John Figura (Corporate)
If you like this enough, I can do a video, but wanted to respond before I forgot!
This question I am particularly passionate about!
What this means to me is simple it means every person in the company regardless of role or position can influence or impact customers. When I managed a sales team, I always preached that everyone on the team is part of the sales team. Many of my best salespeople were in customer service and logistics. When I would visit customers, I would often hear praise for the customer service team. Often, they interact with the customer more than the salesperson would!
I think the key is every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to enhance the relationship. Some examples I have seen:
- I have had drivers let operations know of issues competitors are having that helped us improve our offering and increase sales.
- Logistics support developed relationships with customers. This is huge. When the customer likes the customer service logistics person, and they have a relationship they have developed personal capital that helps smooth over mistakes or delays.
- When visiting a major O&G account we had out supply manager join. In the meeting, he developed a relationship with their supply chain manager that helped us develop business.
My key point is no matter what our role is we are all here to service the customer and can each make a difference and help further that relationship.