Account management on the telephone is becoming increasingly important. Selling costs are going up and in many markets there are fewer customers. Consequently it is important to focus your time on where you are likely to get the best return.

Telephone account management - growing business area

As one of our latest batch of audio products, we have a CD that guides you through all the things you need to know to add more customers and clients and equally importantly – keep the ones you’ve currently got.  How often do sales business models focus and reward exclusively new business accounts. You can find the audio training CD buy following this link http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=32

It guides you through understanding what the function of account management is, how to do the key parts of the job effectively, and how you are the single biggest factor in determining outcomes !

Interestingly, 5 out of the last 7 people who have bought this audio CD, also bought the audio CD on time management too. Running your customer portfolio is partly about being well organised yourself of course too. Find more details here http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=24 All CDs are currently £34.99 + VAT and payment is easy through PayPal. You can use your credit card too.

 Training audio CDs for United States despatch.

Unsurprisingly most of our enquiries, orders and websites come from the English speaking world. The United States is our second biggest market. As a result and in order to make it easier for our American customers to work out the prices in dollars you will see we’ve added a click through currency converter against each of the products here.

Training CDs - ready to ship to United States

So if you’re in California,Wisconsin, New York state, Florida, Ohio, Washington, Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, or Canada or any of the 50 U.S. states and you’re after some best practice advice from the U.K. on customer service, telesales or general telephone communication skills, try us out. A few clicks and the products are on their way to you.

Developing in-house training material for customer service and telesales is important for you and your company if you still have restricted training budgets at the moment. The temptation is to cut costs and look for increasing ways of being self-sufficient.

You recognise that training is important – perhaps MORE important than it’s ever been, but you’ve not got money to throw at it. Perhaps you’re reading this looking for some new ideas and new material.

It is so important.

Many organisations who have telesales or telemarketing teams will have a good idea about what results they produce each. This may be appointments or sales etc. However do you also record the amount of activity that produces those results ? By this I mean the amount of calls, the amount of times they get through to the right person (i.e. the decision-maker) and what proportion of those ’selling opportunities’ they turn into the desired outcome.

Without understanding this profile how can you identify how they can most easily improve ? Where the weakest link in their personal chain is ? How can you support and motivate them ?

Furthermore they need to be recording these results for you themselves so that there is a degree of personal ownership. The audio CD Measure, Monitor, Motivate in the phone team management section of the website covers this subject. Click on this link to get there directly http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=26 Some organisations will record activity remotely and electronically and will perhaps feed it back to the team on a monthly basis. But if the team hasn’t been recording the results themselves and haven’t got an idea about what results they are generating, they can’t do much to influence it can they ?

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How easy is it to give up on a business account because you feel you’re getting nowhere ? Sometimes you feel it is impossible to build rapport with the key decision-maker.

Sometimes even sales people following up a quotation or proposal will try the contact once, but then give up if they don’t get through.

If you’ve decided an account is worth pursuing because it meets the necessary criteria, then it is worth pursuing! This means a structured, thought through communication plan. And no this doesn’t mean you need to contact them every day or every week – it has to be what is approriate. Contact them too much and they’ll start to get irritated. So that is clearly counterproductive.

Instead try to build up knowledge about all accounts you’re working with so that you understand what they do, how they do it and why they do it. There will be an audio CD available in early 2009 on the subject of account management. The working title is ‘highly effective account management (how to get more from your customer base)’ and you will be able to find it in the telesales skills section, follow the link http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_list.asp?Section=TELESALES%20SKILLS 

If somebody leaves (whether good news or bad news for you personally) it changes everything ! So it is vitally important to build good relationships with as many interested parties as you can at all times

Whenever a customer or prospect turns down your offer – always remember to ask why. This will display self-confidence and will tell you many important things.

Understanding what motivates customers to make certain choices is really important. They’ll respect you for the fact that you’re not taking the easy option and turning on your heel. 

You must then start the process of building the relationship for the next time – the next order. There are 3 audio CDs available on the sales process. Simply follow this link to find out more http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=16

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The Associated Learning Systems site is about promoting ways of learning that can be done remotely, privately and with limited funds. I think books fall into this category perfectly. For just a few pounds you can tap into some fantastic bits of wisdom written by some very entertaining people.

One of the best books I’ve read over the last couple of years that has an impact on selling is a book called Influence : Science and Practice written by an American psychologist Robert Cialdini. He supports all the theories he puts down on the page with some well documented experiments.

If you’re involved in selling I strongly recommend it. You can go straight to it on Amazon by following this link http://www.amazon.co.uk/Influence-Practice-Robert-B-Cialdini/dp/0321011473/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227621443&sr=1-5. It gives an insight into how people behave and how you can persuade them of things. How much use could that be ?! For instance he shows that if you ask for a commitment from someone, when you’ve already given them something previously – no strings attached, they will more readily agree. They are naturally seeking to redress the balance, they feel they owe you one. This is known as the law of reciprocity.

Similarly if you advise a customer not to go for the most expensive option (thereby proving your credentials as an honest broker) they are much more likely to take your advice in the future – no questions asked.

Think how these 2 devices could help you in your selling !   

Your vocal tone on the phone gives away far more about you than you will ever realise. Of course it is all the other person has to go on. They will build up a mental picture of you by your voice and of course what you say. This extends to all manner of other things. They’ll get an idea about how tall you are, the colour of your hair, what your body shape is like, how old you are, even how attractive you are ! All from your voice !

There will be a newly issued audio CD early next year about the use of Expression, Energy and Emphasis. This has proved challenging to develop as most of the work To Market does on customer service and telesales training on this topic has to be carried out in a very interactive way. It also makes it stick ! Follow the link to http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_list.asp?Section=TELEPHONE%20COMMUNICATION%20SKILLS

Most of you who have been through this section of the course will remember the grey person, the red person plus of course pink & fluffy and the brown man ! So make sure that you are totally focused when you’re on the phone to your customers and prospects on what is going on in your head. If you’re having a bad day, or you are preoccupied with things outside of work, chances are this emotional leakage will be picked up by the stranger at the end of the line.

As you know if you make outbound calls as a part of your job role, the people you contact are likely to be receiving many calls each day, all trying to interest them in a range of products or services.

So, your opening has to be well structured, and well delivered. I believe that your opening should consist of 3 things. You start with your name, the name of your company and the reason for the call. This will all take around 8 seconds. This is a good formula as it ensures you know what you’re talking about ! And of course it lets the other person know what the call is about. You will then get more from the other person – if they understand your motive for calling.

These calls you receive occasionally that start with the line “I’m not trying to sell you anything” are the opposite of this. They’re just rubbish because you know they ARE trying to sell you something !

So be professional, honest and upfront, and then the next thing you do is ask them a question. This is a good device as it brings them into the conversation. They will appreciate this. We cover this during our training on the directing the conversation module. We have also now got an audio learning CD that covers this easy to use 2 stage technique, called “How to get to where you want in communication.” Follow the link to http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=11