Every sale is an opportunity to build customer loyalty. When reps are ready to answer pre-purchase questions, address any concerns, and offer expert advice, customers know they’re in good hands. Building trust through your sales techniques lays the foundation for customer loyalty.
Focusing on customer loyalty at the first interaction pays big dividends. It leads to repeat business that furthers growth. Loyal customers are also more likely to share positive word of mouth that attracts their family and friends. Best of all, loyalty has a direct impact on customer lifetime value and profitability.
Building customer loyalty can take a lot of time and effort, but AI is creating opportunities for sales reps to scale their efforts like never before. With AI, reps can respond the moment customers need help or even anticipate their needs. AI can help personalize each interaction to reflect customers’ interests and preferences. The most advanced AI can handle sales-related tasks independently to help reps close more deals and reach their quota faster.
Whether you’re trying to elevate your own performance or that of a sales team you’re managing, connecting customer loyalty and AI should be a top priority. We’ll guide you through a two-pronged approach to familiarize yourself with the sales techniques that foster customer loyalty and then leverage AI to take your efforts even further.
What Are the Best Sales Techniques to Boost Loyalty?
According to Salesforce’s State of Sales report, 42% of sales leaders say recurring sales are their top revenue source, highlighting the importance of prioritizing long-term customer relationships over short-term wins. Here are some of the most effective ways to build the foundation for a loyal customer base.
Listen and Document
Start by taking the time to understand what kinds of problems customers want to solve or goals they want to reach. They might already know which products and services could do the job, but would like more detail before moving forward.
Saving customer data is a great way to complement what customers tell you directly. Use your company’s CRM to gain a more complete picture of who they are based on purchase histories or other information they’ve opted in to provide.
Challenge with Innovative Ideas
Establishing credibility with customers may require you to challenge their assumptions or broach difficult subjects in order to help solve their problems. This is known as the challenger sales model, and it puts salespeople in a position to take control of the sale by introducing innovative solutions.
As customers get to know you better, personalizing communication shows you recognise them as individuals, too. Based on the data you collect, you can tailor tips and resources you send them, and only reach out using the channels they’re most comfortable with.
Lead with Transparency
Remaining transparent all the while will help cement the trust you’ve developed. Is your customer putting off a purchase because of cost? Embrace down-selling by discussing more budget-friendly options. They’ll appreciate the honest advice about their options.
Offer a High-Value Experience
Honesty and transparency relate to one of the ultimate sales closing techniques: offering value before a sale. Across all industries represented in the State of Sales report, 54% of sales professionals say high customer expectations are more of a challenge than last year. When customers expect more, sales reps need to deliver a high-value experience before, during, and after the close. By doing your research, asking smart questions, or offering a “test drive” in the form of a demo or trial version, you’re demonstrating that relationships come first. After the sale, follow up to see if the product or service met the customer’s expectations and if there are other needs or problems you could help them address.
Continue Following-Up
Ask customers for their feedback on the overall customer experience and where it could improve. Then, follow up again after you’ve acted on it.
You can also follow up by rewarding customers for their loyalty. Offer a special promotion, discount, or bundle that reinforces your nurturing initiatives.
How to Improve Sales Techniques with AI
AI not only automates tasks — it can infuse customer loyalty directly into your sales closing techniques.
By drawing on CRM data and other sources, AI better enables one-to-one selling, ensuring customers feel heard, understood, and appreciated throughout their journey.
Start with these tactics to see the power of AI in action.
Enhance Customer Relationships with AI Agents
According to the seventh annual State of the Connected Customer report, 65% of customers expect someone to immediately respond when they contact a company. That’s an impossible task when you’re manually looking up information, preparing pitch decks, and finalizing quotes for multiple customers at once. Instead of auto-replies promising to get back to customers ASAP, agents act as a limitless sales team with a continuously available presence across any digital channel.
When you train AI on the most commonly asked questions and requests, agents can help customers by:
- Using everyday language to explain how products and services work
- Identifying the top reasons to buy based on needs, interests, and desired outcomes
- Sharing helpful content that demonstrates product and service use cases
- Providing social proof through contextually relevant case studies and testimonials
- Breaking down pricing information and streamlining ordering processes
When customers need or want to speak with sales reps directly, agents can schedule virtual or in-person meetings, giving back time normally spent trying to manage your calendar.
Agents also use the data they’re trained on to personalize responses. Personalization not only includes greeting customers by name, but can also mean referencing questions asked or problems raised during previous interactions. As a result, customers feel more recognised and valued, which will translate to increased loyalty.
Use Predictive AI to Anticipate Customer Needs
Proactive selling becomes less of a tall order when you see how AI can sift through customer data to predict questions or issues. This step surpasses what customers think about on their own, and requires companies to reach out to help save time, money, and effort. Consider these examples:
- Contract or subscription coming up for renewal? Agents can give customers early warning and connect them to promotions and incentives to keep them invested.
- Products and services expiring or becoming obsolete? Agents can alert customers about potential risks and suggest replacements or alternatives that align with their needs and interests.
- New products and services launching? Customers may appreciate an early insider tip from agents so they can be first in line to pre-order an item they’ll love.
AI gets to know your customers so well based on their past behaviour that agents can assess the entire sales journey and determine the most appropriate times to reach out.
A check-in soon after a purchase can direct new customers to accessories or additional products to get more out of their initial investment. For customers sitting on the fence amid a deal, agents can pinpoint supporting materials or incentives that can help move them to a conversion.
Harness Generative AI to Personalize Communications
Think of all the conversations you might have with customers over the phone or via video call. The recordings from those conversations are treasure troves of customer data. They contain details about the problems customers want to solve as well as customer opinions, likes, and dislikes — and sometimes even nuggets from their personal lives. But there’s never enough time to go through these details later on.
Agents were tailor-made for this task. They can summarize what was said, highlight key takeaways, and make sure you don’t forget any important action items. The best part is that generative AI can also weave important details into what might otherwise be generic emails, text messages, or direct messages you send via social media.
Customers reward companies that take the time to personalize engagement, especially from sales reps pitching them a product or service. AI not only makes the most of existing sales conversations, but also makes the case for customers to keep those conversations going.
Automate Follow-Ups to Build Lasting Relationships
Sales reps at companies who use AI cite “understanding of customer needs” as one of the top five benefits of AI for sales organizations, according to the State of Sales report. With the help of AI, you can help customers feel supported long after they pay for a product or service.
Start by training agents to take on sales follow-ups that convert browsers into buyers, win more business out of a customer, or simply give additional reasons to come back again. You can set up automated workflows based on triggers where AI can:
- Follow up as soon as a lead expresses interest in a product or service, offering to answer questions or provide more details.
- Reach out to customers who have abandoned their online shopping cart or ghosted a rep, demonstrating a willingness and readiness to win their business with expert assistance and advice.
- Nurture customers who have engaged with marketing content like blogs and webinars with additional materials that keep the buyer journey moving.
- Tailor follow-ups to nurture leads that fall within particular customer segments.
- Personalize follow-ups to reflect the depth of your relationship with existing customers.
- Celebrate milestones — such as length of time as a customer, birthdays, or anniversaries — with special offers and promotions.
Keeping agents busy with follow-up tasks builds consistency into the customer experience, deepening trust and customer loyalty at the same time.
How to Boost Loyalty with AI Sales Techniques — Not Frustration
The State of the Connected Customer report found that 72% of customers believe it’s important to know when they’re interacting with AI. Customers are also wary of cyber threats and potential misuse: 71% are increasingly protective of their personal data.
Always make it easy for customers to learn and understand the purpose of providing personal information, such as by posting a responsible data use policy on your website. Be transparent about what kind of data will be used for personalization and what will be anonymized to analyze overarching customer trends and patterns.
It’s always helpful to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and mentally walk through the complete buying journey, including areas where agents and AI will play a critical role. Where can you clear up misconceptions, avoid confusion, or show customers you’re using their data to deliver an outstanding experience? No matter how you use technology to augment your sales techniques, customers should continue to feel like they’re part of a relationship based on genuine human connection. Establish business rules that let agents know when to route unique or complex issues directly to you or other members of the sales team and balance AI use with moments of personal engagement and active listening.
How Customer Loyalty Via AI-powered Sales Is Taking Shape in Canada
Great customer service should happen before, during, and after a sale.
A good example is Wellness Extract, a Vancouver-based healthcare company whose service team was bombarded with questions about supplements from customers who didn’t want to search its catalogue. AI was an obvious solution, but an initial attempt at creating a DIY tool wasn’t working.
Wellness Extract has since adopted Agentforce, which now autonomously manages enquiries by serving as the first point of contact across multiple channels. This automation allows the company to increase sales per visit by providing on-demand supplement knowledge and guidance. It also saves the service team an estimated 20 hours a week.
Elevate Your Sales Techniques with AI
Every time you close a sale, the door to greater customer loyalty should open. Customers should not only feel like they’re making a good purchase, but that they’re dealing with a company that will support and reward them as the strength of the relationship grows, too.
AI fills the gaps that would otherwise exist in sales reps’ ability to personalize interactions and enhance the buyer journey at scale. Agents will work alongside you to learn more about each customer, replacing manual effort with automated, streamlined workflows.
It won’t be long until customers appreciate the way sales teams use AI and expect the efficiencies and enhanced service AI delivers. Take the next step by teaching agents your core sales techniques today.