Sales Starts with Customers

When companies plan an improvement in sales results, they often think of a large project that involves automation of the process or bringing in a customer relationship management system. After an initial good response to these, it may not help them retain and win back customers.

The customer’s perspective about what they want to buy and what they expect from sales people are the requirements which, if met, would mean great improvement in sales results.

The value being given to the customer should be understood as being seen by the customer. For the customer there are items which are a must to have; some which will be expected but may not have; and some that are delighters.

The use of Six Sigma certification in understanding customer needs can help companies give them the value that they expect, as well as that delights them.

Six Sigma DMAIC to Improve the Relationship with Customers

Define: This phase involves convincing key customers and stakeholders such as salespeople, sales managers, the sales support team and service personnel to work on the project.

Additionally, it becomes imperative to include and define the focus of the project by undertaking a scope diagram, so that the team focuses on that specific area. Rather than undertaking a huge project, the specific priority region or product can be used for consideration.

Measure: Gathering data from the customers becomes more important to understand the critical to quality (CTQs) areas in the sales process. Customer loyalty has to be inferred and the factors that affect it should be understood. Customer loyalty has a big impact on business results.

Organizations need to understand loyal customers, disloyal ones and prospective customers as well. A study of prospective customers that will not be converted to sales, is also important to understand the reasons and factors affecting their decisions.

For this, proper interviews of customers are necessary to understand the effectiveness of salespeople. Also, an insight into customer responses can be achieved from the interviews of salespeople.

Analyze: An analysis of the data using other tools should be done to identify the key themes and analyzing the responses of customers with that of the feedback received from salespeople.

This cross-referencing helps to understand the root causes affecting the sales results.

Improve: This stage involves bringing about improvements in the sales process, such as changing the price strategy, which could be a major factor affecting sales and goes beyond certain sections of customers.

It could also involve reorganizing the sales function, training the sales force to improve their consulting skills and an overall revision of how the product is marketed.

Control: The changes brought about in the improvement stage start showing results, and to sustain the changes, a review of the activities has to be undertaken, such as the number of proposals and active leads, productivity of the sales force, customer loyalty, new revenue generated from customers, and the profitability on changing the rate structure.   

Undertaking these various steps is like going back to basics, but it proves to be very helpful in improving the sales results. The outside-in approach using Six Sigma certification helps bring about sustainable organizational growth.