Have you ever asked yourself ‘what’s slowing down my sales?’
Sometimes, you have a great product or service, and you have a customer willing to pay for it, but there’s just something that gets in the way of completing the sale.
When that happens, it definitely deserves your attention.
Anything standing in the way of you getting the sales that you should be needs to be dealt with.
Here, we’re going to look at some of the barriers to the sales that are all but yours, and what to do about them.
Creating a strong sales process is a vital part of any business looking to maximize its profits.
Problem #1: You don’t accept their form of payment
All too often, especially with online stores, your customers might be ready, right up to the point of completing that purchase, only to find that you simply won’t take their money.
There are advantages to working with different payment methods, as well as costs, but if you don’t at least accept credit cards and PayPal or similar payment portals, then you’re going to be missing out.
Some businesses are even using cryptocurrency as an acceptable form of payment.
It’s all about knowing your audience and how they will want to pay.
Problem #2: Your sales process is just too long
In a lot of cases, your customers might be trying to complete a sale, but they might have limited time, or they might not be as patient as your sales process demands.
For instance, if you’re running an eCommerce store, you should be mindful that with every additional step it takes to complete an order, the chance of an abandoned shopping cart increases.
Streamlining where possible is always a good idea, but you can also look at implementing design techniques like breadcrumb navigation so that your customers can at least see and get a good idea of what they have to do to complete the purchase.
Problem #3: It takes too long to work out how much it will cost
As with breadcrumb navigation, any form of transparency is likely to make your customer more likely to have the patience necessary to complete a sale.
This is especially true of contractor or engineer services, where the costs can vary depending on the nature of the job.
Using tools like BuildOps quoting software, you can make sure that your workers have the tools to provide accurate estimates or quotes when communicating with your clients.
If you leave those clients waiting too long without an idea of how much it’s going to cost, the chances of them getting cold feet about the project increase exponentially.
Eradicate uncertainty where possible.
Problem #4: No help in completing the sale
No matter how effective your navigation, nor how much transparency you are able to lend to the sales process, there are going to be customers who have difficulty completing an order.
Good customer service tools, such as a Tidio on-site chat widget will allow you to hop in, to quickly work out what trouble the customer is having, and walk them through the process step-by-step to complete a purchase.
Problem #5: Choice paralysis
You might think that you’re offering the best, most bespoke, tailored service to your customers by, for instance, having a dozen delivery options available.
However, the truth is, the more complexity you add to the process, especially in terms of customer choice, the greater the chance that they won’t know what they want, and fail to choose anything.
Any time that you do have a wide range of choices, do what you can to offer automatic suggestions based on the user data.
Problem #6: Poor post-sale support
Just because you made a successful sale, that doesn’t mean you should stop thinking about that customer.
It’s not just the initial sale that you should be thinking about, but all the potential sales that can come after.
As such, it’s always wise to focus on customer support and, even more importantly, customer success.
Reaching out to a client to ask if they are happy with your service and any feedback they might offer is a good way to indicate that you want to improve your relationship with them, and can help them feel supported and listened to.
With the tips above, you should be able to create a stronger sales process that ensures that you can more easily turn your audience’s interest into revenue for your company.
There are other ways that you can miss out on the sales you should be getting, but the examples above are some of the most common.