Customer-centric is a selling term used to describe a buyer-oriented methodology used as a sales technique, which instructs the seller to empower the buyer in the selling process.
When sales organizations take a customer-centric approach to selling, it involves altering traditional sales techniques so that the buyer is driving the sale. Instead of selling products, sales people act as consultants providing solutions based on business pains and needs. They relate product usage versus relying on the product. In the customer-centric approach, sales people are discouraged from making canned presentations, but are instead encouraged to have situational conversations with the buyer. Additionally, this approach requires that sales people ask relevant questions to uncover business challenges for which they can offer a solution in response, not offering their own opinions which is often the case with traditional sales approaches. Customer-centric selling as a methodology requires a vested interest on the part of the selling organization to not only learn and digest the methodology through intensive classroom training, but to also follow through post-training in implementation, monitoring and coaching of the sales process so that it provides "stickiness" within the selling environment. As with any sales process, sales management plays a vital role in the success of the methodology's adoption and how it is applied by its sales force.
|
