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Your sales people are responsible for securing new orders for the company. They define a relationship with the customer’s buyer that establishes trust and a sense of comfort for that buyer. Your customer’s representative needs to rely on someone in your organization to get things done, obtain best prices, deliver critical items overnight, exchange paperwork immediately as needed or anything else required within the purchase arrangement. When others step in, the customer becomes confused.
Here is a listing of items or occurrences that help to define the importance of your sales person’s role with your customers. Do not allow anyone to ruin it.
Times to allow your sales person to be the customer’s “hero”:
- Purchase Order Mistakes: The customer issues a purchase order for a purchase that is much higher than normal. Accounting catches the error because there is an unusually high net profit on the transaction. At that point the sales person should contact the customer to ensure the order was intended. Your company cannot afford to allow a potential error to continue because the customer will ultimately find it, question your firm’s integrity, doubt the sales person assigned and for many months or years afterwards question whether he can trust you or not. Not protecting your customers can potentially become a very costly mistake. Let the sales person make the call and insist he do it immediately.
- Notification of risks: Your inside sales person notices that one of your largest and most important customers places a very large order for six months or a year’s supply of an item that you company plans to discontinue. The order involves an item also that your firm will not be able to service, repair or replace. Your sales person needs to define the risks with this purchase even though your firm would like to turn that inventory into cash. You owe it to the long-term relationship you want with this customer. Let the sales person make the call and walk through the risks of making the sale. The customer will be impressed and think of you in the future when he needs a good vendor.
- Cost savings achieved. The customer has two shipments he has ordered and both are ready to be picked up but the customer’s driver was instructed to only pick up one. Your sales person needs to call the customer to encourage them to pick up both, saving them freight expense. It does no good for the shipping personnel to intervene since the customer’s buyer needs to be shown your sales person is trying to save him money. Let your sales person make the call and be the hero.
- Incorrect purchases: The customer sends in a purchase order which is routed straight to inside sales personnel who detect questions with the order (i.e. price breaks, wrong material, abnormally large quantities, suspicious delivery dates or addresses). Instead of calling and questioning the buyer at the customer, your people should let the assigned sales person know of the possible error and have them call to ensure this is really what the customer wanted (i.e. 10,000 versus the normal order of 100, (i.e. Houston, Texas versus Houston, Illinois, delivered in two weeks versus two months).
- No purchases made: Your sales person should be the person to call a customer when their normal or regular order has not been received which may typically require four weeks advance order time for material. Your sales person can remind the buyer of the advance time needed in the event he missed placing the order. The buyer will appreciate the notice if he has simply forgotten and will remember this benefit when buying in the future.
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