Customer Meetings Offer a Strong ROI

Why Lessons Learned Customer Meetings Always Offer a Strong ROI

Your Return on Investment for Retrospectives

Retrospectives, sometimes called a win/loss analysis, are powerful for the following reasons:

• Done correctly, you can uncover the real buying criteria and decision process.
• Since the sale is behind you, but still fresh in everyone’s mind, it’s a perfect time to validate Win Themes™. If the account team missed the mark, it’s important to learn why so they can adjust in the future.
• Retrospectives are appreciated by customers and leave the door open.

More about Retrospectives

Purpose:

• Retrospectives yield new information including how and why the customer reached their recent decision.
• Learning about how the customer assesses ‘value’ will lead to continuous improvements throughout the sales organization.
• The customer’s point of view often reveals best practices which can be incorporated into future sales cycles.

Win/Loss Retrospective Overview

The goal of the Win/Loss Retrospective is to gain insights into the customers buying process after a decision has been made.(Usually within 30-90 days.) The true ‘voice of the customer’ offers a candid perspective and invaluable information, which is hard to gather through an online survey or during the sales process.

Win/Loss Retrospective Workflow

1. Determine if the win or loss meets the criteria you established.
2. Sales leader and account team determine best customer contact(s) for an interview.
3. Sales leader initiates contact with the customer and conducts meeting with the customer.
4. Sales leader shares learning’s with selling team and others in the organization who would benefit from learnings.
5. Sales leader documents interview results (call notes) of win/loss retrospective and posts to CRM or archives for future access.
6. Sales leader sends thank you note to the customer.

Win/Loss Retrospective Key Points

• Best if initiated within 30 – 90 days of win or loss.
• An interview should be conducted by someone familiar with sales process but not involved on a day-to-day basis. The goal is
  to create an environment where the customer feels comfortable offering candid feedback.
• Customers will view this process as positive and a differentiator for your company.
• Ask to follow up questions to the questions in the interview guide to uncover the more subtle aspects of the decision. For example, political pressure, risk associated with changing the status quo, social issues, etc. The goal is to find out what really happened.
• Avoid ‘blaming’ when sharing learnings internally.
• Capture all learning and share internally to continue to improve institutionally.

Good luck and good selling!

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