Body Glove International - Thinking from the Customer Perspective - Assignment Example

Body Glove International Introduction This is a global company which has specialized in the manufacture of wetsuits of high quality for water sport people all over the world. They manufacture suits for customers who are involved in sinking, surfing, scuba diving and jet skiing in addition to other water spots. The organization is therefore specializing in the production of such suits in which they supply the water sport people. The suits are of high quality and therefore attracting many customers. This is what has made the company, which was started as a small company, to grow very fast and become an international company. The success of this company is as a result of the following. First, the company has specialized in the production of high quality wet suits, thus making many people be attracted to buy their goods. Secondly, the company has a very good management system in place, therefore making it possible for the organization to progress very fast. The company has a very good net work of distribution of their goods so that there will be no lack of supplies at any given part of the market. Lastly, the organization makes products taking special consideration of the customers mind. Thus, they make products which are as per the wishes of the customers which makes them sell their products more. 1. The company officers have made a decision to develop partnerships with a group of distributors. These distributors will employ salespeople to call on retailers who sell Body Glove products. What steps can Body Glove take to ensure that retailers and retail customers receive excellent services? The development of partnerships by the Body Glove Company is meant to increase the ability of the organization to serve their customers better. However, the organization needs to be extra careful to ensure that the distributers do not exploit the retailers and the retail consumers. The distributers have a high likelihood of exhorting these retailers and therefore making the customers of the organization lose interest in the company. As a result, a system of checks must be put in place so that these distributers will have no loophole of any exploitation (Kotter & Dan 2002). The following are some of the ways the company can ensure that the distributers do not become exploitative: Fixed Prices Body Glove should start making all their prices constant in every place they trade in. This means that the same product will cost the consumer or the retailer the same no matter which distributer the retailer gets the goods from. This will not be depended on the distance or region. All regions will set a price which is the same. In addition, the company will make sure that the customers know the recommended prices so that none of them will buy the products at a price which is above the normal price. The distributers will be given discounts so that they will be able to sell their goods and services at a price which has been recommended without making losses (Mammlin, 2009). The fixing of prices ensures that the distributers who are operating in areas which have no the sports clothes for water sports do not charge prices which are very high and thus exploiting the retailers and the customers of the retailers. This is because of the fact that the increased prices will make some of the customers develop some negative attitude towards the organization and as a result fail to buy their products. In addition, the increase in the prices makes the consumers not to be able to access the organizations products and thus not to enjoy swimming with water clothes of their preferred company, the Body Glove Company. However, fixing prices will be faced with various challenges which will include the resistance from the distributers who will be wishing that the organization lets them to operate freely. This will however be counteracted by the fact that before the distributers sign the contract with the organization, then, they will have to accept that the organization will control the prices. As a result, all the distributers will have to accept that they use the set prices. Close Monitoring The Company must devise an appropriate mechanism of monitoring the distributers. This will ensure that the distributers do not engage in activities which are not for the benefit of those they will be supplying. Therefore, Body Glove will employ people who will be responsible for the monitoring of the activities taking place in the premises of distributers and report to the management anything which is not good for the organization. This monitoring will also include the ensuring that the distributers sell goods which have not been interfered with. For example, if the Company does not monitor the distributers, some of the distributers may start buying second hand water clothes and sell them to the customers at the normal price. Thus, the customers will have got a low quality water cloth but at a high price. Ensuring the Distributers Sell only Products from Body Glove The organization will ensure that all the distributers sell only the goods from the organization. This will ensure that the distributers do not sell some counterfeit water clothes to the retailers which may cost them a lot of money. Therefore, the organization will make it a regulation that no distributer should deal with any other water clothes apart from those in produced by water glove (Abel, 2006). 2. How might Body Glove salespeople add value with full line selling? Cross selling? There are various ways of reinforcing the value added philosophy of sales. These ways include the following: Holding Sales Meetings Regularly The sales people must frequently and regularly hold meetings. The holding of regular meetings is one of the best ways of reinforcing the value of the sales. This will effectively create the philosophy of value added sales to the wet clothes produced by the Body Gloves organization. In the regular meetings, the sales people will discuss the various stories of success; with each of them explaining to the others why he or she thinks was successful in those sales. They can also share the stories of various secrets of each of them in achieving the success they have achieved so far. These stories of success among the various sales people will motivate the sales people and ensure that they work harder to achieve the same success. In addition to the sales people discussing the stories of success and why they were successful in the business, they can also discuss the various failures they have experienced. These will include the various markets they tried to enter and they found it difficult, the different problems they are facing in the market and generally how the market is. They then deliberate on why they faced such problems in the market and share this with their other colleagues. This will help the others not to make the same mistake they made in the market thus increase the value added on sales. Sales meetings will also offer an opportunity for more training of the sales people and ensure that they acquire the most recent skills in the business (Sheila, 2002). Joint Call Activity The training of the sales people is one of the most effective ways of increasing the value added on sales. This will make the sales people feel cared for and thus work hard in the selling of the products of the organization (Craig, 2009). Body Glove will ensure that the sales people are regularly trained in the selling of the wet clothes and the best methods of ensuring that they get the maximum profits by increasing the number of sales. As a result, the sales people will feel that the organization is concerned about them and thus not exploiting them. Patience Although the most difficult way of creating value of added sales, it is one of the best ways of creating the value added sales in the business. The sales people must be patient and ensure that they have long term goals rather than short term goals. This will make the sales people to be able to formulate strategies which will make them acquire a lot of market of their products in the future. This means that the sales people will have to ensure that they formulate proper strategies of hitting new markets and maintaining them (Nelly, 2007). Thinking from the Customers Perspective The sales people should always put themselves in the shoes of the customers. This will include thinking about the problems the customers are facing in their daily lives. This will make them to sell goods which are able to address the problems of the customers. The sales people must formulate on the ways in which they can bring solutions to the customers by what they are selling. This will even make the organization produce wet clothes which are fitting the needs of the customers as the sales people will relay the information on the needs of the customers to the Body Gloves Company. 3. What types of follow through activities and follow up calls should Body Glove sales representatives be prepared to initiate? The sales representatives must ensure that they initiate various follow through and follow up calls so as to ensure that they continue being relevant in market. These include the following: Keeping the Sales Department in Order It is very necessary that the sales representatives maintain tract of the business. It will need professional skills for the sales people to apply in the daily sales and thus ensure that they increase the amount of sales recognized by the organization. They need to be specifically involved in the selling process ensuring that they apply all their attention and energy in the selling of the wet clothes. Failure to concentrate fully in the process of selling the goods will lead to their failure in the selling business. The sales people need to get organized in their daily activities. This means that they have to formulate a proper strategy on the way to do the business and ensure that they follow it to the end. They must make lists of tasks which they are to carry out and thus increase the probability of achieving the objectives. Delegating Duties The sales people need to delegate the duties they have so that they can effectively serve all the customers. The sales people are not able to achieve all the set goals and standards alone without help of others. In this case, the sales people will have to ensure that they employ other people who will help them in the process of carrying of the daily activities. After delegating the duties, the sales people must maintain a proper track of the activities taking place in the organization and thus ensure that there is no confusion in the organization. Get commitment of Follow Up After the sales people have made an initial call, they must make a follow up in the process of advancing the business sales. The sales people must never be too much busy in their interactions with the clients to an extent that they will not be able to deal with the customers at the right time. In addition, the sales people must ensure that they make follow up calls to the clients to ensure that they keep on reminding the customers on the various available goods in their stores and remind them of buying them. Building Equity and being remembered After the sales man has made a follow up call, the person should always strive to make the customer remember him or her. For example, the sales person can send a thanks giving card to the client. The sales person may just write a small note to the customer and tell him or her thanks for listening to him. This makes the customer to feel that she or he needs to buy more goods from that person and thus increase the amount of sales for the organization and making that sales person more popular. The increase in the popularity of a person will make him or her have more sales than before since most of the customers will want to buy their goods and services from such a person (Pauline, 2010). 4. Assume that a large order sent to one of your best customers arrived very late. The products were not available for a major weekend sale. How might you partner with this unhappy customer? The arriving of the goods late to the customer is one of the factors which may make the customer lose anticipated profit from the sale of such goods. This may make a faithful customer to lose trust in the organization and seek other supplier. However, there are several ways in which the organization can win the trust of such customer as follows: Offering a Discount The customer can be offered some discount which will act as a way of making the customer feel cared for. In this, I will ensure that I offer some good price for such a customer. It will therefore be a way of trying to share the loss which the customer has realized as a result of the goods being late. The customer will get these goods at a relatively cheaper price than that which has been offered before. This will be an effort to win back such a customer and therefore ensure that the customer does not go to the competitors of the organization. Assuring the Customer I will assure the customer that his or her goods will never be late again. In this regard, the customer will feel convinced that there will never be such delays which will cause further losses. I will convince the client that the goods were delayed due to some technicalities and that such technicalities will be taken care of in advance by the organization so that there will be no such delays in the future. The customer can get fully convinced if I explain to him or her the reasons as to why the goods were late and the mechanisms which have been put in place or which the organization is planning to put in place so that in the future there will be no more delays. In this way, the customer will be satisfied that such a thing will not happen in the future and thus he or she will be retained (Rose, 2010). Delivery of Goods in Advance If the customer makes an order, then these goods will be delivered early in advance to ensure that the customer does not experience any delays in the receiving of the goods. Goods will be delivered two or three days before the date which the customer has indicated he or she needs to receive them. As a result, there will be minimal delays in the delivery of the goods to the customers. This will again reassure the customer that the organization is committed to ensuring that he or she receives the goods in the right time (White, 2007). Assessment of the Strategy The sales management has made the distribution easier by contracting distributers who will be a link between the organization and the retailers and their customers. This is one of the ways in which the organization can easily expand and thus ensure that they cover a wide area. With getting of the distributers, the organization will be able to reach all the customers and thus ensure that there are no customers who suffer from lack of goods (Lawrence, 2004). Distributers will cover all the areas appropriately and ensure that the retailers and the customers of the retailers do not have to travel to far places to get the goods. As a result, there will be more sales registered. References List Abel, Koech, B. (2006). Strategies of Improving Sales for a Company. Business, 6(7): 32-78. Craig, S. (2009). Merrill Bonus Case Widens as Deal Struggles. Wall Street Journal 8(1): 23-45. Kotter, John, P. & Dan, Cohen, S. (2002). The Heart of Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing. Lawrence, Victor, B. (2004). Proper Monitoring of Business. California: FreeMan Mammlin, T. (2009). Business Management in International Operations. Journal of Business management, 2 (34): 78-121. Nelly, Charles, M. (2007). Distributers as an Important Part of the Business. Business Monitor, 5(3): 654-690. Pauline, W. (2010). Factors Influencing Success of Business. Chicago: John and associates Pub. Rose, Fay, T. (2010). Attaining the Highest Sales. Management journal for Canada, 5(5): 43-89. Sheila, H. (2002). Proper Business Culture: How to Improve Sales. German: Allied printers White, Prince, B. (2007). Aiming higher Sales: Factors to Consider. Administration of Business Journal, 23(4): 111-132. Read More