It's no secret that in the age of information technology, not every company has a CRM system in its arsenal for working with clients. And often, the eternal companions of managers are a pen and a diary, which you need to manage to turn into a kind of CRM.

Moreover, not all systems are good in terms of displaying the desired values ​​and performance indicators. That is, it is not always possible to display a picture of actions, upcoming and future, with one click.

I will tell you about a method that I saw a long time ago with a sales master, unfortunately I don’t remember his name. Working in my field of activity, I had to rebuild it for myself, so I propose to get acquainted with my semi-author's methodology client planning.

How to effectively plan your current work with clients

So, yours. Working with customers is an integral and very important stage of sales. Therefore, you always have and will always need to keep information about your customers somewhere, in some place.

Suppose that the promised CRM is still not in the department, and there are more and more customers every day, and information about them is no longer kept in the head. We try to record the client's data and the results of calls and negotiations in a diary. Tell me, how well do you manage to do it?

If the sale depends not on one call, but on several, then ending the conversation or negotiations, we set the date and time for the next contact. which needs to be written down. But it is not possible to simply write down “Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov” for the planned day. We need to rewrite the position, phone number, company name, what the previous conversation was about and how it ended, what offer we made to him, and so on. In order not to forget or miss anything during the next contact.

Does this happen to you too? This is a very inefficient system, but it is used by most sales people. And in general, diaries are the property of the manager, so if the manager leaves or is absent, the entire history of working with the client simply disappears. Given the personal nature of the notes, not everyone will be able to understand other people's hieroglyphs and abbreviations, even if the diary is transferred to another manager.

So, the way of working with clients in detail

My way of conducting and planning work with a client is very simple, as my mother-in-law likes to say - "outrageously." You will need a regular double ring binder, paperback or hardcover, wide or narrow, depending on your number of clients and your tastes. Print the insert sheets A 4 and number them with numbers from 1 to 31. Print the numbers in the middle of the page and in the largest font size. Make 2 holes with a hole punch. In addition, print several sheets with the names of future months: June, July, August, September.

Now you need to insert the inserts into the folder and the system is ready! What's next? Everything is very simple. While working with a client, you create a whole dossier on him. It can be one info card - I talked about it in detail in this article. A very valuable development, by the way, download a useful file in the article, I recommend it. So to say, all the data on one sheet.

It can also be a commercial offer that we send to the client. The history of e-mail correspondence, all kinds of calculations, estimates, schedules, in general, everything here will depend on your products and field of activity. It is quite possible that one infocard will be enough for someone. In my current activity, the client's dossier is far from being a single piece of paper. During a conversation with a client, it is very convenient for me to flip through the pages of the dossier, take a look, and thus restore in my memory the overall picture of the state of affairs.

Let's say you have 10 clients scheduled for today. It could be repeated calls. You also planned to make 20 new calls. In advance, you have already done the preparatory work and collected information sufficient for the first call and entered it into the info card. It is possible that there are other types of work that need to be done today.

We turn over the insert with the date in our folder, for example, 13, and hem our entire amount of work between the inserts with the numbers 13 and 14. Now we can clearly see the amount of work to be done. If you understand that you can’t cope with it, then we look at which of the clients can be transferred to another day.

After the call is made, we enter the necessary information about the conversation in the client’s dossier, open the folder rings, take out the dossier, close the rings, flip through the inserts, find the desired date, insert the dossier under the insert with the date that you agreed with the client. I tell you in great detail, although everything is very simple in fact.

You do exactly the same actions throughout the working day with all the planned types of work. It is important to add new information in a timely manner and shift the dossier of the next client to the next date.

It happens that the client needs to call back not this month, but, for example, in July. Then on the dossier we make a note “Call July 5”, and place it under the “July” insert. If we work on the last days of the month, then the scheduled call for the 8th of the next month is simply placed at the beginning of our folder on the appropriate insert. It is impossible to confuse anything.

If the nature of your field of activity is more intense, then you can create inserts not with numbers, but with dates. Then you print the dates of business days (20-22 in a month) with the name of the month, and if necessary, make up 1-3 months with inserts, and later add inserts of new months. In any case, you will do it in a way that is convenient for you at your work.

As a result of all actions, you get the most convenient system for planning and conducting work with a client. What does this give us?

1. There is no need to plan the next day at the end of the working day. We have everything already planned. It is better to devote this time to the analysis of the past day.

2. Starting a new working day, you enjoy the thought that only by turning the page with today's date, you can immediately see the amount of work ahead. It remains only to evaluate it and, if necessary, correct it.

3. It is much easier to look at sheets of customer information filed in a folder than doing it in a spreadsheet. The number of columns in a table never fits into the screen size of a monitor.

4. You can take the client's folder or dossier with you to meetings and negotiations. Spreadsheet - no.

5. For sales managers: in the absence of a manager, there is always a planned amount of work with detailed information that can be transferred to another employee. You can also develop your own forms of forms, which must be filled out by managers in the course of work and included in the client's dossier.

So 5 reasons on which you can use this simple and effective method of planning work with a client— in front of you. The decision, as always, is yours. Believe me, you will now be armed to the teeth with all the information on any client. If this system is useful to someone, I will be glad, write your opinion about it in the comments.

"The customer is always right" - that's what everyone ... customers think. In fact, it turns out that often consumers and buyers behave completely wrong, struggle to defend an erroneous point of view, enter into conflicts, are rude and masterfully spoil the mood of account managers who take the brunt. Those who believe that the work of such a specialist is too simple are greatly mistaken. Therefore, if you are thinking about trying yourself in the field of client management, carefully study all the pitfalls of this profession.

One is in a good mood, the other is in a bad mood. It takes two minutes for one person, half an hour for a conversation with another. One will say a polite "thank you", the other, after loud threats to write a complaint against you, will nervously hang up. In general, how many people - so many moods, but the ability to take into account the wishes of everyone, while remaining polite and ready to help, is what distinguishes a good account manager. “It can be very difficult to maintain composure when you see that a person is wrong and absolutely impenetrable. They are trying to prove to you that the Earth is square, and they do not want to listen to any objections, ”experts joke. In fact, no matter how many funny cases from their practice account managers tell, in reality they are not at all in the mood for jokes.

Not only is the list of duties not limited to just communicating with consumers, but such specialists also feel like nothing more than sappers - you never know who, in what mood and for what purpose, will now call your phone or cross the threshold of your office.

Responsibilities of a Client Relationship Manager

The leaders of some companies have a very vague idea of ​​​​what a person working in the field of client management should do. The management believes that in addition to daily work with already interested customers, these specialists must also attract new customers and increase sales. This is partly true: by connecting with people who are already focused on buying your products, you really increase sales. However, your responsibilities do not include the search for new customers, you work only with those that have already been “found”. So, what should an account manager do?

1. Advise consumers and buyers.
2. Maintain and develop mutually beneficial relationships with customers.
3. Consider claims and complaints, prepare responses.
4. Conclude contracts, issue invoices.
5. Provide management with reporting documents.

What should an account manager know?

Now that you know what customer management professionals do on a daily basis, you should also familiarize yourself with some of the unspoken rules that guide the representatives of this profession.

Whichever brawler is on the other end of the line, the account manager must maintain his composure.

1. The client is not always right, but the manager is always polite.

It's true - clients quite often behave ugly: being confident in their rightness, they believe that the guilty must certainly be punished, and by the most cruel methods. Such consumers will scream into the phone, call you the most unpleasant words, threaten to “come and unscrew the head of the one who sold him this terrible product with his own hands.” Whichever brawler is on the other end of the line, the account manager must maintain his composure. In no case should you be rude and rude in response.

2. Understand the reasons.

You should not follow the client's lead if you understand that he is going bankrupt for no reason. Whatever problem a person comes to you with (fictitious or real), try to understand its causes. Find out what exactly does not suit the client and why this happened. Dot all the i's before apologizing and compensating for property damage.

3. Develop communication skills.

If one day you used a learned scheme of communication with a client and it brought you your first sale, this does not mean that tomorrow everything will be exactly the same. All people are different, each needs a special approach. And, most importantly, all your consumers are waiting for you to treat them with understanding, imbued with their problems, help you find the best way out of this situation. You can’t behave with clients like a robot controlled by a certain program; with clients, you must first of all be a person. And a person who is conducive to communication.

You can’t behave with clients like a robot controlled by a certain program; with clients, you must first of all be a person.

4. Get rid of templates.

Most companies develop their own corporate standards, which prescribe to whom, what and when to say. But practice shows: all this is meaningless. Be sure to look who is in front of you - a man or a woman, a young or old man, a married or single lady. What works in a conversation with a retired aunt Masha will be useless in a conversation with a businessman in an expensive car.

How to work with clients: 10 commandments of Carl Sewell

Someone will ask: “Who is this Carl Sewell, and why should I listen to him?” To be honest, a couple of years ago I didn’t even know who Sewell was and what he did. But one day I got my hands on the book "Clients for Life", written by Karl. She impressed me, made me think and rethink my attitude to the client, to communication with him, to the service that is offered. It was then that I became interested in the personality of the author, and it was decided to study his biography in more detail. There is practically nothing about Karl in RuNet, then foreign sources had to be translated.

Of course, in this article I will not delve into the details of the life of Carl Sewell, but I will say that this man is the owner of one of the best car dealerships in the United States. He went from zero to millions in profits thanks to the system of attracting and retaining customers, which he outlined in his book, and in his ten commandments of working with clients.
In the US, there is a customer satisfaction rating, which includes many factors in the interaction between the company and the buyer. Well, Carla's customer satisfaction rate is incredibly high. He not only leads many different ratings, but constantly sets a new bar for those who catch up, confirming the title of the best.

Do you want to learn how to work with clients? Then these commandments are for you.

1. Keep the customer coming back
It has long been known that most of the profits of many companies are brought by regular customers. Karl also adheres to this principle, and notes that it is not necessary to consider a one-time benefit from the purchase of a particular product to customers. It is better to make sure that a person constantly comes to you, thereby ensuring a stable and constant income.
Sewell's business is based on the principle that he prefers to give customers exactly what they expect at the moment. This will allow you to respond as accurately as possible to the local needs of a person, constantly guessing his desires and needs. Thus, the client will not need to look for a new company, but it is easier to return to you, knowing that you will give him exactly what he is looking for.

2. System, not smiles
Very often in business books you can find advice on the fact that the staff of your company should smile at customers, be welcoming and friendly. In part, this is correct, but a certain system needs to be worked out. It is very important to thank customers, say “thank you” and “please”, use other words of politeness that set you up for good nature and a positive wave.
Take McDonald's as an example. All employees there speak using a well-defined system of words and phrases. Someone may say that this is banal, and has already become boring, but as long as the system works and gives results, it cannot be banal.

3. Promise less than you deliver.
It is often said that entrepreneurs must exceed the expectations of their potential customers. In practice, this is extremely difficult to implement. If you promise a lot, then even more will come to life from you. Here you need to use one trick - not to promise much, but in fact exceed all expectations at times.
For example, a customer orders a laptop from your store and expects nothing more. But along with a laptop, he gets a gift: small speakers, a mouse, a flash drive, or any other equipment. In fact, for a large company, these costs will be pennies, but the client will have an excellent impression of your store for a long time, because you have exceeded his expectations. There is a high degree of probability that he will tell friends and acquaintances about such an act, and more than once turn to you for shopping.

4. Always say yes.
Even if you disagree with the client in some way, you should not enter into an argument with him, prove something, condemn his point of view and opinion. You can do this outside of working hours, and not on behalf of the company. And so, if a contradiction arises, then keep it to yourself, and always say “Yes” to the client.
There is a wonderful saying: “The customer is always right”, and it is true. If you want a person to turn to you more than once for goods or services, then make it clear that his opinion is valued, it is important, they agree with him and will definitely listen. Otherwise, if you argue and defend yourself, then the person will never contact you again.

5. The customer service department is bullshit.
If your company has controllers, or a department that is responsible for working with clients, then you can safely fire them. Carl Sewell believes that the responsibility for dealing with all customers, be it a VIP, a regular customer, or someone who first contacted you, lies with each employee. Everyone should feel that it is he who is responsible for the mood of the client, for his desires, for his decisions to return to the store again or not.
If all responsibility is shifted to some department or certain persons, then nothing good will come of it. The seller and consultants, who are most in contact with customers, will simply cease to feel responsible, and it will no longer make sense for them to try to somehow influence the client’s opinion, because all powers have been transferred to others, so why do extra work?

6. No complaints - think about it
As the hero of one of the popular series "Theory of Lies" Kel Lightman said: "The absence of emotions is also a serious reason to think." The same is true in business. If there are no complaints, then something is going wrong. Many may think that the absence of complaints is an indicator of the ideal work of the company, but in reality everything can be completely different. Your company is not a brand new piece of gold that everyone likes, and there must be people who will notice something bad, want to complain, write their own negative review. If there are none, then this can mean one thing - the company is completely uninteresting, and its popularity is at a very low level.
In fact, you should not be afraid of complaints, because this is feedback from your customers, an opportunity to see from the outside what is going wrong, what areas need to be improved, what to tighten up and what to pay extra attention to.
7. Measure everything
You must clearly understand which of your actions are effective and which are not. Where it is worth allocating more money, and which area should be stopped financing. Everything can be measured, and you need to do it as much as possible. Especially clear control and measurement is needed in the field of advertising. You must understand what type of advertising will bring the maximum effect, attracting customers to your company. It often happens that companies spend thousands of dollars on advertising campaigns, while not understanding at all what kind of return from them, and whether there is any at all.
8. Fair salaries
Your employees are partners who should receive a salary commensurate with their performance. Move away from the system of naked rates, where a person receives a certain amount of money, regardless of how much work he performs. So the desire and motivation to work, to do something above the norm, to try, to develop disappear.
And if you pay part of the salary fixed, and part of the percentage of sales or in accordance with other work performed, then the employee will understand that everything is in his hands. The more and better you work, the more you get. Everything is logical, everything is clear.

Working with clients requires adherence to certain principles, thanks to which you can achieve the desired effect. Some principles of working with clients are justified in any field of activity and are necessary at all stages of the relationship.

Individual approach

This phrase has already become quite hackneyed today, but if you do not just formally follow this principle, you can achieve really significant results. The principle of an individual approach is the search for specific solutions for a specific client, the ability to deviate from standards.

All clients at a glance.
Manage customer relationships, work productively with leads!

It is this principle that allows you to bring together the desire of the client to receive certain goods and services and his financial capabilities, thanks to him the client feels cared for himself, and for the sake of this feeling, on occasion, he will turn to you again.

Comprehensive Services

All methods of working with clients are ultimately aimed at ensuring that the client buys goods or services, and if possible, does it more often. An excellent option is to comply with the principle of integrated services. It is necessary to offer not only a product, but also a service, not just one service, but a whole range, in order to fully satisfy the needs of the client.

Professionalism and trust

A customer seeks certain services because he wants professional help, or he buys a product because he wants to be sure of its quality. It is necessary to convince the client of your professionalism, to inspire his confidence. For this, it is important to meet the deadlines, transparency of work, high-quality execution of each stage, full informing the client.

Personal approach

It is important to remember that even if the client is a legal entity, the interaction is with an ordinary person who is a unique personality. It is important to emphasize that you respect the client in this capacity too: you must always address by name, use the necessary politeness formulas in speech, pay attention to his mood and adapt to it. If the person you are working with has a positive attitude, both jokes and smiles are appropriate. If he looks restrained and strict, you should behave accordingly, without leaving the official framework.

Schemes of work with clients at each stage

There are certain schemes for working with clients at different stages of interaction. The most important stage is the first contact, when the client is still in the mood for cooperation and can change his mind at any time. At this stage, it is important to be as punctual as possible, not to reschedule or postpone meetings with the client, to know in advance his name and other information about him, to prepare as carefully as possible for the presentation.

Ideally, if the client already has an expressed desire to take advantage of your offer and the opportunity to do so. In practice, the opposite situation is more common, in which it is necessary to apply certain methods of influencing the client. For example, if he does not have sufficient funds, you can offer him the possibility of a loan, installments, discounts. If there are funds, but he hesitates, you need to make the offer even more attractive: promise some kind of bonus, additional services.

When the contract has already been concluded, the execution stage begins. It is very important not to lose a client by violating deadlines or poor quality work, since one satisfied client can bring several new ones or become a permanent one, and a dissatisfied client can leave a negative review and ruin the company's reputation. In this regard, it is important to maintain good relations with the client, inform and congratulate the client, report on the successful completion of a certain part of the work, and resolve all emerging issues in a timely manner.

How to make a client permanent?

The Klass365 system helps to build effective interaction with clients at all stages of work. The advantages of Class365 are:

• quick preparation of commercial offers and necessary documentation
• maintaining a complete dossier on the client
• customer relationship commenting system to save more detailed information
• distribution of tasks among employees and tracking the progress of their implementation
• system of internal communications and notifications of important events
• email and sms options

Having complete information on each counterparty, you can easily use an individual approach and select the most favorable terms of cooperation for clients. Getting loyal customers is very easy. To do this, you need only 15 minutes to install and master the online program Klass365!

Take the chance to connect and work in the Class365 online business automation program for free.

April 30, 2015 hr-expert (15 years of experience in personnel assessment and development), business coach (over 15 years of experience), coach (8 years of experience). ACADEMY OF SERVICE TECHNOLOGIES

15 Essential Skills for Customer Service

There are several customer service skills that must be applied by an employee of any company when interacting with customers. Below are the 15 most important personal qualities that need to be developed in order to be able to provide high-quality customer service.

The most important character traits for customer service:

1. Patience

If you work with clients on a daily basis, be patient when they come to you upset or confused. Customers expect to be listened to carefully and take action to address their questions and concerns.

Able to endure, able to achieve whatever he wants. (B. Franklin)

2. Attention

Attention is important in any situation: if a client turns to you for advice in the process of buying or providing a service, complaints and dissatisfaction. You must listen carefully, assess the emotional state of the client, and based on this decide what further steps are required.

The most important thing is to be attentive. Pay attention to everything around you, to everything that you see, to everything that others do not notice - and you will know what others do not know. (With)

3. Empathy and compassion

If the client is upset, you should not only listen carefully, but express your sympathy. Thus, you will show that you care about his problem and you are ready to help him.

Compassion is the highest form of human existence. (F.M. Dostoevsky)

4. Good communication skills

When communicating with a client, you need to convey the information of interest to the client in the simplest and most accessible language.

True eloquence is the ability to say all that is needed, and no more than is necessary. (F. La Rochefoucauld)

5. Stress resistance

As you know, the most difficult job is working with people. All people express their emotions and feelings in different ways. You should not take the negative emotions of customers personally.

The cure for stress is a smile. (V. Vinokur )

6. Ability to speak positively

The ability to speak positively makes the client feel happy, which means that he will return to your company more than once.

Standard speech: "We don't have this product in stock until next month; We ordered it but it's currently out of stock."

Positive speech: "We will have this product next month. I can now fix your application and will definitely inform you as soon as it goes on sale."

7. Acting

Sometimes, we come across clients who will be dissatisfied with your service, no matter what you do. These situations are out of your control. For example, they had a terrible day, didn't sleep well at night, etc. Such clients should not let you lose your temper no matter what they tell you. In such situations, you need to communicate politely and friendly both with indignant customers and not take out your frustration on other customers.

The earth is a huge theater in which the same tragedy is played under different titles. (Voltaire )

8. Time planning

Your work must be efficient. Despite the fact that some issues require more attention, you should have time to resolve other clients' issues. Don't waste time asking difficult questions that you don't have an answer for. Forward this question to colleagues who can help you much faster and more competently.

Don't waste your time and your client's time!

To accomplish great and important work, two things are needed: a clear plan and limited time. (Hubbard Elbert)

9. Serenity

Remain calm in any situation. In the case of an emotional appeal, with your calmness you help the client to “cool down” and calmly convey the complaint to you. At the same time, the client does not have a residue that the company tried to piss him off.

The true strength of a person is not in impulses, but in indestructible calmness. (L. N. Tolstoy )

10. Purposefulness

This item may seem strange for a list of qualities required for customer service. But he is very important.

Business Goals + Customer Satisfaction are two related things. To achieve business goals, each employee needs to set goals and ensure that they are achieved.

People who succeed in this world are not lazy and look for the circumstances they need, and if they don’t find them, they create them. (J. Bernard Shaw )

11. Ability to manage force majeure situations

Sometimes there are non-standard situations that need to be quickly and efficiently resolved. You may not have instructions from the company. Perhaps the client's reaction is different from what you expected.

In this case, you have a chance to think over for yourself the actions that will help you solve a similar problem in the future.

For yourself, you can take a simple algorithm of actions:

Who? One important detail that you need to understand is that you are the employee who received the appeal. It is up to you to decide what to do in this or that situation and to whom you can turn on this issue. Perhaps the CEO can help you, but you can't bother the CEO on petty matters. Identify for yourself contact persons in the company who can help you, and send them the necessary question.

What? When you have determined that you are unable to answer the question yourself, and you have decided to forward the question to a competent person in this area, you must determine WHAT exactly should be communicated to this person. It may be necessary to address the full appeal. It may be necessary to send only the most important parts of the request, or highlight only one point for which you cannot find an answer.

How? When you have decided on the two points above, you should have a decision on how you can get your question across. For example, you can solve the problem with one phone call or write a letter by mail if the client is ready to wait for a response.

Life is full of surprises, and not only pleasant ones. (With)

12. Ability to convince

Most often, customers ask questions out of curiosity, and not because of problems with the product.

You must convince the client why your product is so necessary for the client. In this case, these are not product sales, but maintaining the company's image and demonstrating a high level of service that will make the client return to the company for a purchase.

Convince first, then convince. (K.S. Stanislavsky)

13. Stability

The ability to consistently do a good job in the service sector at the highest level, so that customers talk about you - this is what you need to strive for. Remember that by putting extra effort into providing a service, you attract customers again and again.

Great deeds require tireless constancy. (Voltaire)

14. Ability to correctly end the dialogue

The ability to properly end a dialogue means to end the conversation with confidence that the client is satisfied and all issues are resolved. The last thing a client wants is to return to the company with the same unresolved issue.

Your ability to achieve this shows the client 3 important things:

• Are you worried about resolving his issue?
• You are ready to do everything to achieve the desired result
• You allow the client to determine which solution is "correct".

When you are sure that all issues are resolved, you can end the conversation.

15. Desire to learn

If you have read this page, then you probably have this desire :) and you already have this skill!

Those who see how and what can be improved will be one step ahead of those who are not ready or do not want to learn.

This is perhaps the most important skill on this list, perhaps not everything you need.

Learning without meditation is useless, but thinking without learning is dangerous. (Confucius)

Your turn...

Now I need to hear from you!

1. Which of the 15 customer service skills reviewed above do you feel are the most important and prioritized? Is there something I missed?

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