The most common resource mismatch in domestic trade factories is not that there are no customers, but that the production capacity, accounting period and sales energy are occupied by the wrong customers: three major customers consume 80% of the production capacity, and the accounting period starts in 90 days, and the profits are as thin as paper; Twenty small customers have small quantities and complex requirements, and they still lose service costs year after year. The problem is not with the customers. There is no set of grading standards in the factory-all customers are treated according to the same price, the same accounting period, and the same set of services, and resources naturally flow to the loudest one. This article gives an ABC rating table that can be implemented directly.
1. Think clearly before grading: What do you lack?
The purpose of grading is not to label customers, but to answer three resource allocation questions: who to protect first when production capacity is tight during peak season; whom and how much credit sales quotas should be placed; and whom should the salesperson give priority to his time. These three questions actually happen in the factory once a month-who comes first and who comes first at the production scheduling meeting, who will pay the bill before shipment, and who the salesperson should visit next week. There are no standard answers, so it all depends on temporary decisions, and the result is often that the loud customer wins. The answers are different for factories at different stages: for factories with overcapacity, the focus of classification is to pull new orders; for factories with tight production capacity, the focus is to eliminate low-quality customers who occupy production capacity; for factories with tight cash flow, the focus is to shift resources in the accounting period from customers with slow payments to customers with quick payments. First clarify the link you lack the most, and then the weight of grading will be biased.
2. How to divide ABC: Score in three dimensions
| dimension | indicators | Weighting suggestions |
|---|---|---|
| contribution | Gross profit (not sales) in the past 12 months as a proportion of factory gross profit | 50% |
| Quality of payment | Average payment period, number of overdue times, whether there are disputes | 30% |
| growth potential | Expansion of procurement categories, month-on-month growth of single volume, and growth of other party business | 20% |
The last three grades are divided into: Class A accounts for 15% of the total number of customers, contributing more than 60% of the gross profit; Class B is about 35%, contributing about 30%; Class C is about 50%, contributing less than 10% in total. Pay attention to ranking by gross profit rather than sales-the customer with the largest sales is often the customer with the longest accounting period and high service costs. He will be ranked in A rank according to sales, and the more you serve, the more you lose.
III. How to allocate resources after grading
- Capacity:Regular orders from customers in Class A during peak season are entered into the locked pool, with the highest priority for inserting orders; Class B is normally arranged; Class C orders are placed into production capacity gaps according to the principle of "filling in grains", and the delivery date is clearly notified during peak periods.
- Accounting period:The customer payment period for Class A is investment, and the amount is approved at 1.5 times the average monthly purchase amount; Class B is approved at the average monthly purchase amount; Class C is approved at all times when payment is delivered. There is a factory-level upper limit on the total credit sales limit, and customers at any gear will not break through.
- Services:Gear A is equipped with exclusive docking personnel, quarterly business review, and new product trial-production; gear B standard services plus monthly return visits; gear C online self-service plus WeChat group unified response. The salesperson's time allocation is based on seven and one: 70% is for the maintenance and deepening of file A, 20% is for the upgrade of file B, and 10% is for the process management of file C.
4. Dynamic adjustment: semi-annual review and exit mechanism
The customer classification is recalculated every six months, and the data is based on what is available in the financial and business systems: gross profit, return, and order quantity. Two actions should be institutionalized: first, upgrade and downgrade. If Class C customers have experienced significant growth and have clean refunds during two consecutive review periods, they will be promoted to Class B and adjusted resources; Class A customers whose gross profit contribution continues to decline or the refunds deteriorate, downgrade to Class B and tighten the accounting period simultaneously. The second is the exit mechanism. Customers in the C category who have no growth for a consecutive year, have poor collection records, and have inverted service costs will be politely reduced: price increases, cancellation of accounting periods, and cancellation of door-to-door delivery, allowing customers to choose to leave or improve. Exit is not about tearing up the face, but about allowing high-cost resources occupied by low-quality customers to flow back to the A position.
There is another one that is easy to ignore: preventing kidnapping by major customers. A factory with a high proportion of Class A has no room to fight back when a customer presses its price during the peak season. Put a structural constraint on your own grading table-if a single customer accounts for more than 25% of the gross profit, no matter how high quality, you must start a second-class customer cultivation plan, which is the factory's operating safety line.
5. Common questions
1. What should I do if the customer knows the classification and the customer in Class C is dissatisfied?
Classification is an internal allocation rule, not a judgment on customers. The term for Class C customers is a standard policy: the billing period policy, minimum quantity quantity, and service standards are implemented in accordance with unified rules and are not targeted at anyone. Don't suddenly make things difficult for price and service when implementing, replace interpersonal conflicts with rule changes. The customer experience is "policy tightening" rather than "targeted."
2. New customers do not have historical data, how to customize the file?
By default, the starting period is based on the accounting period of file B and the limit of file C, and a three-month observation period is given: the first order is paid on time and the order quantity is increased if it meets expectations. When new customers are at the highest risk, they are the first three orders. In terms of policy, they would rather start conservatively and increase quickly than shrink first. The former is to build trust, while the latter is to create conflicts.
3. The salesperson doesn't know about the gross profit data, and the finance department refuses to provide it, so what should I do if the classification cannot be continued?
There is no need to show the salesperson the details of the gross profit. The grading and scoring are completed internally by the boss or the finance department on a quarterly basis, and the salesperson only gets the results and action guidelines-whose service upgrades and whose accounting periods are tightened. When calculating gross profit and short cost data, the sorting can also be completed using the approximate formula of "sales price minus standard cost." The value of the classification is ranked and trend, not accurate to the point.
