Account Servicing and Why It Can Put You Over The Top

If you've spent a lot of time building an account list that you can successfully sell to, now what do you do? Account Servicing. Once you've taken the time to build a really nice customer account list from your companies customer file that has been sorted by sales history which includes the last date of sale, you'll want to know a little more about these accounts so you can begin the account servicing process. You will perform your due-diligence to find out as much information about each company on your list as possible. It's good to work a list of 25 accounts at a time. This will be called your book of business. When finding information on these accounts you will ask the five W's about each account. " WHO owns this account" WHAT does this account mean to your company" WHERE is this account located" WHEN was this account established" WHY hasn't this account purchased anything substantial in the last 6 months? Now that you have the Who, What, Where, When and Why of it, and you feel you know enough about each account, you can start account servicing and your sales campaign. Your sales campaign will consists of calls, emails, letters and a personal meeting. You will always want to start with calls. When account servicing you'll want to start off with a phone call to introduce yourself and let the customer know that their account is under your care. Let them know, from this day forward you will be responsible for that customer's perception of the company you represent, the contracts you procure, and setting any appointments in the future you both agree on. You will do whatever it takes to maintain an open and transparent relationship with this account. This doesn't mean call them once and then send a bunch of letters and emails from that day forward. If you are not on the phone with this customer everyday through normal work conditions, make a point to follow up at least twice a week by phone to let the customer know they are important to you and if they need any help you are a phone call, text, tweet or email away.Some associates only call their accounts when times are slow. This is not acceptable. I don't want any salesmen calling me when business is slow if they don't call when it's busy, because it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out why they're calling. You must make every effort, even if you are buried over your head in work, to make account servicing your daily task. And that means all your accounts. This makes the customer feel important and by gosh they are. When you practice this method, you will find that even if a customer can find a product or service that you provide somewhere else that is slightly less expensive, you will end up getting the sale. Why? Because they know you will go the extra mile for them when times are busy or extremely slow. This is important because one month you may need to meet your sales quota, and a single phone call to one of your accounts can produce a sale that will put you over the top. Now, the next item of concern will be emails and letters. Try keeping these together because you will basically use some of the same wordage for each. These will be used for follow up after your initial call. You will send a thank you email to follow up on that call along with a thank you letter stating the results of the phone call and hopefully setting up a future time you can talk about account needs. Make sure you send letters addressed to the contact person you spoke with. Do not send a generic addressed letter to a company without a contact name, it will end up in the shredder. Letters are important because this is a document of greeting, agreement, and possibly furthering your relationship with this account. Next, wait about 4 days from the first contact (set this up on the initial contact; always set a time and date for the next date of contact) unless told otherwise by your account. On the 4th day you will contact your account and ask if they had received your letter (making sure it's not package filler) and if you can communicate in other ways. This is powerful, you can use all the communication tools at your disposal, twitter, text, email, video conference or whatever they need just get this established. If you say you'll Tweet, Tweet!  You need to commit and stay with it. These accounts will want to contact you and will not want to wait. Make yourself available and stand by it.After building a little rapport, at this point you will set up a meeting appointment or just a good time to visit. You could offer to do lunch, bring something for the crew or drop off some tickets to the hottest game in town. You'll need to make that first person to person contact. This is powerful and important. You'll want to talk about accountneeds and expectations, once this is done and you and your account are feeling comfortable, ask if there is anything you can do for them today. Get this out there because the bottom line is productivity. You need to make these accounts produce something after you've established yourself. After all, you are in business to help your accounts make good buying decisions which in turn creates profit and better customer relations. Now you're off and running. You made contact, you've followed up and you've had your next meeting. If you have a good sales ability you've probably sold something as well. Now that all of this has been done, rinse and repeat for all the other accounts on the list. Account servicing is not a new concept and in fact dates back hundreds of years, but if used effectively your customers will make you one of the top sales figures in your company.