Secrets of Promotion

By Christopher Given
Posted Wednesday, August 4, 2004

Sales does not have a very nice image. Salesmen ringing up out of the blue to sell their latest product, untrained or unenthusiastic sales staff knocking at your door, are some of the images that spring to mind. But service doesn’t need to be like that in order to make the sale.

What is Customer Service?

“Customer Service is the supply of that which satisfies the consumer need and want”

This is about providing a physical product plus all the individual tasks that make up the entire process. Please do not confuse service with sales, as they are totally different.

“Sales is the use of language and presentation in order to persuade customers to buy”

Elements of customer service

Availability of item

After sales service

Handling of orders

Reliability or quality

Most organisations employ people to handle customer calls, emails and to wait on customer’s needs The functions are to:

§ be there when customers contact the company

§ provide timely and accurate service

§ support the sales organisation

All of this is designed for one purpose - Customer Retention

Who is the customer?

We usually think of customers as people outside of our company. It could be agreed that a customer is a person who purchases. Another definition could be someone with whom we have dealings.

Customers fall into external and internal types:

External customers

These are the lifeblood of every organisation. We deal with them every day, either face to face or via the telephone. You may have heard sayings like ‘the customer is king’ or ‘customers are our no 1 priority’. Well, it’s true, because without them there would be no sales, no company and no job.

Internal customers

These people work inside your company. Although they are not traditional customers, they rely on us to provide services and help within the organisation in order to get their work done. It is vital that they are treated well, not only because we have to work together, but if we upset one another the next time we require each others services, either party could be reluctant to carry out their duties, which could effect the business as a whole. Not professional behaviour at all. And if work is held up because of conflict, the eventual loser is always the customer.

Worth and Price

Businesses need to make a profit in order to survive. Assuming that products are of excellent quality, have been tested and market research has been done, clearly establishing a need and want, then all we need to do is to sell. However, there is one obstacle – the customer.

Every person will consider what the product is worth to them before purchasing. The price has to be just right before they will buy. One definition of price could be:

The price is the sum, consideration or sacrifice given in exchange for goods and services.

An organisation will price a product and that price would suggest it’s worth to the company. But, imagine the customer likes the product, but not the price – the customer now thinks the product isn’t worth purchasing at that price. In other words, Something is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. The customer may have been put off the purchase because the price was too high. This means a balance needs to be made between the price and the benefits/features of the product.

The company can either lower the price and produce more sales that way, or it can make the product more attractive by e.g. adding more functionality or re-designing to make it unique in some way, this way the product can maintain it’s current price. Either way, the customer will be satisfied.

Personal selling is about communicating with people, and knowing something about ways in which they can react in different situations will help you to approach them, and find out whether their a serious purchaser, require more information or just browsing. Let’s assume for a moment that we know how to sell effectively. Businesses have external visitors that contact them by different means. They will:

· use the telephone to enquire about products
· visit the company website

We will tackle these in order.

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