Who needs a SWOT to succeed?

Even for the savviest organization, maintaining a balance of meeting payroll, paying vendors, and finding ways to expand the business can be an incredible challenge. So how can you find more opportunities to cultivate the loyal, profitable customers that keep your business running smoothly? 

One way is to leverage the knowledge of those individuals who know your customers best, who have developed relationships with them … your employees. By turning your customer service team into sales advocates, you are organically adding to your sales team – and your sales potential.  

Successful customer relationships are carefully cultivated through the entire sales process. Every employee interaction affects the relationship. Customers drop out of the process when they are sufficiently unhappy. So when customers are moving on, you need to know why.

A SWOT analysis analyzes your customer interactions in the context of your industry landscape and generates specific insights that can help your business reach its full operational and earning potential.

·         What are your customer service team’s Strengths in working with customers: Relationships? Knowledge of customer’s business? 

·         What are their Weaknesses: Need to be more customer-service oriented? The way they answer the phone? 

·         What are the Opportunities: Increased sales? More contacts?  

·         What are the Threats: Loss of valuable employees to the competition? Attitude problems?

By understanding what factors are within your control, you can maximize sales opportunities and turn your customer service representatives, your sales force – everyone – into business development advocates that keep customers in your pipeline. 

Written by Desander Mas