Everyone is a Salesperson

A lot of people at a transportation/logistics company affect the customer experience and the perception that a customer has of the firm. The overall customer experience is often not managed well. The customer is then required to apply extra effort to navigate the organization to get things done, or get issues resolved. The more choices a transportation/logistics consumer has, the more pressure companies should feel to offer quality customer service.

Although it is good for customers to have a single point of contact (for simplicity), every employee at your company should act as if it is “their job” to help resolve the problems of the customer. Cross-functional teams assigned to larger accounts have been shown to help with working out issues that may require resources and/or agreement across several departments. Even in the absence of such teams, all employees should be coached in how to help customers by actively listening to them, in order to help solve their problems.

The brain changes as a function of where an individual puts his or her attention. It is the power of focus, sometimes referred to as attention density. Attention continually reshapes the patterns of the brain. People who practice a specialty every day literally think differently, through different sets of connections, than people who don’t practice the specialty.

Sales professionals have profound differences in perception from people in other functions, such as finance, operations, solutions, legal, marketing and human resources that cause them to see the world in a different way. One difference is the tendency for salespeople to see themselves as customer advocates. This is a tendency that should be shared across all of the functions of every company. Salespeople and managers should help to teach others at their company to become customer advocates. Everyone should focus on meeting the needs of the customer.

In addition, we should employ the same sales techniques used to gain insight into customers to gain insight into our fellow employees. Every one of us is a salesperson and everyone else is a consumer of our ideas and personality. Find out about other people at your company and be genuinely interested in them and their motivations, if you want them to take your ideas seriously. There is no substitute for being genuinely interested in what others think and feel. We should all practice listening to the ideas and opinions of others.

I don’t believe that a salesperson who is truly concerned about their customer’s needs has to be at odds with the people at their work who are trying to develop, price and produce the company’s product. Rather, salespeople should help others to put themselves in the place of the customer, by offering their insights in a way that does not convey a pride of ownership of the ideas. After all, they got the ideas from the customer. All everyone has to do is be willing to actively listen and be willing to work together to solve problems. The ultimate responsibility for securing customers may lie with the salespeople, but the gain (or loss) to your company that results from your level of success in retaining customers will be felt by all.