You don’t…
Do you know whether they have children and how old they are?…
Do you know where they were born?
Do you know where they studied or what their background is?
Where did they work before their current job?
Which football team do they support? What sport do they play at the weekend?
Are they into wine? Which ones are their favourites? Do you share any hobby with your customer?
Did you send them season’s greetings last Christmas? When you phone them, do they take your call straight away and gladly?
If you have racked up 10 “NO”s or “I DON’T KNOW”s, you are not doing too well.
If you want to bring out the best in your customer and move beyond a mere professional customer-supplier relationship to become your customer’s partner or collaborator, you will have to get to know your customer really well.
On every personal visit or call you make, keep noting down information about him or her – their tastes, hobbies, personal concerns and projects – so that you can talk about more than just work.
That way you can pleasantly surprise them by sending them an article they will find interesting, recommending a restaurant you have been to, a film, a special place you have visited with your children or, if your marketing budget allows, giving them a book, a bottle of wine or some theatre tickets.
At that moment you will have broken through the formal barrier and earned their trust.
To get to know your customer well you don’t need complex CRM or business intelligence systems, just the desire to know them in depth and to make the most of every chance to be in touch.
If you know they like wine, invite them to a wine bar; if football is their thing, some tickets for a match; if they are very family-minded, some tickets to a theme park for their family, or recommend a place you have been to with your own family.
The point is to establish regular, smooth communication by phone, email and personal visits, all of it of course depending on how important that customer is to you.
At the end of the year, analyse your customer portfolio: the business they have brought you, the change compared with the previous year, the new contacts you have made, opportunities won and lost, mistakes and successes and, finally, the number of contacts and visits.
Based on these results, draw up an ABC of your customers using objective data such as turnover, their leadership position in the market, number of employees, number of offices, agreements signed and contacts with decision-making power. That way, next year, with good sales planning, you will work your customer portfolio better and make it more profitable.
If you know your way around the internet, take advantage of Web 2.0: thanks to professional networking platforms such as Linked In (www.linkedin.com), Viadeo (www.viadeo.es) and XING (www.xing.com) you can find your current and potential customers and learn more about them.
Where they worked before their current job, where they studied, recommendations from their colleagues, their professional and personal interests, the activities they like to take part in. With all this information to hand, you will find it easier to get in touch with them, and if you decide to change jobs you will be able to stay in touch with all of them, and you will also hear about changes in their professional profile.
Another added advantage of these professional networks is being able to reach your contacts’ own contacts through them, so your network can keep on growing.
I recommend consistency: don’t bombard just anybody, and don’t accept invitations from contacts you can see won’t bring anything to your business or your personal interests. Better to have 50 contacts you know personally or can work with than 500, with the vast majority of whom you will barely have any relationship.
Finally, your “digital identity” on the internet will give you more visibility as a professional and also give your company more visibility, so complete your profile as fully as you can. You can also add a link to your website and measure the number of visits, and if you have a blog you can also see who has visited it. So now, are you going to take more interest in getting to know your customers?
Félix López Capel
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