Commercial Excellence Is Everyone’s Business
When we talk about Commercial Excellence, it is easy to assume we are talking about sales performance: sales strategy, account management, pipeline and growth.
But true Commercial Excellence goes much further. Customers don’t experience your organisation through one department. They experience all of it.
They experience the marketing communication that creates their first impression, the sales conversation, the tender process, the responsiveness of customer care, the quality of the handover, the support they receive when something goes wrong, the way contracts are managed and the consistency of communication throughout the relationship.
Every one of those interactions can strengthen or weaken the customer relationship. And that means Commercial and Customer Excellence cannot sit with Sales alone.
The customer sees one company - Internally, organisations are divided into functions, departments and areas of responsibility. Customers don’t see those boundaries.
A customer rarely thinks, “That was a poor experience with one particular department, but I still have a great relationship with the rest of the business.” They judge the organisation as a whole. That is why cross-functional collaboration is so important.
Sales can build an excellent relationship, but that goodwill can quickly be undermined by inconsistent communication or poor follow-up elsewhere. Equally, excellent service, responsiveness and support can strengthen a customer relationship and uncover opportunities that may never emerge through a traditional sales conversation. Every interaction shapes customer perception, and everyone who influences that interaction has a role to play in customer retention, reputation and growth.
From supplier to preferred partner - This was at the heart of a recent two-day Commercial & Customer Excellence programme we delivered for a client, built around the ambition of strengthening its position as the customer’s preferred partner. Importantly, the programme brought together people from across the business, including senior sales leadership, Marketing, Customer Care, and Tenders & Contracts, rather than concentrating solely on the sales function.
A customer relationship can span marketing, evaluation, tendering, purchasing, installation, training, support, account reviews and renewal. The customer experiences these as one relationship, not a collection of departmental transactions.
Creating a common view of the customer - Bringing different functions together creates another advantage: people start to see the customer through one another’s eyes. A senior commercial leader may see an account differently from Customer Care. Marketing may recognise opportunities Sales hasn’t considered, while Tenders & Contracts and Service may bring different insights into customer requirements and emerging needs.
Individually, each function holds part of the picture. Commercial Excellence comes from connecting those perspectives and creating a shared view of the customer.
It also changes the conversation from “Who owns the customer?” to
“How do we collectively create an experience that makes the customer want to continue working with us?”
Moving from theory into action... Read the full article...
