following five factors that can help any salesperson convince a prospect to become a customer:

• 1. Solve their problem: Most products or services help your customers to overcome a common hurdle in their lives. Communicate the benefits of what you sell in a short, sharp way and make sure it's clear how you can solve a problem.

• 2. Communicate clearly: The temptation to fall back on industry terminology and jargon when explaining why someone should buy is always present. The best sales teams overcome that desire, though, because using everyday words and speaking your customer's language makes it much easier to bridge any gaps between you.

• 3. Quantify your qualities: A lot of text or talk can quickly turn your prospects off, so throw in some numbers to snap their attention back to buying. Return on investment, cost reductions, and increasing efficiency are all areas you can quantify to keep your prospects engaged.

• 4. Have independent accreditations: Everyone likes to feel they're making a sound decision when they buy. Having unbiased verifications of your product available for all to reference - whether via industry associations, on-site testimonials or independent reviews - helps to reinforce the purchase decision. Convince your customers that they're becoming part of a valuable club by buying your product, not going out on a limb.

• 5. Understand their issues: You need to know what compels your customer to call and where they are in the purchase process. This helps you to give them the information they need more quickly, which means you'll need a set of questions that gets to the heart of their issue, as well as immediate access to any data from previous calls or interactions with them.

  All of these considerations come down to having the right sales talent and training materials. To support your sales team, however, the right marketing tools and technology need to be in place to give them every chance to convince and convert a potential customer.

Convince Your Customers with Intelligent Numbers

Winning a first-time customer usually comes down to the value your product offers them and the quality of your sales and marketing. Conversely, convincing someone to buy when they're calling back means knowing everything about them from the previous call and any subsequent interactions you've had online or in-store. One element that has been overlooked in the past but is now more important than ever is building a caller database, one that is capable of recording and acting upon smartphone buying signals. Mobile phones make placing calls easier than ever and online research is just a few taps away With more than two-thirds of the U.S. population now using a smartphone, there is no better time to develop your mobile database. Intelligent numbers aid this process. When a caller opts into one of your mobile offerings, they will be sent both the information they requested and a follow-up text to check if they’d like to receive further offers from your company. One quick confirmation means they join your mobile database and all of the marketing potential that this entails. The system is equally effective for land-line callers. Voice2SMS Technology has a proprietary feature that identifies callers based on their location. Land line callers can be quickly flagged and prompted to enter their mobile numbers, allowing them to receive additional information in the same way as a direct mobile caller. This system bridges the gap when calls from home or at work and would like to hear more about your organization when they are on-the-go. It can help you convert more land-line callers to mobile app users, email subscribers, and many other services that you are able to offer them but which they might not know about. Intelligent numbers put your customer in control of the relationship, allowing them to choose where the information flows and giving you the technology to help them do it. When the time is right to buy, it becomes even easier for you to convince a prospect to become a customer, because you've delivered all the right information, at the right time, and now know exactly what your customer needs to seal the deal.