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Marble Slab Creamery has been in business for 40 years and has branches in more than 15 countries around the world. To achieve this level of success, it must learn how to adjust at the first sign of trouble.
An example of this happened a few years ago. Marble Slab Creamery has seen a significant decline in sales for about five years. The company knew it had to do something to increase business sales. It implements strategies that will be helpful to any business going through an economic downturn.
However, before we look at these strategies, let’s take a look at why your business may be experiencing a drop in sales.
Reasons for sales decline
Several forces could combine to weaken a company’s sales. Here are some examples.
sales team questions
Sales team mistakes can hurt a company’s bottom line, including hiring the wrong salespeople, failing to provide them with training opportunities, and offering poor compensation or incentive packages. When building a sales team, hiring the right people can make or break your business.
Conducting a sales audit is one way to identify sales and marketing weaknesses as it scrutinizes the contributions of sales team members.
“The actual work done by the sales team is critical to the sales review,” said Nexa CEO Amit Vyas. “This information needs to detail the interactions between the sales team and marketing departments and prospects.”
Creating a successful recruiting process and retaining top talent on your sales team is critical to success.
Executive or brand mistakes
Hourly or salaried employees are not the only cause of sales problems. Darren Nix, founder of Steadily Landlord Insurance, said a sudden threat to a company’s reputation or the reputation of someone high-profile in the company could lead to a drop in sales. These reputational losses can come from outrageous behavior by senior executives or society’s endorsement of a culturally insensitive brand. The incident occurred as Uncle Ben’s, a rice company, came under criticism for racial stereotypes in its name and logo.
“Many shoppers are concerned about what their spending represents, and that spending will only continue to trend upward,” Nix said.
Report is lackluster
Sales reports are an important tool to help management understand a company’s financial status and profit trends. When your reporting is lacking, your data may not yield important insights. Vyas says that with deeper and enhanced reporting tools, such as those available through customer relationship management (CRM) software reporting, you will gain more valuable insights and data.
“Tools used for tracking need to effectively capture information and update it,” Vyas said. “This is where having powerful analytics software (often included in a CRM) can help.”
CRM metrics are critical because they establish a baseline for your company and help you understand things like churn and renewal rates. [Read related article: The Best CRM Software]
Seasonal
Lower interest in a product or service due to seasonality is another possible reason for declining sales. Ryan Craver, CEO and co-founder of Mallary by Matthew, said all companies are susceptible to seasonality — whether it’s an apparel company that suffers from the ebb and flow of the retail calendar, or a pool chemical company that has inherent peak and off-seasons.
When you experience a seasonal sales slump, it’s best to focus on your business able Sell. “The best way to do that is to launch products that are seasonally appropriate and market all the products that are not seasonal,” Claver said.
Poor customer service
Poor customer service is one of the most common reasons for declining sales. Customers don’t want to shop at a place where they’re not welcoming or deal with rude employees.
“Customer service is key to delivering a great customer experience, which directly impacts sales,” said Alex Mastin, founder and CEO of Home Grounds. “If a company has a low customer effort score and a low Net Promoter Score, then as satisfaction levels increase, decline, sales are likely to decline steadily.”
The combination of low sales and disinterested salespeople can create a vicious cycle: Lower revenue prompts companies to reduce employee training, alienating more customers and further affecting profits.
How to deal with declining sales
Many companies find themselves struggling with declining sales, especially in the aftermath of a recession. Whatever your situation, here are three ways to deal with a drop in sales.
1. Improve your customer service.
No matter what your business is facing, improving customer service is key to boosting sales. For example, in order to increase sales, Marble Slab Creamery strives to outperform its competitors by improving the overall customer experience and increasing customer loyalty.
in his book Thanks to the economy, Gary Vaynerchuk explains how to adopt a company culture that truly values your customers. “You have to be a customer concierge and do whatever it takes to make every customer feel recognized, appreciated, and heard. You have to make them feel special, like your great-grandmother walked into Bob the Butcher’s store or bought Like her new hat, you need to make people who are not your customers want them to be special.”
Ensuring your customers have the best experience takes a lot of effort. Employee satisfaction is high, but proper training and proper compensation help create a team of employees who truly want to provide the best experience for customers.
Customer satisfaction is the new customer service standard, focused on exceeding customer expectations and driving brand loyalty.
2. Add value, not price.
Another way to deal with declining sales is to consider how product pricing can deliver more value to customers. It may sound ridiculous, but Marble Slab Creamery believes in it.
Like many other ice cream shops, Marble Slab Creamery previously weighed each customer’s ice cream to determine price. The more ingredients customers add to their ice cream, the heavier it becomes and the more it costs. Due to this approach, customers add fewer ingredients because they don’t want to spend more money, ultimately leaving them a bit disappointed with the product they purchased.
To provide more value to customers through pricing, the dairy has launched an unlimited mix campaign. Instead of paying more for the weight of each ingredient, customers pay a flat fee based on the size of the ice cream cup. Customers can get all the ingredients they want without having to worry about price, making them feel more satisfied with their purchase than ever before.
After successfully adjusting their prices, Marble Slab Creamery decided to go a step further and offer more perceived value. Instead of charging customers more if they want a waffle cone for ice cream, the dairy is offering a freshly baked waffle cone for free as part of the purchase.
Everyone loves getting something for free; it greatly improves every customer’s experience. Think about how your customers can get more value from doing business with you.
3. Recalibrate your advertising strategy.
Another tweak Marble Slab Creamery has made is to focus its advertising on how each store makes their own ice cream, using only high-quality ingredients. While higher quality ice cream was always part of the company’s business plan, many customers didn’t know the ice cream was made fresh in the store.
By focusing the advertising on the homemade aspect of the product, customers realized that they were getting a much higher quality ice cream than what competitors were offering.
4. Invest in sales training.
Your employees may know your product, but do they know how to sell it? If your onboard training needs improvement, consider going back to the basics of building your sales process.
Take a look at your company mission and what processes can help you stand out. While you focus on training new employees, don’t forget about your older employees. Otherwise, your proven staff may be rushed through the sales process and fail to provide the best experience for your customers.
If you’re still experiencing a slump in sales after revising your training, you should give a morale boost. While motivation is critical to increasing sales, automating tasks and investing in new technology can eliminate repetitive tasks that contribute to team burnout.
5. Analyze your competitors.
When you think about your competitors, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do your competitors have a superior product or service?
- Is your pricing too high (or too low)?
- Do you have enough data and insights about your target audience?
- Could your purchasing process be more streamlined?
While it’s wise to conduct internal analysis, remember to consider the competitive advantage. You may face direct, indirect and future competition. Taking note of what works and what doesn’t for your competitors can help you cut your marketing budget, understand your unique business characteristics, and retain valuable employees.
Building relationships with indirect competitors can provide a group of mentors during difficult times. Meet regularly to “check in,” discuss your struggles and celebrate your successes.
Can your business turn around declining sales?
While the strategies listed here sound good in theory, you may be wondering whether they work in the real world. For Marble Slab Creamery, these methods have been successful. Two years after implementing these improvements, Marble Slab’s same-store sales increased 5.8%, transaction volume increased 4%, and average unit sales increased 9.8%.
By implementing similar measures, your business can see improvements too. Ask yourself these questions:
- Can you bring more value to customers by adjusting your prices?
- Can you offer free products to increase the perceived value of your product?
- Is there an aspect of your product that is being overlooked and needs publicity?
- How to improve customer experience and beat the competition?
A drop in sales doesn’t have to be a terrible experience for your business. Adapt by properly training your employees, adding value to your products or services, and re-strategizing your marketing efforts.
Julie Thompson contributed this article. A previous version of this article conducted source interviews.
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