BONDS: Retains Customers to generate rebuys


BONDS: Retains Customers to generate rebuys

“Will you give me half of whatever you win?” asked Sidharth

“Yes” Chetan laughed into his phone “ Except that I can’t figure out how to divide a training nomination.”

“Oh, ok” said Sidharth “So the reward is a training opportunity? Fine. Read that mail for me again?”

“Here goes” said Chetan “You’re the sales wizard in our group. So I’m really counting on you to help me win this contest”

With his phone speaker on, Chetan read from his Outlook screen:

Ideas Contest:

Sales & Marketing announces the Ideas Contest for the current quarter

Theme: Rebuy challenge in mid-sized accounts

Background:

• Mid-sized accounts contribute to half of our annual sales

• These are Customers to whom we are one of many suppliers.

• Over last 3 quarters, sales to this segment has slipped to below 30 percent of our total turnover

Challenge:

We invite quickly actionable and creative ideas on tactics to increase rebuy from mid-sized accounts

Recognition:

Contributors of the top 3 tactic ideas short listed by the Evaluation Group will be nominated to a week long online Creativity Workshop run by a Europe based global design and innovation company

“You know what Chetan” said Sidharth “The challenge is this. With large accounts, salespeople are willing to use a key account approach to understand what’s going on. But not everyone is willing to invest efforts in nurturing mid-sized accounts. And what I’m saying also applies to reasonably big accounts which do not qualify to be called a key account. Your approach should be in 3 simple steps – Know where you are with them, have a clear idea, where you would like to reach and decide on what rebuy triggers you can use”

“Hey Sidharth” said Chetan, “the first two I can manage. I can arrange all our mid sized accounts, from largest to smallest and map the 'From' and 'To' . The tough part will the rebuy triggers you’re referring to”

“That’s the easy one, in fact” said Sidharth “I will send you a jumbo bank of Customer Retention Tactics you can use” (See Anchor Practice below)

“Wow” said Chetan “That would be wonderful”

How Even Non-key Accounts can also be a Goldmine

Often sales organisations are so designed that accounts that are not large enough to be identified as a key relationship, do not they get the attention they may merit. For example there are 2 distinct benefits of selling to this category that go unnoticed:

(i) It’s much easier to take care of margins per Customer in this category – That’s because most mid sized or smaller Customers usually work with a one year time horizon.

(ii) Current volumes aren’t hard to defend – This type of Customers, generally split their purchases between a pool of vendors, making volume defence and improvement that much easier

4 Steps to Rebuy Magic

You can leverage the growth and revenue potential of your non-key accounts and sell more products per Customer by making them come back to you. This can be done with 4 easy to implement tips:

1. Analyse and understand where you stand with each Customer – What is our present status?

2. Be aware and alive to your present way of working with every Customer – How do we usually deal with this Customer?

3. On a planning horizon of 3 to 5 months decide what are your strategic result objectives – Where do we want to be in this account?

4. Within that same time horizon, identify the strategic effort objectives with the Customer – What will we do get there? What competitive tactics will we use? (Anchor Practice below)

These 4 tips, diligently implemented, will draw existing Customers back to you. You will make a big impact on non-key accounts as you watch your re-buy and range-sales grow exponentially.

Possible solution for the story situation – Chetan should straightaway put to work the bank of Customer Retention Tactics that Sidharth is sharing with him (Anchor Practice)

Anchor Practice: 18 Competitive Customer Retention Tactics to Generate Rebuys

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Pause to reflect:   ” You can leverage the growth and revenue potential of your non-key accounts and sell more products per Customer by making them come back to you”

Action Question:  List out non-key (mid and small sized) accounts that contribute substantially to your turnover. How many of the 18 Competitive Customer Retention Tactics can you use to make them come back to you and buy more from you?

Related Readings:  Mercuri Insight Document on Are your existing Customers coming back to you in enough numbers?

Takeaway Quote:  “Being truly Customer-centric means having a deep understanding of your Customers’ unmet needs” – Maria Martinez

About the series:   This is the 88th in a series of 100 Posts that seek to build your Sales Resilience ... as an individual salesperson, as a sales team, and as a sales organization. Because a Resilient India needs Resilient Sales.


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86. ADAPTS: Varies selling style, tactics and approach to make the most of the sales situation

To know and not to do is to not know. To do and to do the same in all situations is to not effectively do! Often it can undo what's done! So?

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84. PRAGMATIC: Sizes up sales situations to invest intelligent effort

Complexity in a B2B Opportunity holds immense value for the seller... Only if one knows how complex it is! How do you size it up?

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