Your Expectations

1. Key Insights Summary - BLUM Best Practice Day ‘Creating Customer Engagement that delivers Loyalty & Revenue Growth’.Furniture Makers Best Practice Day – BLUM UK 28.11.18

2. Your Expectations • What questions would you like covered? • What specific challenges do you currently face? • What objectives do you have for today?

3. Your Objectives • An opportunity to share knowledge & experiences. • Discover what future development & training is available. • To get some fresh ideas and inspiration. • To network with a group of my industry peers. • Increase engagement so I can grow customer loyalty. • Get that ”A-HA” Moment with practical & achievable ideas. • Grow our employee satisfaction.

4. Your Objectives • Create the right sales teams and client relationships. • Grow greater employee satisfaction. • Education – Understand the – ‘Why behind the reason to buy’.

5. Your Challenges • How can we improve the customer experience and connect with the end user when we are not directly influencing or delivering the service or product? • How do we encourage and share our passion with other team members who deliver the service to end users? • How do we overcome inconsistent implementation in the field? • Understanding the threats from competition.

6. Your Challenges • How to get adoption of new ideas, and break down the internal barriers and old ritual ways of doing things? • How do we justify customer engagement investment? • How to push back against internal disruption – best change management practices? • Clash between B2B and B2C • Employee attrition at the retail consumer level or in our business.

7. Your Challenges • Being separated from end user by a dealer. • Improving communication between buyers & sales people. • One time customers. • Dealing with negative on-line reviews • Cross selling – distributors using your brand to attract customers but then selling cheaper / higher margin alternatives..

8. Why develop your Customer Engagement? BLUM – The Survey & The missing Why? At Blum UK we surveyed the market. We asked. “What do you know about Blum?” • Common answers were: • They make hinges, Good Quality, Expensive, Fit and forget. • What they didn’t know was WHY. • Nor did they mention any of the additional services we offer. • How could we engage them on the journey more? • How could we get them to understand the WHY?

9. The danger of not understanding…the Why. • If customers forgot or didn’t understand the WHY, they may not feel engaged or part of the journey. • If they didn’t feel like long term trusted partners they could potentially drift away for alternative suppliers.  • The Blum Experience is one of the tools that was developed to showcase the WHY. • Could we create a platform for existing customers and potential new customers to experience • Our product, • Our people, • Our passion, • Our services. - everything Blum Values, + engage and listen to our clients in ways we could not in a formal meeting environment. Enter – ‘ The Experience Centre’ - a holistic engaging journey to explain the WHY and create life-time client engagement across the entire theatre of customer interactions, from wholesale to retail to installer to customer. All designed to deliver specific value to each person on this journey.

10. How to Create a Customer Engagement Program. ‘Group Discussion’ – Your Best Practices & Ideas. • Map it out - Create a procedure for each interaction with your customer. Include…Who, What, when & how? • No hard selling - “ focus on solving their problems”. • Focus on creating long term partnerships versus one off sales.

11. How to Create a Customer Engagement Program. ‘Group Discussion’ – Your Best Practices & Ideas. 4. Change salespeople’s mind-set - to build long-term relationships, sell themselves & the brand. 5. Loyalty Schemes - create rewards and benefits for customer behaviour: • To drive repeat business. • Gather key data. • Drive traffic to the website. • Create personalisation.

12. How to Create a Customer Engagement Program. ‘Group Discussion’ – Your Best Practices & Ideas. 6. Roadshows /Events & Exhibitions to • Create Human 2 Human Interaction • Visibility and Presence • Education • Investment in the future of the industry - engage with young/new people. • Chance to share perceptions

13. How to Create a Customer Engagement Program. ‘Group Discussion’ – Your Best Practices & Ideas. 7. Relationship building structures. Spread relationships across multiple personnel to build sustainable long-term relationships. 8. Create the right environment for sharing ideas & providing feedback. 9. Create adaptable presentations for different customer audiences.

14. How to Create a Customer Engagement Program. ‘Group Discussion’ – Your Best Practices & Ideas. 10. Create ‘starter’ courses for new customers so they fully adopt and benefit from their purchase. 11. Revisit the reasons why the customer chose to use you. Don’t become complacent! 12. Actively invite customers to co-create new products or services.

15. How to Create a Customer Engagement Program. ‘Group Discussion’ – Your Best Practices & Ideas. 13. Increase engagement by • Setting realistic expectations • Highlighting potential pitfalls • Discussing contingencies 14. Identify & involve all key stakeholders and their objectives. 15. Invest in customer service & demonstrate how you have done this with your customer.

16. How to Create a Customer Engagement Program. Peter Holland & Amanda Hughes. • Potential challenges and pitfalls to avoid when creating a Customer Engagement Program. • How to attract, develop and retain Life-Time clients for your company.

17. Potential challenges and pitfalls to avoid. Don’t assume you know what your customer’s want. Ask them how they want to communicate with you. What works best for them? • Do they like it when you pick up the phone? Do they prefer an email? • Do they like autonomous interaction through your web site. • How often would they like to see you in person? This could be different for different customers. • Survey your market, what are your competitors doing in the same sector? How are other sectors approaching communication and engagement?

18. Potential challenges and pitfalls to avoid. SMART Communicators, Smart Engagement. • When you do interact with your audience is there a strategy? What’s your goal? How is it measured? • Are there any guidelines in place for the team, common language, consistent approach? • Have you trained your team to know what is a valuable insight that should be captured in your CRM (customer relationship management) system?

19. Potential challenges and pitfalls to avoid. Data is king, when you do communicate, is it tracked anywhere? • Without a consistent quality record of your customer interactions meaningful engagement is impossible. Does it works both ways? • One pitfall is, your customers love it, but it doesn’t work for you. • Amazing Customer Engagement means that sometimes you are in danger of your customers assuming you are available any time any place anywhere. Be Clear and manage expectations.   Manage Change. • With any new procedures hold their hand, as you steer through new ways of communication together. You may hear…“I liked it that way” “Why have you done that?”

20. Potential challenges and pitfalls to avoid. Engagement needs to be across all departments and at all levels. • You can’t look at communication and engagement in isolated cases, it needs to be consistent, From Bob in accounts, to Tom in the warehouse. Listening is crucial to understanding their needs. • What challenges are they facing? Which additional services could be offered to help overcome these?  Involve key partners in decision making. • “We are thinking of doing this, how does that feel? Would you benefit?

21. Creating Life-Time Clients

22. The Planning Journey. • How to plan effectively for maximum impact throughout the company. • How to ensure it gets implemented correctly. • How can you generate real internal team engagement?

23. All Departments & All Levels

24. Mapping Stakeholders • Create a diagram and all your touch points. • Create consistent contact people for each department. • Use your CRM to hold ‘One true view’ of the customer.

25. What do customers really want from you? The sales environment has radically changed. Has your approach? “People don’t want to buy from salespeople anymore, but they do want to buy from experts.”

28. How do you create Value?

29. Buyer’s Relationship Life-Cycle • Stranger > • Supplier > • Desired Supplier > • Trusted Advisor > • Strategic Ally >

30. Broaden your Frame of Reference • To add value move from Content (Product or service) to Context. • From Your product to the Customers Whole Economic Equation. • Know their organisation. • Know their industry. • Know their competition.

31. Understand the Customer • Org Chart • Influence Group • Role • Involvement • Level • Buying Process • Create a Stakeholder Map – Human Relations are the Glue!

32. Know the Organisation • Strategy • Financials • Objectives & needs • Priorities • Research Sources • Associations • Trade shows • Trade Publications • Social Media

33. Know the Industry • History • Objectives • Concerns / Problems • Organisational Structures • Government Regulations • Terminology

37. Create a Mutual Action Plan Quarterly Business Review Meetings. • How can we help and work together? • Develop your joint strategy, set the objectives, measure activities & outcomes. • What could we jointly do?... Status reviews or Events? • When during the year? • Who could be involved? • Go / No Go? Who needs to sign off new initiatives? • Align all Internal Resources – Critical to customer confidence.

38. Think Business Solutions • Move from thinking of Product • Move to thinking of solutions • Joint Planning • Integrated • Collaborative • Focus on Solutions that Deliver Business Impact

39. Think of the 4th sale first. • See customers with 20 x 20 Vision • Lots of Opportunities over next 3 years not just one current deal. • This is Mind-set for Creating Life-Time Clients.