If accurate customer information is the starting point for our international trade, it is the serve on the football field, then how to contact customers is the real beginning of export marketing, which is equivalent to organizing an attack on the football field. The prelude to the test of export marketers has just begun. Why do we say this? Because for customer information, we can spend money to buy data, hire consulting agencies or arrange special information officers to do it, that is to say, this is a job that can be outsourced, and because professional agencies have advanced information systems, they are definitely more professional and in-depth than us in obtaining customer information. But when contacting customers, in addition to being able to ask third-party agencies for recommendations, the first E-mail, the first fax, the first message on the Internet, the first phone call or the first company manual sent to the customer should all be done by trained export sales professionals, and senior managers should guide salesmen step by step to close deals with customers.
Modern human resource management believes that salesmen who have not received professional training are murdering customers and are the biggest cost of the company; the biggest mistake of the sales director is to hand over the work to incompetent salesmen without guidance; the most precious thing in the management system of multinational enterprises is the enterprise’s training system.
Therefore, it is particularly emphasized that the work of contacting and serving customers must be done by professionally trained sales staff. For example, when writing an E-mail to a customer, the sales staff must know how to write the first sales letter; what issues should be paid attention to when sending the first fax to the customer; how to leave a message online; how to make the first phone call; and what are the techniques for sending brochures.
Don’t forget that there may be countless competitors competing with you for the same customer at the same time. If you don’t master these methods and techniques, you may find that there is no response to the message or E-mail you sent to the customer, and only 1 to 2 customers reply after sending 100 E-mails, and as soon as they reply, they ask for a quotation and send samples; when you call, the receptionist hangs up the phone in a hurry before you finish introducing yourself. Do these customers really not need our products? Do these customers really think that they have found the best supplier in the world and will always be the best? Do customers have this attitude towards suppliers who come to “disturb” them?