The Sales Process

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The Sales Process

The sales process is the chain of events (from purchase to later customer service) where a business sells to a customer. There are several important aspects to the sales process and to making sure that customers have a good experience:

Speed and efficiency of service

A business normally wants to make sure that customers are served quickly to improve their customer experience.
Adding self-checkout machines in supermarkets has reduced waiting times to pay for shopping.
- Amazon has even built a supermarket in Seattle where you don’t have to queue to pay at all and customers are charged automatically.

Good customer engagement

Good customer engagement simply means creating a positive experience for the customer in the sale and post-sale process.
Employees who are polite, friendly and helpful can create a positive customer experience.
- At a start-up business called HotelTonight, most messages from customers are answered within 10 minutes. This can help to create a positive customer experience.

Product knowledge

Being able to answer a customer’s question is often very helpful and helps to create a positive customer experience.
- This is particularly important for products that require a lot of technical knowledge (like the mortgages which can be sold by banks like Barclays or Lloyds).

Post sales service

Post sales service is any service that is provided to a customer after they have made a purchase. Post sales service can make sure the customer has a positive experience with the product and can make them more likely to purchase from the business again.
Help lines are another example of post sales service. If a user has any issues with the product, being able to easily get help in fixing it helps maintain high customer satisfaction.

Customer Service

There are benefits of having good customer service within a business and costs caused by having bad customer service.

Benefits of good customer service

Good customer service means that customers are more likely to be satisfied with the product. This can help improve sales for the firm in two ways.
- Customer loyalty – when a customer is satisfied with a product they are much more likely to buy it again.
- Increased spend – satisfied customers are more likely to spend more money on the product they bought. For example, if a customer is satisfied with the Apple iPhone they have purchased before, they may buy Apple's MacBooks.

Dangers of poor customer service

Dissatisfied customers are less likely to buy a business’ products again.
Customers that are dissatisfied with a firm’s customer service often tell their friends and family about the bad experience. One bad experience can spread and many customers may not buy from this business. This may reduce revenues.

Technology and Customer Service

Technology has changed the way that firms can interact with their customers. It has also changed the customer experience by changing how people do their shopping.

Websites and e-commerce

A business’ website must be as easy to use as possible and should offer the customer as much help as possible throughout the sales and post sales process.
- Webchat is a growing medium that allows customers to interact with a business customer service operator without calling or visiting a store. Severn Trent Water is a utility company that uses webchat.
- FAQs and Chatbots are automated services that many companies now use to communicate with customers.