Improve Your Business by Better Managing Samples
Samples are a blessing and curse. Without them we can’t sell floorcoverings, but they are a cost to our business and it is frequently the case that the sample we need right now, is not to be found.
In most flooring businesses, samples and the process of issuing samples is not managed well. Even RFMS clients continue to wrestle with unwieldy, manual systems, and in the process incur cost, miss sales opportunities, and marketing opportunity is overlooked.
What does a sample cost you? If we say $20.00, what sort of systems would we have in place if our salespeople were handing out $20.00 notes on loan? In fact the cost of a non-returned sample is even greater than that; if we can’t provide a sample in a timely fashion to our customer, what will they do? Very likely they will visit a competitor to get that sample. If our average sale is $2000.00 and our average margin is 30%, that lost sample just cost us $600.00.
Did you know that RFMS can help you manage your samples?
From RFMS you can issue samples, issue a sample docket, and generate a Sample Management report showing all samples issued, those that have been returned and those that are overdue for return. From this report you can also see which of your salespeople are engaging with customers to the point where they are taking samples, and salespeople that are not. This report is a gold mine for marketing; it represents a list of people who have taken the trouble to come into our store, talk with our staff, and then take home some samples. Leads don’t come much more qualified than this, so what are we doing with them? Are we following up to see if we can get them to the stage of a measure and quote?
If you would like to see a demonstration of how RFMS can help you better manage your samples, just let us know. We will be happy to get you started on better managing your samples.