Adaptive Selling

Adaptive selling is a sales approach that puts customers' needs at the heart of the sales process. Sales reps take into account clients' problems, social status, and the current selling situation to consult them effectively and offer the most relevant product.

Since this methodology implies adapting your entire sales cycle to every client in particular, it provides companies with a few significant advantages. Adaptive selling allows brands to nurture prospects effectively, convert more leads into clients, build customer loyalty, and evaluate the benefits of cross-selling and upselling techniques. Let’s explore them in-depth.

• It facilitates converting a lead into a client. Every sales manager knows how much time it takes to bring a user from the acquisition stage to the purchase, especially if the company sells complex and expensive products. An adaptive selling approach can be a game-changer for your strategy. To persuade a lead that they need your product, reps firstly need to make sure they really do need your product. For this purpose, they carry out some research and monitor users’ behavior. Top-notch specialists work outside their sales scripts and build a dialog with customers on the go, taking into account their mood, feedback, and readiness to buy.
• It helps build customer loyalty. Building rapport is crucial in sales. You can sell a product to anyone who needs it, but they won’t come back if you don’t care. Adaptive selling implies rewarding customers, collecting feedback, and providing VIP tiers. With these strategies implemented, clients won’t have a choice — they will definitely come back since you appreciate them.
• It provides the benefits of additional sales. Sales opportunities are really enormous if you’re ready to use them. Adaptive selling means holding a client’s hand during the sales cycle, and sales reps can ask clients about what they need to offer the best products to solve their problems. Cross-selling allows companies to sell complementary products with items the client has already chosen. Upselling lets reps offer a better version of the product. The goal is to be one step ahead and predict customers’ needs.

You can get all these benefits today. However, you should invest in educating your sales team and have some useful techniques on hand. Read on to get a clearer idea of how to reap the benefits of adaptive selling.

Since each customer is an individual with unique needs and preferences, there’s no universal formula. Still, we’ll share some general tips that will make up a good adaptive selling foundation.

1. Collect information about clients

Knowing your target audience is a must in a competitive world. You won’t sell a lot to people you don’t know. Since a significant number of deals are made online, we’ll cover some digital opportunities.

The basic data you need includes users’ gender, age, and location. This will help you target your promotion and offers at relevant segments. Then, you can dive deeper and analyze your customers’ job position, income level, and particular preferences. This information will allow you to craft personalized offers. The highest level of data collection implies tracking your client’s behavior. Check out the pages users visit, items they add to their shopping carts and wishlists, recurring purchases, etc. This way, you’ll manage to come up with a relevant and highly personalized offer if they hesitate or are confused with the shipment costs.

There’re lots of methods to collect such information. You can store it and view it in a CRM. We shared the best free CRM software for business on our blog. Another option is to make the most of Google Analytics and regularly check reports on users’ engagement, browsing history and other activities.

If you’re just about to start your adaptive selling strategy, you can use some simpler techniques. Collect data about users via subscription forms, email campaigns, online surveys, feedback forms, triggered emails, etc. This all possible with SendPulse.

You can create a professional subscription form in less than an hour without any coding skills. Add any fields you need to collect more information. Check out the form created with SendPulse below.

After a user fills it in, they will be added to the corresponding mailing list and you can send them personalized offers.

2. Adapt your approach to a lead’s position in the sales funnel

You can’t treat your regular clients and leads the same way. Your lead may know little about your products or just be hesitating about whether they can afford your products. You need to make sure they’re aware of the advantages of your service and that you have gained credibility. For this purpose, provide leads with a demo, free trial, client reviews and testimonials, case studies, etc. Remember that your loyal clients need to be rewarded, so make them unique offers, promote integrations with other services to make the most out of your product.

Make sure you speak your clients’ language. This is especially important for telemarketing. Since you are entering users’ private lives, play by their rules. Avoid being too pushy, insincere, overly flattering. If your client is friendly and seems to enjoy having a talk, warm them up to set into the right mood. If they’re an “analyzer type,” get ready for a bundle of questions, and give them time in advance to get prepared for the talk.

3. Analyze your data and improve the strategy

You should keep track of all the interactions you have with your leads and clients. Record your calls and save chats. Regularly analyze the behavior of each client, store this information in a CRM, and adapt your strategy accordingly. Follow different selling techniques to find the most effective ones.

Now you know the benefits adaptive selling can bring to your business. So, keep our tips in mind and make use of SendPulse services to bring communication with your customers to the next level.

References

1. In the article “What is Adaptive Selling? And How You Can Ace It,” you’ll get to know why you should sell adaptively and find some tips.
2. The article “Adaptive Selling” covers the essence of this approach and provides examples.
3. In the article “14 Tips to Enhance Adaptive Selling Techniques of Call Center Agents,” you’ll see the effective pieces of advice.

Last Updated: 21.03.2023