1. Inquiry
Log in to Alibaba International Station and enter the MyAlibaba backend management system. You can see that there is an “Inquiry” option in the “Business Opportunity Communication” tab. In addition, you can also see the “Inquiry” option in the “Quick Entry” area on the left. Click the “Inquiry” option to open the inquiry box interface. You can see many inquiries in the interface. Inquiries are arranged from top to bottom according to the principle of nearest sorting. You can see the name of each inquiry, the name of the customer who sent the inquiry, the country from which the customer comes, the name of the salesperson responsible for this inquiry, and the negotiation status between the customer and the salesperson. Open the latest unread inquiry to view the specific inquiry sent by the customer, analyze and reply.
2. Mailbox
The entrance to the Alibaba International Station mailbox system is also in the “Business Opportunity Communication” tab of the MyAlibaba backend management system. Here, you can see the emails sent by customers to the salesperson and some push information on Alibaba International Station. The inquiries received by the salesperson in the inquiry box interface are also in the Alibaba International Station mailbox system. Open a customer’s letter and you can reply to the customer’s inquiry on this interface. Note that although the mailbox contains inquiries received from Alibaba International Station, it may also contain inquiries from non-Alibaba International Station. Because when the company promotes to the outside, the mailbox address may be placed on different media, thereby attracting customers outside Alibaba International Station to send inquiries.
3. RFQ
When looking for sellers, some customers can publish public inquiry information on the RFQ entrance of Alibaba International Station in order to avoid sending inquiries to sellers one by one, that is, “One Request, Multi Replies”. Sellers can see the “RFQ Market” option in the “Opportunity Communication” tab of the Alibaba International Station My Alibaba backend management system. Click the “RFQ Market” option to enter the procurement direct interface. In this interface, sellers can see many public inquiries. Sellers can find inquiries that suit them by entering the keywords they are interested in. For example, if the seller is selling sunglasses, just enter “sunglass” in the search bar, and many public inquiries about sunglasses will come out. The seller will then screen these inquiries one by one, and select more suitable inquiries for quotation based on the content of the inquiry itself, the time when the inquiry was issued, the category, the country from which it comes, the customer’s purchase volume and other standards.
Fourth, Customers
Click the “Customer” option in the “Business Opportunity Communication” tab of the My Alibaba backend management system, and you can see a lot of customer information appear, including the customer’s name, customer’s email address, the country from which the customer comes, the customer’s level and the name of the salesperson responsible for this customer. Click the “Chat Now!” button to contact this customer directly through the Trade Manager chat tool to obtain inquiries or other information.
It is worth noting that Alibaba International Station has launched an intelligent reception function in the customer section, including automatically sending greetings when receiving customers for the first time, intelligently recommending related products based on customer preferences, and automatically asking for more needs about products when customers express incomplete purchasing needs. This is also an important measure for Alibaba International Station to reform in the direction of digitalization and intelligence. Cross-border e-commerce B2B salesmen should be able to set up smart replies according to different situations to achieve the purpose of communicating with customers easily and efficiently.
V. Real-time marketing
In the lower right corner of Alibaba International Station, a window marked as real-time marketing will pop up from time to time. Click on the window to enter the real-time marketing interface. Real-time marketing is a service launched by Alibaba International Station to automatically recommend customers to sellers. Alibaba International Station automatically pushes online customers in related industries to sellers based on keywords customized or frequently searched by sellers. When the system prompts real-time marketing, it proves that the customer is viewing products with keywords related to the seller’s industry and the customer is currently online. At this time, the salesman can take the initiative to send the customer relevant information about the company in the real-time marketing window. After seeing the salesman’s information, the customer may send an inquiry.
VI. Visitor details
Find the “Data Manager” tab in the My Alibaba backend management system, where the “Buyer” area has two options: “Visitor Portrait” and “Visitor Details”. The “Visitor Portrait” option is a new column function opened by Alibaba International Station. It is used to measure the visits of blue-label and ordinary customers, new and old customers, and transaction and non-transaction customers, so as to help salesmen judge the customer quality and conversion rate of the website. For salesmen, the visitor details interface is another effective way to obtain customer information and communicate directly with customers. In the visitor details interface, you can see the customers who have recently visited the company’s website and their information, the number of views of customers on the company’s products, the length of stay on the website, common search terms, popular store behavior, website behavior, etc. Most importantly, in the operation column, if you see a blue option “Market Now”, click on it to enter the immediate marketing interface. In this interface, the salesman can send a message to this customer. If the customer responds, he may send an inquiry to the salesman.