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What distributors REALLY want! (Part I)
By Terrel Transtrum and David Taylor
For twenty years distributors have called me, emailed me, loved me, hated me, manipulated me, praised me, cursed at me, pleaded with me, and-now and then-been nice to me. From the customer service trenches I can declare with confidence what distributors REALLY want. Ready?
Here it is: distributors desire a connection with the people and organizations with whom they do business so the outcome is a compelling experience that transcends mere transactions.
They want to feel that you care for them. They want to believe that you worry as much about them as you do their business. And they want to do business with an organization they can advocate and recommend to their friends with passion-and never be let down in the care that they promise their friends will receive.
The deeper the connection, the deeper the loyalty. The more tenuous the connection, the more the distributor looks for someplace else to do business. In short, your product or service must become compelling.
You may have a remarkable product or service; however, if you cannot provide a compelling reason for a distributor and her customers to business with you, you do not deserve a dime of their money. Here is a question that I want you to carefully consider before answering: What is compelling about doing business with you and your organization? If you cannot answer that-and answer with a degree of passion-you probably don't have that type of powerful connection with your distributors.
The problem is, many of us are working without a compelling product. Sure, you would love for your company to have the next hot product coming out of R & D. In the real world, you may not be able to go out and create the next extraordinary product or service; therefore, you'll have to find a way to make something else about your business compelling for distributors. That aspect could be the connection you establish-the relationship you maintain-with your distributors.
So, what is your goal?
Your goal should be to provide what distributors REALLY want so you can generate increasingly higher levels of distributor loyalty. Unlike "satisfaction surveys" which measure what people say they think (not how they actually behave), distributor loyalty measurement provides you the hard numbers concerning the way they act and recruit and spend.
Do you and your organization even measure distributor commitment and retention? Do you have a strategy to create enhanced distributor loyalty?
According to Frederick Reichheld in his book The Loyalty Effect-using the banking industry as an example-if a bank will increase customer retention by just 5 percent, it will result in an 85 percent aggregate increase in the net present value of an institution's branch deposits!
Next Time: Part II: The Five Steps to Distributor Loyalty
(The content of this article is extracted from ServiceQuest® RetentionSmarts™ Modules. Click here for more information on RetentionSmarts™ training and mentoring systems.)
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