Joe’s Waterhole Pte. Ltd is a medium size kitchenware stores in Eumundi, Queensland. It was established by Joe Waterhole in 1819 and now his grand son with his wife is the owner and the shareholder of this company. Having a turnover of USD359, 000 a month and a profit margin between 15% - 20%, depending on the products. While the servicing Joe’s Waterhole also does servicing but all are referring to Kitchenware. The products ranging from kitchen basin, dinner tables, pipes, kitchen curtains, knife sets refrigerators and even the stoves. While the services provided are kitchen maintenance, renovation, upgrading and even plumbing for kitchen areas.
Since 2006 the sales has drop tremendously for almost 20% - 35% respectively. Both Joe Jr. and his wife decided to engage a new Sales Manager to handle the 10 staff of which 6 are sales person and 4 is the maintenance person. Julia, a fresh graduate in Sales and Marketing has been engaged and being entrusts to resolve the sales decline of 2006 and 2007 phenomena.
Soon after she had her position, she then started by understanding the sales, operation and the culture of the organizations. Soon she found that the company fails in most of the tender bid or even quotations bid in supply all kitchen wares to restaurants, university hostel nearby and resorts kitchen. It seems that the sales people did not understand the decision making process of the business market.
She had also distributed VOC forms (Voice of Customer) and found out the response that 55% complaints the sales person forgotten who is their customers. To Julia it is only a transactional selling which all stores do. 97.5% the customer are satisfied with the products but it seems that are also buying randomly at other 2 stores which is Joe’s Waterhole competitors.
The lists of customers are not available but randomly Julia is able to capture that there are at least the 50,000 family in this town who are modern farmers, government servant and business people at least drop in at least once in 2 months. She was thinking to resolve this issue too for business improvements.
If you are being appointed as the New Sales & Marketing Manager instead of Julia, what are the main 3 problems Joe’s Waterhole is facing with regards to selling principles? Describe each of them and what is the theory that you have learned with regards to the problems of Joe’s Waterhole? Put up a proposal in resolving these issues.
Since 2006 the sales has drop tremendously for almost 20% - 35% respectively. Both Joe Jr. and his wife decided to engage a new Sales Manager to handle the 10 staff of which 6 are sales person and 4 is the maintenance person. Julia, a fresh graduate in Sales and Marketing has been engaged and being entrusts to resolve the sales decline of 2006 and 2007 phenomena.
Soon after she had her position, she then started by understanding the sales, operation and the culture of the organizations. Soon she found that the company fails in most of the tender bid or even quotations bid in supply all kitchen wares to restaurants, university hostel nearby and resorts kitchen. It seems that the sales people did not understand the decision making process of the business market.
She had also distributed VOC forms (Voice of Customer) and found out the response that 55% complaints the sales person forgotten who is their customers. To Julia it is only a transactional selling which all stores do. 97.5% the customer are satisfied with the products but it seems that are also buying randomly at other 2 stores which is Joe’s Waterhole competitors.
The lists of customers are not available but randomly Julia is able to capture that there are at least the 50,000 family in this town who are modern farmers, government servant and business people at least drop in at least once in 2 months. She was thinking to resolve this issue too for business improvements.
If you are being appointed as the New Sales & Marketing Manager instead of Julia, what are the main 3 problems Joe’s Waterhole is facing with regards to selling principles? Describe each of them and what is the theory that you have learned with regards to the problems of Joe’s Waterhole? Put up a proposal in resolving these issues.
3 comments:
The selling concept should change to the marketing concept, the Joe's Waterhole Pte Ltd is still practicing the traditional concept and no consumer orientation. The logo not attractive at all (i think so). Never mention about what they are selling. The logo design should attract people and trade mark also important so that customer will always remind on your product/store. What Julia need to do is the analysis before she starts planning with her new marketing strategies. Look into the needs, wants & demands of each products. The company should study what are the companies capabilities, to provide training ie. public relationship and to improve on communications either internal nor external. If the sales team is fresh and new, the company should provide awareness training about products, customer, pricing. In terms of services can also can be achieved by doing after sales service. Because its designed to create exchanges for intangible products. Seems most of the customers are from the town, the sales team can pay a visit at least once after they purchase the products. This is to maintain the customer relationship. At the end the customer would rather satisfied with the services than the product that they purchased. As a team leader, Julia should lead her team to learn and study more on human behavior. Marketing is not only how you market the product but how you market yourself and to receive good perception by others/customer. Whenever the kitchenware store purchasing new products, they should announced to the customers by calling them, flyers, advertisement and do the product launching. As a business competitor among others and as the oligopoly type of suppliers, the kitchenware should be outstanding from others and not selling the substitute products, almost the same with other competitors. Maybe by giving a warranty on the products would help the increasing of sales of Joe's Waterhole Pte Ltd.
Marziana Mustafa
Dear Marziana
Your comment is good in fact very good. I agreed with your idea and how it is presented.
Keep up since you are on the right track. Good.
First of all, Joe’s Waterhole Pte Ltd seems still practicing the product orientation to run their business. As we can see most of the traditional family business are still keeping this practice in everywhere include Malaysia. Second problem would be the products ranging that they are selling. For my opinion, the store shouldn’t mix up the selling department with kitchenware, electrical products, servicing and furniture that can confuses the customer. Lastly, understand from the scenario, Eumundi has large market of middle-upper class consumer. In order to discover this customer range, products that can fit their taste are strongly needed. The solutions that I suggest are firstly; retrain all the staffs in communication, customer behavior, and selling skill. It’s very important to let all the staffs know either selling person or maintenance person that must build a good relationship with the customer in order to kept them as a loyalty customer. At the same time, the store can also offer membership plan for all regular customer for them to enjoy certain benefits. Next, It’s necessary to categorize products into electrical, furniture, kitchenware, and consultancy department. To attract and provide a better shopping place for the consumer, show room and demo set of the product are required to set up. (Concept of IKEA is a perfect reference). Finally, survey should have does on the middle-upper class customer to improve the quality of the products, it’s important to communicate with the suppliers in order to fit the customer’s taste.
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