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SurveyMonkey is built to handle every use case and need. Explore our product to learn how SurveyMonkey can work for you.

Get data-driven insights from a global leader in online surveys.

Explore core features and advanced tools in one powerful platform.

Build and customize online forms to collect info and payments.

Integrate with 100+ apps and plug-ins to get more done.

Purpose-built solutions for all of your market research needs.

Create better surveys and spot insights quickly with built-in AI.

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Measure customer satisfaction and loyalty for your business.

Learn what makes customers happy and turn them into advocates.

Get actionable insights to improve the user experience.

Collect contact information from prospects, invitees, and more.

Easily collect and track RSVPs for your next event.

Find out what attendees want so that you can improve your next event.

Uncover insights to boost engagement and drive better results.

Get feedback from your attendees so you can run better meetings.

Use peer feedback to help improve employee performance.

Create better courses and improve teaching methods.

Learn how students rate the course material and its presentation.

Find out what your customers think about your new product ideas.

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Contact SalesLog in
Contact SalesLog in
Business

5 ways to build a customer centric sales team

5 ways to build a customer centric sales team

More than 3 out of every 4 business buyers say it’s very important that a sales rep acts as a trusted advisor.

To deliver on this buyer preference, you’ll need to build a sales team that’s customer centric—or that takes prospects’ needs and wants into account during the sales cycle.

How do you build a customer centric sales team? And how do you make sure they stay that way?

We’ll walk you through 5 tactics that can help, starting with the top-down approach of getting leadership on board.

Learn our framework for building a customer centric culture across your organization.

Sales managers play a major role in helping their team perform customer centric selling.

To help you persuade sales leaders to put prospective customers’ needs before the sales reps’ (though they shouldn’t need any convincing!), here are some stats you can share with them:

Our ultimate guide gives you step-by-step instructions for getting robust customer feedback.

Empathy can help your sales reps connect with prospective customers, both on a professional and personal level. It often leads your reps to ask questions, from what the prospect is experiencing in their day-to-day work to how they can benefit from your product/service.

However, empathy isn’t a universal trait.

You can weed out sales reps who lack empathy during the interview process. For instance, observe how they engage with people they might perceive as being “less important,” such as the cleaning staff or other interviewees in the waiting room. If they treat them with less respect and curiosity, it can indicate that they’re lacking in empathy.

During the interview itself, see if they’re genuinely engaged as you’re speaking, or if they are just waiting to respond. And ask questions that can reveal empathy, like “What makes a customer experience meaningful?” and, “How do you balance promoting the product with helping the customer?”

Once you hire people who are, by nature, empathetic, make sure they remain so throughout the sales cycle.

This means focusing less on closing deals—which 3 in 4 sales reps admit is their top priority!—and more on understanding whether or not each prospect is the right fit for your product/service.

Doing the latter involves having honest and thoughtful conversations with prospects, which ultimately leads them to feel more inclined to trust the sales rep and buy from them.

Your customer support and success teams likely know the most about your customers, whether it’s the top benefits customers experience from working with you, or it’s related to the technical nuances of using your product/service.

Help your sales team learn from your support and success teams consistently by scheduling a monthly or bi-monthly meeting between the teams. During these meetings, the support and success teams can give updates related to any changes in the customer experience, and provide customer stories that sales can reference when speaking with prospects.

Find out if sales reps are engaged in customer centric selling by sending customers a short survey!

In the survey, you can use multiple-choice questions to ask things like, “Did our sales representative understand why you needed our product/service?” and, “What are some words you would use to describe the sales representative you spoke to?”

Just remember to send the survey shortly after the customer signs up. It’s then that the customer remembers their experiences with the sales rep the best.

Here at SurveyMonkey, we use our Salesforce Integration to automatically send surveys to customers after they sign up. This lets us evaluate our sales reps’ performance, quickly, and helps us make meaningful changes in how they engage with prospects.

Now that you know how to build and motivate a team to perform customer centric selling, go forth and help your team—and your prospects!