Does Your IT Sales Process Include Too Much Customer Contact?

Yes, there is such a thing as too much customer contact in your IT sales process! You need to balance carefully the amount of proactive outbound contact that you make with your customers.

Many VAR programs have time-limited promotions where it’s appropriate to have a slightly more aggressive schedule for contacting and following up with customers and prospects. This is the exception rather than the rule.

Don’t Bombard Your Customer

As part of your normal course of business, you should be aiming to keep your product or service fresh in your customer’s mind, but you should not be bombarding them. Remember that every touch point where your customer sees or hears something related to your business counts as a contact.

So, if you have posters/bills/flyers around town, advertising/sponsorship at local events or in local publications, then you’re already raising awareness. On top of that, you might have email lists for special offers, product/service developments, renewals, a newsletter, and your regular manual contact via personal email and phone.

Don’t Turn Off Your Customer

If your customers and prospects are signed up for multiple lists, newsletters, and your RSS feed, then you could end up being in their inbox every day of the week, and this is a major problem, as it will turn off a large portion of your subscribers.

Additionally, if your prospects and customers visit your website regularly and you advertise via cookies, then they may quickly become blind to your ads and worse, feel as if they are being stalked by your constant presence around the web—not what you are trying to achieve.

The Perfect Mix

This is why it is so important to lay out your customer touch and contact points as a part of your marketing and IT sales process. Then you’ll minimize the risks of switching off your audience whilst still keeping your business fresh in their minds. 

How do you achieve the perfect mix? Share your experiences with us in the Comments section.  

And to follow-through on the tips introduced in this short article, be sure to download your free copy of the special report on 7 IT Sales Secrets for Attracting High-Lifetime-Value Clients. 

Also see Is Your IT Sales Process Too Dependent on Freebies?

Creative Commons Image Source: flickr TheStaceys1