Empower Your Customer Support with B2b Sales Forecasting for Customer Support

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hi guys ian johnson from driversuccess.com today we're going to talk about business to business customer fears and concerns and what we're doing today is we're covering five critical fears and concerns that business to business customers have um when you know they're just reluctant to move forward with a purchase order with your company okay so what we're doing in this case is you know it's important to understand that not every single customer is going to come out and tell you why you may or may not win their their business or why you lost the business okay some of them are going to be more subtle in fact most of them are going to be more subtle because these fears and concerns are innate they're going to keep them guarded to themselves okay so your job is to uncover these fears and concerns and to develop specific answers in order to allay those fears and concerns so let's get started the first one we're going to talk about is the fear of the unknown okay now the fear of the unknown is a very simple and and and basic fear that customers have and and the best way to think about the fear of the unknown on behalf of your customer is to think about the following way you know your company may be the proverbial market leader you may have the best product and service a great reputation in the market everyone loves buying from you but none of that matters to this customer okay this customer doesn't know you so it doesn't matter how good your product or service offering is they have no history with you so they don't know the company the company is a question you are a question mark your customer service team okay is a question mark everybody is a question mark in terms of your company including yourself because they have no history with you so again it doesn't matter how good your product is doesn't matter how well known you are to this customer they don't have a history with you so they don't know you that well how do you confront this issue you basically say to them look i understand the relationship is new for both of us and i know that that may be sometimes the reason why customers are a little bit apprehensive so i'll tell you what we'll do we're going to give you everything written we'll put everything down on paper we'll email it over to you everything will be written everything will be clear and concise if there's any problems you call us back and we'll discuss it so fear of the unknown is a real one because it doesn't matter what your company has done it's a new relationship for your customer okay the second one is fear of uncertainty okay now fear of uncertainty is different from fear of the unknown because in this case you may have actually moved your prospect forward to the point where they want to buy from you and all of a sudden they they're kind of reluctant and fear of uncertainty is best defined by the statement is this too good to be true too good to be true okay so in the customer's mind is man these guys sound great everything they sound is you know sounds sounds fun fantastic i hear a lot of great things about him but is it too good to be true so how do you deal with this the same way you deal with the fear of the unknown look i know it's a new relationship and i know this sounds too good to be true but i'll tell you what we'll do we'll put everything down on writing we'll we'll address your concerns and we'll basically make sure that everything is clear and concise so that you're not left hanging okay that's the second one the third one is fear of being challenged okay now let me just explain something there are all kinds of reasons why you may or may not win business with this customer okay there are a thousand reasons why you're not going to get the order not everything has to do with you as a salesperson or with the company you work for all right but if you challenge your customer by making a statement like how can you not buy from us or i don't understand we've got like the best product that's the best service we gave you delivered price if you act that way you're never going to get the real reasons why they're not buying from you okay so don't challenge your customer there's a right and the wrong time to challenge your customers challenge your customer when you've won their business you've been dealing with them for five years and they start leaving you you've earned the right to challenge them at that point when it's a new relationship do not challenge them okay do not confront their decision not to buy from you instead of acting like you deserve the order ask them simply listen i i understand sometimes we're not going to win the business but in this case i thought we did everything right do you mind if i ask you why we didn't win i did this once with a customer i asked them politely and the reason why they they couldn't buy from us had to do with the fact surprisingly enough that they were this honest with me but they said look it's got nothing to do with you guys we owe this other company business because we've been slow to to work through some of their inventory so we've got to continue to take it from them because we signed contracts that had nothing to do with me or the company that i worked for so don't challenge them ask them politely why right and wrong time to challenge and challenge them later when you've won their business okay number four fear of service okay and we're going to do this by fear of after sales service okay and in particular we're talking about you as a sales person all right look this is different from your customer service team what this means is after you've sold this customer the product if they go to your customer service team and they've fallen short they're gonna be able to call you up and get help okay a lot of companies out there have this mindset you sell the product and you pass the customer off to the customer service team that's a fear for customers sometimes because they want to deal with someone that they perceive to be the decision maker if you've sold them the product you got to be there for them in times of need okay so when you're confronted with this issue tell them look i understand it there's a if there's a problem it's very simple you say if there's a problem you call me right back okay i'm not going to be your main focal point of contact for all things relating to service but if there's an issue with customer service you give me a call all right and the fifth one is fear of the comfort zone all right and this means losing control now every customer wants to feel and control the buying process you're going to come across this situation where everything is going great and then all of a sudden your customer gives you no warning and says listen i'm going to have to get back to you now look you the customers want to know that they're making the final decision when you subtly take control of the buying process this is where this fear comes up to alleviate this fear ask simple questions like what do you think of this what do you think what sorry what do you think or does this make sense are you comfortable with this so bring them back into the fold again fear of the unknown they don't know your company they don't know you they don't know the csr team doesn't matter what you've done in the past allay this fear by talking to them about what you can do for them and how you'll address any concerns they have fear of uncertainty sounds too good to be true so i'll tell you what we'll put it down in writing fear of being challenged don't do it ask why you didn't win the order again there's a thousand reasons why you may or may not win in business um fear of after sales service are you going to be there personally for this customer after you sold them a product and fear of the comfort zone of that customer who's in control bring them back into the fold what do you think how do you think this is going to work is this what you expect so that's it business and business customer fears and concerns ian johnson driver success dot com bye-bye