User experience (UX) in sales isn’t always seen as a priority when it comes to win rate optimisation. However, in the digital age, it’s absolutely fundamental.
Sales professionals who know how to create captivating, frictionless journeys for their potential customers are in a substantially stronger position to close deals.
In this article, you’ll learn about the essential role of UX in win rate optimisation, along with practical strategies to refine your own process.
The role of user experience in sales
There is broad consensus among business leaders about the important role of user experience in sales. UX impacts your prospects’ levels of trust, satisfaction, and readiness to buy. And all of these emotions are directly relevant to your win rate.
A customer experience that is fluid and accounts for your potential clients’ needs at different stages of their journey has a far better chance of creating positive consensus among stakeholders during decision-making.
Direct impacts of UX on win rates
A positive user experience can improve conversion rates at all stages of your sales process, with significant effects on your win rate.
- Builds trust: A positive UX that conveys professionalism and reliability builds trust with potential customers.
- Inspires confidence: A well-designed and informative UX instils confidence in you and your skills, reducing hesitation and friction during decision-making.
- Evokes excitement: An engaging and user-friendly UX can create excitement about your product or service, increasing the likelihood of the prospect moving on to subsequent stages of the sales process.
- Cements satisfaction: A smooth and enjoyable UX, free of frustration and difficulty, ensures customers have a satisfying interaction with you and your company.
- Develops interest and adds value: A UX that presents intriguing and informative content can pique the customer’s interest, provoking thinking and encouraging them to explore further and learn more about your product or service. This ultimately provides a credible opportunity to develop a meaningful, trust-based relationship with your potential client.
Enhancing UX for better win rates
At The Win Academy, we’ve built UX optimisation into all stages of our E³volve System™ process, a tested system for sales teams to improve their win rates.
Here is a practical guide for improving the ease and efficacy of your customer journey at key stages of your sales process:
- Initial contact: Every touchpoint should be insightful, engaging and persuasive. The crucial role of a memorable first impression is hard to understate and this is achieved through consistency in quality and presentation across all your channels, including your website and collateral. Early-stage materials should have a clear call to action to prompt the beginning of the sales journey.
- Needs assessment: By developing a comprehensive understanding of your customer’s emotional and rational needs, you can create an engaging narrative with a clear value proposition backed by real-world examples. A thorough needs-based assessment—that moves beyond the surface of intelligence gathering to identify deep-rooted issues—provides an excellent context for gaining and offering insight. Similarly, it is vital to keep listening even after this initial assessment, updating and deepening your understanding as the relationship develops.
- Presentation: Your pitch, based on a complete needs assessment, should combine logic and emotion and avoid jargon. Of course, sales presentations must be delivered on time. An inability to keep to set timeframes is a significant red flag.
- Planning for objections and doubt: Approaching client conversations non-transactionally, in a way that’s driven by trust and mutual respect, allows your team to confidently address customer concerns and re-emphasise benefits and features in a way that speaks to deeper needs. When you build engaging stories around your product, you have a powerful baseline from which to remedy doubts and objections.
- Follow-up: Establish a well-defined post-sale support system, including check-ins and assistance. Follow-up should always be explicit, transparent and pre-planned. There is little point in following up the evening after a pitch when your prospective client is receiving other pitches for the rest of the week.
- Delivery: Ensure a smooth handover to the delivery or implementation team, and provide comprehensive training or support to the customer. It is important that UX is aligned during product adoption. UX optimisation shouldn’t apply solely to the sales process. This is a very sensitive period that lays the foundation for future sales and loyalty.
Conclusion
Many sales professionals overlook user experience. Yet by giving the appropriate amount of time and attention to this key aspect of win rate optimisation, you will give yourself a strong competitive advantage.
Prospects that experience a high degree of trust, interest and satisfaction are much more likely to buy from you. And by tailoring and refining all stages of the customer sales journey, you will ensure these feelings are present in abundance.
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