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Building and maintaining a loyal customer base is the best way to ensure consistent earnings in the field of sales. Here are some tips on how to do it…

You are responsible

- Whatever happens when dealing with your customer; whether it is a positive thing such as your product exceeding their wildest expectations, or a negative thing such as them being left waiting for days/weeks for your product to be delivered. You must take responsibility for what happens. Your customer will see you as the emissary of your company - indeed to your customer - you are the company. Blaming someone else in the company for a missed delivery or similar error will simply make you look mean-spirited; taking full responsibility and trying to sort it out will show maturity.

Problems are great

- Problems (wrong invoicing, poor service, overdue deliveries etc.) offer great opportunities to build loyalty with your customers. Tackling a problem head-on for a customer will build customer loyalty quicker than any another action you may take. Take positive actions to deal with problems immediately, if you ignore them they will just grow bigger.

Actions speak louder than words

- When you are next in a call and your customer has a problem (which outlined above, is your responsibility), take immediate and positive action. Instead of promising to sort it out later at the office, or make a phone call later in the day - ask if you can use their phone right there and then and ring whoever you need to ring to resolve the situation. Even if you don’t manage to resolve the situation right away, your customer will be very impressed by your positive and immediate response.

Keep your promises

- Never make promises you can’t keep, and ensure that you keep the ones you do make. If you promise to call a customer back within the hour, do exactly that, even if you have nothing positive to relate. This will gain you a reputation for reliability.

Hedge your bets

- Follow the old adage ‘Under promise and over deliver.’ Giving yourself a little more time than necessary to achieve a particular result will stop you being put under too much ‘time’ pressure should things not go quite as planned. But don’t use up all this extra time, do what you need to do immediately and get back to your customer early - again this deposits a ‘goodwill credit’ in the Loyalty Bank.

Following these tips will ensure that you build a loyal customer base that will see you through the ‘ups and downs’ of your selling career.

Jerry Cornelius is the best selling author of ‘The 13 Steps to Sales Success’ - a definative guide for those new to sales or considering sales as a career. For further information go to: http://13stepstosalessuccess.com