How often do you hear after a deal has been signed with a customer that people decide something has been oversold?
Hopefully not too often.
Overselling is when the customer experience post-sale doesn't meet their expectations of the agreement. When you have the opportunity, make sure your customers are happy with the result, and that any step that they don't agree with is worked on in future sales.
Ideally the your organization listens to the customer, you understand what they want and are able to present the vision for them to understand the solution. A commercial arrangement is made that both sides understand and sign up to. The negotiations at the end don't take anything away that is necessary from the deal.
The job of the sales team is to offer solutions to the customer's problems, that if implemented as you propose it will result in the business problem being addressed.
There are a lot of unknowns in selling though. Customers won't always let you know all of the answers - just as we won't tell them all our weaknesses.
This is not just about how things are sold, but also marketing, manufacturing, services delivery, support, and so on.
Over time your ability to understand and meet customer expectations should improve - and it is this improvement that will ensure that overselling declines in the long run.
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| Overselling - Copyright penywise 2008 |
Overselling is when the customer experience post-sale doesn't meet their expectations of the agreement. When you have the opportunity, make sure your customers are happy with the result, and that any step that they don't agree with is worked on in future sales.
- They may say that not enough of Product Y or Service Z has been sold with Product X.
- Some feature they thought was available is not included.
- A product is actually something done by a service, or a previous customer did on their own.
- A competitor's product did something, that they thought you could do too.
- It doesn't work due to the customer's particular architecture
Ideally the your organization listens to the customer, you understand what they want and are able to present the vision for them to understand the solution. A commercial arrangement is made that both sides understand and sign up to. The negotiations at the end don't take anything away that is necessary from the deal.
The job of the sales team is to offer solutions to the customer's problems, that if implemented as you propose it will result in the business problem being addressed.
There are a lot of unknowns in selling though. Customers won't always let you know all of the answers - just as we won't tell them all our weaknesses.
- What if the customer doesn't know their real business problem?
- What if you hear their statement of the problem incorrectly, but they like your answer?
- How do you tell the customer that they want the wrong thing?
- Does the sales team understand what they are selling in order to recommend the right solution?
- Can you accurately gauge the services and products that the customer needs to order?
- Will the legal team strike some of the customer's needs out of the contract?
- Will the product be implemented in the same way it was sold?
This is not just about how things are sold, but also marketing, manufacturing, services delivery, support, and so on.
Over time your ability to understand and meet customer expectations should improve - and it is this improvement that will ensure that overselling declines in the long run.