Sales Myth: Provide Great Customer Service and You Won't Need to Prospect

It’s time to put to rest the idea that the only thing you need to do to grow your business is to provide excellent customer service to your existing customers. You believe great customer service alone will prompt your customers to tell others and then you'll get all the customers you want? Wrong!

If you believe that, you still think WeWork is a $50 billion dollar company, Theranos is going to revolutionize health care and the New York Jets are going to win the Super Bowl. Nope! It’s a sales myth lazy salespeople allow themselves to believe, so they don’t have to prospect.

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 I am all in favor of great customer service. Believe me, it’s essential if you want to stay in business. I also agree that the easiest way to increase business is with your existing customers; however, I don’t believe for a moment that that's enough to really grow sales.

Sales is about creating incremental opportunities. That means actively prospecting to create new customers. It's interesting to see that those people who don’t like doing this work are the ones who buy into this sales myth of only having to care for existing customers.

When we place our future on the status of existing customers, we give up control. Things might be great while the customer is growing, but just as a company can grow, they can also shrink. I can only imagine what the Sears salesperson who was committed to providing great customer service to grow their business is thinking today? Don't bet your future based on a couple of customers who you think are great despite how good they might be today. It’s not enough! They alone won't help you achieve long-term sustainable growth.

This problem is magnified when management puts too much emphasis on salespeople having to handle things with an existing account. The constant nagging from management regarding existing customers and the need to make sure you, the salesperson don’t lose them only perpetuates this myth. With management fixated on existing accounts, salespeople find themselves with limited time to prospect. With limited time to prospect, it becomes quite easy to believe the myth of growing sales just with great customer service.

There's a reason why companies need to have people dedicated to taking care of existing customers- it’s called customer service. These people do this job best. Best of all, when you have a customer service team responsible for meeting the needs of existing customers, your sales team is freed up to go out and prospect!

Be sure to check out my latest ebook: 50 Prospecting Truths!

Copyright 2020, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Result