Email is the New Phone

Today's post is by Sales SheBang speaker Kendra Lee who is presenting a breakout session on "The Art of the Consultative Conversation."

There’s no question that email is an important communication tool in the business world. During the past few years, it has become apparent that email has evolved to a primary customer interaction tool, rather than the supplement it once was to phone and face-to-face meetings. 

While email can never replace verbal communication, it has evolved to the point that more people are using it as a key communication tool.  As a sales rep, it’s important to be aware of this trend, and understand some of the dilemmas you might face.

If you're like I was, you believe email should be answered after hours when you are not on the phone or in customer meetings. This is how I handle proposals. They can’t be written during valuable customer “face” time, but should be saved for that time of day when customers are not available.

But, expectations and how email is used have changed. Many customers now expect you to hold whole conversations via email, sometimes with emails flying within minutes of each other, just as if they were instant messages or a phone call. With these changes email is now as important as face-to-face meetings and phone calls.

Here are some tips to consider when making email a primary customer interaction tool:

• View email as the new prospecting tool. After you leave a voicemail, follow-up with an email, giving prospects two easy ways to respond. Remember, your goal is to connect with the person. Even if they respond “no”, you have connected and can respond.

• Keep the sales process moving forward using email to ask requirements gathering questions, get referrals, make recommendations, and provide updates.

• Respond to all emails with action items promptly. You return phone calls within 1-24 hours. The expectation now is that you’ll return emails within 30 minutes – 12 hours. If you can’t respond completely, send an email setting expectations about when you will send a full response.

• Think – and proof – before you send. Sometimes it’s best to draft a response, then wait 30 minutes before sending. You may choose to soften, shorten, or otherwise change your response.

• You may need a hand-held device such as a Blackberry to keep up. Consider what tools you need to add this new customer interaction approach and make the investment.

• Schedule daily time on your calendar to respond to emails. Consider this equal to customer meeting time. If you are holding complete customer conversations via email, you really are holding a meeting. Give it equal time for a well thought out response with a request for next steps.

There are many benefits that can be realized by using email. This includes ease of connection and a better way to communicate in certain circumstances. For example, I recently had a prospect that was interested in having us do some training development work for her firm. She emailed me and explained exactly what she needed and requested a quote.

When I requested a phone meeting to learn more, she declined. Because she was the decision maker, I asked her all my questions via email and prepared a proposal based on her answers.  With my proposal in hand, and without a single verbal conversation, she not only accepted it, but increased it by 20% to cover any changes in scope.

While this situation is unusual, it is becoming more and more common for customers and prospects to prefer to answer questions and move opportunities forward via email communications, limiting meeting time. Be prepared and you’ll soon find yourself reducing your sell cycle and closing opportunities via email!

Kendra Lee is president of KLA Group. Specializing in the IT industry, KLA Group helps companies rapidly penetrate new markets, break into new accounts and shorten time to revenue with new products.  For more information, contact the company at +1 303.741.6636 or [email protected] or visit www.klagroup.com.

Comments

[Shane Gibson]

Question for Kendra:

Firstly great post. Now here's my questions and apologies in advance for the long preamble. I have found that one needs to almost train their peers, staff, management as to what a reasonable response time.

A CEO (client of mine) gave their VP of Sales a new Blackberry and my advice to her was resist the temptation to immediately respond unless it requires an immediate response. Otherwise, you set a precedence and the tool becomes an electronic leash.

What's your thought on management impeding sales people's productivity by constantly pinging them with urgent but often unimportant issues? Should a sales organization develop a policy around this?

[mark]

Great info Kendra. Email is a great communication tool in the sales process, but I wanted to let you know about a two dimensional sales tool (voice and visuals) that is fantastic for sales professionals.

It's called GoldMail, and it costs less than two lattes per month.

Recipients are better informed, and the sales person knows when their message has been viewed.

[Kendra Lee / KLA Group]

Mark, there are some excellent tools like this that I'm aware of. Thank you for sharing your recommendation.

The most important thing early in the sales process is to be sure the prospect feels as if you sat down to write him a personal email. If we use tools that are too fancy or include too many links, they won't respond as readily as if they think this was an email just for them.

Once you are in the sales or implementation process, I love the ideas of tools like this because they only enhance your relationship by supplementing your communication!

[Kendra Lee / KLA Group]

Shane, ahh the tether email has become to us. The sad thing is that in today's environment people expect a response to their email within a matter of hours - or less - because technology has taught them to expect it. People forget that you have another job to do, besides returning their email, when they send an email.

That being said, you can train your management but how do you train your clients? For the clients, let them know how frequently you are responding.

For sales management, remind them of the importance of keeping the client first. Reps should be focused first on clients from 8-6 (maybe longer). Unless their emails are client focused, specifically related to a client situation, they may have to wait. Let's serve clients first and drive profit!

[Andrew Connelly]

I agree totally with your blog. I use email as an effective way to get in the door (personalized emails) and as a way to move things along in contract talks. In between (getting from first call-to-contract) often requires a phone call(s). I try not to let email replace all other forms of communication. I sometimes use online tools like LinkedIn or FaceBook as yet another new way to interact with the prospect, depending on the personality of that prospect.

My target audience is often consumer-focused internet sites and 9 out of 10 do not even list a phone number; I rely on email as the way in. I even fill in website "contact us" forms and it has been effective at times!

In an age where "social networking" has become the norm, the sites that are best at it, ironically don't list a phone number to reach them on....I view a phone call as more social than email. Maybe there should be a new buzzword entitled anti-social networking :).

[Andrew Connelly]

I agree totally with your blog. I use email as an effective way to get in the door (personalized emails) and as a way to move things along in contract talks. In between (getting from first call-to-contract) often requires a phone call(s). I try not to let email replace all other forms of communication. I sometimes use online tools like LinkedIn or FaceBook as yet another new way to interact with the prospect, depending on the personality of that prospect.

My target audience is often consumer-focused internet sites and 9 out of 10 do not even list a phone number; I rely on email as the way in. I even fill in website "contact us" forms and it has been effective at times!

In an age where "social networking" has become the norm, the sites that are best at it, ironically don't list a phone number to reach them on....I view a phone call as more social than email. Maybe there should be a new buzzword entitled anti-social networking :).

[Kendra Lee / KLA Group]

Email can be a great way to get the conversation started when you don't have a phone number. If you get a reply, often a contact's phone number is included in their signature. If not, you can always suggest a voice-to-voice conversation as an "easier" way to answer their questions and get their number that way.

Filling in the contact us forms on websites will get a response nearly every time if hte company is focused on driving new business!!! Excellent recommendation.

Notice that in social networking when you can download their V card, you often get enough contact info to call the company's main number and get transferred to the contact.

So many cool prospecting strategies to reach your top prospects!!!