Business markets focus more on selling goods and services to other businesses which may use them for resale or operations. Consumer markets comprise of people who buy goods and services for the purposes of consumption and household use. Both these markets have to use strategies to ensure they attract business. Good customer service and product quality are important in both markets. Both are dedicated to ensuring they are up to date with changing trends in order to offer better products. Although both markets focus on cost, consumers are interested in the value of a product, unlike businesses that try to keep costs as low as possible to retain business relationships (Boundless, n.d). Emotional factors affect consumer decisions to buy a product whilst business purchasing decisions are more task-oriented.
There are four types of market segmentation components, namely, behavioral, psychographic, demographic and geographic. Geographic segmentation involves tending to a target audience with specific inclinations based on their location, which could be by nation, region or neighborhood. Behavioral segmentation is when people are split into groups that have certain behaviors, attitudes and reactions to products. Psychographic segmentation consists of breaking down markets into groups according to values, beliefs, lifestyle and social class. Demographic segmentation is a market grouped according to age, religion, gender, income, race, nationality and education (Boundless, n.d). Market segmentation is important because it helps a business to better understand its customers and therefore ensure that resources are effectively used which helps with making better strategic decisions.
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Sales force is the make-up of a business’ staff or sales team. A sales force program has a number of elements which vary according to a business’ needs. These are some of the elements that are often used; sales strategy which is the design, planning and execution, measurement of results, compensation, technology, training and sales communication, sales territory design and optimization, contests, lead sales programs and customer segmentation. It is important for a business to have a sales force program because it helps to evaluate how effective the sales force seeing as they are responsible for generating revenue and income.
The process of selling products is adaptive depending on the circumstances, but there are 7 basic steps that can be used. The first step is prospecting and qualifying, before a sale is done research is done to identify a market then pinpointing the customers and offering the product of service. The second one is preparation, this is information collected about the prospective customer so that a customized presentation is given when communicating with them. Thirdly, approach is how one approaches the customer, the attitude they have, it is about making a good impression. Presentation is the fourth step, how one presents the product/service can ultimately entice the customer to make a purchase. The fifth step is handling objections, this is how one handles issues and concerns brought up by the prospective customer, it is important to have enough information to correctly respond to any queries. Closing the sale is step number 6, the most challenging part is closing a sale, this is when you get the prospective customer to make the purchase. Follow up is the last step, this is a vital part in ensuring customer satisfaction, retaining the customer and hopefully acquiring more customers (Boundless, n.d.). All these steps are vital in successfully completing a sale.
Customer relationship management is the different methods, activities and strategies that businesses use to gain a better understanding of their customer’s needs. The process of implementing CRM involves a number of steps. Firstly information needs to be collected, any information that can help identify and categorize customer behavior. The next step is collecting information, a centralized database would be an effective way to store customer information. The third step is accessing information, information must be easily accessible by the staff and user friendly. What follows next is analyzing customer behavior, using multiple tools and resources one can analyze data which can identify patterns which assist in creating customer profiles. The next step is marketing more effectively, sometimes a small percentage of customers can be highly profitable, using CRM to improve on understanding customers’ needs helps with targeting valuable customers. The last step is enhancing customer experience, it’s important to identify what complaints and issues customers have so as to quickly resolve them and have more time for other customers (Info Entrepreneurs, n.d). CRM is important in helping businesses build relationships with their clients, which results in loyalty and customer retention and customer loyalty is guaranteed to help in increasing revenue.
References
Boundless. (n.d). Boundless Marketing . http://oer2go.org/mods/en-boundless/www.boundless.com/marketing/textbooks/boundless-marketing-textbook/index.html
Info Entrepreneurs. (n.d). Customer Relationship. Management. https://www.infoentrepreneurs.org/en/guides/customer-relationship-management/
