Sales should cultivate loyal customers.
How to cultivate enthusiastic customers into loyal customers? This requires efforts on "intimacy" and "commitment". Advertising and promotion can arouse customers' attention to products and impulse to buy them. What really makes customers like products fondly depends on the value that products, manufacturers, merchants and salespeople bring to customers: excellent quality, excellent function and considerate service. Only in the process of use, customers really feel that the product is worth something, even beyond the value, customers will repeat the purchase and gradually become loyal customers.
Inspire passion:
Need strong advertising and promotion; At the sales level, good publicity and communication are needed. When contacting customers for the first time, those energetic and enthusiastic salespeople can often catch customers' eyes and touch their hearts faster.
Cultivate intimacy:
After attracting the attention of potential customers and successfully arousing their passion, new psychological motives are needed to promote customers' second purchase. Intimacy, unlike passion, can not be improved quickly, but needs to be "moistened and silent" and takes a long time to run in. It depends on product quality and supporting after-sales service; We should be truly customer-centered, listen carefully, accurately understand customer needs, keep abreast of changes in customer needs, and provide effective solutions.
Establish commitment:
To make your customers have a high commitment to you, you must let them feel your sincerity. Only by winning the trust of customers with sincere service can we effectively strengthen customer loyalty. You can't copy it mechanically, but you should use it flexibly on the basis of fully understanding customer needs.
Customer loyalty is actually a continuation of customer behavior. How to judge whether customers are loyal to the enterprise can be observed from five aspects: loyal customers often buy the company's products or services repeatedly, and the company can even quantitatively analyze their purchase frequency; Loyal customers are willing to provide reference for enterprises and products, or often make oral suggestions, and can actively put forward suggestions to enterprises on how to improve product quality and service level; Loyal customers choose a variety of products or services, and they pay more attention to the new products or services provided by the company; Loyal customers are very willing to recommend the company's products or services to others; Loyal customers will repel the company's competitors.
Second,
Skills to improve customer loyalty
"Deep marketing management" has become the trend of marketing management, and more and more enterprises adopt deep marketing mode, hoping to gain competitive advantage through intensive cultivation of regional markets and control of terminal networks.
In-depth marketing mode, also known as regional rolling sales in operation, refers to an effective market strategy and method to control the terminal through organized efforts to enhance the value of customer relationship, cultivate and develop the market in a rolling way, gain the comprehensive competitive advantage of the market, and first impact the regional market. It pays attention to the coordination and balance of four interactive core market elements: regional market, core distributor, terminal network and enterprise customer consultant. In the operation of specific regional markets, in-depth marketing embodies five principles: concentration principle; The principle of attacking weak links and weak links; Consolidate the fortress and strengthen the site principle; Master the principle of key customers; The principle of zero customer visit.
The introduction of in-depth marketing helps to realize three major changes: First, from short-term business and simple trading relationship to long-term market making, maintaining, deepening and developing relationships. Secondly, from the extensive expansion of market operation to the intensive cultivation and development of the market with the goal of increasing "output". Once again, from a single-handed hunter and amateur, it has become an expert and professional team.
If an enterprise wins a high degree of customer loyalty, it can establish repeated sales and recommended sales among customers. Loyal customers will bring frequent business to enterprises, which will not only increase the income and market share of enterprises, but also reduce the service cost accordingly. At this time, enterprises can put extra income into some innovative activities to improve customer interest and increase the attractiveness of products to customers.
Make customers feel "value for money"
When merchants take "discount" and "promotion" as the only means to pursue customers, "price reduction" will only make enterprises and brands lose their most loyal "customer base", and it is impossible to improve customer loyalty through promotion and price reduction. The "price war" can only bring more and more "profit-seeking customers" to the brand-these customers can be said to have no loyalty at all, and they will only be interested in "one egg for ten cents" and "one chicken for eighty cents". When businesses and enterprises seek their own development and high profit growth, these customers will be lost.
To cultivate a loyal customer base, we should not only be "cheap and good", but also let customers know that this product is "value for money". Only by subdividing product positioning, seeking differentiated management and finding out the value orientation and consumption power of target customers can brands truly cultivate their "loyal customer base".
Improve the service level and make full use of the strong service platform support of enterprises. When providing quality services, key account managers should not only rely on the interpersonal relationship between individuals and customers to maintain customer resources, although this is also very important. Establish a smooth customer talk system, give customers the opportunity to talk, and give customers the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction. Respond to customer information in time. The research shows that the feedback speed of enterprises is closely related to the brand loyalty of customers, which is in direct proportion.
In the retail industry, the use of VIP cards is a common means, and VIP members create as much as 6 1%. It can be said that loyal customers have won high profit growth for the enterprise.
So, what are the reasons why merchants use VIP cards? First of all, to distinguish target customers, VIP card should be a discount for merchants to reward loyal customers, and it is by no means a tool for "bargain hunting"; Secondly, the reward must be attractive, and the reward of VIP card can be material or emotional. Materially, the return of merchants must be consistent with the values of VIP members. The promotion and trial of some luxury goods and value-added services will be more attractive than simple discounts and cheaper gifts. At the same time, merchants can also immerse customers in a sense of belonging through some non-physical rewards, such as opening a hotline and holding club membership activities. Third, update VIP customer service projects. For example, new product trial, free upgrade, depreciation replacement. In short, let VIP members feel "different".
Let customers get "extra" value
Finding and satisfying customers' needs can maintain the cooperative relationship between enterprises and customers, but it has little effect on enhancing customers' loyalty to the brand; In order to enhance customer loyalty, we must also try to provide some other "value-added products or services" so that customers can get "extra" value. Here are some specific practices.
First, provide more information.
This information includes: new products and technologies of enterprises, overall trends of enterprises, industry trends, social situation, local market changes, trends of major competitors, survey data and conclusions, etc. Affected by various factors, customers often lag behind enterprises in obtaining information, but this information is of great help to increase customer sales and expand the market. If key account managers can selectively provide some suitable information to customers, they can often win the gratitude of customers, which is very helpful to enhance customer loyalty.
Second, assist customers to plan various terminal promotion activities and provide other consulting programs. Generally speaking, the advantage of customers lies in terminal promotion and familiarity with local customs, and the advantage of enterprises lies in overall activity planning. The advantages of the two are complementary. In order to avoid "getting into trouble", some key account managers always avoid communication and cooperation with customers, which leads to low brand loyalty of customers. In fact, customers welcome enterprises to fully cooperate with them.
Third, strengthen product training and marketing training for customers. Many customers have specialized marketing training institutions, but compared with enterprises, the intensity and depth of their training are far from enough; Big customers should take the initiative to contact them to discuss related matters of joint training.
Create a customer-centric culture. What enterprises care about is how to do their best for customers and employees and how to win their loyalty. If the company can do this, customers will buy or use the company's products and services more and more frequently, and the company will get more profits from it. Advocating a "customer-centric" culture in the company not only requires our marketing, sales and service departments to establish a "customer-centric" business process, but also requires other departments of the company to actively respond to changes in customer needs and establish a truly "customer-centric" departmental operation; Moreover, if the downstream of internal processes is regarded as customers, companies should establish more perfect customer-oriented schemes and mechanisms.
In order to continuously increase the number of loyal customers and enhance customer loyalty, enterprises should establish a set of standardized customer loyalty training and promotion processes. Let employees in all departments of the enterprise realize the importance of customer loyalty and know how to cultivate and enhance customer loyalty. At the same time, enterprises should be able to scientifically evaluate customer loyalty and turnover rate, and evaluate customer lifetime value or customer lifetime profit rate. With the system and regulations, evaluation methods and continuous improvement methods, the enterprise's customer loyalty plan can be standardized and promoted.
"One-on-one" service to build a win-win strategy
Quality service has increasingly become the advantage and guarantee for the company to maintain its existing market share and open up new markets in the market competition. In the future market, the service industry will surely become a new growth point to promote economic development. There are several principles to improve customer service and customer loyalty. Only by grasping these principles can we truly obtain the added value that services bring to products.
If an enterprise wants to win higher customer loyalty and profitability, it must achieve the following goals: to provide the right products or services to the right customers at the right time, at the right price and through the right channels. In the new social environment, customers' needs are constantly changing, and they begin to pursue a unique product enjoyment and service enjoyment. Recently, "one-to-one marketing" and "one-to-one enterprise" advocated by foreign countries are the products to meet the new needs of customers. At present, many enterprises lack personalized products or services. If an enterprise can establish personalized files for each customer, then it can implement personalized services for each customer. But for many enterprises, it is really difficult to realize this "one-on-one" service. We can think in another way. To realize the transformation from "one-to-many" to "one-to-one", we must first establish a "one-to-one" mode.
Different from facing end customers, whether product manufacturers can have "loyal middlemen customers" is the key to the success or failure of their brands.
In the "market entry period" of products, enterprises must first formulate long-term development plans, and the requirements for middlemen are not necessarily "the strongest" or "the best", nor can they be "delivering goods when they have money". The selection criteria should be based on the positioning of your own brand, and the key is to "match the door". Practice has proved that the middlemen who grow up with enterprises are the "most loyal customers". At the same time, enterprises and distributors should establish a "win-win" and "lose-lose" strategic partnership, publicize the business plan of enterprises within one year, avoid transferring all risks to middlemen, and give confidence to channels.
In the "development period", with the development of commodity brands, it is the time for manufacturers and middlemen to obtain the highest profits. At this time, the way to maintain customer loyalty is no longer to increase communication between the two parties, but to strengthen the management and monitoring of profit distribution. Implement "fixed-point quantitative rebate" and distribute benefits to channels reasonably and fairly.
In the "mature period", each brand product has its own life cycle, and maturity and decline are inevitable. With the transparency of the market price of products, the profits of middlemen gradually decline and the loyalty begins to shift. At this time, in order to make the brand survive, the first thing an enterprise should do is to "launch new products with the same brand", increase investment in advertising and promotion, and publicize the brand's R&D capabilities with actions; At the same time, strengthening channel supervision can cancel the "quantitative rebate" in due course.
In addition, enterprises can attract and retain loyal customers through diversified brand operations. Customer's loyalty to products is cyclical, and new products need to be continuously introduced. There are two meanings: to maintain the customer loyalty of the same product, we must constantly increase investment in product research and development and maintain technological leadership; In order to satisfy consumers' curiosity, we develop several brands of the same series of products to meet the early adopters of customers. Such enterprises can refer to Procter & Gamble's multi-brand strategy-under Procter & Gamble, only "shampoo series" includes: Head & Shoulders, Rejoice, Pan Ting, Sassoon and other brands.
In real life, each of us is someone else's customer and the object of being spoiled; At work, many of our readers and friends are playing the role of attracting customers-uniting customers around them, the more loyal customers are to themselves, the higher the probability of success.
It can be seen that customer relationship management is particularly important, not only in our lives, but also in the development of modern enterprises. Every customer has his own characteristics. Only by knowing ourselves and ourselves and using skills to improve customer loyalty can enterprises stand out in the fierce market competition.
Third,
Five steps to manage key customers
In the field of marketing, there is a well-known "80: 20 rule", that is, 80% of a company's sales are completed by 20% dealers, and these 20% dealers are the company's big customers. Therefore, how to expand and maintain these 20% big customers among dealers is the focus of all manufacturers.
The first step is to analyze the customer purchasing process.
If you don't know the customer's internal procurement process, you will be like a headless fly, and you don't know how to track customers according to their procurement process. The purchasing process of major customers is generally as follows:
Internal demand → project establishment → information collection → technical screening → project evaluation → final decision → follow-up service.
Only by understanding the customer's purchasing process and making a sales plan according to the customer's purchasing stage can the sales staff meet the different requirements of customers at different stages.
It can be seen that customers generally have three stages: the purchasing department collects information and initially screens partners; Project team evaluation and analysis, price negotiation; The project decision-maker finally makes the final decision. It is very helpful for sales staff to make clear the customer's internal procurement process and establish good relations with different people according to the project progress. In the sales of key customers, the result is of course important, but only by doing every link well can we achieve good results.
The second step is to analyze the customer organization structure.
Company B bought a batch of computers, and all departments were satisfied, but there was some controversy about the IBM keyboard. After learning the news, Zhang San, a salesman of D keyboard manufacturer, decided to sell the keyboard to this company. The customer held a meeting to discuss the replacement of the keyboard. Attending the meeting were the director of the general manager's office, engineers from the technical department, Xiao Li from the marketing department, Huang Xiao from the finance department and Xiao Wang from the sales department. The statements of all departments are as follows:
Office Director: Everyone has to work with a keyboard every day. We should try our best to satisfy everyone.
Technology Department: These two keyboards are not good. According to our maintenance report, Lenovo's keyboard failure rate is the lowest.
Xiao Li of Marketing Department: The D keyboard is too loud, and there are many people in Marketing Department. Very annoying, very annoying. The HP keyboard is beautiful and quiet.
Xiao Huang from Finance Department: No matter what kind of keyboard you want, the most important thing is that the price can't exceed the budget.
Xiao Wang of the sales department: The keyboard of Company D feels smooth and comfortable, and its voice is nice.
During the discussion, everyone expressed their opinions and argued endlessly. Finally, the director of the general manager's office reluctantly announced: "Forget it, we won't change it, let's use the IBM keyboard."
Only by understanding the internal organizational structure of customers can we grasp the relevance and correlation between various departments and decompose them according to the organizational structure to realize sales. As can be seen from the above cases, the director of the general manager's office is a key figure in the internal organizational structure of Company B, and the roles of other departments are also different-the sales department and the marketing department care about usage, the technical department cares about maintenance, the finance department cares about budget, and the director of the general manager's office cares about coordination and interest optimization among departments.
The third step is to clarify the functions of each department.
In the sales process of key customers, due to the different division of labor within customers, the focus of attention is also different. Only when salespeople understand the functions of various departments of customers and make clear which departments are supporters, neutrals and opponents can they adopt different strategies to "treat the symptoms".
Salespeople should pay attention to: in actual work, several types of functional departments may be concentrated in one department or even one person. For example, in private enterprises, a boss may have five functional departments, or two or three functional departments have only one person in charge. In addition, sometimes the roles that affect project decision-making are not necessarily just these five departments, but also other roles, such as the secretary, wife, relatives and children of project decision-makers. This requires salespeople not to generalize, but to improvise in the process of defining the role of each functional department.
Step four, take the initiative to obtain effective information.
Huangyan Company is a manufacturing enterprise with mechanical processing as its main business, with a group of skilled and experienced engineers and skilled workers, advanced processing machinery and equipment, and its excellent processing skills enjoy a high reputation in the industry. Recently, Li Ding, the company's key account manager, was very upset because his old customer Yuhuan Machinery Co., Ltd. did not respond to a bidding project. Several similar companies are eyeing this project and are prepared to win the bid at an ultra-low price. In the early stage, it was supported by the purchasing department and technical department of Yuhuan machinery company, but this project was personally responsible by Mr. Han of Yuhuan machinery company, and these two departments were not key departments. All the information Li Ding got was evaluated by Mr. Han, and he knew nothing else.
In other words, Li Ding fell into an "information island" in the middle of the project (there was no problem in communication in the early stage, the scheme was submitted, and the customer was always in the state of project evaluation). In the "information island" period of large-scale projects, salespeople should not passively wait for customers' notice, but should take the initiative to approach decision makers and obtain effective information that affects winning the bid, so as to formulate effective strategies.
In the process of long-term cooperation, Li Ding knows that military enterprises have always been the key customers of Yuhuan Machinery Company. However, due to the lack of human resources for mechanical design in Yuhuan Machinery Company, the lack of product structure design restricts their cooperation with target customers. In order to get close to Mr. Han, the technicians of Huangyan Company were asked to make a complete technical transformation plan for Yuhuan Machinery Company, and an initiative of deep cooperation between Huangyan Company and Yuhuan Machinery Company in technical projects was put forward.
Mr. Han was very happy when the technical department handed Li Ding's proposal to him. On the same day, he met with Li Ding and discussed the in-depth cooperation of technical projects. During the conversation, Li Ding learned that in this project bidding, Yuhuan Machinery Company paid more attention to the technical services provided by its partners besides the price, and they were very satisfied with the technical services provided by Huangyan Company. At this point, Li Ding's hanging heart fell to the ground. In the end, Huangyan Company won the bid at a price 5% higher than that of its competitors.
The fifth step is to find the key person and make the final decision.
Jianghuai Group is a very famous large-scale enterprise in Anhui Province. A few years ago, in an information software project bidding project, it lost to an unknown local small company at a price of 6.5438+0.5 million yuan. The reason for the failure of bidding is not price, service and quality, but that the other party conquered the deputy general manager in charge of bidding.
The philosophy of managing customers: three noes and three essentials
Three noes:
1, which cannot be ignored.
Paying attention to customers and understanding customers are the basis of customer management. Today, when customer service wins, you can't ignore customers. After technology, resources, products and management are gradually unified, and there is no absolute secret, customer service and customer management have become the new "killer" for major businesses and enterprises to defeat the enemy. You know, customers always have more choices than products. So, from now on, you must pay more attention to and care about your customers. Only by grasping them can you achieve real development and strength.
2, can't accommodate
Chasing customers or chasing girls, even if you love her, you must have certain principles, and you can't hold it to heaven. Blindly catering to concessions will only make people look down upon it; Being humble is the right way to make friends and do business. The needs of customers are endless forever, and you can't always meet them. Especially for some customers who push their luck, we should combine hard and soft measures, suppress them in time and return to normal customer relations.
3, can't perfunctory.
Although at any time, customers' understanding of products is not as good as that of enterprises, it is not difficult to see that with the continuous improvement of people's living standards and the continuous change of consumption concepts, consumers' mentality gradually tends to be rational, and consumers' understanding of health and consumer goods is also increasing. Quality, environmental protection, health, science and technology, energy saving and safety are becoming a part of consumers' lives, and the era of publicity only by manufacturers is gone forever. Fierce market competition makes after-sales service no longer just a means of publicity and promotion, and personalized, all-round and humanized service is gradually becoming a weapon for major manufacturers to lead their rivals.
Three elements:
1, treat customers as parents.
Customers are the parents of the enterprise. When you were born, your parents gave you life, your parents raised you, and your parents raised you. The same is true for enterprises, which are closely connected with customers from the moment they are born. Without customers, there will be no market, without customers' purchase, there will be no profits for enterprises, and without customers' continuous support, there will be no development and growth of enterprises. Be considerate to parents and customers. The knife cuts bread and fingers.
Enterprises should not forget their roots, respect and care for customers like parents, always pay attention to customers' needs and changes, and provide satisfactory products and thoughtful services at any time.
2. treat customers as wealth.
There are two meanings here: first, it refers to investing in customers, who have occupied the wealth of enterprises and should become part of the wealth of enterprises; Second, customers can bring wealth to enterprises. Only when customers buy, the commercial value of products can be realized, the investment of enterprises can be transformed into wealth, and the operation of enterprises can bring profits.
Introduce the concept of financial management into customer management. Regard customers as wealth, manage customers with advanced financial management concepts, operate customers as an industry, increase the added value of products through customer management and service, and realize the economic benefits of new profit growth points.
3. treat customers as resources.
In a sense, customers are a resource. Can be used, can bring benefits through development. However, it also needs transformation and scientific and reasonable development and utilization, and it can neither be exploited at will nor over-exploited. There must be plans and steps, and sustainable development must be adhered to.
Target customers are total storage resources, loyal customers are high-quality resources in use, primary customers are general resources in use, and potential customers are exploitable resources.
Antimony was found in the scrap heap of Panzhihua iron mine, which shows that as long as it is a resource, it will be useful, depending on whether you have the technology and ability to develop it.
Repeated customers show that resources can be regenerated. Joe girard, who once set a world record in car sales, said that offending a "god" would lead to a 5-30% turnover rate, while stabilizing a customer could attract 125 customers.
Enterprises must manage customers like other resources, in order to understand customers like the company's goods and the changes of customers like the changes of inventory.
Take different strategies for different customers:
Loyal to customers-maximize potential and improve utilization efficiency.
One-time customers-provide quality service and continue to cultivate loyalty.
Potential customers-deepen brand impression and strive to promote transformation.
Target customers-expand advertising and raise initial awareness.