Often in companies with a continuous increase in sales , there is a significant decrease in profitability. The main reason for the occurrence of this situation is the improperly organized activity of the enterprise. This may be due to the ineffective work of the company with its client base.
In other words, they worked with enterprises that were either disadvantageous for the company, or interacted on completely unfavorable conditions, which was expressed in satisfying any requirements of customers in order to keep them.
Principles of building work with a client base
Often the solution to the problem of increasing the number of customers comes into some conflict with the goal of increasing profit margins. Therefore, it is necessary to pay close attention to optimizing the company’s work with the client base, which will ensure favorable working conditions.
What is she like? This is a database containing information about all the counterparties of the company that purchased from it or sold anything to it. After reviewing these data, we can draw conclusions about the policy of the enterprise. In this case, we are talking about both real counterparties and potential ones.
Work with the customer base
Effective activities in this direction are expressed in five points:
- Formation.
- Accounting for information.
- Work with current customer data.
- Analysis of the generated information.
- Based on the results of the analysis, the adoption of appropriate decisions.
All of these processes can be optimized. To do this, it is necessary to assess the existing situation for each individual item in order to identify bottlenecks, and identify ways to improve the situation.
Increase customer base. Effective and ineffective ways
The formation of the client base can be carried out both purposefully and spontaneously.
For example, if the expansion of the circle of counterparties is carried out by phoning managers the entire telephone directory, we can confidently talk about the spontaneous formation of the base.
If we are talking about target customers, and all efforts are made only to attract them, then in this case, an increase in the client base is carried out purposefully.
Accounting and monitoring of customer lists
Accounting of information on counterparties is carried out in accordance with the style of doing business in each individual company.
For example, if all customer information is stored in manager lists, then this is one style. The negative point in such accounting is the weak influence of management on the company's policy with respect to customers, since the entire process of forming the base is given only to the discretion of the managers themselves.
However, there is another style of maintaining the customer base - the use of common criteria when entering information into a certain table and imposing an obligation on employees to timely replenish it with reliable information.
The head of any company needs to remember that a complete and well-built customer base is an effective sales management tool to achieve a high level of profitability. With the help of such tables, the management has the opportunity to predict the volume of sales, manage them effectively and create favorable conditions for cooperation for the enterprise.