Most SaaS SDRs know they must improve Customer Experience. I'm sure you've heard how vital Customer Success and Customer Experience are to the Subscription Economy's success. And you've likely made some progress.
While it may be simple to gain clients, SaaS companies must also focus on customer retention. Because SaaS products are subscription-based, you'll need to keep consumers to generate recurring income.
By providing a fantastic SaaS customer experience, you may increase client loyalty. Customer experience handles over two-thirds of customer loyalty. How can I improve my SDR? You are probably asking yourself.
Increasing SaaS customer experience involves examining every customer touchpoint, interaction, and engagement and the behind-the-scenes personnel interactions that impact the customer experience. Here are some areas you should focus on.
How can SaaS improve customer experience?
1. Develop a successful onboarding program.
Your onboarding campaign will set the tone for your customer's overall experience once you've achieved the initial sale. It is more likely that your customers will succeed and stick with your product if they receive adequate and complete training.
According to research, customers who have a favorable impression of your onboarding process are less likely to abandon a new product or service within the first 21 days.
Customers maybe less likely to renew with your organization if your program is missing and they become confused or frustrated. Because you won't be able to teach your clients everything during the onboarding process, it's critical to provide them with the tools to learn more independently.
For example, having a customer-facing knowledge base that allows customers to quickly access the training materials, FAQs, and lessons they need to succeed with your product or service might be beneficial.
2. Appoint a customer experience director to help break down barriers and silos.
Service to customers is only a small part of the customer experience; it includes every customer interaction with a business. With this in mind, involve every department inside a firm in the customer's experience, including marketing, sales, product, finance, engineering, and support.
However, avoid silos; if these teams approach the customer experience with individual goals, opinions, and information, the customer experience can soon break apart. Assume a customer has several unsolved issues with the support team.
If your renewals team contacts them about upgrades and expansions without first learning about the customer's discontent, they risk adding to the customer's displeasure and eroding the entire experience.
Appointing ahead of customer experience or a customer experience council might help you organize your customer experience activities across departments. This person or group can oversee your customer experience activities across the board, ensuring that all teams agree.
3. Set long-term goals and track them.
Customer experience used to be quantified using adoption and satisfaction indicators. However, SaaS organizations should concentrate on longer-term measures to improve the customer experience, such as ensuring you satisfy customers with the platform.
Tactically, this entails creating a more comprehensive, rigorous system for tracking your clients' objectives and progress toward those targets. It should begin with the sales process and continue throughout the client relationship. It can ensure that the customer experience does not end with adoption but continues through renewal and expansion.
4. Improve the customer service experience.
While the customer experience involves all company departments, customers frequently interact with customer service more than other departments. Companies should strive to improve the support experience with this in mind.
One method to achieve this is to save all customer service knowledge in an internal, searchable knowledge management platform, including FAQs, instructional resources, and best practice films. It enables customer service employees to locate answers to customer questions, reducing customer aggravation and increasing consumer trust in your SaaS company.
5. Get feedback from customers and use it.
One of the most effective ways to improve your customer experience is to solicit input from your customers via surveys, emails, or social media and then act on it. According to some studies, 70% of organizations that provide best-in-class customer service use consumer feedback.
Besides allowing you to improve your product or service, you can cultivate relationships with your customers and give them a sense of ownership. Your clients will be more loyal to and renew with your organization if they feel their comments are essential and heard from their best SDR.
What Makes The Best SDR?
They have three fundamental qualities:
1. Top SDRs will figure out how to play the game.
They are methodical, organized, and have good time management skills. They don't leap on every shiny object; they know what's important to them. They'll ask philosophical inquiries and listen if they're meticulous.
2. Top SDRs will take part in the game.
SDRs are not deterred from reaching their goal by external distractions or perspectives. They like the thrills and companionship of their jobs and are fierce competitors that want to win at all costs.
3. Top SDRs will work hard.
They've got a chip on their shoulder, financial objectives, and a lot to prove. Look for people who have overcome obstacles and hurdles during their careers, especially sales objections.
While dealing with objections is an inevitable aspect of the sales process, it may be a significant stumbling block for moving prospects through the pipeline. Accepting the complaints and sending a breakup email right away may be tempting. It is especially true if the issue appears to be fair based on what you know about the prospect's business.
Salespeople must learn how to discover and handle these obstacles to be effective. When objections arise, don't give up; instead, reemphasize the benefits of your product.
Common Sales Objections from SaaS Companies & How to Effectively Overcome Them?
An unanticipated sales objection is the worst thing that can happen to a salesperson. Whether a prospect complains that your products and services are too pricey or the timing isn't right, you'll face opposition in almost every negotiation.
In this post, we'll look at ways to overcome objections so that you can move the conversation forward and close the transaction.
What is a Sales Objection?
A sales objection is a rationale given by a potential customer for why they are not ready to make a purchase decision. Complaints aren't always well-founded, and they can hide other worries from potential customers due to a lack of understanding of how you can make their life easier and possibly save them money.
Overcoming objections in sales is a crucial ability for every high-performing salesperson, as it allows them to avoid losing good-fit possibilities.
In my experience as a salesperson, most consumers have objections, and when they arise early in the sales strategy process, I sometimes veil them as tactics to get you off the phone.
You'll miss out on many. You request potential businesses to portray the brand positively if you don't understand distinguishing legitimate issues from impulse excuses. Don't give up too soon—the finest salespeople employ active listening and dig deeper to uncover each prospect's genuine hesitation. The following are the fundamental concepts of active listening:
Common Objections from SaaS Companies
1. "Where is your company based?"
“I'm not familiar with your firm." It's reasonable that when you're confronted with an objection like this, the prospect has trust difficulties, and the objections might range from skepticism about your company's reputation to how long you've been in the market.
Businesses have a 60-70 percent chance of selling to current customers, but just a 5-20 percent chance of selling to new customers!
It's important to remember that now is not the time to take offense. Instead, salespeople should use them as an opportunity to portray the brand positively. As a result, when a prospect raises a trust concern, approach it to request information and assurance that your solution will meet their needs.
2. "We'll consider it." I'm currently occupied."
When a prospect raises the 'I'm busy right now' objection, it usually shows that they are unsure about your proposal. According to a study titled "Sales from the Buyers' Perspective 2018," 58 percent of B2B buyers had doubts about sales agents' trustworthiness.
To address this, determine what is causing them to be uncertain — perhaps it is a pain issue that you have yet to handle, or you have failed to describe your offer in more precise words.
3. "Not at this time. We'll take this up later, perhaps next quarter."
This objection shows that the prospect is expecting a change in the organization, a movement in organizational structure, or another business goal positively.
When faced with an objection like this on a regular day, they might tempt you to respond, "Sure, Jessica, I realize you need some time to think this through." "How about I call you in a few days?" Your prospect wants to postpone the conversation gently, and that's what you're aiming for.
According to the Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve,' you will only recall 58 percent of what you learn in the first 20 minutes and 33 percent in the first day.
As a result, if you agree to postpone the meeting, your prospects will probably forget what you said in the previous session. Remind your prospect of their pain point and show the consequences of not taking action to overcome this issue. When you ask a prospect a question like this, you're putting them when they feel obligated to respond because the inquiry is logical.
4. "Your product offers everything we're seeking for except x feature."
When a prospect raises this concern, it might signal one of two things: they're looking for a solution with that feature, or they still believe your product is just a "nice to have," and you have not persuaded them.
In the latter instance, your team must agree on which types of product modifications you will pursue and which you will not in a specific time frame. However, if they're using it as a smokescreen, the best way to move your prospect into the 'must-have' category is to show how your product will ease their pain point.
The aim is to instill a sense of urgency that you must address their problem and that your product is the best method.
Please inquire about the prospect's difficulties, and then construct a picture of how your product may help them overcome them. Your product might lack the feature that the prospect is looking for. Here, the right thing to do is propose a complementary product that you may use with yours.
5. "Because our company is cutting costs, we don't have the budget."
Price objections arise for a variety of reasons. They could show that your prospect is on a budget and cannot purchase your product within the specified time frame. In this scenario, it's preferable to mark them as a cold lead rather than wasting time attempting to develop a creative way for them to pay for your goods.
When an already qualified lead raises a budget or price issue, it suggests you haven't provided enough value for the price you're proposing, or your prospect isn't well-informed on how to buy in your category.
According to Marcwayshak, 55 percent of respondents cited the budget as the most prevalent cause for sales chances failing.
Respond with confidence that your pricing approach is well-researched and in line with market pricing and thus justified when dealing with a pricing argument.
Also, stop stating things like "I don't believe it's that expensive" or "When you think about it, the product price isn't that much."
6. "Your competition offers a better product at a lower price."
If a prospect raises this objection, ask if they've already signed a contract with one of your competitors. If they don't, find out why they favor the competition with you.
Is the prospect convinced that a less expensive option will suffice? If that's the case, it's time to don your detective cap and delve into the comparison.
The idea is to emphasize the benefits that your product delivers that no one else does. But whatever you do, don't disparage your opponent because it will make you appear undesirable.
Hoping to get a discount, a prospect may drop this issue. To combat this, sell your prospect on the value of your solution. Present a list of other firms in the same field as your target who have successfully used your product.
7. "I'll have to double-check with my supervisor." Also, please email me additional details so that I may forward them to my management."
Prospects use this objection when they've made up their minds about you (prematurely) and want to cut the conversation short, or when they're interested in your product but need to persuade their boss.
A skilled salesperson will see straight through it and determine their true intentions. However, if you send them your marketing and selling materials, you're effectively giving up the deal. So, how do you go about it? Accept their information and agree to deliver it to them, but don't finish the conversation there.
Ask them open-ended questions about their major stakeholder if you've qualified for this lead.
8. "We're not interested!"
Sometimes "no" means "no." Knowing when to walk away is the key to dealing with this objection. It is because there is always a fine line between assisting and aggravating your prospect.
According to Crunchbase, 50% of sales reps believe they provide value to prospects, but 84% believe the reps are overly aggressive.
After all, no matter how hard you’ll try, some people will never be a suitable fit for your product. That's OK. But don't be so easy on yourself. Before you end the conversation, you must take the time to discover more about why the leads said "no." Maybe you're approaching the incorrect customer, or you didn't communicate the value of your product well enough, or they're not ready enough.
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The Final Note
Customer pleasure isn't an afterthought. Customers have more chances and options than ever before in a fast-moving, innovation-driven market like SaaS. Customer happiness and success must be at the top of your priority list to keep your consumers engaged and committed. Top priority should be satisfaction and success!