Stay in touch
It's all well and good to survey customers after they've purchased services, but what if they aren't buying anything? Sales experts advise solutions providers to remain close to customers, even if they aren't cranking out purchase orders.
"Even if they aren't buying, find an excuse to call," says Steve Waterhouse, president of the Waterhouse Group, a sales consultancy. "They may not have a pile of PO's, but they are going to have a pile in six months or six weeks or six hours. The question is: is yours the name that is on top of the pile?"
It's also important to stay on top of staff changes. "With this new era of layoffs, the person buying from you today may be gone tomorrow," says Szilva. She advises clients to go "deep into the account" to cultivate high-level contacts. "If [solutions providers] haven't gone deep, they could lose business," she cautions.
"Project people change," adds Erik Dodier, CEO of PixelMedia, a Web services firm. "You need to have more than one person you can call back into."
Waterhouse agrees that companies must "aggressively" maintain rapport with customers in a downturn. He recalls a tactic he once used at an electronics company where sales had ground to a halt during a tough economic patch: Waterhouse had his sales force visit customers to hand out new company catalogs. The main point of that exercise wasn't to distribute marketing literature, but to get the sales force out in front of the customers, he says. Sales picked up as a result.
Munn says services firms also can keep the lines of communication open through Web seminars, briefings, and invitations to events. "The main part of that is keeping the relationships with the clients," he notes.
