Promotion

Sales Management

The sales function is clearly a key aspect of your marketing activities and is closely related with product distribution.

The first consideration is the size and organisation of your internal sales force and how it is structured in relation to external agents and distributors. These factors vary considerably according to the market in which you are competing, the geographical area you cover and the channels of distribution applicable to your business.

A key function of the sales force is to get the retail trade 'on side'.

The benefits this can bestow are wide and far reaching. They can prominently display your product, allocate disproportionate to sales shelf space, recommend your products, price them competitively, and generally 'push' your product more than similar products competing for the same customers.

Call cycles are an important consideration in the sales function. How frequently should your sales people call on individual customers? Should the calls be face-to-face personal calls or telephone calls or a combination of the two? Should sales representative calls be supplemented with a telesales service to establish customer requirements needs on a regular basis?

It is important to find the right balance between using your sales force productively and properly servicing your customers' needs.

Call cycles vary enormously from one product category to another and should be reviewed on a regular basis.

Sales managers also need to review sales territories on a regular basis. Sales territories need to be efficiently determined within your available resources so that overlap and duplication is minimized or avoided. It is also essential to plan sales call routes for the most efficient use of sales representatives' time and travel, as both are expensive commodities.

New Business Prospecting

New business is vital to constantly replenish and nourish any enterprise. As existing customers are lost for whatever reason, they must be more than replaced with new customers who are entering the market for the first time or switching from competitors. Managing new business prospecting is a sales manager's most important function.

A key part of sales manager's role is to:

• Develop and implement new business prospecting techniques such as in cold canvassing, product launch functions and developing sales leads via direct mail, telemarketing, and Internet marketing.
• Leverage incremental business among existing customers through cross promotion (often a combination of communication in all its forms with appropriate incentives).
• Develop sales prospecting tools such as interactive web sites, corporate brochures, sales literature and so on.

Customer service

'Treat the customer as an appreciating asset'.

Nic Alexis

The sales and customer service functions are closely interrelated with increasing emphasis being placed on the latter. Customer servicing refers to the back up a business offers to its customers at every level of the distribution chain from wholesalers and agents through to retailers and the end consumer.Servicing is an intangible benefit that a business can offer to secure competitive advantages.

What are the results of poor customer service?

• Competitors have a weapon to use against you
• Bad reports spread to other customers
• Your customer relationships suffer
• Your company loses sales tomorrow

What do you need to do to exceed customers' expectations?
Customer focus

1. Understand your customers business and needs
2. Include the customer as part of the service development process
3. Be innovative in addressing customer needs
4. Be committed to your customers' long-term success
5. Provide on-going 'value added' service to customers by anticipating their changing needs and delivering solutions
6. Be proactive about improving service levels

Product knowledge

1. Know your services better than anyone else
2. Know how you can use your services to best meet your customers' requirements
3. Know your competitors' services better than anyone else
4. Know your competitive advantages and how to use them to your benefit

Customer Communications

1. Maintain regular contact with your customers. Don't wait for them to contact you or for a problem to arise
2. Prepare service calls in advance – anticipate customer needs
3. Never say 'no' without explaining the reason and providing an alternative solution
4. Always follow-up and report outcomes (feedback) to ensure customer satisfaction
5. Always confirm important decisions in writing
6. Listen to what your customers are telling you - really listen. There may be subtle but important messages you might be missing.
7. Look for facial expressions and body language which may give you clues about potential issues.

Customer Relations

1. Gain your customers' complete confidence and trust
2. Honour your commitments – do what you say you are going to do
3. Make yourself indispensable to your customers
4. Create strategic alliances with your customers

Remember, existing customers are your biggest source of untapped profit. It costs much less to develop incremental business from existing customers than it does to gain business from new customers

Poor customer service gives your competitors an advantage

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption to our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so

Mahatma Gandhi

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