Put Your Money Where It Helps Your Customers

Situation:

We worked with NEC Electronics several times. One assignment was to help them increase sales. This assignment was to determine what their customers perceived to be their priority needs. As a chip manufacturer, NEC Electronics wanted to focus their assets on what would make them distinctive to their customer. They wanted to compete on more than price. What value should they add?

Solution:

We used our LEADER survey to determine customer needs.  Given that we were a third party, we were positioned as the confidential, trusted advisor who would speak for the community of customers.

The findings were transformative:  Customers wanted one source for both sales and service.  Specifically, they wanted fast and accurate input about the status of their orders. And they wanted their sales rep to handle this. It increased trust; the sales rep is responsible for making a commitment about delivery and then tracking it.

There was another need. The company didn’t have a fast-track system that would inform them about the success of a batch of chips until the entire batch was completed. That might be too late for the customer and cause a delay the customer’s production line. NEC Electronics responded with a capital investment in the plant to track orders while they were in production.  We worked on the sales force restructuring and implementation of their new roles.

Results:

NEC Electronics had a value added point of difference which helped them grow sales.