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It’s Only Common Sense: Make Sure You Get It Right!

One of the greatest responsibilities we have as salespeople is being the voice of the customer. We must strive to always relay the customer’s message truthfully and most importantly accurately, because very often the future of the relationship between your company and the customer is in your hands.

This means that you are the one person in the company who has the be the customer expert. It is your duty to learn everything about your customers and make sure that you convey that information accurately to the rest of your organization. Be careful to speak without bias so that you never put your spin on what the customer is saying or doing, for your own self-serving reasons.

Here are nine things to keep in mind when acting as the relationship manager between your company and the customer:

1. Gather knowledge: Know everything you can about your customers, including the business they are in, the amount of your kind of products they buy, what their hot buttons are, and their needs today, and into the future.
2. Win the business: Learn what it takes to win the business. Find out who the customer is dealing with, who your competition is, and why that competition is successful. Learn what your customer thinks it takes to be a great supplier, and then pass this on to your company.
3. Be the news reporter: Keep your company up to date on any changes in the status of your customers. Are they in trouble financially? Are they buying another company? Are they going to be introducing a new product? Are they going to be sold? All this information is vital to the customer/company relationship and it is up to you as the salesperson to make sure your company knows everything. 
4. Be the mediator: When problems occur, it is up to the salesperson to help solve those problems. This is when you really earn your money, when accuracy in communications is especially important. This is particularly true when things heat up, when the relationship hits the skids. The salesperson is the one who must cool things down. You must do everything possible to sustain the relationship at all costs. Be sure that the company does not win the battle but lose the war.
5. Be the bearer of bad news: As Tom Hagen explained in The Godfather, management needs to hear bad news immediately! No matter how painful, bad news should be communicated right away.
6. Be an armadillo: Yes, a true salesperson must have skin as tough as an armadillo because there are times, especially hard times, when the company is going to want to shoot the messenger because they are so angry and frustrated about the news they are hearing. This means the salesperson has to hang tough. He should be able to relay the customer’s negative message with clarity and without exaggeration. He cannot let his own feelings get in the way of conveying a customer’s insulting message in a way that will get the point across, but at the same time, he can't pour gasoline on the fire. This is a tough, but important one.
7. Provide a live butt to kick: When the customer is particularly irate, it is up to the salesperson to go directly to that customer and offer himself up as the sacrificial lamb, to provide that fresh live butt for the customer to have the satisfaction of kicking. You’d be surprised at how often this works and how often it serves to defuse the situation. A great salesperson will show up and provide the customers the opportunity to vent. Believe it or not, the salespeople who do this are the most respected in the business on their industry.
8. Accurately and completely convey all news: Salespeople should make sure they know all the facts in any critical situation. They need to be able to correctly report any problems a customer is having with their company. If it is a technical problem, they need to know all facets of the problem so they can convey it accurately to their managers. They need to be able to anticipate the questions that their engineers and quality people will ask to be able to develop the right solution to the problem as quickly as possible.
9. Be the number one customer advocate: Always, the salesperson has to put the customer first; and she has to make sure that everyone at the company does the same.

And finally, there is one more—underpromise and overdeliver—and that one is to never overpromise and underdeliver; that is often the case when it comes to salespeople. Look, we know that a good salesperson must be optimistic, but try to keep your rosy outlook in check. You are not helping your company out if you over-forecast or if you let them know that everything is all good with that large customer when it is not. No one likes surprises, especially negative ones, so no matter how much you would love to forecast that huge million-dollar order for this year. Make sure it’s in the bag before you do.

It’s only common sense.