•A greater understanding of your competitors. Customers are looking for ways to cut cost out of their business model. You need to make sure that you are the advocate and supporter of these initiatives.
•A more in-depth focus on industry or vertical solutions to meet customer needs. Create a greater business value proposition for your customers and potential opportunities to help them achieve there overall business goals and challenges.
•A need for deeper understanding of what’s going on in the marketplace and an in-depth knowledge of the customer’s industry and core business process across the your customer base.
•Find effective ways to sell with an understanding of current economic/market conditions through creative deal structuring, creative terms, value propositions, etc., that demonstrates to customers how dealing with your organization can save them money and get the most
value of their investment.
•Ensure you retain and grows the number of customers in in current economic/market conditions.
The foundation for strong organizational structure into the future is delivering great customer service to your external customers and internal stakeholders. Long gone are the days where you could have a few very large customers and deliver average customer service. Now days you need to strengthen your opportunities in the market place and accept that lots of little is better that a few big.
Increase your focus on "great" customer service and customer retention. This is not the sole responsibility of your sales team, this is a organizational shift in culture that is needed.
Break down the barrier between the most senior leader within the organization and the most important part of any business, the customer. The further away from the customer the CEO of the business is, the less chance they are to feel the temperature of the customer and any potential shifts in temperature. Flatten your organization for a better customer experience.