Human bond as a foundation : focus on our Sales and Customer Service departments

What would we do without our clients ? Well, not much, that’s for sure. 

In a competitive market like ours, keeping our customers’ satisfaction high is the best way to stay on top of the game. To do so, we’ve always been committed to place them in the center of our attention, from the moment our sales representatives’ step into their salons, to our customer service’s line to support them in any of their concerns.

Creating the bond, a sales’ affair

Our customers, being beauty professionals, are inclined towards bonding with their clients, since it’s in their everyday duties to take care of people. That being said, they will be more likely to do business with an individual they know and trust.

Our sale’s department is divided between Inside sales and Field sales. Our Inside Sales team closes new contracts by phone, creating a non-physical bond with customers. Whereas  on the field, our presence is wider and expanded across France, Belgium and Germany with a system of pair working : a business developer, who prospects new clients and schedules sales demonstrations for their area manager, who will then close the deal and train the new customer. 

It’s strategic : that way, we increase our chance to provide relationships with our customers, whether it’s face-to-face or virtually. Both approaches are quite different, but proved to be working in both cases. For those beauty professionals, whether it’s in-person or not, interactions have to be intentional and friendly in order to be impactful. Listen to their needs and understand them, propose something suitable to their activity and, then, nourish this connection until the deal is closed.

The onboarding experience : a team-work between Sales and Customer Success

After signing, the sales representative will set-up a date to train our new customer on our product. It’s basically training them from A to Z on our product, such as setting their parameters depending on which options they subscribe to, doing all the administrative parts with them, or giving them useful tips on how to optimize their Planity page.

Although our sales team stays available for their clients at any time, the follow-up after this training is done by our Customer Success, who has got all the necessary info from the Sales team beforehand. During one month, the new customer is onboarded by one designated customer success specialist, who reaches out to them 48 hours after their training to make sure everything is settled, understood, and mostly answer their first questions about their use of Planity. Throughout the month, the customer success specialist will schedule other calls with the client, until the mandatory follow-up, marking the end of the onboarding period. Nonetheless, in between those calls, new customers can reach out to their specialist at any time.

This phase is the most important : a customer who is comfortable with our tool, understands every inch of it and has trust that they will be well accompanied is a customer who will stay.

Nurturing this connection with our Customer Care 

Having our customer service in-house is something we’re proud of, in a time when a numerous number of companies choose to outsource theirs. This strategy appears to be a real asset for us : firstly, it’s easier when the dedicated persons are actual employees, living the company’s everyday life, they’re able to provide a greater expertise and spread the company’s culture to customers. It’s also a guarantee that any concerns or recommendations can easily be reported to the product team directly, which go hand in hand with our continuous improvement process. 

When asking the Head of customer success about the major feedback they receive about this service, she responds “our reactivity and availability”. Indeed, it shows in our results : less than 5% of missing calls, which allows us to call back each client. Our CSAT, customer satisfaction score, is reaching 80%, which is quite a great result, and our resolution time is of approximately 8 hours, meaning we rarely leave them with a hanging question for too long. We also make a point of honor to stay available 6 days a week, from Monday to Saturday, between 9am to 8pm, matching the beauty salons schedules. 

Our clients are making us grow. So, we intentionally stay available and attentive to their needs, which will tell us what could be improved, changed or added to make our product even better from one year to another. Bonding with them and keeping them satisfied is the mission of the ones on the front line, and is the most important one for a company like ours. Signing, training, accompanying them during all of their journey with us, is what we aim to do. And to achieve it, it’s a team effort that both of the Sales and Customer Service departments are doing perfectly.