2011-06-20 2352
Customers are valuable resources for pharmaceutical investment and trade enterprises. However, some companies focus solely on attracting new customers while neglecting the maintenance of existing ones. They believe that having a good product is enough to retain customers, placing their management emphasis on acquiring new clients rather than maintaining relationships with old ones. As a result, they experience continuous customer attrition and struggle to enhance their brand reputation.
However, to sustain sales, companies must continuously acquire new customers, creating a cycle akin to the well-known "funnel principle." Such companies find it difficult to grow and strengthen unless they prioritize both developing new customer relationships and maintaining existing ones. This approach helps foster customer trust, establish a positive reputation within the industry, and attract more clients. It is worth noting that the 20% of loyal customers often generate 80% of a company's profits, with maintenance costs only accounting for one-fifth of acquiring new customers. Therefore, these 20% VIP customers play a crucial role and should be the focus of customer relationship maintenance efforts.
In today's pharmaceutical market, competition has transcended simple product competition and entered the realm of service competition, similar to other industries. For many companies, the key challenge lies not only in gaining market share but also in the quality of their market share, defined by the number of loyal customers rather than sheer quantity.
Among a company's valuable customers, only a small fraction typically generates the majority of its profits. These select few customers are referred to as VIP customers. Establishing and maintaining long-term cooperative relationships with these VIP customers is the core task of marketing. By engaging in comprehensive customer relationship maintenance, companies can transform cooperation based on interest into strategic partnerships built on trust and emotional communication, resulting in a qualitative leap in customer-company relationships.
The strength of pharmaceutical investment and trade enterprises lies primarily in the quality of their products and marketing capabilities, both of which are interdependent. A company with high-quality products can attract more downstream distributors, expand its marketing network, and enhance its marketing capabilities. Conversely, strong marketing capabilities serve as the key advantage in negotiating with upstream suppliers and obtaining national distribution rights for high-impact products. Whether a company can secure good products largely depends on its marketing strength.
1. Customer Composition of Pharmaceutical Investment and Trade Enterprises
Upstream suppliers: These are industrial or commercial enterprises that possess product approvals and can supply products to pharmaceutical investment and trade companies. They are responsible for production, delivery, and tendering assistance. Upstream suppliers with a good reputation provide comprehensive support to companies, avoiding market disruptions and acts that may damage the business relationship. As companies acting as general agents do not have full ownership of the products, they are always in a relatively passive position. Therefore, when selecting upstream suppliers, it is essential to thoroughly understand the company's situation and specify relevant rights protection clauses in the agreement, such as extending the cooperation period and increasing penalties for breach of contract.
Downstream distributors: These are commercial customers and individual pharmaceutical professionals engaged in regional agency or direct development of end-users. As the market continues to segment, the shift from rough investment to precise investment poses new challenges for various aspects of company management and service. For instance, Langou Pharma, positioned as a professional marketing company for high-end prescription drugs, has accumulated a distributor network of over ten thousand members over the years, reaching a considerable scale.
Peripheral customers: These are companies and individuals that temporarily lack direct cooperation with the company but have a positive impact on the company. Examples include well-known industry enterprises, pharmaceutical tendering companies, pharmaceutical media, and friends of top-level management. Although seemingly unrelated to the company's business, these relationships are easily overlooked, and failing to maintain them may result in missed opportunities.
2. Foundational Work for Customer Relationship Management:
Maintaining customer relationships may seem like making phone calls, sending text messages, or mailing gifts, but in reality, there is a significant amount of foundational work involved. Without a solid foundation, what topics can be discussed during phone conversations? What content should be included in text messages? What gifts can truly impress the other party?
3. Significance of Effective Customer Relationship Management:
For a company to have good customer relationships, it doesn't require a large cost or significant difficulties in implementation. The key lies in a shift of mindset from neglecting to valuing customer relationships. If we compare the company's business operations to a running machine, then customer relationship management is like a lubricant. A well-lubricated machine runs more smoothly, flexibly, with less wear and tear, higher efficiency, and a longer lifespan. In the pharmaceutical investment industry, where clients come from various fields such as labor, commerce, and agency, and brand creation poses the greatest challenge, maintaining customer relationships becomes particularly crucial.
4. Specific Approaches to Customer Relationship Management:
Considering that the value brought by customers to a company varies and due to resource limitations such as energy and costs, it is important to follow the "Pareto Principle" and focus 80% of efforts and resources on the top 20% of VIP clients to ensure the maintenance of the company's core and most important relationships. Specific approaches include:
Company updates: Timely informing pharmaceutical investment partners about the company's developments allows them to stay informed, potentially participate in the company's growth, and gives them a sense of respect. Sharing information about the progress of the company's marketing team construction, marketing strategy adjustments, product strategies, advertising plans, etc., with upstream supplier clients is an example.
Regular business progress reports: Monthly or quarterly performance reports primarily target industrial clients upstream. Even after handing over the product to the general agent for management, the product owner still closely monitors every stage of its development. If the general agency company actively provides regular reports on the overall market situation of the product, it will strengthen the supplier's confidence in the initial choice of the general agent. This increases the likelihood of contract renewal upon expiration or creates more opportunities for future collaboration. The content of business progress reports includes sales data, bidding information, hospital development status, product promotion event updates, handling of critical incidents, etc.
Holiday gift mailings: In China, where personal relationships hold great significance, holiday public relations serve as a diplomatic method for many companies, and gifts are one of the best tools for holiday public relations. The value of gifts lies not solely in their price but in their novelty, ability to impress, and capacity to surprise the recipient. Companies from coastal cities may send dried seafood to clients, while regions famous for high-quality tea may send premium tea as gifts. Sending local specialty products such as fruits can greatly impress and enhance the emotional connection with clients. In the case of Langao Pharmaceutical, they took an innovative approach to gifts. For example, during the Mid-Autumn Festival in 2008, they custom-ordered a batch of red wine for over 200 VIP clients. Each bottle of wine was labeled with the client's name and the phrase "Personal Collection," effectively facilitating emotional communication.
Regular greetings: Regular contact and timely expressions of greetings are vital. Maintaining frequent communication, showing care, and promptly understanding clients' dynamics can significantly shorten the emotional distance between the company and its clients. When it comes to specific business cooperation, clients are more likely to be highly cooperative if the relationship is handled like a friendship. Common ways to greet clients include phone calls, text messages, etc.
Building personal friendships with key contacts: Each pharmaceutical enterprise has one or two individuals who have the closest interaction with the company. Developing personal friendships with these key contacts makes it easier to gain deeper insights into the internal workings of the client's company. This can greatly facilitate customer relationship management and business development.