Lee Rust, Owner, Florida Corporate Finance
Among the more important communications for any company are its communications with its customers. Those
communications can take many direct and indirect forms. For instance, print and other media advertising is an indirect form of customer communication. You place an ad where it is likely to be seen by the intended audience, hope they will respond, and then attempt to determine if the ad was cost effective.
A letter to all of your current customers advising them of a new product or service is a direct form of customer communication. Also, sending such a letter to individual prospective customers broadens its reach and usually its effect on sales.
Start today to compile a list of all the methods you now use to communicate with your customers as well as those which are available but not currently used. Divide that list into direct and indirect categories and add notes as to how effective each method may be and what each may cost. Then refine that list over time as you try various forms of customer communication and measure their effect on sales, customer retention, new customer generation, and customer awareness of your company and its products or services. That list can also be used to allocate advertising and other marketing expenses to those techniques that are the most cost
effective.
What many company managers do not consider is that customer communications should, wherever possible, facilitate dialogue in both directions. Giving your customers the ability to communicate easily with your company is one of the most important forms of contact with that important constituency. You might use a company website as one method of communicating with your current and prospective customers. That web site, however, should also be interactive and allow your customers to send questions, comments, complaints, or
suggestions back to appropriate people at your company.
Other forms of communications from your customers back to your company include telephone conversations with your customer service representatives, comment cards sent with ordered products, or follow-up calls after a product has been received or a service provided. It’s not good enough that you think you know how your customers feel about your company. You should know exactly what they think. You can’t do that if they don’t tell you, and they aren’t likely to tell you if they don’t have an easy and convenient method of doing so.
In addition, for all communications from your customers, be sure they are answered promptly and appropriately. Having a customer complaint or suggestion go unanswered is one of the worst mistakes you can make with customer communications.
In regards to measuring the effect of your various forms of communication with your customers, your service representatives or salespeople should always ask – when contacted by a new customer – how and where they heard about your company. You should then keep records of those responses and use that data to direct your customer communications toward the most effective methods.
You should also measure the frequency and extent of your customer communications. Every member of your sales group should submit weekly customer call reports. You will not only know which of your salespeople are working the hardest but can also measure their closing rate or revenue generation. Lots of salespeople can make lots of sales calls but not generate much revenue. To prevent that, all of your salespeople should clearly understand the difference between presenting a product or service and asking for the order.
Periodic call reports are even more important for independent sales representatives. Because most of these sales agencies carry multiple lines, you should know how often and to whom your products or services are presented. Again, you can then measure closing rates and compare the efficiency of your sales reps based on their communications with potential customers. I’ve often heard that independent sales agents use their independence to resist compiling and sending sales call reports. In my experience, however, if those agents
will not send call reports, you probably have the wrong representatives.
In addition, as one part of their customer communications, your sales group – whether employees or agents – should maintain an up-to-date, computer based list of all customer and prospect contact information. The salespeople should be able to enter a new name in the list or change the contact information with computer access from any location. In addition to name, address, and phone number, that list should also include email addresses.
For many companies, a particularly effective method of customer communications is a monthly newsletter sent by email. I have long found this to be a particularly effective method of reminding my past and prospective clients of my services. Although the broadcast email software I use is no longer available, there are several programs that can be explored with a “broadcast email software” Internet search.
By the way, sending any customer communication without having it addressed to a specific person by name is a big mistake. A letter addressed to “occupant” or to “the President” or to only the company name will be discarded, and the postage, paper, and time spent on the letter will all be wasted. An emailed newsletter that is not individually addressed to a person by name is spam, and we all know what happens to that.
Customer memories are short. Don’t let your customers or prospects forget that your company is active, interested in addressing their needs, and sensitive to their feelings about your products or services. Communicate with your customers frequently and consistently.
Lee Rust, owner of Florida Corporate Finance, specializes in Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Sales, Strategic Planning, Financing and Operations Audits. He can be reached by phone at 407-841-5676 or by email at hleerust@att.net.
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