Relationship Building versus Selling
Relationship building is an important way to communicate the benefits of a product or service. The traditional sales mode does not consider the development of a long-term relationship with customers and is more concerned with mere sales. The right way to sell in a marketing environment is selling the relationship. This concerns the solution of customer needs and the provision of long-term customer service.
Relationship building is a strategy that aims to build long-term relationships. The sales representative must know their customers, their needs and their wishes. After finding out all of this information is when the seller should think about making a sale. While selling is a strategy that applies to all short-term solutions. The sales representative is primarily concerned with promoting and selling the product without taking customer needs into account. This strategy, also known as traditional selling, deals with retail sales.
- As a rule, when it comes to selling you always sell on maximizing individual sales and profits, rather than forming a relationship with the consumer or customer. On the other hand, relationship-based selling seeks to build an interactive and loyal relationship between the customer and the company in the long term.
- Revenue differs in a few noteworthy ways, including the fundamentals that underpin the marketing strategy and the resulting impact on return on investment (ROI). The transaction-based sales model does not maintain customer loyalty and focuses on sales, which thinks the product or service will sell itself. A seller using this tactic often focuses on the transaction itself and seeks to complete a deal as quickly as possible. Although the relationship model, the formation of strong interactive connections and beneficial to the customer is the top priority of the company. A salesperson using relationship marketing will usually try to get to know his customer better before he completes a deal. As a result, studies have shown that ROI for companies using relationship-based sales tends to increase compared to ROI on transaction sales.
- However, building a strong relationship is relatively expensive compared to the transaction-based sales model, as much money is spent on customer subscriptions and flyers. There must be more time invested in the first compared to the transaction sale. That’s why very successful companies like Microsoft and Starbucks have used a common theme around their customers: to find out what they want to make them addicted to products and get them back for more. While building relationships has been the embodiment of steady revenue, some companies continue to use the transactional marketing model as a marketing strategy to reduce costs and overtime. Brand awareness communication is more direct in this way, and human resources can be minimized if there are fewer contacts with the customer. If close customer relationships are to be maintained, additional human or technological resources are required to operate the Social Media Networking Center, which could be a bit expensive and time consuming.
- Relationship sales model is a strong connection that arises between the seller and the customer, which conveys a sense of “trust and confidence” for an agreement to come through. Transaction operations in the sales model are smoother and more efficient. This significantly reduces the time and resources required for the sale.
- The relational sales model is more profitable in the long term, but also expensive, and requires additional technological know-how and human resources. While the transactional sales model is less profitable in the long run and has lower return rates, it is more cost effective and requires no additional manpower, financial and information resources.