The sales process
The sales process is everything that happens around a sale — before, during and after it. The specification names five elements, and they run roughly in that order.
Post-sales service is the element businesses most often underestimate, and it is where reputation is genuinely made. Every business has customers with a problem at some point; what distinguishes them is what happens next. A complaint handled well often leaves the customer more loyal than if nothing had gone wrong, because they now know the business can be relied on.
Responses to feedback matter for a related reason: for every customer who complains, several simply leave without saying anything. Feedback is therefore a warning about a problem affecting more people than the number complaining suggests.
- Sales process
- everything that happens around a sale — before, during and after it — including product knowledge, customer engagement, speed and efficiency of service, and post-sales service
The importance of good customer service
Why it matters to businesses:
• Repeat custom. Keeping an existing customer is far cheaper than attracting a new one, because no promotion is needed to reach someone who already buys from you. • Recommendations. Satisfied customers tell others and leave positive reviews — promotion the business does not pay for. • A higher price can be charged. Customers will pay more where they trust the service, which is one of the ways of adding value from 1.1.3. • Competitive advantage. Where products are similar, service is often the only thing that distinguishes one business from another — and it is harder to copy than a price cut. • Fewer returns and complaints. Good advice at the point of sale means customers buy the right thing, which costs the business less afterwards.
The cost of poor service is the same list reversed, with one addition: online reviews make dissatisfaction visible to people who have never used the business, so a service failure now reaches far beyond the customer it happened to.
Worked example
An electronics shop faces competition from cheaper websites selling identical products. Recommend how the sales process could help it compete.
- Identify the position: it cannot win on price, because a website with no shop has lower costs — so it must compete on something else.
- Identify what a website cannot easily offer: staff who can demonstrate the product and answer questions in person.
- Product knowledge is therefore the strongest element — trained staff who help customers choose the right item.
- Add post-sales service: setup help, easy returns and someone to speak to when something goes wrong, none of which a distant website matches.
- Explain why this beats matching the price.
Answer: It should compete on product knowledge and post-sales service rather than price. Trained staff who can demonstrate products and give genuine advice, plus setup help and easy returns, offer something a cheaper website cannot — and customers will pay a premium for it. Matching the website's price is not viable, since the shop's costs are higher.
Common mistake
Customer service is not only what happens at the till. Product knowledge beforehand and post-sales support afterwards are both part of the sales process, and a question asking about it wants more than "be polite to customers".
Before you practise
- The five elements: product knowledge, speed and efficiency of service, customer engagement, responses to customer feedback, post-sales service.
- Product knowledge helps customers buy the right thing, reducing returns.
- Post-sales service is where reputation is made — a complaint handled well can increase loyalty.
- Most dissatisfied customers do not complain, they simply leave, so feedback signals a bigger problem than it appears.
- Good service brings repeat custom, recommendations, higher prices and fewer returns.
- Keeping an existing customer costs far less than attracting a new one.
- Where products are similar, service is often the main source of competitive advantage — and is harder to copy than a price cut.