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Customer Retention
Revisited
Kirk Manzo
Director of
Consulting
How do your sales people stay in
touch with their previously sold customers?
If they are like
many sales people, their follow-up is suspect. At best, sales
people have an erratic and inconsistent approach. Why not
consider a different way of looking at previously sold
customers.
If you needed to
purchase additional life insurance, have your taxes done, or get
your suit cleaned and pressed, I would imagine you don’t go
running around looking for a new insurance agent, accountant, or
dry cleaner. We all have people who cut our lawns, clean our
homes and offices, and provide services for us on a regular
basis. We don’t think about WHO will handle these needs for us,
we call our guy, and he takes care of it.
Previously sold
customers need to think of their sales person as “their guy or
gal”
who takes care of
helping them with purchasing a new car. In order to elevate your
sales people to that status with their customers, they MUST stay
in contact with them on a regular and consistent basis. Even
with the best of intentions for most customers, out of sight
means out of mind, they are simply too busy.
Many of you
remember Joe Gerrard for his World Record Sales achievements.
One simple principle he used to stay in contact with his
customers was to send them a card every month. December was a
Holiday card, January Happy New Year, March St. Patrick’s, etc
and each card read inside I LIKE YOU, a simple yet
effective gesture. He would send out upwards of 13,000 cards
each month.
The best way to
begin a reconnection campaign for each sales person is to first
classify all previously sold customers into 1 of 3 categories.
-
Relationship Customers : Exclusive, They call you first every
time.
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Participating
Customers: Repeat but not exclusive. Buys from the
competition as well as from you.
-
Non-Participating: Made a Singular Purchase. That’s it. No
repeat business nor any referrals.
Once the customer
base has been reclassified into the above categories, sales
people should start to re-contact the highest category,
Relationship Customers first. The intent should be to speak via
telephone with these customers 3 to for 4 times annually.
In order to
accomplish this let’s do some quick math to determine what it
will take to accomplish this task.
Let’s use an
average sales person that has worked at the dealership for 5
years.
10-12 units per month would mean approximately
500-600 customers.
500 customers times 4 conversations equals 2000
conversations annually.
Do you think in
today’s busy society, a sales person MAY need to call a previous
customer more than once to actually get them on the telephone
and have a conversation? Would 3 to 4 times seem realistic?
Probably.
Now we are talking about 6000-7000 calls per year. Monthly that
would
mean 500+ calls per month or approximately 25 outbound
calls every day (20 work days) to have 5-7 conversations per
day! So ask yourself how many of your sales people are really
staying in touch with their previous customers.
Realize if you
have 10 and 15 year veterans at your store the numbers are 2 to
3 times this example.
Good luck and
let’s us know if there is any way we can help you and your team.
Kirk Manzo
General Manager
Ziegler
SuperSystems
[email protected]
To speak with us about
this topic
or any other, give us a call
today!
800.726.0510
As always: Free Dealer Support
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