Obtaining high-quality leads can be a challenge when millions of other businesses are competing for the attention of your prospects. All of the progress you’ve made so far can feel like wasted effort. If you’re a small business with a stagnant profit margin, struggling to grow within your sector, how can you be sure where to invest in your company?

Business growth relies heavily on the success of customers and the positive associations that are generated as a result. While you may already be investing in your customers’ buying experiences by providing support throughout the sales process, all the way up until the final purchase, it’s likely that you’re overlooking the importance of offering post-sale support. It’s no myth that customer service underpins all business-to-business connections and can improve the strength of these relationships; a positive experience can even be the deciding factor of a repeat purchase. By limiting your customer interactions to the buying experience alone, you’re restricting the capacity for success to the very brief and untailored customer service that you offer during this process. This common business mistake means you’re stifled by the pool of competitors that offer further support and guidance, even after the sale is complete. 

According to a survey on the ‘Discovery of SMEs in the United Kingdom’ (Statista), 75% of customers discover SMEs via word of mouth. Evidently, new customer acquisition owes largely to the recommendations of their existing, loyal customers who have had favourable experiences with the business. Having a concrete customer success or account management strategy in place is a method of solidifying the confidence your customers have in your products and might even be the missing piece of the corporate puzzle that you’ve been searching for. 

Nourish Relationships

During your sales process, you’ll have likely already forged a foundation of trust with your customer through some face-to-face or virtual interactions. While sales and marketing generally form the link between prospect and success, account management plays an auxiliary (but equally as important) role in sustaining and advancing the relationships that have formerly been established. 

Making Account Managers accessible to loyal buyers will enable you to provide solutions at every turn. Investing in the success of your customers will prompt an association between the help services you offer and the amplification of your customers’ success, resulting in a positive affinity between their continued growth and your company name.

Maintain Regular Contact

The interactions you have with your customers shouldn’t terminate once the sale is complete. In particular, for B2B product businesses who rely on securing repeat orders, it’s fundamental that you regularly check in on the success of your customers, giving you an opportunity to cross-sell and upsell products. Upselling and cross-selling are efficient ways to offer your product knowledge and guidance to build credibility with your customers, whilst boosting your average order values.

Frequently reaching out to your customers means you’re taking that extra step in ensuring their satisfaction with the quality of customer service that you’ve provided, as well as the products you supply. By just offering this assistance to your existing customers, you’re more likely to encourage a positive review on a review site about your products or customer service, which in turn could ultimately land you more of the right type of new customers.

Offer Personalised Solutions

Dismissing the importance of your customers’ growth can have a profoundly negative impact on the growth of your own success, stagnating your revenue and hindering business progression. Every business has a unique way of operating and, consequently, customer success cannot be standardised.

To make a sizable impact on the growth of your customers’ business, you must be confident in the products you’re offering and, to do this, you must invest in the personalisation of your help services. While it’s always effective to have a dedicated team of Account Managers, the investments you make in this responsibility don’t have to be so great. Simply investing more confidently into customer service can make vast improvements to your customer satisfaction rates. Being able to provide one-to-one customer service via phone and live chat offers you a platform to provide quick and subjective answers to any queries your customers may have.

Prospect CRM centralises customer, product and sales information in one place, making it ideal for B2B product businesses. Click here to try Prospect CRM for free, integrated to your Inventory Management or ERP solution.