Leave No Sale Behind: Supercharge Growth By Integrating Sales With Service

Hacksaw Ridge tells the true story of Desmond Doss who served as a combat medic in World War II at the Battle of Okinawa. He was the first and only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor for actions above and beyond the call of duty during World War II. He brought belief, integrity, courage, and heroism together to deliver amazing results in saving lives as he charged into the hell of battle without a weapon.

 

Consistent with the US military code, he didn't want to leave anyone behind.

In business, customers seek one primary thing from salespeople: a solution to a problem or a challenge from someone who truly understands them. Every business should commit to not leaving any customer behind and therefore to empowering everyone in their team, from every facet of the business, to heroically deliver what customers expect and need... exceptional personal service.

The age of the empowered customer has kicked down those old cubicle walls that previously separated sales and service teams. Customers now expect personalized and unified information from the first person who answers their call, opens their email or reads their social message and it doesn’t matter to them which department they sit in. 

If a business can’t provide this experience, all it takes is a quick browse online for an eager competitor to pounce. It’s not only tech-savvy millennials who are voting with their feet -70% of consumers and 82% of business buyers surveyed in the recent State of Sales Report from Salesforce agreed that technology has made it easier than ever to switch suppliers or service providers.

So, is it as simple as rounding up your sales and service teams and throwing them in a room together? 

If only it were that easy.

Map the customer journey 

You would be surprised at the number of businesses, large and small, that have no idea what their individual customer’s journey looks like in real life. This is a critical first step in aligning your teams. 

Firstly, challenge each team member to play the role of a customer in your business. They need to see through the customer's eyes and walk in their shoes. During this exercise, they must process and predict every touch point, decision, barrier, question and pain point. Chances are, the sales and service employees will identify things they could do differently or how they could improve the way they work together to ensure that the customer can seamlessly purchase your product or service and become an advocate in the market.

"Place an empty chair in every meeting to represent the customer. They are the most important person there so consider them as you discuss strategy, manage issues and make decisions." [paraphrase] Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder and CEO

Break down barriers

As I said earlier, if you have partitions in your office, pull them down. Collaboration and communication between sales and service people are paramount to providing the ultimate customer experience (CX). Recent Accenture research revealed that legacy business structures and siloed management practices are putting constraints on employees. In fact, 73% of executives surveyed in the Technology Vision 2017 report said that corporate bureaucracies are stifling innovation and productivity.

The only difference between sales and service roles in my view is when they’re in front of the customer: sales do the deal and set expectations, and service seeks to meet or exceed those expectations after they’ve signed the dotted line. 

It’s important to realize that one couldn't survive without the other, so it's up to business leaders to encourage a culture of sharing data, collaborating, integrating and talking to each other. The result: you have fewer silos, more internal touch points, better lines of communication, and better processes, which all lead to better customer experiences. 

Customers want a personal consultant, not a sales or service rep

Customers today expect a highly personalized online shopping experience, so why wouldn't they expect the same in a store, office or showroom? 

By connecting the two customer-facing departments and empowering them with a complete 360-degree view of the customer, they can enhance the customer experience, drive growth, loyalty, and advocacy. We all know what it’s like to be greeted by name at your local restaurant, this should be the case in any business regardless of who they speak to or how they engage at any given moment.

For instance, real estate website, Domain, integrated their Homepass app with their CRM to replace the old pen and paper open home check-in process with a seamless mobile experience. Each customer’s buying journey was recorded, analyzed and integrated to the agent’s CRM. The technology ensured real estate salespeople and the service call centers had the right data and information to have personalized conversations with the right customer at the right time. 

Sell smarter, not harder

I hate to hark on about the end of the old sales or service model, but change is happening right now. By 2020, 51% of consumers and 75% of business buyers expect companies to anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions before customer contact. 

This can only be achieved if:

• Your business and employees know their customer journeys like clockwork.
  
• Leaders encourage and set an example for a culture of collaboration and data sharing. Leadership is behavior, not posters or slogans.
  
• Barriers between customer facing roles are abolished
  
• Salespeople sell smarter, not harder. This means leveraging the power of technology to make sense of masses of disparate sales and service data we have at our fingertips to provide meaningful insights, predictions, and actions.
   

     

Author Bio: Tony Hughes is a bestselling author, award-winning blogger and the most read LinkedIn Author globally on the topic of B2B sales leadership. Tony’s first book is a business bestseller with his second book, COMBO Prospecting, is available on Amazon here. He can be found on LinkedIn and at TonyHughes.com.au and RSVPselling.com

• Topic Participants

• Vinit Tibrewal

  

• Sticky Posts

• As Sales Person, Here are my New Year Resolutions. What are Yours?

  Being a salesperson, I keep learning from my mistakes and have noted a few changes that I need to make in my approach. I take these resolutions going into 2021, hoping to keep it going for as long as possible :) 1. I will not say "Yes, our product has

• Once Upon a Sales Meeting!

  It was an awkward silence in the meeting room "Uproar." John Kowalski, the new sales manager, was not happy with the team's performance. After scribbling something in the notepad, he decided to break the silence, John: I cannot believe you guys have been working like this. No reports, delusional forecasting, random targets, and no eye on the ball. Kevin: We followed Richard's orders. John: Well, Richard is not here anymore, is he? John walked up to the whiteboard, and wrote in big bold letters: "TARGET

• Recent Topics

• How can I insert and update field data of a sub-form without adding data into the main form’s mandatory fields.

  1. I have a main form that contains a sub-form. I need to update the data of the sub-form from a function, but I am unable to do so. How can I achieve this in Zoho Creator? 2. How can I insert data into a sub-form without inserting data into the mandatory

• How to autorespond for inactive users?

  Hi, we have a few inactive users that we would like to set up an autorespond to the sender telling that the email addresses are no longer active. How can we do that?

• Cannot view or interact with polls on IOS

  When testing with Android the user will receive a pop up message when a poll is started and be able to access polls via the more menu. This is not the case when using IOS phones, there seems to be no way to view or interact at all.

• Calendar view not working in Zoho Projects

  Hello Zoho team! Since this morning, clicking on the "Calendar" link in the Projects Menu doesn't do anything. It seems to refresh the page, but it doesn't open the calendar view for tasks. It affects every user in my company. Closing and opening the

• Multi Select Filter off comma separated values

  Hey friends! I have a query table for a couple of dashboards/ charts. In one of the dashboards, I'm trying to create a multi select filter for the service that is being sold. The way we look at services is by a CRM field titled, "Mail Lead Entities,"

• Dashboard filter applied to all reports but not visible on report

  Hi, I have two reports which shows sales transactions data - one is graph and the other a pivot table. Both reports use the same base table. There are no filters on the reports so it shows all transactions for the last 6 months. I want to create a dashboard that includes the graph and the pivot table report. However, I want the dashboard to have a fixed date filter that only shows the last 30 days of data i.e. filtering the underlying graph and pivot table to show the last 30 days of order data.

• Equipment Scheduling for Efficient Field Service Operations

  Zoho FSM helps you nail the critical aspect of field service management, i.e., scheduling the right technicians to the service appointments. Ensuring that technicians have access to the right tools and machinery for their job is also of paramount importance.

• Chat issues

  I am having a couple problems with the zoho chat feature. When I use Chat from the App bar, not everyone is getting messages (these are to different accounts, Yahoo & Gmail). I did finally get the Users to show up correctly. However, when in an active chat with someone, I only get one sound notification. No other notifications, pop up or otherwise, come through to alert if another message was sent. Also, the bottom Chat bar that shows Active chats while I am in email does not show any online contacts

• Problem with multiple pages record template

  Hi, I have a record template with multiple pages. When I print, it has gaps between pages. How can i fix it?

• Field Update: can't find a custom multi-line text field in the options list

  I want to update a custom text field (large size multi-line: 32000 characters) that I have added in the Accounts module using this functionality https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/automate-business-processes/actions/articles/field-updates , but I

• Ask the experts - A live Q & A discussion on Zoho Recruit

  We are delighted to come back with another edition of Ask the Experts community series. This edition, we'll be focusing on everything about Zoho Recruit. The topics will focus on the features that are used/asked by the majority of users and also based

• Zoho One Datensicherung möglich

  Gibt es eine Zoho One Datensicherung über alle Apps mit eindeutigen Datensatz-Id´s eines Kontaktes in allen Apps und mit allen Bildern (insbesondere Artikel-Bilder)? Wir haben festgestellt, dass die Zoho Books Datensicherung keine Bilder sichert. Und

• Note not being pulled for other modules in email template

  Hi there, Currently i am creating an email template that is able to pull the data from notes field in estimate module and email it to procurement team where they will be able to receive the email with the contents of the note, i am unable to replicate

• Pop Up

  Hello, I want to automatically display the information of the attached data in the product module in the related list section of my data in the lead module when the current time matches the "Call Time" field of my data in the leads module. How can I achieve

• New feature alert: Witness signing is now available in Zoho Sign

  Hello! Getting documents signed with confidence in Zoho Sign just got a major boost! We're delighted to introduce witness signing, where other individuals or entities can be designated as witnesses to observe the signing process and add their signatures

• How to report and analyze a multi-select field entries distinctly ?

  As many of CRM users I have many multi-select fields that allows me to choose more than one chose in one cell for a specific filed Like: Field A - A;BC - A;C -B;C But when reporting the field it will handle each cell as a "String" not multiple entries

• Get the capability to convert documents to different formats

  Hello users, In this article, we'll be exploring the Conversion API in Zoho Office Integrator to understand how it can be used to convert documents to different formats right from your web app. Before we get to the details of the Conversion API, here's

• Issues with certain CRM, Desk & webhook blocks in Guided Conversations

  Good day I have been attempting to add a block on our guided conversations, which give our customers relavent information based on their queries. The issue is that when I attempt to use a block that fetches data I get the following error popup: Cannot

• Use Zoho Creator as a source for merge templates in Zoho Writer

  Hello all! We're excited to share that we've enhanced Zoho Creator's integration with Zoho Writer to make this combination even more powerful. You can now use Zoho Creator as a data source for mail merge templates in Zoho Writer. Making more data from

• Analytics Module: Can you move items from one dashboard to another?

  Is there a way to move items from one dashboard to another? I want to rearrange my dashboard now that I know what i'm doing but i don't want to remake my various widgets? Edit: Hey Zoho, This would be a good feature: to be able to move/copy widgets to

• Can't delete/hide related lists

  Hi, Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't seem to find where I delete or hide related lists in a module. When I go to a record and click the little arrow on the right next to the related list, I only get the option to select what fields in that list

• Make Widgets Clickable or Copiable

  Hi, I created a KPI Widget in Zoho Analytics whose content I would like the users that see my dashboard could copy or click and be redirected elsewhere. Yes, I'm aware I can create a Text Box for that instead of a Widget, but the problem is that the link

• Custom API - Need to create a string return value, not only MAP

  @Support: When creating a Custom API it only allows a return from a function of MAP type. The service I'm using requires a string return, how can this be achieved?

• Automate data upload process like reports

  I'll start with the end in mind.  I want to basically keep certain creator tables updated with data that are in a sql database/tables in our office (employees, active jobs, employee positions) so I can reference that data and not have to duplicate it by hand every time someone adds a new job or employee in the office desktop software.  Here are some thoughts I had about how to do this, but am unsure as to whether any of them are actually possible and how to go about it from there: Is there any way

• Address Autofill

  Hi I'm having issues with the address autofill tutorial (https://zurl.co/rGXQ). I have followed each step in the tutorial, but when i paste the code into a workflow/function, i'm getting the following error code: Improper code format Correct format :

• Sync custom module ID to Lead module

  Hello, I am trying to sync Contract ID (custom module) from Deal module. I have an existing function that whenever a contract is created, it will automatically creating deals based on the frequency of the contract. Now i am having problem to show the

• In Kiosk, please support "File upload field" in the "Field Update" action

  Hello. Supporting "File upload field" in the "Field Update" actions would be a great addition to Kiosk Studio. I would appreciate it if you could evaluate it. Saludos,

• can I link a contacts to multiple accounts

  can I link a contacts to multiple accounts

• Change Last Name to not required in Leads

  I would like to upload 500 target companies as leads but I don't yet have contact people for them. Can you enable the option for me to turn this requirement off to need a Second Name? Moderation update (10-Jun-23): As we explore potential solutions for

• For security reasons your account has been blocked as you have exceeded the maximum number of requests per minute that can originate from one account.

  Hello Zoho Even if we open 10-15 windows in still we are getting our accounts locked with error " For security reasons your account has been blocked as you have exceeded the maximum number of requests per minute that can originate from one account. "

• Zoho Creator - Zoho Analytics

  I am facing an issue in Zoho Analytics where I am still seeing deleted data from the Zoho Creator form I created. Could you please look into this and let me know what needs to be done?

• The Social Wall: November 2024

  Hey everyone, As we move into December, we're excited to share all the updates that went live in Social during November. View, monitor, and respond to your WhatsApp and Telegram messages from Inbox Take your communication a step further by integrating

• Launching CPQ for Zoho CRM! An in-built solution for bespoke quote management

  Hello everyone, We are thrilled to announce the public release of CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) for Zoho CRM, which is a fundamental block in sales management. NOTE: CPQ was a public early access feature from March 2023 — January 2024. Since February

• Add an action to set agent as a member of a team in zoho desk

  Hi, Please add an action to zoho flow to set agent as a member of a team in zoho desk (add to a team or remove from a team). Regards, Ram

• Power of Automation :: Automatically set the dependency between Parent task and the respective sub tasks

  A custom function is a software code that can be used to automate a process and this allows you to automate a notification, call a webhook, or perform logic immediately after a workflow rule is triggered. This feature helps to automate complex tasks and

• Registration in community

  Namaste I am from Shimla, But there is no option selection of shimla.

• Spell Check default language

  Hello All, Is it possible to set the Spell Check default language? I can't find it in the settings. Thanks a lot! Levente

• Function #4: Schedule Customer Statements

  Regularly sending statements to customers is an imperative part of many business processes as it helps foster strong customer relationships and provides timely guidance on payments. While you can generate the statement of accounts and have it sent over

• Music files on Zoho Docs

  1) Uploaded a ma3 music file from Itunes.  When I click on the link, i go to the page and see a music player but it doesn't play.  Clicking on the play arrow does nothing.  How to fix???? 2) Also, when i put up a .zip file  and goto the page, anyone download it.  That's fine. But with a music file, all I get is that non functional player with no way to simply download the song. Do I have to zip every song so it can be downloaded?

• 5名限定 課題解決型ワークショップイベント Zoho ワークアウト開催のお知らせ （12/19）

  ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。Zoho ユーザーコミュニティチームの藤澤です。 12月開催のZoho ワークアウトについてお知らせします。 参加登録はこちら： https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqdOCrrDMtGdL3w__UraUPaZxJpeS_wcyt ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Zoho ワークアウトとは？ Zoho ユーザー同士で交流しながら、サービスに関する疑問や不明点の解消を目的とした「Zoho ワークアウト」を開催します。

• Next Page