Responses to Letters Written

We all write letters. Sometimes we get a response from the customer we wrote to! When you receive a response from a letter you have written you must do certain actions:

Since you wrote the letter that is being responded to, you must update the customer’s file about what the customer replied. In the notes put what the customer said in his response. Remember, the customer file is a running record, for you and for everyone else in the organization. Don’t keep the information in your head, thinking that the data doesn’t need to be put in the customer’s file. The next person who looks at the file should have all the data too.

In some cases you will route the letter to the appropriate salesperson after updating the file. If you’re not in sales and the customer wants to buy something, or asks about merchandise, then update the file and route the letter to the correct salesperson. If the customer asks to be taken off of the mailing list and is active, then route it to the salesperson, because the customer may have an upset with us that could be handled. Any kind of reach from the customer that may be a potential sale or a loss of potential sales needs to get routed to the salesperson.

In some cases you will not route the letter to a salesperson. If they ask to be taken off the list and they are not an active customer, update the file yourself, and don’t route it to the salesperson. If the customer says “not interested now” or something like that, just update the file and don’t give the letter to the salesperson.

You or the salesperson must respond to the customer’s letter, even if they ask to be taken off the mailing list. This all needs to happen within 2 days. So the computer must be updated and the customer must get a letter back within 2 days. Keep in mind that you cannot send a formatted letter to answer a person’s communication to you. Formatted letters are not used to handle someone’s questions or any kind of reach. Each customer is different and you need to really communicate to them. Formatted letters don’t do this.

If there are sales assistants on post, they will do all the updates for the salespeople and then route the letters to the appropriate salespeople so they can write the response letter. If this is the case the Mail I/C will route all incoming responses directly to the sales assistant, who will update the customer’s file and then pass it on to the salesperson. Admin personnel will receive their letters directly and update the computer themselves.

If you write a letter to a customer and they communicate an interest, it is your responsibility to see that the customer is acknowledged. Even when you pass it on to the salesperson, which you should always do, the customer communicated to you. We all like to get acknowledged when we ask a question, and we like to get it right away. So keep this in.

If we speed up our communication from customers to us and from us to customers, we will see an increase in GI, as our GI depends upon sales and this creates sales.

If there is a complaint in the letter, route it to Qual (Div 5) as that is part of their hat to handle complaints.