A Day at Works

As the essence of lead generation is an understanding the right person to be targeted, the tactic is also important – just the same as STP is nothing without differentiation and 4P. The tactical level of lead generation, at least consist of:

First, valid and ‘enough’ database. For contact data, you must have at least 3 deep and 3 wide. This means you must have 3 level contacts and 3 peers for each contact, for instance to reach executive corporate Director, you must familiar by GM and his/ her secretary; while to contact a retail end customer, you need to familiar with the spouse and friend. If those deep and wide are not available, then contacting customer is risking money and time. So how to enrich our database? Buy it, or populate it through social networking and social event; both now even available on-line.

Second you need permission and an offer, generally by mail or e-mail. This permission open-up communication and create awareness and need of targeted customer. Common practice is using combination of media to bring customer deeper into relationship, for instance a mail as i) permission, and ii) information or survey to reveal his/ her need then enclosed with iii) a statement of an offering relevant to the need then a statement that the firm will contact customer a week after to follow-up. Without a permission, for instance the firm contact customer by phone directly, customer usually will feel invaded or/ and unprepared thus will result in negativity. Without a ‘bridge’ to reveal need, any offering will useless. Without offering, a contact will loose its essence, what’s in it for me (customer).

As the first is a fertile soil, the second is food for the seed (fertilizer, water, etc), then the third is irrigation; not irritation. At this level the firm need to contact customer with rich media/ channel to develop a positive experience. The media is considered rich if able to deliver and capture verbal and non-verbal message, for instance face-to-face meeting conducted by Sales person. If the firm needs an indirect media, then a phone call is the most appropriate – once again if direct contact is not available. To develop a positive experience, the firm need to communicate at head and heart level; not only communicate the competitive benefit to solve customer need but also to communicate that the firm understand and a partner for customer. The aim of head communication is positioning, the aim of heart communication is acceptance. Positioning says that our product is different and better than competitors, while acceptance grows from feeling that we are in the same side with customer.

Customer loyalty across industry is declining, driving a new paradigm of managing customer. Instead of pushing loyalty to certain product, you needs to realize that customer’s need is growing thus migration must be managed to the way profitable for the firm. In managing customer migration, you need to understand the indication of migration, and redevelop value.

But before you manage migration, you must sure whether customer migrate or defect. Defection is occurred when customer value (what value customer seek for) is remain the same but competitor offering is better. Migration is occurred when customer value is changes because:
1) customer need is changing due to changes in lifecycle and/ or social status, for instance mini sedan buyer migrate to buy medium sedan
2) customer seek variety due to active competitor, for instance apparel buyer who buy from new designer who do promotion. Based on above reason then we understand indications whether customer will migrate or not.

Value redevelopment can be conducted by many ways, from the most essential to the most superficial: 1) product re-design, 2) enhance delivery channel and 3) developing marketing program –after understanding why customer see existing offering is not relevant anymore, and whether customer will come back.
Product redesign commonly happened when the product status is decreasing, for instance Volvo is considered as vehicle chosen for executives, but as Volvo maintaining its value proposition, corporate executive nowadays changes to be younger, and casual thus making BMW more relevant. To gain back his position, then Volvo design is changing to be more casual and feminism.
Delivery channel enhancement can be conducted by enhancing frontline’s service skills, adding augmented value in delivery such as tracking system. Developing marketing program includes developing loyalty rewards, and ways to enable cross loyalty.

According to a survey of sales managers conducted by CSI Insight, 70% of Sales Leaders are not satisfied with their lead generation process.

Since Sales Dept believes that the best way to get higher sales volume is to have sales team call on as many prospects as possible then Marketing Dept tends to generate as many leads as possible. When the target is quantity then Marketing Dept tend to forget the quality. To do this, Marketing need to:

1. Segment & targeting to natural buyers first, for instance the natural buyer of statistical software is Faculty of Statistics, Underwriter, Claim & Risk Management. The natural buyer of a can of beer is a blue-collar worker – as you see it is depends on the position of the product in the culture and social settings.
2. When there is no natural customer, try deeper segmentation & targeting both using a-priori and post-hoc approach. For instance to sell a SUV Blazer, do preliminary segmentation study to understand who naturally buy this product. See, Blazer generally bough or popular among macho executive who has American education background. Other example is segmenting a ‘common’ product such as a tire, which more difficult to segment using a-priori approach, in this case we can use segmentation based on loyalty, usage or other behavior variables (post-hoc approach). Sometimes segmentation variables is very subtle, just like a case above, so ask your Sales Reps.
3. Remember when doing post-hoc approach, sometimes customers or prospects’ behavior depends on the situation and product offered. For instance for a rally, customer buy special tire, but for off-road hobby he buy mud tire, and for everyday use he buy medium class radial tire. Other example is customer who buys an expensive candle for a special event, but just ordinary candle for everyday usage.
4. Profile each ‘natural’ segment for future improvement. When market is not segmented there is few variables significant as differentiators but after segmentation hopefully many will emerge.
5. Make sure the leads can be served competitively than competitors, in other word we truly have something compelling to the leads.

Technology by itself does not make anybody more productive. The idea is that technology sometime adds complexity to work environment, and every ounce of complexity dropping productivity. Secondly technology as a tool could not solve problem in people, structure and strategy.

These simple ideas, more often fail to understand by management. For instance installing a new prospecting software replacing the old manual report of daily prospecting activities at Sales Dept. The software will require special time of Salesman to input into the system, more time for Supervisor to monitor individual Salesman’s performance. Other example is how management thinks installing new technology can solve bureaucratic corporate culture; the result is from an hour of time required to write a simple letter to more than a day to do the same thing.

The funny but insightful story is how USA and Russia solve a problem of writing a note in the International Space Station: because there is no gravity thus conventional pen fails to work. Russia provide simple solution, a pencil instead of a pen developed by USA which required more money and time in development.

In Sales Dept, installation of new technology usually to ‘help’ following process: sales lead generation, sales contact, sales tracking, sales record, and sales retention. All of these process can be improved by technology, as long as giving Salesman flexibility in place and time –as well as the nature of the work, and giving Salesman more but practical support. In these 2 requirements, Japanese is more sophisticated by using work tools which is observable and always available, such as simple board using colors, and plate.

Sales in marketing field currently is treated like a step child, and the failure to recognize the importance of selling skills is not just a business, but also an academic failure

According to US Dept of Education, over the past decade, US colleges and universities have awarded approx 1.1 million MBAs. Guess how many of those MBAs were awarded with a concentration in Sales? Answer: ZERO. Guess how many colleges offer even a minor in Sales as part of an undergraduate business degree? Less than 40 – out of several thousand institutions. So no wonder that right now even in Indonesia, Salesman position is undervalued and tend to be fulfilled by high school or diploma background employees.

Why is Sales a pariah when it comes to academia?

While colleges awarded degrees in art (art, literature, etc.), many believe that because Sales is an ‘art’ therefore is not appropriate for colleges to teach and award this subject. Same reason also applied, to the one said that is because Sales is a ‘people skill’ or because too ‘airy-fairy’ and ‘vague’ to be a valid subject compared to counseling, and religion.

So why?

1. Business school are dominated by Marketing Professionals, who have a vested interest in minimizing the importance of Sales. For a Marketing Professionals, the ideal world is one where there is no need for Sales because Marketer know exactly what consumer wants, able to develop differentiated products, and consumers buy directly to manufacturers. They fail to recognize that (Consultative) Sales is the only way for customer to make sense of the complex offerings. In short Marketers believe that their role is to live ‘supply creates its own demand’
2. Academia in general considers commerce unclean.

As academia treat Sales inappropriately, 2 negative outcomes are:

1. Create Sales training industry without quality control, or standard of performance. In Indonesia, a good sales training is the one which is fun, and motivating – without any skills advancement or systematic sales strategy.
2. Lack of real Salesman, make it is impossible to have a Sales Professional. In turn it would make sales career easily insulted, and practiced without ethical standards.

Because everyone sells, it does not mean everyone can sell appropriately… same as everyone can write, does not mean everyman can be a novelist.

Oneday a customer who just bought a luxury car has a phone call. This call is from Ms. Susan, a Relationship Manager of the car dealer he just has visited a week before his recent purchase. In a moment they are in a middle of conversation,… after talk and talk.. Ms. Susan asking whether he has a plan to buy a car, because 3 years ago he bought a nice Camry from the dealer.
Since he has no plan to buy another car, despite the fact that he just have already bought a brand new Mercedes, he calmly said that he might has a plan in the next 3 months, just to ensure the girl still has a nice smile in her face.
Then for about 3 month after, he has cold call again. This time he can easily remember her sweet sound… immediatey after Ms. Susan introduce herself and showing emphaty to his Camry which has its major service after a toll road accident nearly killed him. Different to previous encounter, Ms. Susan surprisingly greet him on his birthday which actually take place one day before.
This situation repeatedly happened: a phone call, and a closing question or offerings. For Ms. Susan she can proudly say that she has a relatioship with customer, she frequently interact with customer.. and often customer also call her back asking for something about car, discount or so on. For this situation Ms. Susan can thanks to massive technology behind, which capture customer’s name, phone humber, b’day, transaction, and other lifestyle information then mining a clue of customer’s future needs.
Although this practice is sweet, but simply has customer’s data such as b’day and greet customer would not necessarily showing the existence of relationship between customer and the firm. Customer would not impressed by a printed greeting card archiving data from central data base maintaining their b’day. As long as customer do not feel the warm emotion in the process, then it is a waste. As long as customer feel we do it just for money, it is a waste.

Think, which is more touching:
1. Mr. Robert buy a car, filling data (including b’day date), Ms. Susan get the date from dB, call him and greet him.
2. Ms. Susan has a conversation with him about his hobby and car, get his b’day date, call him and greet him.

Other example:
1. Mr. Rober go to workshop, the Service Agent record his car problem, Ms. Susan call him whether the car serviced as promised, and next Ms. Susan reminds his next service schedule.
2. Mr. Robert go to workshop, Ms. Susan call him asking whether he need trasport to the office, and next Ms. Susan call him again checking whether the car in good condition to make sure Mr. Robert not necessarily late to the office.

The point is that relationship only can established between human. System to make this relationship easier is important, but the one that guarantee relationship is frontline’s attitudes.
The content of relationship must be no money-oriented, and the context is as customer prefer.

If Ms. Susan has a bunch of data and sophisticated media, but while call customer she show no enthusiasm then it is useless. When Ms. Susan show right attitude backup with data and system, but just to offer customer products, to make a sale then it is useless. When Ms. Susan call customer in the wrong time, wrong place, wrong media, and wrong approach then it is also useless.

So a firm can said they develop CRM when they ensure all employees serve customer from the heart, which only can if the management and leader treat employee with respect.

Menurut Marketing 101, tugas Marketer adalah membuat sales superflous. Hal ini dapat diartikan bila terjadi kesulitan sales maka bisa jadi ada yang salah dengan product, price dan place-nya. Masalahnya dewasa ini Chief Marketing lebih sering dalam posisi ‘aman’ sebab KPI yang diembannya adalah proses atau tidak langsung terhadap penjualan, seperti: efisiensi budget, brand awareness, product holding, dan development time. Akibatnya bila sales jeblok maka yang hampir selalu menjadi sorotan adalah Sales Manager-nya, dengan ‘asumsi’ bahwa 3P lainnya sudah OK. Hal ini diperburuk dengan trend bahwa Marketer biasanya diisi oleh orang-orang yang belum pernah menginjak dunia sales, biasanya jebolan marketing faculty ternama yang dipenuhi teknik analisis pasar yang pada gilirannya men-justifikasi sisi marketing dan bukan salesnya (the product, price, place, and advertising is all good – the problem is on sales promotion and the salesman!!).
Contoh kasusnya adalah Marketing di Ho selalu menetapkan angka cross selling dan target sales, namun berapa sering sih mereka menetapkan angka-angka itu menggunakan Sales Composite Index, berapa sering sih mereka menetapkan angka-angka tsb dengan lebih dahulu mengundang Salesman sebagai narasumber. Jarang bahkan tidak pernah, semuanya diturunkan dari analisis di atas kertas, meski semua orang tahu book smart sangat berbeda dengan street smart.
So pada akhirnya di beberapa industri yang tergolong margin industry, seperti insurance dan automotive, kasta Marketer dianggap lebih tinggi dibanding Salesman. Akibatnya Marketer yang ada di menara gading dengan bersemangatnya menciptakam program-program baru yang implementasinya ada di sales level. Bila target tercapai, akan menjadi achiement Marketing HO namun menjadi sesuatu yang sudah seharusnya bagi operasional sales. Bila TIDAK tercapai maka yang dipermasalahkan adalah operasionalnya, alias Sales-nya; apalagi di atas kertas Marketer selalu membuat semuanya layak.
Pada kondisi demikian selalu ada ‘pertentangan’ antara Sales & Marketing bila:
1. Marketer dan kantor pusat selalu dianggap lebih pintar, sebaliknya Sales di level operasional dianggap hanya sebagai doer.
2. Marketing development selalu di level development tidak sampai pada piloting dan implementasinya.

Hal ini nyata dengan trend terkini di beberapa industri, misalnya perbankan. Pada industri ini competitive point hampir tidak ada sebab produk dan sistem baru yg ditawarkan relatif tidak ada. Pada kondisi ini Marketer HO menggembar-gemborkan bahwa Account Officer harus berupaya mejual many product to single customer. Hal ini benar, namun kenyataan implementasinya menjadi salah karena upaya tersebut sebatas himbauan dan reward system. Account Officer dianggap seharusnya bisa melakukan hal itu, tanpa tools dan system yang memadai seperti informasi best product for customer. Di atas kertas Account Officer hars menjual ini itu dan diarahkan hanya dengan reward system, dan bila tercapai maka Marketer HO dianggap berprestasi…. berprestasi karena melakukan apa? Karena membuat reward system? membuat kontes? membuat produk yang nyata tidak kompetitif?

Bila Marketer menyadari fungsinya, seharusnya yang dilakukan adalah:
1. Mencari tahu mengapa Salesman tertentu berhasil dan yang lain tidak, dengan data yang akurat dengan turun ke lapangan
2. Menciptakan system yang memungkinkan Salesman menjadi Super Sales
3. Menciptakan system pendukung seperti knowledge management, predictive system, reward system, dll.

Kalau Marketer hanya berkutat pada teori, artinya hanya melakukan point ke-3 maka sungguh tidak adil sebab Sales Dept menciptakan Sales, sebaliknya Marketing Dept mengeluarkan cost (bukan investasi, sebab lebih sering sulit dipertanggungjawabkan daripada sebaliknya).

Perusahaan, terutama dalam bidang Sales & Marketing tentunya memiliki karyawan kunci yang memiliki network dan memiliki hubungan pelanggan yang baik. Bila karyawan semacam ini pindah, tentunya perusahaan menghadapi resiko kehilangan network dan pelanggan. Apakah ketakutan semacam ini rasional? ataukah sengaja diembuskan agar posisi bargaining karyawan meningkat? Bila resiko ini nyata, adakah cara mengatasinya?

Langkah pertama adalah perusahaan harus menyadari mengapa pelanggan membeli dari karyawan kunci. Secara garis besar pelanggan memilih membeli merek tertentu karena merek tersebut menjanjikan nilai yang lebih baik. Kata kuncinya adalah janji dan nilai/ value. Bila pelanggan melekat kepada karyawan kunci karena pelanggan tidak memperoleh realisasi janjinya dari karyawan frontline lain perusahaan, maka sesungguhnya resiko dapat diminimalkan dengan perbaikan sistem internal perusahaan (a.l. sistem order, delivery, warranty, layanan pelanggan, dll.).
Yang kedua setelah soal janji adalah soal nilai. Pelanggan membeli produk dari perusahaan karena nilai yang ditawarkan perusahaan, yaitu: nilai dari merek, nilai fungsional produk, dan nilai hubungan.
Bila pelanggan membeli terutama karena merek, maka perusahaan tidak perlu risau – toh sebab karyawan kunci tidak membawa pergi merek perusahaan. Hal ini terjadi pada sekelompok pelanggan yang membeli Toyota Avanza dan menolak Daihatsu Xenia meski mobil tsb diproduksi oleh Daihatsu. Bila pelanggan membeli terutama karena produk, perusahaan juga tidak perlu khawatir. Hal ini teramati dari sekelompok pelanggan yang membeli
Toyota Avanza karena alasan harga jual kembalinya yang tinggi dibanding merek mobil lainnya dengan kisaran harga dan spec setara.
Bila pelanggan membeli karena hubungan yang lebih baik, perusahaan perlu waspada dan melakukan investigasi lebih dalam: apakah hubungan ini hubungan personal atau hubungan non personal (dengan perusahaan sebagai organisasi)? Bila alasan pembelian karena situasi dealer lebih familiar, karena perusahaan rajin me-remind jadual servis kendaraan dan sebagainya maka perusahaan sesungguhnya dapat menggantikan peran karyawan kunci dengan Customer Service Officer atau sistem lain. Perusahaan perlu memiliki strategi servis yang meng-estafetkan pelanggan dari tahap akuisisi ke tahap maintenance yang didukung Customer Service, Account Manager, atau team service yang handal. Dengan demikian database pelanggan di-shared ke beberapa bagian dan personnel dalam perusahaan.
Namun bila pelanggan membeli karena hubungan personal yang sifatnya mendalam dan emosional, misalnya kepercayaan, dan kebiasaan maka perusahaan harus waspada.

So bagaimana cara mengatasi masalah ini?
Dalam jangka panjang perusahaan harus memiliki customer strategy yang mengestafetkan pelanggan dari Salesman, kepada Customer Service. Strategi estafet yang memungkinkan share customer data kepada unit kerja perusahaan, misalnya melalui Kartu Pelanggan dimana setiap Salesman dan Customer Service mencatat informasi pelanggan dalam dB perusahaan.
Dalam jangka pendek, perusahaan perlu memiliki perjanjian kerja dimana personnel yang berhubungan dengan pelanggan dilarang membawa client dan berhubungan dengan client dalam kurun waktu tertentu setelah keluar dari perusahaan. Untuk melakukan hal ini perusahaan tentunya perlu memiliki administrasi pelanggan dan karyawan yang baik, sehingga setelah karyawan kunci meninggalkan perusahaan, perusahaan dapat langsung menghubungi pelanggan yang biasanya dilayani karyawan kunci dan memperkenalkan penggantinya. Selain administrasi dan aktivitas customer redeployment kepada karyawan lainnya, biasanya perusahaan maju memberikan kompensasi setara gaji setelah karyawan keluar untuk memperkuat perjanjian dan komitmen bahwa karyawan tidak lagi berhubungan dengan client dalam jangka waktu tertentu. Hal ini lazim diterapkan dalam investment banking, dimana personnel yang melayani pelanggan setelah resign dari perusahaan menandatangani clausul untuk tidak “menyentuh” client selama 2 th, dan untuk itu karywan tadi berhak atas 6 bulan gaji dari perusahaan.

From customer perspective, quality is the ability of the product to fulfill its promise to solve customer’s problem. From company perspective, high quality reduces (potential) cost. Low quality yield for additional cost, high quality input, process and output do not.
When quality product or when delivery met expectation then customer will be satisfied but satisfied customer does not always come back for repurchase and spreading good word-of-mouth. This reality broke the Service Profit Chain concept.
Satisfied customer actually indifferent in his/her attitude toward the product, thus in this stage customer service initiative generally is fruitless, even increasing customer expectation or hygiene factors. Then company should aware that customer service initiative sometimes is a long and hard decision. In macro level this decision is similar to phenomenon that increasing production capacity or go to capital intensive will eventually produce less profit for the whole industry.
CRM concept as a verbose has many definitions, but simply it is an initiative to identify, keep, and develop profitable and loyal customers. CRM is advancement of CS, it ensure that customer service activities directed to the right customer, that is: who can be loyal to company as well as provide profits in the long-term relationship. CRM then make sure company effort will keep desired customer from churning, and develop this customer in term of involvement, trust and commitment (3 basic elements of attitudinal loyalty) and behavior (transaction: referral and repurchase; form of repurchase: buying the same product, other group of product or cross-selling, and buying higher margin product or up-selling).

Thus when company wants to calculate accountability of CS activities such as B’day greetings, executive lounge or simply extra discount then company should move to CRM.

Customer insight is a must for creating value and developing relationship. Without an understanding of what customer want, firm will face difficulty to meet customer expectation that result in problematic selling. More understanding we have about what customer want, greater our chance directed to produce what customer expected.

So how we get customer insight?
We can understand what customer’s want, based on what they buy. This is the most reliable source of information, generated from data mining activities toward internal records (sales records, customer records, inventory records, etc.). If customer buys a pair of Nike, this means our customer is interested in sports, and style. But this does not means if customer is interested in sport and style they will always buy Nike, so transaction is the result but “why” is beyond this information.

The “Why”
To answer this question we must collect information about what customer need, value at, lifestyle and attitude. Customer who value sport and comfort actually can choose Reeboks, Nike, Adidas, or others. But if s/he also value style and professionalism they will more considering Reeboks and Nike rather than others. Next, what is his/ her lifestyle? Reeboks and Nike have different lifestyle. Customer who buys Nike, should be agreed to Nike’s position in lifestyle, that is intuitive and free (remember the tag line ‘Just Do It’). The last is attitude, how customer evaluates product and services. Based on the value within the product and lifestyle s/he has, customer determine positive or negative evaluation attached to products or services. Customer chooses Nike because s/he thinks and feels that Nike is better.

Although customer agreed to benefit offered by Nike, agreed to Nike’s value, agreed Nike’s to lifestyle, and put higher mark on Nike, customer can actually buy other than Nike because externalities such as budget, school policy, stock availability in store, friends influence and so on. So our “Why” does not match to our “What”, our customer need, value, lifestyle and attitude different to what actually customer buy. So transactional data is not the ultimate although it is the reality (customer really spend money on the stuff). Data mining is important to understand “WHAT” but actual picture of customer will be completed by customer survey – the “WHY”, althought externalities will influence the linkage of the two.