Screen Selling
Screen Selling is seen as Business-to-Business transactions where organizations purchase products or services in a longer, more complex scenario, with long-term relationships and potential new or recurring purchases, often in an industrial context.
Screen Selling does not address e-commerce platforms, consumer purchasing on-line platforms, such as Amazon, or other consumer-based actions.
How it's Different
Purchasing products and services in a Business-to-Business context is a longer, more complex process with several influencers and decision makers. Gaining trust and loyalty is essential for customers who have very long-term support and services expectations. Socializing, entertainment, and personal meetings are typically used in face-to-face customer relations yet are not possible in the Screen Selling world.
Why it's Important
Travelling in today’s context is restricted, and even impossible at times for sanitary or budget reasons. The human connections previously enjoyed by meeting, dining, and entertaining customers is no longer the status-quo of industrial selling and relations. Replacing the physical nature of a client-supplier relationship by phone calls and screen meetings is becoming a new (temporary) norm.
How to do it Better
Focus on the human aspects of proactively meeting customer expectations without relying on typical heavy text-oriented slides and information overdose.
Keep your screen interventions shorter and to the point.
Contact your customers more frequently: spending less time per contact, but more contacts per month might just be the key to success in building the trust and personal context that is often required.
Being “business only” oriented in your screen-to-screen communications can be emotionally tiring, and often seen as being too pushy.
