Constant contact

By Lina Perez and Victoria Vasile, Chocolate Milk, Miami -- Kids Today, 8/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Sitting at the desk trying to type out this month's article and suddenly...

Ringggg. Hello, Chocolate Milk, my name is "Jane" I have a great new line that I think would look fabulous in your store.

Ringggg. Hello, Chocolate Milk, this is "Larry" I have a great way of you saving money.

Ringggg....Hello, Chocolate Milk, I have a great health package for you and you can supplement it with AARP.

I really hung up that one fast...lol.

Oh God, could you let the next phone call be a customer who actually wants to buy something?

Victoria and I decided to look at all those phone calls in a different light. We decided for two full days we would not screen any calls and we would monitor how many of these "sales" calls we received each day, curious to see how many actually got and kept our attention, and finally who did we actually purchase something from and why.

Chocolate Milk opens at 10:00 a.m. and closes at 6:00 p.m., six days a week; that's 48 hours.

Monday morning, coffee in one hand and three faxes in the other (two are insurance companies; one is a direct mail campaign). I looked at the insurance faxes and pondered how much we actually pay for insurance and decided quickly that this is the ol' bait & switch — once they see my weight and my age you bet I won't be paying $96 a month. I mumble to myself "garbage" and toss it. I look at the direct mail fax; I'll save this one for later, you never know — maybe I'll do it. I open up our e-mails and there is the same direct mail company. I delete it and decide to throw the fax in the garbage, mumble, mumble "how annoying."

It's now 11:00 a.m. and it's quiet. Wow, maybe we don't get as many calls as we imagined.

Ringgg. Ha, I spoke too soon.

Between 11:00 and 5:00 I got 20 calls, seven faxes and 43 e-mails; all sales of all sorts. I tried to give everyone at least a minute to sell me with their best pitch and out of 20 calls two succeeded. Seven faxes all are in the garbage (poor trees) and out of 43 e-mails I only kept the children's vendors until I had time to actually look at the product and then decided to call two of those vendors back for more info or a catalog. I was able to keep up with my score card for the day but, really what a pain.

It's Victoria's turn tomorrow; she's not one for this "score card" type of thing, but she promised to do her best.

Her day started and ended similar to mine. While we did not buy anything on this day we did make appointments to see two vendors later in the week. By 3:30 or so things seemed to have slowed down quite a bit.

Monitoring our calls, even for two days, showed us that the "in your face" sales technique takes a lot of time and energy on both sides but it can be effective. We also noticed that if the callers were friendly, not annoyingly friendly, but genuinely friendly, we stayed on the phone a lot longer and showed interest in the product or subject. The e-mails that included wholesale price lists and product pictures were opened first; e-mails had to grab our attention fast since the competition is fierce for the business.

We recognize that companies spend a lot of time and money educating their sales staff and are constantly polishing up their sales techniques, and the phrase "This phone call may be recorded for educational purposes" is more often than not part of the phone call.

Times have changed since Victoria and I started in retail back in the late '70s in Paramus, N.J. For one thing, now you can reach a customer and sell your product by computer, (only real "nerds" knew what a computer even looked like back then). Now we have e-mail, You Tube, My Space, cell phones, home and office faxes, Blackberries and iPhones at our disposal.

The fact is we should all stay in contact with our old and new customers and as often as possible, annoying as this may be sometimes. This constant contact keeps you at the forefront of your customer's mind. Repetition is key. So, during the slower moments at the store we have decided to actually come up with and use a little "stay in your face" campaign of our own and this time see how it works in our favor.

Until next time, Lina & Victoria, Chocolate Milk