When you’re looking at the benefits of sales enablement software for your organization, you’ll make decisions based on what it can do. Maybe you’re looking for a way to increase the number of sales you make, maybe you’ll want to make work easier for your sales and onboarding teams.
Or maybe you’ll have a question that looks beyond the end of a traditional sales funnel.
A question like “how can I use this to retain more customers?”
It’s a good question to ask. And one where getting a strong answer can have a real, measurable impact. Because it costs less to retain a customer than to win one from scratch, the more customers you retain, the lower your sales costs, and the higher your returns.
How can you retain more customers?
Customers stay with a company for predictable, repeatable reasons:
- They like the products and services you’ve sold them in the past
- They were engaged by the sales process
- They felt supported and connected once the sale had been completed
It’s highly unlikely that any sales enablement software will be able to improve the quality of the products you offer, so the effects it can have on retention should focus on the other two reasons.
If sales enablement software can create an engaging, simple customer experience during the sales process, it’ll have an effect on retention.
And if that customer experience extends beyond the point of the sale, it’ll continue to have an even larger effect.
Can the right software really improve customer experience?
The answer here is yes. As we’ve identified, there are two key areas that the right software can have a genuine, measurable impact on retention.
Customer experience pre-sale
and
Customer experience post-sale
Sales enablement software, and the sales processes your business follows, are typically designed to address the first area. The customer’s experience up until the point a deal is done.
The right software will improve your potential customer’s experience by making sure they’re contacted in the right ways, with the right content and information, at the right time. It will ease them through the sales process with minimum hassle.
This in turn leaves the new customer feeling engaged, supported and valued, forming a connection between them and you, and increasing the likelihood that they’ll return to your company in future.
But then once the deal is done, with many sales enablement systems, all of this contact, this engagement, it just…
Stops.
Moving from sales enablement to revenue enablement
Ignoring the post-sales journey is one of the most common mistakes businesses make. And one that has a significant negative impact on retention.
“Too many organizations neglect what comes after that conversion stage. A closed deal indicates that it’s done and dusted, no more effort required for sales or marketing, for the bottom line…But that simply isn’t the case.”
Olafur Thorkelsson – CEO, Data Dwell
If your sales enablement process stops engaging customers once they become customers, it will impact retention. That feeling of being left to fend for themselves once money has changed hands won’t encourage customers to return, no matter how positive their experience was up until that point.
Continuing the relationship, the conversations, with a seamless onboarding process keeps customers engaged and increases their satisfaction. By moving from a sales enablement process to one built around revenue enablement, you’ll provide the training content, the instructions, and the use cases that add value to your customer’s purchase.
They’ll feel supported, connected to your company.
The benefits of revenue enablement software on retention
Extending that communication and support beyond the sale, and moving to a revenue enablement mindset improves the customer experience.
Revenue enablement improves retention by:
- Putting the customer at the heart of the process, even after the deal is done
- Understanding that interaction with customers doesn’t stop once a sale is complete, and engaging with them continually
- Giving your departments the software, tools and trainings to meet the customer’s needs at every touchpoint
- Focusing on all types of revenue, not just turning new prospects into sales
- Promoting recommendations, referrals and retention to create more long-term value
Customers expect a seamless customer experience. They want their needs met at every touchpoint.
Deliver that experience, with software like Data Dwell, and you’ll retain them for years to come.
Don’t, and they’ll go elsewhere.
