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Customer feedback and contact programmes are two ways of increasing communication with your customers. They can represent great opportunities to listen to your customers. It can also give you the chance to let them know more about what you can offer.

Customer feedback programmes

Customer feedback can provide you with detailed information about how your business is perceived. It’s a chance for customers to:

• voice objections
• suggest changes
• endorse your existing processes

It’s also an opportunity for you to listen to what they say and act upon it.

Feedback is can be gathered using the following methods:

• questionnaires
• online surveys
• face-to-face conversation
• phone calls – either structured or informal
• focus groups

Customer contact programmes

The purpose of customer contact programmes is to help you deliver tailored information to your customers. Examples include:

• a special offer that is relevant to a past purchase
• a reminder sent at the time of year when a customer traditionally places an order

Contact programmes are particularly useful for reactivating relationships with lapsed customers.

Do your best to make sure that your customers feel the extra contact is relevant and beneficial to them. Bombarding customers with unwanted calls or marketing material can be counter-productive.

There are a number if ways to contact your customers. See:

• email marketing
• telemarketing
• direct marketing

Keep in mind the rules regarding privacy and data protection in direct marketing.

Once the order has been signed, maintain your professional approach by:

• Confirm what has been agreed, including delivery dates and times as well as payment procedures, where appropriate.
• Writing down a schedule of the next steps.
• Confirm all the details, including full contact details in case of queries, in an email or letter.
• Making regular progress calls.
• Checking after delivery that they have received exactly what was agreed and on time. For more information, see manage your customer service.

You should regard getting order as the beginning of a long-term, mutually beneficial business relationship.

Building relationships takes time and is based on trust and providing honest advice. For example, you might advise your client to buy a cheaper product if this will satisfy their requirements, instead of trying to push them to buy the most expensive version.

See retain and grow your customer base.

Request feedback

Another way of establishing a good working relationship is to request honest feedback. This will help you tailor your product or service to your client’s needs and will show that you really care about their business.

Increase your knowledge of the market

You should build on the research you conducted before visiting the client, noting any changes in the market and offering to help your client exploit any opportunities.

Referrals and testimonials

Using referrals can reduce the amount of advertising and cold-calling you need to do.

You should ask for referrals when you:

• are sourcing leads
• conclude an unsuccessful sales meeting
• have just agreed a deal with a new client
• are at a networking event
• are contacting an existing client

Ask existing clients for a written testimonial to use in sales appointments. Testimonials should explain why they used your business, how it helped them, and the level of service they received.

Segmentation

Your existing and potential customers fall into particular groups or segments, characterized by their ‘needs’. Identifying these groups and their needs through market research and market reports, and then addressing those needs more successfully than your competitors, should be one of the key elements of your marketing strategy.

Targeting and positioning

You should aim to sell to the market segments that will be most profitable for your business. It is important that your product offering meets the needs of your chosen target market. See target your most profitable customers and define your target market.

You should create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the needs of the customers you want to target. For example, if a particular group of customers is looking for quality first and foremost, then any marketing activity aimed at them should draw attention to the high quality of your products or service.

Promotional tactics

Once you have created your marketing strategy, you must then decide which marketing activity or activities will ensure your target market know about the products or services you offer, and why they meet their needs.

There are many ways to achieve this – such as various forms of advertising, exhibitions, public relations, digital marketing and an effective ‘point of sale’ strategy. Try to limit your activities to those methods you think will work best with your target market, to avoid spreading your budget too thinly.

Monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring and evaluating how effective your strategy has been is a key element, yet often overlooked. This control element not only helps you see how your strategy is performing in practice, it can also help inform your future marketing strategy.

A simple approach is to ask each new customer how they heard about your business. Deeper analysis can come from questionnaires, focus groups, and examining customers’ online behavior.

Marketing plan

Once you have decided on your marketing strategy, draw up a marketing plan that sets out how you intend to execute that strategy and evaluate its success. The plan should be constantly reviewed and, if necessary, updated so you can respond quickly to changes in customer needs and attitudes in your industry and in the broader economic climate. Read more about how to write a marketing plan.

Once you have decided to use telemarketing and have determined your target audience, you need to decide how you will approach your strategy.

Contacting customers directly can be an efficient sales device. This is especially true if you intend to tell existing customers about a new product, or one that is similar to something they have previously purchased from you.

However, before you begin telemarketing, you need to do the following:

• obtain your clean, opted-out list of current customers and their details
• decide if you will do your telemarketing in-house or get an agency to do the work for you
• think about rewarding your existing customers with special offers

Using a telemarketing agency

You should try to ensure that your telemarketing generates new leads, retains your existing customers, and maintains relationships. If your business is struggling to do these things through its telemarketing project, consider hiring a telemarketing service provider.

Before instructing a service provider you should:

• Decide on the services you need. For example, do you just need cold calling, or would you require someone to be contactable at all times?
• Ask for referrals and research into any bidding service providers. Many telemarketing agencies advertise their services but you can also find information about them online.
• Contact the telemarketing service provider directly and gauge their responses to your particular needs.
• Request a proposal – this will help you shortlist the agencies you are considering.
• Visit the agency to observe the office environment and see if the company appears credible.

Planning other telemarketing activities

You can also use inbound calls to sell products or services to your customers. For example, if a customer asks for a particular item that you stock, you can offer to supply them with relevant, accompanying products that they may need. If you intend to use this sales tactic, you should ensure that any telemarketing staff has had previous sales training.

Telemarketing is a form of direct marketing. It involves talking to potential or existing customers on the telephone.

Telemarketing can help you to promote your products or services, build your customer database, generate leads and appointments, stay in touch with existing customers or generate new ones.

Planning your telemarketing
When planning your telemarketing campaign, you should:

• Decide if you want to outsource. You’ll need to choose whether you will carry out the telemarketing in-house or use the services of a specialised marketing company. See outsourcing.
• Make sure you know who your target audience is. You need to know what your product or service is, who it is aimed at, and who is most likely to purchase it. See define your target market.
• Make sure your marketing lists are reliable and up to date. This will allow you to focus on your target audience, ensure your lists comply with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR). You must not include people or organisations that have opted out of receiving unsolicited sales and marketing calls.
• Anyone you contact must have consented to receive that type of communication from you. Read more about privacy and data protection in direct marketing.
  Identify key personnel at target businesses. Speaking to the right person will increase your chances of making a sale.
• Consider how you will pay your telesales staff. You could, for example, provide sales incentives. See the right pay package for your salespeople.
• Have a script in place. Having a simple, professional, and pre-prepared script allows you to sell and respond to queries more effectively. Make sure you explain who you are and what your business does.
• Think about the relative costs. It may be more cost-effective to use an outside marketing business. The initial costs may be outweighed by increased sales.

Automated telemarketing
Automated telemarketing uses interactive voice response (IVR) to effectively process high numbers of telemarketing calls in an inexpensive way.

Outbound IVR telemarketing can be used to generate leads and sales and alert customers to new offers, product or service changes and product recalls. It can also be used to conduct meetings, conference calls or business surveys. You can only make automated marketing calls to people who have specifically consented to it.

Inbound IVR can be used to offer helpdesk services, handle incoming calls or to provide disaster backup in case of emergency.

Since IVR campaigns do not require actual telemarketers, they are often less expensive than traditional telemarketing campaigns. The results are also easy to measure, flexible and can show immediate results. On the other hand, consumers may perceive IVR as less personal and more intrusive.

All automated calls must include your name and a contact address or freephone number. You must also allow your number (or an alternative contact number) to be displayed to the person receiving the call.

Strategies to increase sales revenue
Your sales revenue can be a key profit driver in your business. To increase your profitability, you should develop a strategy to grow your sales. You can look at things like:

• increasing your prices
• finding new customers
• selling more to existing customers
• offering sale promotions to boost the volume of sales
• developing new product or service lines
• selling in new markets

You should examine the products and services you offer, your target market and your pricing strategy to see if you can make improvements.

Review your product or service pricing
It’s a good idea to review your prices often. Changes in your marketplace could mean that you can increase prices without losing sales. However, you should test any price rises before you make them permanent. See how to price your product or service.

Use the Pareto principle to target the right customers
It’s not just your prices that affect your profits – the type of customers you’re selling to can have a big impact. You may be able to increase your profit margins by targeting your most profitable customers, even if you lose the less profitable ones. To find out the most profitable customers, you can apply the Pareto principle.

Often known as the 80/20 rule, the Pareto principle proposes that around 80 per cent of your profit is gained from 20 per cent of your products or services. Similarly, 80 per cent of profit is often also gained from 20 per cent of customers.

Review your product and service offering
If you offer a range of products and services, examine the profit margins of each. You can work out what individual products cost by you using activity-based costing.

When you look at your current offering, you may find that some products do not deliver good returns. Consider concentrating your efforts on your more profitable offerings.

Carry out regular market research to identify products and services that are in demand. Keep up to date with market trends, as this will help you to identify new opportunities to generate profits.

Generating sales leads
One of the hallmarks of a successful business is being continually on the lookout for new business. Generating leads in a proactive way will increase selling opportunities and help to keep your order book full.

Mapping your territory
Before you start sourcing leads, decide where you are going to base your search, and in which industries. If your product or service could be widely used, start locally and target particular geographical areas. If you have a niche product or service, focus on specific companies.

How to source new sales leads
There are many ways to find new leads, such as:

• initiated leads – from prospects who fill out a website form, visit your stand at a trade show, or respond to an advertisement or mailshot
• profile fitting – using market research tools to identify potential customers who are likely to be a match for your company’s products
  market monitoring – monitoring media outlets, such as news articles, internet forums and corporate press releases
• canvassing – cold-calling in-person, by telephone or by email
• data mining – looking for possible leads in information (for example, a corporate database) that your company has previously gathered
• personal and professional contacts – asking for or incentivising referrals from existing customers, suppliers or acquaintances and through networking
• promotions – using free gifts to encourage potential leads to provide contact information or attend a sales meeting

Qualifying sales leads
Deciding whether a sales lead has the potential is known as qualifying. There are many reasons why some leads may not be successful, including:

difficulties in meeting the needs of some prospects – their needs may be too great, or expensive
needs already being satisfied – prospects may have already purchased a similar product
lack of finance – someone may need a product but be unable to afford it
prospects lacking authority to approve the purchase
Using databases to keep track of leads
Storing information on a database allows you to keep track of who you have already contacted and spot patterns where you have been successful. See benefits of databases.

You can also buy a database of business leads from a variety of suppliers. These can be expensive, and you may need to employ staff to help manage them, depending on the size of the list.

Your existing customers are important assets to your business. They have already chosen you instead of your competitors. Keeping their custom costs far less than attracting new business. It’s worth taking steps to make sure that they’re satisfied with the service they receive.

You can use techniques such as:

• providing a free customer helpline
• answering frequently asked questions on your website
• following up sales with a courtesy call
• providing free products that will help customers look after or make the most of their purchases
• sending reminders when services or check-ups are due
• offering preferential discounts to existing customers on further purchases

Existing customer relationships are opportunities to increase sales. Your customers will already have a degree of trust in your recommendations.

Sell more existing customers

Cross-selling and up-selling are ways of increasing either the range or the value of what you sell. They work by pointing out new purchase options tocustomers. Alerting customers when new, upgraded or relevant products become available is one way of increasing sales. You could do this through regular emails or newsletters.

To keep your customers’ trust, never try to sell them something that doesn’t meet their needs. Remember, your aim is to build a solid long-term relationship with your customers rather than to make quick one-off profits.

Satisfied customers will contribute to your business for years, through:

• purchases
• recommendations
• referrals

Before looking at new markets, think about how you can get the most out of your existing customers – it’s usually more economical and quicker than finding new customers.

Perhaps you could sell more to your existing customers, or look at better ways to retain key customers.

Focus on the market

Take steps to find your most profitable customers:

• Analyse the different needs of different groups of customers.
• Focus on a market niche where you can be the best.
• Aim to put most of your efforts into the 20 per cent of customers who provide 80 per cent of profits.

Don’t forget the follow-up
Monitoring, evaluation and review are key to success:

• Approach a third party for feedback about your strategy – they may be able to spot any gaps or weaknesses that you can’t see.
• Put your marketing strategy into effect with a marketing plan that sets out the aims, actions, dates, costs, resources and effective selling programmes.
• Measure the effectiveness of what you do and be prepared to change things that aren’t working.

Pitfalls to avoid

Watch out for these common mistakes:

• Making assumptions about what customers want.
• Ignoring the competition.
• Trying to compete on price alone.
• Relying on too few customers.
• Trying to grow too quickly.
• Becoming complacent about what you offer and failing to innovate.

Be sure to follow up all of your marketing and promotional strategies with a marketing plan. This sets out clear objectives and lists the actions you will take to achieve them.

Direct marketing allows you to generate a specific response from targeted groups of customers. It’s a particularly useful tool for small businesses because it allows you to:

• focus limited resources where they are most likely to produce results
• measure the success of campaigns accurately by analysing responses
• test your marketing – you can target a representative sample of your target audience and see what delivers the best response rates before developing a full campaign

A direct marketing campaign can help you to achieve the following key objectives:

• increasing sales to existing customers
• building customer loyalty
• re-establishing lapsed customer relationships
• generating new business

There are many different approaches to direct marketing. These include mailshots and telemarketing, email marketing, SMS marketing and social media. The method most appropriate for your business will depend on who you are targeting, the message you want get across and response you want to generate.

The results of direct marketing aren’t guaranteed. A poorly planned or targeted campaign can be a waste of money. A badly designed mailshot, for example, could simply end up in the bin. And worse still, it may irritate recipients and damage your business’ reputation as a result.