SUCCESS STORIES
Widely visible customer feedback drives sales & retention
Industry: Building merchants and distribution
Use case: Strategic Account MirrorWave
At a regional store of a building merchant, the owner was taken aback by feedback from some of his key accounts, even though they had frequent visits by his representatives.
Boosting loyalty
To his surprise, out of his top 10 accounts, 4 were seriously at risk. He knew some had seemed a bit ‘offish’ of late but he didn’t realise how vulnerable they were until they gave their MirrorWave feedback. Although his key account managers were in regular contact with a few key people, their attention had been on the day-to-day and the relationship management took a shallow focus on just a few senior people. In each case they had not properly sensed a worsening big picture deep in the account, especially with people in the account with whom they have irregular contact.
Once alerted, a quick and effective personal response by the owner saved three of these vulnerable accounts. Good listening over time also flushed out a frustrated customer who was acting as an active detractor. Recent feedback reveals that they have now turned him around and he is now an active advocate.
Finding opportunities deep in accounts
By following individuals in their key accounts over time, the business has also learnt a lot about how the changing attitudes of people deep in their accounts was impacting their purchasing patterns in key product categories. Revealing hidden frustrations and turning those into solutions generated extra orders worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that would otherwise have gone to competitors.
In addition, the sales team felt they were able nip small issues in the bud early. By stopping these issues from escalating, they ultimately saved a lot of their time and that of other team members who would instead have been called off other important priorities to deal with the escalating problems.