【Good Customer Relationships Can Create Greater Sales】 Sales terminals need to be fought for, and terminal customer relationships need to be strong. Even more, terminal customer relationships are more important than competing for terminals.

  • First, without good terminal customer relationships, various terminal tasks are difficult to carry out smoothly;
  • Second, without good terminal customer relationships, some terminal investments may not play their role, while good terminal customer relationships can maximize the benefits of terminal investments;
  • Third, terminal customer relationships themselves have direct terminal promotional power. Moreover, good customer relationships make it easier to achieve twice the results with half the effort: For product recommendations, terminals are willing to recommend your products to customers and actively sell your company's new products and new packaging; For product display, terminals are willing to let your products maintain good display positions and proactively do tidying and maintenance; For visual merchandising, terminals are willing to let you post POP advertisements and prevent others from damaging or covering your POP ads; For promotional activities, terminals are willing to cooperate with your in-store promoters and store promotions; For product movement, terminals are willing to accept your sales suggestions and think of ways to sell your products; For ordering and payment, terminals are willing to settle payments on time and actively replenish stock to prevent stockouts or sellouts; For information gathering, terminals are willing to disclose market information and dynamics to you, especially about competitors; For customer service, terminals are willing to proactively handle customer complaints about your products; Sometimes, emotional relationships can compensate for insufficient benefits and make it easier for them to forgive your temporary negligence or mistakes. Therefore, the weaker the market, the more off-season, the more customer relationships become the top priority, even surpassing stocking pressure, because at this time, sales only come with customer relationships; sales are fought for, not pressured. "First, customer relationships are built by frequent visits; diligence can compensate for clumsiness. Terminal customer relationships are built by frequent visits; terminal visits are the basic method to maintain good customer relationships. Good terminal customer relationships always belong to diligent terminal salespeople. Terminal customers will never decide whether to help you sell based on your position, but on how familiar you are and how good the relationship is. Some company leaders go to the market frontline to check terminal work, and when they arrive at terminals, they personally do displays, but because they are not familiar with the terminal, they are sometimes stopped by store owners or staff, and sometimes even scolded. Such cases are not few, and these things are easily solved by a small salesperson. Therefore, to maintain good customer relationships with terminals, it is necessary to do daily visits. While doing terminal visits, terminal salespeople should gather personal information about key personnel in terminal stores, such as family situations, personalities, hobbies, and birthdays, and establish detailed customer profiles and files. They should give small gifts during festivals or irregularly, send gifts and greetings on birthdays, and help customers solve non-work-related matters as much as possible. Transform business relationships into personal friendships, building feelings like friends. Terminal customer relationships are built by frequent visits, but it cannot be done overnight; the key is to conduct terminal visits unwaveringly and continuously. Terminal visits are a marathon without an end, a long-term, continuous task that can never be relaxed. How can we ensure unwaveringly and continuously cycling terminal visits? Enterprises must establish a "store visit system," manage through the system, and rely on the system for continuous cycling operations. It is necessary to follow the common steps of the "store visit system":
    1. Establish detailed terminal files, including terminal name, address, business area, staff names, birthdays, etc.;
    1. Divide the market into several districts, and assign corresponding terminal salespeople to each district;
    1. Classify terminals into A, B, and C categories;
    1. Reasonably determine visit cycles based on terminal category and set corresponding visit frequencies;
    1. Draw terminal distribution maps;
    1. Develop terminal visit route maps;
    1. Also develop a "visit process" specifying what work to do at each terminal, how to do it, and what standards to achieve. Do not underestimate these basic processes and standards. Once you establish a rhythm, you will feel both relaxed and immensely benefited, but these are not suitable for new product stages or promotional blitz stages. "Second, activities and gatherings: get together often, sales and stocking pressure happen in play. Activities are a good means to build terminal customer relationships. Activities provide a platform for communication and exchange between enterprises and terminals, increasing connections and narrowing distances. Enterprises can adopt flexible and diverse methods, regularly hold various activities such as symposiums, social gatherings, terminal celebration meetings, tourism activities, brewery visits, tasting sessions, learning lectures, ordering meetings, new product launches, etc. These activities can also include entertainment like lucky draws, cash grabs, and product or corporate culture elements. Through these activities, you can strengthen relationships, deepen understanding, and promote the company and products. "Third, do terminal support work well to ensure customer relationships do not depreciate. Doing terminal customer relationships well cannot rely solely on material incentives or small gifts and emotional investments. To establish stable and continuous terminal customer relationships, enterprises need to provide systematic support and good terminal services. Helping terminals is helping the enterprise itself. Providing systematic support and services to terminals can not only enhance terminal customer relationships and cooperation but also effectively obtain promotional space and display resources, thereby promoting product sales and improving sales performance. First, provide sales support to terminals. As an enterprise, actively helping terminals improve sales performance is a duty. Sales support provided to retail terminals mainly includes the following:
  1. Provide advertising support to terminals;
  2. Provide sales aids such as product display, in-store advertising, and point-of-sale promotions;
  3. Personnel support, dispatching promoters for in-store promotions (in certain stores);
  4. Provide sales tools and equipment assistance, such as free shelves, freezers, and store signs;
  5. Timely delivery, ensuring supply, always knowing the terminal's reasonable inventory, and replenishing in time;
  6. Assist terminals in putting products on shelves and do tidying and maintenance;
  7. Timely handle returns and adjust slow-moving inventory;
  8. Do after-sales service well, handling customer complaints and claims promptly and proactively;
  9. Communicate frequently with terminals to solve difficulties and problems they encounter in sales. Second, provide business guidance to retail terminals. In addition to sales support, enterprises should also provide guidance and coaching related to operations to the best of their ability, offering reasonable suggestions for problems in terminal operations, helping terminals solve operational difficulties, thereby enhancing their sales power and competitiveness, and improving overall business levels. For example, provide guidance and coaching in store decoration, product display, reasonable inventory, sales increase, cost saving, profit increase, advertising planning, and promotions. Give a plum and return a peach; when terminals benefit from enterprise guidance, enterprises can benefit more from terminals. Enterprises have two different ways of thinking about how to conduct terminal customer relationships, and the effects are completely different. Method 1: How to solve my enterprise's problems through terminal customer relationships? Most enterprises, when conducting terminal customer relationships, usually think:
  • A. What problems do I need to solve?
  • B. How can I solve my enterprise's problems by doing terminal customer relationships well? This is thinking from the enterprise's perspective. Of course, public relations plans designed this way can also achieve good results. However, merely designing terminal customer relationship plans unilaterally from solving the enterprise's own problems is always passive and not the highest level of terminal customer relationships. Method 2: How to solve my enterprise's problems by solving terminal problems? Enterprises have their problems, and terminals have theirs. If we can break through conventional thinking and think: can we solve our enterprise's problems by solving terminal problems? Can we embed solving enterprise problems into solving terminal problems? This is a reverse way of thinking, thinking from the terminal's perspective. This way of thinking is:
  • A. For terminals, what problems and difficulties do they encounter in operations? Or what problems have not been well solved?
  • B. If we mobilize our enterprise's resources and integrate the terminal's own resources, can we solve some of the terminal's problems and difficulties?
  • C. What are my enterprise's problems? Can solving terminal problems also solve my enterprise's problems? In this way, enterprises and merchants integrate each other's resources for their own use, each obtaining resources they lack from the other, thereby solving their respective problems in a more economical way. "Fourth, profit guarantee is the foundation for evergreen terminal customer relationships. Customer relationships can compensate for insufficient benefits, but they cannot replace benefit relationships. Customer relationships without benefit guarantees are not solid and cannot last. For customer relationships to be solid and lasting, both benefit guarantees and emotional communication are indispensable, but benefit guarantees are always primary, and emotional communication is secondary. Ultimately, the fit point between enterprises and terminals is benefits; benefits are the hard truth. Enterprises must meet terminals' profit requirements, ensure reasonable and continuous profits for terminals. Enterprises should scientifically set price policies to ensure reasonable unit profits for terminals; promote product sales, increase sales volume, make products sell well, and ensure total profits for terminals; manage the price system well to ensure continuous profits for terminals. Additionally, enterprises can find ways to seek new profit growth points for terminals. Source: Marketing Kaleidoscope -END- Content Selection Reply with the following keywords to categorize and read related articles: Sales Supervisor, Second-tier Management, Regional Manager, Distributor Management, New Channels, City Manager, Competition, 2015, Manufacturer-Dealer Game, Product Slow-moving, Terminal Visit Management, Route Management, Deep Distribution, Internal Management, Sales Skills, Profit Improvement, Recruitment, Distribution, Daily Management, Team Motivation, Channel Promotion, Sales Misconceptions, New Product Launch, Township Market, New Product Pricing, Sales Target Achievement, Closing Orders, Market Visit Inspection, Baijiu, Beer, Sales Increase, Agency Products, Cross-region Sales, KA, Terminal Visual Merchandising, New Market, Market Operation, Learning, Book Recommendations, Inventory Management, New Salespeople, Consumer Promotion, Execution, Old Products, Expired Product Handling, Model Market, Recruitment, New Media, Distributor Development, Performance Appraisal, Assessment, Annual Planning, Shopping Guide, Morning Meeting, Display, Transformation, Stock Pressure, Festivals, Distributor Cost Control Channel Operation, Marketing Theory and Laws, Brand Truth, Order Meeting, Team Management, Training, Work Report, Work Report.