Principles of Prospect Service
Should we even call it customer service? When talking about how prospects are served, it’s common to borrow the phrase customer service. But that’s really a misnomer. It is not possible, strictly speaking, to provide customer service to a prospect for the simple fact that prospects are not yet customers.
It may not seem like an important distinction at first glance since so many of the principles of customer service would obviously apply to prospect service. It’s important to be knowledgeable, friendly, trustworthy, etc… whether you are dealing with customers or prospects. But using the same approach towards prospects that you would towards customers is a mistake.
Customer service is all about nurturing and capitalizing on a relationship that already exists. Prospect service is about establishing a new relationship. The principles of prospect service are as follows:
Be fast – The first principle of prospect service is that it is critical to be the first on the phone. If a prospect is of a mind to buy what you are selling, they are going to buy it from you or one of your competitors. They will be more likely to buy from the person who establishes contact with them first.
Be consistent – The second principle of prospect service is that fast and steady wins the race. When prospects do not immediately respond to a sales rep it is important to follow up consistently. It is important to follow up on leads strategically, providing varied and meaningful communication that makes it clear your business practices are sound.
Be aware – It is said that people walk backwards through time. They can see where they’ve been, but can’t see where they’re going. Given that serving a large number of prospects is in many ways a highly repetitive process, it’s critical to always be leveraging your experience and learning lessons from past successes and failures alike. Having an easy way to report on the performance of lead sources, sales reps, lead distribution strategies, etc. is an important way to make sure you are even trying to serve the right prospects.
Don’t be so quick to assume that the principles of customer service apply to prospect service. And by extension don’t make the mistake of trying to do lead management with a CRM.
