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Author: Steve Riley Date: 19 Mar 2010 It’s about customers, not productsOnce upon a time Marks & Spencer was famous for its customer service. Everyone knew that you could take something back if there was a problem with it. Or even if you’d just changed your mind. It was a unique selling point for them. Sure, some customers pushed it a bit far, but for the majority of decent well-behaved customers it was a comfort to know there’d be no embarrassing stand off if there was a problem with something you’d bought. As a result M&S commanded fantastic customer loyalty. Bending a little to accommodate the customer, brought the rewards back to them in spades. Pretty soon other retailers were eyeing-up this goodwill and wanting the same for their own businesses. The big names on the High Street caught up and M&S no longer had a USP, meaning the bar had been raised for everyone. You could argue that these high levels of customer expectations makes things hard for the retailer or wholesaler, but you’d largely be wasting your breath. The goalposts have moved, the consumer wins.
You still need good product knowledge, but now that’s your baseline. To stand out from the crowd, you need great customer service. Really great customer service. And one of the ways you can achieve this is by knowing your customers well: what kind of work they specialise in, their buying patterns, their favourite products, the problems they are trying to solve. The businesses of Amazon, Apple, Dell and Tesco – some of the most powerful brands in the world – are built on vast customer databases. They know more about your spending and preferences than you’d care to admit. Some of the ‘You might be interested in these...’ suggestions on my own Amazon home page can be uncannily accurate. These big organisations are now almost database companies, who happen to sell products as well. That’s how seriously they take data. So what can you do? To learn more about your customers, you probably need some form of CRM system. Most of you deal with too many people, from too many organisations, to reliably hold all the information you need in your head. Plus everyone in your organisation needs to be able to draw upon the knowledge you hold. But a full-blown enterprise CRM solution can be costly and difficult to implement, and might be overkill. If you’re already using bisTrack, you should find out more about bisTrack CRM. If you’re not already using bisTrack, the fact that it comes with its own CRM, is one more compelling reason to put it on your wish list.
[This article has also appeared as a Guest Blog on the Builders Merchants Journal website.] |
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And the service levels customers get from M&S, Boots, Tesco, etc., they have come to expect from the merchant and wholesale end of the market. No longer can you afford your trade counter to be a place for trades to hang out, but off-putting to the general public. We all now expect a decent standard of store layout, nicer fittings and slicker point-of-sale systems, more akin to the retail experience. Here too the bar has been raised..jpg)
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Stuart Hall, General Manager, Lawcris Panel Products"We saw benefits straight away, particularly with the time we saved on monthly stock takes and sourcing information for management reports."
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Peter Buttle, md, Buttle plc"One reason we chose Progressive was because their team was so approachable. It wasn’t just because the software was better. We really felt we could work with them.”
Director, Ridgeons"Once we started building up information we could trust, we started seeing real benefits. If stock accuracy was the main benefit, then quality of management information was next."
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John Cavanagh, MD, Cavanagh Timber"Our relationship with PSI has been transformed this year. This is due almost entirely to having an Account Manager as a single point of contact, who knows our system and our business."
Eric Jones, IT Manager, Alsford Timber"Once we started building up information we could trust, we started seeing real benefits. If stock accuracy was the main benefit, then quality of management information was next."
Peter Kerr, FD, Palmer Timber"To stand out from the crowd, you need great customer service. Really great customer service."
Progressive Solutions' guest blog, Builders Merchants Journal"Good customer service is easier to achieve with good IT to back up our staff. bisTrack gives provides an efficient system for dealing with customers. Good management tools enable us to concentrate our efforts in the right direction."
David Dunmow, Group FD, James Latham plc"I was working with 2.7 in our test environment and looking at all the work you have done. Just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate all you do to make this a great technology partnership."
Brian King, Lumber USA“A member of our buying group told us about bisTrack, although we looked at four or five other software packages. Key factors in the eventual selection of bisTrack were its SQL platform and our confidence in the people we dealt with.”
Gordon Rothwell, James Hargreaves (Plumbers Merch)What will YOU do with your week off?
"With the time saved we've carried out branch refurbishments and I've taken my first holiday!"
John Cavanagh, MD, Cavanagh Timber"Performance across the system is continuously enhanced too. Since our last release, finding products is now significantly faster ...by up to 30%."
Gary Brookshaw, Product Director, Progressive Solutions"It's a very nicely laid out system with easy to follow structural menus and taskpads which, even if I haven't used a particular function before, I find relatively simple to complete."
Chris Pratt, Pratts Timber and Builders Merchants Ltd"Good customer service is easier to achieve with good IT to back up our staff. bisTrack gives provides an efficient system for dealing with customers. Good management tools enable us to concentrate our efforts in the right direction."
David Dunmow, Group FD, James Latham plc"Performance across the system is continuously enhanced too. Since our last release, finding products is now significantly faster ...by up to 30%."
Gary Brookshaw, Product Director, Progressive Solutions"Once we started building up information we could trust, we started seeing real benefits. If stock accuracy was the main benefit, then quality of management information was next."
Peter Kerr, FD, Palmer Timber"Performance across the system is continuously enhanced too. Since our last release, finding products is now significantly faster ...by up to 30%."
Gary Brookshaw, Product Director, Progressive Solutions"There’s no doubt that bisTrack is a good tool. We’ve a fantastic record for growth and we’re getting a lot out of bisTrack now, particularly over the control of our business."
Mike MacLellan, MD, GPH Builders Merchant"We were drowning in paper and, as a business turning over £2.2 million, the time had come for us to invest in business management software."
David Biddle, MD, Huntingdon Timber & Roofing“A member of our buying group told us about bisTrack, although we looked at four or five other software packages. Key factors in the eventual selection of bisTrack were its SQL platform and our confidence in the people we dealt with.”
Gordon Rothwell, James Hargreaves (Plumbers Merch)"bisTrack was a big investment for us but it's the best change we've ever made. We've grown so much over the last four or five years, we simply couldn't have carried on using a manual system."
Gerwyn Thomas, partner, TL Thomas (builders' merchant)"bisTrack is an excellent piece of software and getting better. Their approach to meeting our needs is excellent. eBusiness is not going to be big for another 12 months but PSI are there already, which means we’re ahead. They're very open to ideas and keep getting better at turnaround."
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Gordon Rothwell, James Hargreaves MD"If we hadn't changed to bisTrack we simply couldn't have grown like this."
Nigel Williams, Chairman, Premier Forest Products“A member of our buying group told us about bisTrack, although we looked at four or five other software packages. Key factors in the eventual selection of bisTrack were its SQL platform and our confidence in the people we dealt with.”
Gordon Rothwell, James Hargreaves (Plumbers Merch)"I'm convinced there's no other system that can deliver better what we need. Apart from its Windows architecture and its powerful functionality, it now has ten years of development behind it."
Peter Buttle, Buttle plc
