Putting Your Customers' Needs First

taking the time to explain to them where and how the products they made were used in the end applications by our customers. They stated that in all their years of employment, no one had ever actually sat down with them and taken the time to do this. From that time forward, I would always make it a point to make sure that our production personnel had a good understanding of how our products were used by our customers as well as the important role they had in making sure that that we delivered quality products on-time for our customers. As a side benefit, anytime I had a special job or a rush customer order, it always got special attention from Emily and the other ladies on the production line! One of my most rewarding jobs at Westinghouse was as Manager of Marketing Communications. This job afforded me the opportunity to perform a variety of different tasks which greatly augmented my recently acquired product knowledge. • Sales Leads – This was the early 1970’s; there were no personal computers, no internet, no social media, no email. You had “snail mail” and telephones. Telexes were still used as a means of communication to our remote sales offices. When customers and prospects wanted information about a company’s products, they would usually fill out “bingo cards” or postage paid reply cards in various monthly trade journals to request info on a product release or advertisement they saw in the magazine; this process could often take up to a month to go through all the various steps: 1. Trade publication received the postage-paid request card from the inquirer 2. Trade publication key punches data into their computer and generates the inquiry listing which they then mail to the manufacturer who had the ad/product release 3. Manufacturer then sends out the requested info to the inquirer and the smart manufacturers add the new inquiry names to their mailing list for future follow-up with their sales department and for future mailings 4. The inquirer finally receives their requested information In a good year, we would generate as many as 50,000 sales leads at our relative small Westinghouse Division. We would quickly send out the requested product or literature along with our condensed product catalog, a cover letter and a postage-paid card to sign-up for our mailing list for future communications based on the customer’s specific product or application interests. This system was the foundation of our marketing communications efforts. • Customer Newsletters – Most successful companies depend on repeat business; therefore, it is essential that they build a lasting relationship with their prospects and customers. At Westinghouse Semiconductor, we generated a quarterly newsletter that went to our entire customer mailing list. The mission of this newsletter was to inform the reader about industry news, company news, new products, new applications, user tips, etc.; it always contained a message from our Division General Manager. It was not intended as a “hard-sell” promotion vehicle but more a means to keep our customers and prospects aware of current activities.