Click 'Read Original' for details. Terminals are the venues where products are sold, the link connecting products and consumers, and the most important link in product distribution. He who wins terminals wins the market; seizing terminals has become a key to marketing success. However, terminals require customer relations, and good customer relations can create greater sales! 01 Terminal Visits Terminal customer relations are built by footwork. Terminal visits are the basic method for maintaining good customer relations, and good terminal customer relations always belong to diligent terminal salespeople. To maintain good customer relations with terminals, it is essential to conduct daily visits to retail terminals. During these visits, terminal salespeople should gather detailed personal information about key personnel at terminal stores, such as family situation, personality, hobbies, and birthdays, and establish detailed customer profiles and files. They should also give small gifts during holidays or occasionally, send gifts and greetings on birthdays, and help customers solve non-work-related problems whenever possible. This transforms business relationships into personal friendships, building a bond of friendship. Terminal customer relations are built by footwork, but they cannot be achieved overnight. The key is to conduct terminal visits consistently and cyclically. Therefore, companies must establish a "store visit system" to manage and continuously cycle through these visits. Common steps for establishing a "store visit system":

  • Create detailed terminal files, including terminal name, address, business area, staff names, birthdays, and shifts.
  • Divide the market into several districts and assign corresponding terminal salespeople to each district.
  • Classify retail terminals into A, B, and C categories.
  • Reasonably determine visit cycles and set corresponding visit frequencies based on terminal category.
  • Draw a terminal distribution map.
  • Develop a terminal visit route map. Additionally, a "visit process" should be established, specifying what work to do at each terminal, how to do it, and what standards to meet. 02 Terminal Support Building good terminal customer relations cannot rely solely on material incentives or small gifts and emotional investments. To establish stable and lasting terminal customer relations, companies need to provide systematic support and good terminal services. Helping terminals is helping the company itself. Providing systematic support and services to terminals not only enhances terminal customer relations and strengthens cooperation but also effectively secures promotional space and display resources, thereby promoting product sales and boosting sales performance. Terminal support mainly includes the following: First, provide sales support to retail terminals. As a company, actively helping terminals improve sales performance is a duty. Sales support provided to retail terminals mainly includes:
  • Provide advertising support to terminals.
  • Provide sales promotion support such as product display, in-store advertising, and point-of-sale promotions.
  • Personnel support, such as dispatching promoters for in-store promotions.
  • Provide sales tools and equipment assistance, such as free shelves, freezers, and store signs.
  • Deliver goods to the door, ensure supply, keep track of terminals' reasonable inventory, and replenish promptly.
  • Assist terminals in putting products on shelves and do proper stocking and maintenance.
  • Handle returns and exchanges promptly to adjust terminals' slow-moving inventory.
  • Provide after-sales service, handling customer complaints and feedback promptly and proactively.
  • 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, companies should also provide guidance and coaching related to business operations to the best of their ability, offering reasonable suggestions for problems in terminal operations, helping terminals solve operational difficulties, and thereby enhancing their sales capability 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 enhancement, advertising planning, and promotions. "Throw a peach, return a plum"—when terminals benefit from company guidance, the company can gain more from terminals. There are two different ways of thinking about how to conduct terminal customer relations, and different ways of thinking produce completely different results. Method 1: How to solve company problems through terminal customer relations? Most companies, when conducting terminal customer relations, typically think: A. What problems need to be solved? B. How to solve company problems through good terminal customer relations? This is a one-way way of thinking, from the company's perspective. Of course, public relations plans conceived in this way can also achieve good results. However, designing terminal customer relations plans solely from the perspective of solving the company's own problems is always passive and is not the highest level of terminal customer relations. Method 2: How to solve company problems by solving terminal problems? Companies have their problems, and terminals have theirs. If we can break through conventional thinking and consider whether we can solve company problems by solving terminal problems, and whether we can embed the solution of company problems within the solution of terminal problems, this is a reverse way of 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 and difficulties have not been well solved? B. If we can leverage company resources and integrate terminal resources, can we solve some of the terminals' problems and difficulties? C. What are the company's problems? Can solving terminal problems also solve company problems? In this way, companies and merchants integrate each other's resources for their own use, obtaining resources they lack from each other, thereby solving their respective problems in a more economical way. A certain manufacturer, when entering each terminal store, provides the operator with a complete marketing and promotion plan, offering targeted business methods and ideas, and providing relevant guidance and assistance, including: ◆ Guidance and support related to business management; ◆ Guidance and support related to sales activities; ◆ Guidance and support related to advertising and public relations; ◆ Formulating and promoting plans related to promotional activities. 03 Profit Assurance Customer relations can compensate for insufficient interest relationships, but they cannot replace them. Customer relations without profit assurance are not solid and cannot last. For customer relations to be solid and lasting, both profit assurance and emotional communication are indispensable, but profit assurance is always primary, and emotional communication is secondary. Ultimately, the fit between companies and terminals is profit; profit is the hard truth. Companies must meet terminals' profit requirements, ensure reasonable and sustained profits for terminals, scientifically formulate pricing policies to guarantee reasonable unit profits for terminals, promote product sales, increase sales volume, make products sell well, and ensure terminals' total profit. This article is excerpted from Sales and Market. -END-