Posed by guest blogger, James Taylor)
CRM Daily had an interesting piece on the power of scripting sales. The article's main focus was on how to disqualify bad prospects quickly but it made me think about the power of Enterprise Decision Management or EDM to improve sales scripts. Let's take some of the points in the article. First, she discusses three keys to a sales call from which I have extracted some key points:
trust, respect, brand recognition, quality, and price
Clearly these 5 points are important to closing a sale. Effective use of EDM can help with these points. Rules-driven scripts can take account of known preferences and restrictions, to ensure that the sales person does not step over lines the prospect laid down in their preferences. Companies can use adaptive control, a key element of EDM, to see what phrase(s) bring out the best brand recognition in prospects. Testing different ways of naming the company or product to see which one resonates can make the overall process more effective. EDM cannot, at this point, make a product better but predictive analytics might help identify which elements of the product will make it seem high quality to this particular customer. Lastly we can use EDM to optimize the price for this customer.
Rapport is about commonality. Rapport-builders look for attributes or experiences they share with prospective clients
So can EDM help generate a script that will build rapport? Perhaps, if you have information about the customer and their prior experiences that can be used to generate an effective script. You could ask if a prior problem has been resolved, ask how they like something they purchased recently etc. This data exists and using it will make your sales person seem like they cared enough about the customer to check.
Then explain what you are selling. Continue with two compelling features of what it is you are selling/offering -- this is your offer
But which features or benefits? Again, predictive analytics might help you find the features that are most compelling to this particular customer so that they can be used in the script.
Your script should be 45 words at most
EDM can make sure they are the right 45 words. Here are some other posts you might enjoy:
- Is your system smart enough to make your customers feel good?
- Data Mining, Predictive Analytics and Markets of 1
- Using EDM to deliver Relationship-Based Pricing
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