To: Barbara Baker, CEO Perry Jackson, Executive Vice President Marvin Kramer, CFO Grace Hooper, Senior Vice President for Customer Relations
From: Jessica Krick, Customer Relations Department Manager
Subject: Preliminary strategy to improve customer service and sales
CURRENT COMPANY PERFORMANCE. Last year our company struggled to make our sales revenue projections. These sales projections are directly linked to our operating budget, in which we hardly broke even. In today’s economic climate, it is imperative to increase service revenue and improve customer service!
BUSINESS GOALS 2013 FISCAL YEAR. To meet the demands of our stockholders, we have to increase stockholders’ equity. Without a 10% increase in sales this upcoming fiscal year, distributions to stockholders and employee bonuses will be minimal.
To increase sales revenue, I propose a great improvement in customer service. As we in customer relations have witnessed for years, a strong service business can weather a downward sales revenue rut. To meet this goal of a 10% sales increase this year the following three crucial actions need to be implemented.
-Rewards for loyal customers -Further training of employees -Increase in customer service skills
REWARDS FOR CUSTOMER LOYALTY. Most buyers choose what to buy based on good salesperson interaction, product quality, and customer support. The remaining individuals choose based on price. The latter are not loyal customers that we should be concerned about and they will continue to ask for further discounts or threaten to choose another company. Changing a few of our policies will eventually lower costs without the hassle of unnecessary negotiations. The customer is not always right. In my years at this company I have seen a few with a false sense of entitlement. Instead of rewarding problem customers with discounts, we should be rewarding our best customers with earned discounts.
TRAINING. While initially it may seem counter-productive to take sales people from the floor while sales are down, the return on investment can be both rewarding and immediate. If nothing else, let us make sure our sales team understands the value of the services we provide. They tend to spend a lot more time with the customers than managers do and it is a necessity to portray confidence and to be knowledgeable. I think it is necessary to provide at least 10 hours of training each year, on a scheduled Saturday, even if the information is just a refresher course. I will take on this additional responsibility to train our employees.
CUSTOMER SERVICE. One of the most effective changes we can make is to improve our teams’ customer service skills. Customer service is directly linked to sales revenue. The added benefits will be both added revenue
