Customer Utilization

It is a matter of economics. The word economics simply means to manage one’s household.

Leo Hamel & Co. has paid dearly for customers on our customer list. LHC has paid for the ads that bring them in. This includes radio, newspaper, magazines, newsletters, letters and various other media from time to time. Even though referrals “seem” free, remember employees are paid for the time they spend generating the referrals, not to mention the printing of referral cards and postage. In a years time it is currently running about $600,000 (approx. $115.00 per name) to drive customers into Leo’s.

Salespeople are assigned customers in various ways, but the key word is “assigned.” When these customers are not being efficiently worked then LHC management is losing money for the company, money to buy cool easily saleable merchandise and you too are losing money in terms of commissions and spiffs.

From this point forward customers found that are not being worked properly will be re-assigned to someone who will work them so as to not waste our investment.

The Sales Mgr should periodically comb customer files looking for under utilized customer files and re-assigns them based on the following criteria:

1. A customer who has not been communicated to for two months or longer. This means real communication not just a bunch of form letters. This is done over the phone or there should be communication back and forth via letters.
2. New customers who have not been followed up on per the 3 letter system.
3. Customers assigned to salespeople who are no longer here or no longer working as a salesperson and are not being worked.
4. Incomplete files (no b-days, annv, phone numbers, address, etc.) per the “Computer Update Checklist”
5. The person has not purchased anything and has been on the list for over a year despite good follow-up.

In all the above cases the Sales Mgr should look first for customers who have not been promoted to effectively, points 1 & 2 above. Next they should look for customers who are abandoned (3) and then for 4 & 5.

We work about 250-255 days a year. If you have 2000 customers then 2000/255=80 people per day to contact. There are, as you can calculate or pull up on the computer, many customers who aren’t being worked like they should be. In some cases people are too busy, in other cases it’s lack of discipline, knowledge and/or spending time on less productive things. As a company we need to use our resources more efficiently to make money on our investments.