INDUSTRY COMMENT


The Importance of a good relationship


By Paul Deane, Managing Director of Shuttleworth Business Systems


O


ver the past few years I have taken a particular interest in how visual communication companies manage their sales and marketing process. Good Customer Relationship Management is key to the success of any business. In the current print market it is critical to survival that this process is properly managed to improve both vital communications and to increase the efficiency and accuracy of your marketing and sales messages.


Any marketer will tell you the fundamentals of sales and marketing are built around defining and understanding your target market.


The starting point has to be the centralising of data related to your customers and prospects. At many companies, sales people are responsible for their own client lists and record activity in there own personal systems. This is a major business risk as this crucial information belongs to the business and should be kept in a central database where it can be maintained, analysed and backed up.


Having made a decision to centralise data, the business needs to decide on the information which needs to be recorded for each customer. For example, how are you going to categorise each customer and contact; their market sectors, potential spend, size of business, geographical area etc. These criteria are key to the success of any on-going relationship and will enable you to target these


Visit us at www.spdi-online.com


categories with specific and relevant activity. Tailor your message


The way you classify your contacts within these customers is also a consideration as it will enable you to tailor your communication messages according to the position each contact holds within the company. For example a managing director or business owner may want a different message to the buyer.


It is vital that only one or two people are given the responsibility of entering the data into the database as the quality and accuracy of that data is imperative to the success of any sales and marketing activity.


Having got a full database together the next challenge is to ensure that all key customer details are recorded regularly into the database. Sales and customer service people must record on-going activity against their customers in order to analyse how effective you are at managing each customer relationship.


The next stage is to manage enquiries and quotes effectively through a fully integrated MIS and CRM system, such as the Shuttleworth MIS. Using these business tools, you can then begin to measure other key performance indicators such as the length of time it takes to quote and conversion rates. We all know that selling is a numbers game and therefore the more estimates we send out and the quicker we send them out the more orders we will get.


Manufacturing costs


In such a competitive market it is important to fully understand the costs of manufacture so that you can price the job accordingly. Prices are largely determined by the market however a full understanding of manufacturing costs determines whether to go with the market price and how much profit can be made. The power of a good Management Information System is to provide you with the estimated costs quickly and accurately and then feed back your added value and contribution figures so that pricing decisions can be made.


Managing the customer relationship once they have decided to buy from you will have a huge influence on whether your customers choose to buy from you again. For example, it is important to keep a record of how you handle everything, from the proofing and sample stage to any issues or difficulties that may arise, as this will make a good impression on the customer. Good Customer Relationship Management will speed- up customer service, increase response times and help target marketing activity. There is no doubt that CRM is setting many visual communications companies apart from their competitors, giving a much needed competitive edge in today’s tough trading environment.


llll www.shuttleworth-uk.co.uk July/August 2011 l SCREEN PROCESS AND DIGITAL IMAGING 5


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32