Firsthand tips for building and maintaining long lasting relationships with customers
I began my career with Continental in 2014 in a sales-based role in the ContiTech headquarters in Fairlawn, OH. Two years later, I relocated to Dallas, TX when I became the Territory Sales Manager for Industrial Hose, Hydraulic Hose, Heavyweight & Lightweight Conveyor Belts, Power Transmission Products, and Air Springs. After spending 5 years in this role and obtaining a wealth of knowledge for creating and building lasting relationships, I was then promoted to the Industrial Hose Marketing Manager for the Spiral Rubber & PVC hoses, relocating me back to ContiTech headquarters.
In my 9 years with Continental, I have met great people and have learned so much about maintaining relationships. Below are a few best practices my team and I use to not only build long lasting relationships but also keep those relationships going strong.
Monthly BA Newsletters - We send monthly updates/contact points to stay in front of our distributor's mindshare, so they think about us more than our competitors. This keeps them updated on new products, promotions, and relevant industry information.
Quarterly Business Review Meetings (QBRs) - Our sales team and sales leaders commit to conduct QBRs and review meetings to ensure the target end-users and growth plans are achieved. This dedicated time allows our sales team to stay up to date on market information/changes, along with providing a stage to continue to grow our partnership together.
Targeted Joint Sales Calls/Cold-Calls - Doing this allows our customers to build trust in our company and our sales team, as we are willing to put in the work and the time to be "feet on the street" helping drive both our distributors' and Continental's growth/success.
Online webinar trainings/Lunch and Learns/End-user trainings - Our team constantly provides one hour lunch-and-learn trainings for our customers to keep them educated and informed on our products. These are also provided at distributor's targeted accounts to educate and promote the Continental brand name in the market.
FOLLOW UP and be consistent at providing feedback/information - Our team logs notes on all our customer calls to promote following up on what is needed to do to grow our business at these partners.
Extracurricular events (even during personal time) - I.e., BBQ Cook Offs, Sponsored Golf Outings, Team building events and outings.
Plant Tours - We offer and promote to have our customers visit our plants to see how we manufacture our products. All of our plants are top of the line and all the plant associates actively assist in these meetings/tours, which translates to stronger relationships with our distributors/end-users and builds trust in our product/people/processes.
This blog article was written by our employee.
