Use your CRM to answer prospect questions before they ask

Why do people contact you? They contact you because you offer a solution to their need. Your solution could be an insurance policy, lawn care maintenance, accounting services, or supplying materials like metal or wood. Whatever it is, your website, emails, or advertising, addresses their need with a solution, so they reach out to you.

After the initial contact, you began to lead them through the buyer’s journey from awareness to consideration to closing the sale. However, during the consideration stage, there is frustration that prospects often experience. The frustration is being fed information, content, and solutions that are not relevant to their current need. The prospects feel that the salesperson is not listening to them, and that upselling is more important than their need.

When this happens, it becomes more difficult to get the prospect to finish the buyer’s journey. They either take a long time to decide (with some doubt) or they abandon the journey. We do not want them to doubt or abandon but feel good about moving forward in their customer relationship with you.

We would like to explore how you can use your CRM to minimize frustration and answer their questions before they ask. There are two reasons prospects ask questions.

• They understand your offering and would like more clarity
• They do not understand and ask out of confusion

If they are asking out of confusion, this can start them down the path of confusion. We certainly do not want that. To avoid this, we can use our CRM to bring clarity and answer questions before they ask by doing the following:

Understanding your audience

You may ask how understanding your audience relates to using your CRM. Understanding your audience is the foundation of your CRM. One of your business goals is to nurture leads and close more sales faster. You need to understand your audience before you can effectively configure your CRM (sales process, funnel, workflow, etc.). When you understand your audience, you can respond and feed them the right content through your CRM in anticipation of the questions they would most likely ask.

Segmentation

Prospects get frustrated when they receive blanket emails. The emails either having nothing to do with them or they must sift through the email to find the information that is relevant to their need. Either way, they will become frustrated. Segmentation which is a common CRM feature can remove this frustration. It allows you to deliver content to dynamic lists based on audience variables like demographic, location, service, or product. Taking the time to set up segmentation rules will, in the long run, personalize your engagement and help you answer prospect’s questions before they ask.

Method of engagement

Personalizing content is very important in the buyer’s journey. Method of engagement is also important. When we say the method of engagement, we are referring to communication. How do they like to communicate? Email? Texting? Phone call?

Another reason that causes frustration is an unpreferred method of engagement. A prospect may prefer email because they rarely answer a phone call from an unknown number or check their voicemail. If your engagement is time-sensitive or if they are ready to decide, you need to communicate with their preferred method.

You can use your CRM to engage through their preferred method. You can automate answers to frequently asked questions before they ask. Knowing that they are receiving the messages that are relevant and can respond to you quickly, the sales cycle is more likely to be quicker and less frustrating to both the prospect and you.

Conclusion

You want your prospects to have a pleasurable buyer’s journey. You want them to know that they made the right decision with confidence when they buy from you. Your CRM can help you guide them and answer their questions before they ask. Not only will this minimize frustration for the prospect, it will also minimize Follow Up Fatigue for you.

If you are not using a CRM, contact us for a free demo of X2CRM, a CRM that is configured and customized according to your business goals. Call 301-332-0613 to schedule your demo.