Sales Management
The retailer/dealer, agent, or intermediary is the manufacturer's gateway to the customer, because the customer frequently doesn't buy directly from the manufacturer. In addition to customers' needs, the wishes of sales partners are therefore also of crucial importance when it comes to successfully selling products or services.
Above all, the dealer exerts a particular influence if it's a product requiring a lot of advice, such as mobile phones or electrical equipment, where in some circumstances a dealer is also offering the products of different manufacturers at the same time. Dealers often have their own agenda.
Dealer/Retailer Surveys
Manufacturers frequently fail to include the dealers' motivation in the decision-making calculation. They think it's enough to present the end customer
with an attractive offer. Yet even among contracted dealers who only sell the products of one sole manufacturer one can end up with considerable
resistance towards individual measures and a strong personal dynamic, and this can counteract the manufacturer's strategy.
This is why dealer/retailer surveys are at least as important as customer surveys. Conflicts between companies and dealers can be vitally important for the success or failure of a product, because the dealer decides which products to include in the range and how vigorously to market them.
Ongoing Retailer/Dealer Panels
Dealer surveys can be conducted one-off, or they can be institutionalised via dealer panels. A panel offers the methodological advantage that an
identical group of people can be surveyed over a certain period. This makes panels highly suitable as an early warning system for changes in the
market environment or competitive situation.
The detailed ascertaining of satisfaction, loyalty, and attitudes to products and services typically constitutes the main content of a panel survey. Depending on the questions put, retailers, distributors, and specialist dealers can be investigated separately.
It is important here that in addition to current dealers or intermediaries one also includes potential dealers or intermediaries in the panel. This allows one to come up with a picture of the subjectively perceived advantages and qualities of the relevant competition and arrive at an understanding of the reasons and motivations responsible for these dealers preferring to conduct business with competitors.
The dealer panel can be surveyed on the phone, in writing, or online. Non-monetary bonuses such as selected survey results motivate dealers to take part.
Customer Surveys
However, the company doesn't necessarily have to survey the dealer to obtain information about them. Surveying customers about the dealer's
behaviour can also be very revealing, because at the end of the day the customer knows best whether they are satisfied with the dealer's
behaviour, even if they can't always make a clear distinction between the areas of responsibility of manufacturer and dealer.
If, for example, a customer survey about the dealer's behaviour reveals that customers regularly perceive unacceptable behaviour on the part of the dealer to be the manufacturer's problem, there is then urgent need to act. Customer surveys relating to dealer behaviour can also uncover weak spots in the sales process, if, for example, customer enquiries to the manufacturer are passed on to a dealer but the latter fails to get in touch with the customer, as still often happens e.g. in the case of requests for test drives.
It is important here for the manufacturer within the framework of a process optimisation to make certain that problems that have been identified are solved, or at least ensure that unacceptable behaviour on the part of the dealer is not laid at the door of the manufacturer, thereby damaging their brand and image.