Why is building a relationship important for a salesperson? What can an organization and its salespeople do to build relationships with customers?

Why is building a relationship important for a salesperson? What can an organization and its salespeople do to build relationships with customers?

The objective of salespeople is to promote sales and increase company profit. The party that buys their products or services is called a customer. Therefore, it stands to reason that salespeople must build up outstanding relationships with their customers. A successful sale is only the beginning of a relationship with the customer which can be nurtured to keep the customer for life (Bäckström 2008, 20-27).

Building up customer relationship is critical in developing a continuing relationship that rewards salespeople with repeat business. One-time sales are great but it is the repeat sale that takes salespeople from average to outstanding. Building good customer relationships is how salespeople get those repeat sales, increase company profit, and maintain a valuable list (Litvan 1996, 36).

Additionally, by building a strong customer’s relationship, buyer will not only buy repeatedly from salespeople, but will also bring in new customers for salespeople by way of positive word of mouth or by being a great brand ambassador for the company (Athiyaman 2001, 38-45).

Furthermore, another very important reason for building outstanding customer relations is that salespeople can effectively retain the business of their customers, possibly even becoming the sole provider of a product or service (Williams 1998, 271-287). Numerous studies have shown that it is more profitable for salespeople to retain a customer than to find a new one. Therefore, build up a strong customer relationship is important to salespeople.

There are a few ways for company and salespeople to build a strong relationship with their customers as doing so will not only maintain their client base but possibly expand it as well through recommendations.

Firstly, company should concentrate on providing quality products to maintaining a good relationship with its customers. A quality product is the first thing the customer wants. Typically, customer will buy repeatedly from company if it offers high quality products. Also, the quality provided by company builds trust, which is very essential for any relationship (Tomaz and Barbara 2010, 1321).

In addition, company can build a strong relationship with is customers is to offer free incentives from time to time, such as discounts, extended warranties, and free support. Doing so will show customers that the company acknowledge their constant patronage and appreciate them choosing the company over others (Sophie 1997, 47-52). Thus, offer incentives can be a good strategy for company to build relationship with its customers.

Furthermore, salespeople needs to always offering top services to its customers. Salespeople should provide excellent customer support services that will bring customer back to buy from it repeatedly. Their communication with their customers should be effective (Carmel and Scott 2007, 404-427). This is one deciding factor which decides whether the customer will do business with you again or not.

Finally, salespeople require following-up their customer regularly. It is important for salespeople to make sure that customer got what was expected from the products or services they received. Following-up shows that salespeople value their relationship with their customers. This could easily be done in a few hours after the purchase via email. Also, it enables salespeople to introduce their new products to others who may benefit from them (Cindy and Martin 2001, 385-399).

Overall, building a good customer relationship is important in the success of a salesperson. Also, it is the best ways to run a good business as well as keep the clients which it currently has. Hence, company and salespeople require implementing effective strategies to build up a strong positive customer relationship.