Why Interactive Sales Tools Are So Effective at Building Long-Term Customer Relationships

Are you considering an interactive sales tool to help your team establish trust and build meaningful long-term customer relationships?

If so, you may be wondering what all the fuss is about. Interactive experiences – like the kind you get on a touchscreen – may seem like a fancy way to get someone’s attention, but will it really pay off in the long run?

Glad you asked.

As a Creative Technology Business, we develop interactive experiences that help our B2B clients win business when it matters most – in the boardroom. But it’s about so much more than looking fancy; it’s also about building trust, demonstrating value and starting meaningful conversations.

You may even have heard that establishing an emotional connection with your customers means the lifetime value of those customers can increase by 300%.

Below, we’re going to talk about why interactive sales tools are so successful at helping you establish a relationship with your customers, and what they should include to get the most out of your budget – as well as a bit of practical advice.

So, let’s get ready to rock with this blog!

What makes interactive sales tools so effective?

Well, to begin with, there are a lot of statistics out there to support interactive content being a clear winner for B2B – for instance, did you know that 91% of B2B buyers say they prefer interactive and visual content to static content?

And when time face-to-face in the boardroom is already becoming a rarity, making a great first impression has never been so important. Coming into the room with an interactive touchscreen experience can initially grab their attention, and get them engaging right away with your brand.

But what then? Scratch the surface (we mean proverbially!) and an interactive sales tool is about so much more than just delivering that initial ‘WOW’ factor. It can actually be a very effective way to visually demonstrate the value your solution or idea can offer, and the opportunities that presents for the buyer.

However, it’s also a great way to allow the buyer to lead the conversation. Interactive menus and navigation can allow your sales team to instantly pull up the relevant information, depending on what the buyer wants to talk about next – helping to establish a two-way dialogue straight away.

And if that wasn’t already much better than having to sit through static slides full of bullet points and figures, there’s also the emotional connection. Telling a visual story such as ‘A Day in the Life’ can help spark buyers’ imaginations and get them emotionally engaged with your brand.

These reasons, and more, are why interactive sales tools are so effective when it comes to winning business and establishing meaningful relationships in B2B.

Build customer relationships with an engaging, memorable experience

All of the above can lead to an experience that your customers won’t be forgetting any time soon – and for all the right reasons. As a result, it’ll impact on their future buying decisions based on what you create right there in the boardroom.

Buyers now expect more engaging experiences when they go into a pitch, and now that we’re well and truly into the experience economy, there’s no holding back. There are so many incredible opportunities with an interactive sales tool – the possibilities become virtually endless!

You may be looking at an interactive touchscreen, but tomorrow it could be a multi-touch wall or table with 3D capabilities and augmented reality. And why limit yourself to one piece of technology? You could introduce a larger, immersive space that truly brings your solutions to life for your customers.

The technology may be constantly evolving, but it’s important that at the heart of any interactive you create, it’s all about giving your customers an unforgettable, fun and engaging experience that sparks their imaginations and gets them ready to buy at the end of the day.

Advice from an interactive design agency

If you like the idea of creating an interactive sales tool in the form of a touchscreen experience or presentation and building long term relationships with customers, try following these three main rules:

Your interactive content should be:

1. Personal – If you want to connect with people on a business AND emotional level, you have to make it personal and speak directly to your audience.
2. Relevant – Make the content relevant to your audience – you don’t want to appeal to everyone. Include trends and challenges they’re currently facing.
3. Memorable and engaging – People in the room need to remember you and your value proposition, and be able to retell this to the wider business

TIP: We’ve gone into more detail about these three rules via our recent blog on the subject: Three Rules to Follow When Developing an Interactive Presentation.

But also bear in mind, there are lots of other factors to think about when it comes to developing your own interactive sales tool from scratch. Check out our blog – 10 Important Factors to Consider When Creating an Interactive Presentation – where we’ve outlined the process we go through with our own clients.

This should hopefully give you a good starting point – whether you decide to go it alone, in-house, or with an agency. (We’ve also got some tips to help you find the best agency for the job!)

Time to build long-term customer relationships?

In B2B, it’s vital to build customer relationships early on – as that relationship will serve you well in the months and years to come. We’ve been in the sales enablement game for a while now, and just love seeing businesses succeed – especially when there’s a lot at stake.

An interactive sales tool can be a valuable piece of kit for not only getting people’s attention, but also for getting off on the right foot.

It can help you demonstrate value, deliver the right information at the right time, establish an emotional connection and give people a memorable experience that leaves them with an overall good feeling about your brand.

What better foundation could there be for building long-term relationships with customers?

Want to know more about your options when creating an effective sales tool in the form of an interactive touchscreen experience? Why not  get in touch with the team at POP. Contacts us on +44 (0)117 329 1712 or hello@popcomms.com to find out how we can help you build long-term customer relationships!