How to classify the importance level of customer inquiries?

The international trade environment is not what it used to be. "Made in China" urgently needs to be transformed. How can foreign trade companies create their own development strategies? Global Sources, together with its "CEConline", continues to create a series of "Outsmart the Future" export forums, providing an excellent exchange and learning platform for foreign trade enterprises. The following is the wonderful sharing of Mr. Zhang Qingyong, general manager of Foshan Linghao Import and Export Co., Ltd. on the forum:

Zhang Qingyong: Our products are mainly home appliances. This year is the tenth year of my foreign trade. I have worked in Chigo Air Conditioning and Midea. I started my own business in 2008, the year of the financial crisis.

After the financial crisis, the customer's own desire to place an order is still OK, but he is more cautious. For example, he used to choose a supplier to see whether the supplier's products are right or not, but now there must be many things to examine, such as What is the strength of the supplier, whether it has certification, what is the delivery time, and what background does he have? He may comprehensively consider the supplier's situation.

For example, if we are a trading company, we will first say what quality products we have for you, how long is the delivery time, including what kind of quality system we have, how long does it take for us to deliver, and how is my after-sales service? In this way, I will clearly list it before the transaction.

At the same time, we will try our best to dispel his doubts and shorten the time to deal with him. In fact, his concerns were partly due to his experience of being deceived, or his cautiousness stemmed from his judgment on the crisis. Once I make a deal with you, the cooperation between him and you may be closer, the trust level will be stronger, and the transaction intention between the two parties will be faster.

Our previous strategy was to focus on low prices because we are a trading company. We used to feel that we were not confident, and we always felt that trading companies would use low prices to attract customers. Later, it was found that customers who made transactions at low prices are faster, but there will be a lot of problems in the future. The most important problem is the quality problem. Because of your low price, you will find some small factories to produce these products, which may be in raw materials, etc. etc. Compression. As a result, we have a lot of such customer complaints later, and after a complaint, we will have a headache when solving it. If you want to keep this customer, you may have to compensate a certain amount or send some spare parts, or give him some kind of promise. Clients who don't feel good about you may find someone else and fly away.

I think doing business is like a romantic relationship. You find your favorite partner, and you have not fulfilled the promise you made to him. If you don't do it, you may not be able to. Therefore, our current strategy has changed. The suppliers we are looking for must be professional in the industry. We cannot say that they are the highest, but they are the first. This is the first. Second, our supplier has to sign an agreement with him, we have a long-term cooperative relationship, and we have to set a quality standard for him.

Our current customer orientation is to be mid-to-high-end customers. We will not attract low prices first, but through other means, including product quality, factory showroom, personnel quality, including the entire staff in the office. Quality, all aspects to reflect our professionalism.

A couple of days ago we had an old client who made several orders with me, but he didn't come to see me. In order to dispel his doubts, I specially sent him a PDF of our company's image, follow-up personnel, and production lines. After sending it, he increased the order quantity. This is a summary of the method.

I think the most important thing in foreign trade is not the price, but a good image for customers. This image requires you to have a complete chain. Your suppliers or downstream suppliers must cooperate with you. In fact, You have a lot more work to do than simply make a promise to the customer. If you want to do a long-term business, you must figure out your own positioning, where your customer base is, whether it is from Africa, the Middle East or the United States. I believe that customers in the United States are unwilling to do business in the Middle East market, which is a waste of time for them. Similarly, as a supplier in the Middle East, it is difficult for you to go to Europe and the United States, because their grades are different, so you have to give yourself a position. If you want to be a customer in the Middle East and African markets, you should be refined and specialized, and then Then find a way to do other markets, so maybe you will go faster and go further.

After macro positioning, how to reply to micro inquiry in order to win the order is equally important. Our business staff, including myself, should not take more than 12 hours to respond to inquiries, and try to keep it within 5 hours. Sometimes there is a jet lag, and when I receive an inquiry at night, I must reply to him when I go to work the next morning.

Some salespeople will forget, we can use some tools to supervise, such as some foreign trade software or internal software. If there is no foreign trade software, a morning meeting is held, for example, a morning meeting is held at 9:30, and everyone is required to reply all inquiries within half an hour.

And what is the quality of your responses? We conduct several levels of analysis for each inquiry. Where does the quality of such an inquiry go? Where does the customer's target go? For example, if the customer didn't even say anything about the product, we would classify this inquiry as the fourth grade, which is a bad inquiry. The second class is the price requirement of what products are required, and we put this in the third class. The second class is that our customer sends some materials for a certain product or a certain type of product, or he has attachments in it, and there are attachments in the form of PDF or Word documents, we will mark him as the second class. . What is first class? A first-class customer must first analyze whether he is professional or not, and the second is whether his inquiry is professional or not. Professionalism is reflected in pertinence. Your product is a certain type of product. The second is where the quality of product inquiries goes, and whether the parameters given to you are professional. The last point is the most important. He knows your name. He said that he has seen your product, that is, he has a good impression of your company.

First- and second-class customers are our priority, and these inquiries must be dealt with first. And pay attention to the format when answering the inquiry. Different customers should have different titles, such as Mr. or Mrs. Respect others, and others will have a deeper impression on you. As long as they have a deeper impression of you, it will be good for you.

The most important thing that can reflect your professionalism must be your quotation sheet. Is your quotation sheet well done, and can it make customers feel unforgettable? Including the introduction of the return inquiry, many people are three, two, one, what is our company, who am I, what products do we have, and how much price I will give you. In fact, you don't just reply to the inquiry, the key depends on whether he responds to you after you reply to the inquiry.

I can tell you that I am over 60%. The reason why the response rate of my inquiry is so high is because I respect him. If you respect a customer, he will respect you. First of all, you need to figure out his needs. Many people don't even know his needs. They rush to give him a quotation, which is not his needs. Therefore, your inquiry should be targeted. This is my strategy for responding to inquiries.

In terms of team building, I think the military culture is a good way to bring the team together. The atmosphere of the team is very important. For example, we can be divided into several groups for PK. This group sells products of this model, and that group sells products of that model. This is the military culture, so that the other party can achieve performance and grow rapidly.

There is also a culture of family culture. We remember his birthday, and we can give some small gifts and small gifts on his birthday. Or can we remember the birthdays of each other's parents, or whether there are gifts or greetings for each other during holidays, to let him know that the company cares and loves me so much, and we are actually a family with the company.

I believe that the road ahead must be like this. You don't simply treat employees as employees, but really let them become part of the company, able to advance, retreat and grow together. After the company has a cohesive force, many times The problem went away.