PSISeptember2018

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advancing. Are your customers aware of these
developments and the benefits of upgrading
their existing systems?
Put a systematic method into place for cross
selling your other products and services to your
existing customers. You may be surprised by
how many of your customers are not aware of
the full breadth of your product and service
range.
6. Ask for referrals
Your clients are a wonderful potential source of
referrals. If your top 20% customers
recommended you and you brought in one new
customer from each of those existing customers,
this would have a dramatic impact on your sales.
Create a strong incentive for your customers to
give you referrals. That could be a financial
reward or a gift – whatever is most meaningful
to those who recommend you. Communicate
this request to those customers through the
media they most favour (email, letter,
telephone, face to face)
7. Ask for customer feedback
Feedback is a gift. It lets you know how your
business is doing and what you could do better.
Choose your questions carefully so they inform
your actions going forward. Example: “What is
currently missing from our range that you that
you would like us to offer?”
The answers you receive may surprise you.
Good! Those answers represent ways to grow
your business and develop your customer
relationships.
“Your clients are a wonderful
potential source of referrals. If your
top 20% customers recommended
you and you brought in one new
customer from each of those
existing customers, this would have
a dramatic impact on your sales”
8. Develop your key accounts
Identify the key accounts that you and your
sales team should proactively contact. Agree a
strategy for understanding their priorities and
identifying opportunities for additional sales.
Make a plan for meeting with those customers
face to face to make the following enquiries:
• How can we improve our service to you?
• How much of your total spend on this
category of purchases do we represent?
• What do you need that we can help you with?
• What else are you buying that is related to
the products and services we provide for
you?
• What other locations are you operating from?
• Who could you refer us to?
9. Make occasional irresistible
offers
Often the best approach is a simple, short
message – a one-page letter or brief email.
Make it an offer that’s only for your customers,
tailored as much as possible for each customers
uniquely, as a reward for their loyalty.
10. Make your website a
magnet
Don’t forget the value of your website to
customers as well to prospects. You need fresh,
interesting and engaging content that informs,
educates and entices customers to come back.
Choose one of these tips to implement in the
next month, and then select another the
following month and so on, until you have
tested all or most of these strategies to grow
your sales to customers. You should see your
sales to customers increase.
Jim Rathbone is the Managing Director
of Rathbone Results.
Contact him at jim@rathboneresults.com
44
www.psimagazine.co.uk