According to the source of customer information, salesmen should try to separate key customer information from a large amount of customer information. The sources of customer information include customs data, the Internet, cross-border e-commerce B2B platforms, etc. The criteria for judging key customers are the customer’s previous purchase volume, the size of the customer company, development history, industry status, main competitors, the nature of the customer (end customer or intermediary, large customer or small customer), etc.
For the situation of key customers, salesmen should specifically analyze the possible needs of customers. According to the size and purchasing power, customers can be divided into large customers and small and medium-sized customers. Salesmen should write development letters based on the interests of customers of different sizes.
Generally, large customers will have a main supplier, whose purchase volume from the main supplier can reach 60%~70% of the total purchase volume; it will also have a secondary supplier, whose purchase volume can reach 20%~30% of the total purchase volume; it may also have a substitute supplier, whose purchase volume can reach about 10% of the total purchase volume. Once the main supplier has problems, large customers will quickly cultivate secondary suppliers and substitute suppliers to play the role of the original main supplier to avoid supply shortages. For this type of customer, when initially establishing contact, the salesperson should carefully examine the customer’s products, market positioning, market preferences and requirements for products, and examine the shortcomings of the customer’s existing suppliers. This type of customer development letter can start from the following aspects.
a. Recommend new products that the market needs to the customer. If the new product is selected, you can smoothly establish contact with it;
b. Inspect the customer’s website to see the feedback from the customer’s users on the customer’s existing products, and try to solve the problem that is not valued by the existing suppliers;
c. Inspect the customer’s products with relatively large sales volume, and study whether there is a way to significantly reduce costs while ensuring quality, and attract customers through price.