GPI 006 – Tell customers when to order; offer free email reminders to check stock and place orders!

Why remind your buyers when it is time to reorder?  Your buyers purchase hundreds of items and forget to check stock, do not know their own reordering system very well, get delayed and forget until the last minute or normally wait until items run out or when someone in their own firm reminds them.  They get yelled at and you can help.  Offer assistance by sending a reminder.  Try to get this set up in your organization to enhance your customer service; it will pay off handsomely.

Get your IT people to setup an automated email reminder system that your sales personnel can offer and use to notify buyers it is time to check stock and place an order.  Once designed if not already a feature in your system, have the IT people train your sales personnel to take an order and then teach them how to offer and implement this free service.  Before hanging up after placing a new order, your sales representative can offer the customer an automatic email as a reminder for reordering the same listing of products in a defined period of time that the customer chooses.  Tell that customer that this email is optional and can be stopped any time he requests it to cease.  Remind him he is in control of it at all times.

For example, if your customer orders 30 items of 3 different parts every 90 days, offer a reminder to be sent to him concerning these particular three parts in about 80-85 days (ahead of schedule) as a reminder to re-order.  Remind him the service is available to him at no cost, can always be ignored and more importantly can be modified any time as he wishes just by asking.

Your automatic email reminder will do several things for your buyer.

• Check stock: The email he gets from your company will act as an early warning for him to check stock for the items you provide so he does not run out.
• No obligation: It will remind him he is under no obligation to order.
• Split orders: Tell him he can split the order if he wishes because of change in sales or demand.
• Ignore order: Tell him he can order less or none at all.
• Discount reminders included: Tell him if he does respond, you will follow up to ensure that the order placed is what he wanted, plus you will let him know of any quantity discounts which may be available on larger orders at that time.
• Track other items as needed: Tell him if he wishes, he can assign you to buy any number of products that he currently has to track.  Even if you do not offer these products, you can do it at his current cost (arranged with the vendor) plus a 10% or 15% markup for handling fees.  He may or may not do this but you must offer more service than he can obtain elsewhere.  If the buyer believes you can eliminate a headache so he can concentrate on more important purchases, he may jump on your offer.  Just ensure you make money for handling these purchases for him.
• Order more than currently due: Make sure to tell him it is easy to increase his order at any time he chooses.
• Set up items as needed: Tell him you will set up all of his items with the dates he specifies to remind him to check stock.
• Service offered as a benefit: These benefits should be available within his own system, but may not be, so offer this valuable service to him.
• Service optional: This should be a function that his own system provides, but many companies lack good internal systems, so ask.
• Buyer becomes dependent: Tell your buyer he is under no obligation to buy.  Let him know your firm will send emails regardless if he buys or not.  You just want the opportunity to provide a great product or great service, and you want to do it on time for him.
• Setup the email/phone alert service he controls: Setup an email system that reminds him it is time to order.  In that email offer him the opportunity to place the order “as is”, change the quantity, and enter another date in the future, either one time or to be repeated, or enter requests to be reminded about other specials via email.  Give him the option to see his previous orders (order history) to review when he forgets items or quantities.