64% of consumers from the United Kingdom consider themselves loyal to certain brands (as of 2023). Retention rates are key to increasing profits, and we are confident that adequate sales training will increase your customer loyalty.
Just 18% of companies focus on customer retention, compared to 44% focusing on acquisition. This tells us that there is a major competitive edge to be gained through sales training concentrated on retaining customers, rather than just acquiring them.
So, how can this side of training help your business?
Why is customer retention important to business success?
Customer retention is important because finding new prospects is often the most challenging step in the sales funnel. In sales, we nurture leads into customers - an extensive and sometimes exhausting process. Integrating intent not only to secure, but retain these customers during the nurturing process is a niche skill, though one which can be taught.
In short, customer retention provides a baseline for income, with any new customers effectively adding onto this already loyal base.
Retaining customers is beneficial for company image too. With high retention rates, your business can confidently state that the majority of your customers are pleased enough with your services to return. Think about it: would you choose to invest your hard earned money in a service or product that only 10% of people wanted to use for a second time?
You wouldn’t spend your money on something unreliable, and neither will your potential customers. That’s why customer retention is necessary to business success.
Does a lack of sales training impact customer retention rate?
A lack of sales training will have a negative impact on customer retention. A Harvard business review showed that effective sales training can lead to retention rates up to 10% higher. In turn, businesses with sales training see 17% higher profit margins, so investing funds into sales training will be profitable for your business moving forward.
Sales training is the basis to many fundamental skills, such as storytelling, verbal and non-verbal communication and prospecting, to name a few. Without this training, your sales team may lack a number of these skills, which can damage success with customer retention rates.
Most untrained sales professionals are proficient in a number of these primary skills, but lack education and experience in others. These gaps are what will impact your sales. If an individual feels uncertainty at any point during the customer journey, the chances of them looking elsewhere for solutions spike massively. So, it is important that your team has a modern and broad understanding of sales.
How can sales training help to retain customers?
Adequate sales training equips salespeople with the skills and knowledge to develop a lasting relationship with their customers.
More specifically, here are a few ways in which this works:
- Relationship Building - Primarily, it is vital that the relationship developed between a salesperson and a customer is not only strong, but also natural.
Too often sales training focuses on specific techniques and formulae for building relationships. We prefer to focus initially on understanding each customer as a person, as this gives the best insight for each individual as to how you can help them, and what service will best suit. - Increase Confidence - Salespeople cannot deliver the results you want if they don’t feel confident in themselves, and in the brand they represent. Our sales training focuses on learning, practising and embedding skills.
Having embedded industry-specific skills allows the salesperson to express themselves as a professional, creating a more genuine feel to a customer. After all, 88% of leads buy when a salesperson acts as a trusted advisor. - Consistency - A well drilled sales team with the same goal and incentives in mind ensures consistent brand image is presented. Individual techniques and methods may vary from salesperson to salesperson, but quality sales training means all of your employees will be pushing the same overall values. This balance of personality and professionalism will help retain customers.
- Education - Enabling your sales team to effectively educate a potential customer about your services or products yields great results. Customers appreciate a professional who can help them to understand their options and make a decision which actually benefits them.
Our modern end-to-end curriculum, paired with our world class trainers, will ensure that your sales team has the tools to provide this education to potential customers.
Check out the PDF framework on our website to see how we can help you increase customer retention, and in turn, revenue
Training methods that help to improve customer retention
Mentor Group has redefined sales training using a contemporary, all-encompassing curriculum with cutting-edge technology and world class trainers.
Our Learn, Practice, Embed framework contains all the tools to produce a lasting increase in customer retention for your business. Whether you want your team to learn in person, virtually, or via our award winning digital learning platform, our curriculum of over 140 courses includes training methods that help you monitor pipeline coverage and opportunity progression.
These are key skills which improve customer retention through the medium of understanding customer needs, given that less than 15% of B2B customers believe that salespeople genuinely understand what they require.
Personalised interactions help improve customer retention. This can mean understanding the subtle differences between each customer; it can also mean handling difficult customer conversations well, and showing that you empathise with them.
This leads to our next and final point. The employment of story based sales engagement is a highly effective skill, and one that we teach within our sales training. Storytelling is an ability which excites and engages customers, leading to higher retention as they are enabled to visualise the future solution to their problem.
Retaining customers is as important as, if not more important, than securing them. A loyal customer base sets the foundation for long-term and secure business growth. At Mentor Group, our goal is to equip your team with the know-how required to significantly increase the retention of your customers.
If you want to learn more about how Mentor Group can help your business adopt a revenue-centric strategy, and transform the revenue potential of your organisation in the process, visit our Contact Us Page or reach out directly to info@mentorgroup.com
