CUSTOMER FRONTLINE LINKED TO AIMsi… Database Marketing and Sales Management Systems for Musical Instrument Retailers Basic design concept: a customer record in AIMsi is a customer record in Customer Frontline. A customer can be entered and updated in either program. The customer account number is assigned by AIMsi and serves as the “data cornerstone” between both programs. See the same customer record in the two programs below… Click arrows to advance to next slides…

THE CUSTOMER FRONTLINE RECORD Each customer record organizes sales, marketing and transaction information in three areas. Tab 1: Basic customer information, sales person, store, contact notes, etc. Tab 2: Customer buying profile with product interests Tab 3: Customer’s complete transaction history: purchases, rentals, repairs, etc.

…and each customer will have a record in every departmental sales & marketing database installed in your Customer Frontline System Our sample customer has the last name Corbett, account # Our sample Customer Frontline system will have four departmental databases: B&O, Piano, Combo and Service Contracts. Each database in a Customer Frontline system is designed to track sales and marketing information about a customer that is unique to the products and services offered in the department. Sales employees are assigned access to one or more databases according to their selling responsibilities. In our example the Corbett family makes purchases from four different departments. Notice there is a different sales person assigned from each department.

…and every customer in every database is a HOUSEHOLD As seen on the previous slide, a customer can have a record in multiple Customer Frontline databases. In addition, customers can have “additional contacts” attached to their primary record. This feature is designed so that a customer can be organized into a HOUSEHOLD with multiple musicians…a common attribute of musical instrument customers The primary record, labeled BUYER is the customer record as described on slide #2. As seen on the right, three additional contact records have been added to the primary record, labeled Player 1, 2, 3. Notice that the added records share the same customer account # The Corbett Household has three kids playing instruments purchased or rented from the B&O Dept. Each PLAYER is a discrete customer record. The Corbett Household will be identified in the database as a qualified BUYER when this company plans to sell step up Alto Saxes, convert Trumpet rentals, invite students to a String workshop, etc. Every customer can exist in multiple Customer Frontline sales databases with multiple added PLAYER records…without adding more AIMsi records!

A BRIEF DISCUSSION BEFORE WE MOVE ON… A database is best explained as an organized grid of rows and columns as you would see when looking at an Excel spreadsheet. The intersection of a row and a column is called a cell. Geeks and programmers call the content of a cell data. Sales and marketing people refer to cell content as information. A group of cells, properly organized, evolves into customer intelligence to be used for sales management and database marketing. Customer responses After a sales person qualifies a customer for what their next purchase should be the “qualifiers” are then entered into Customer Frontline. The entries are categorized in the database as an intelligence resource that can be used to close another sale. The sample database below documents how a sales person qualified a trumpet player for future sales. Salesperson inquiry Name? ? Instrument? Brand? Add On? Bill Jones Trumpet Acme Coronet Level? Hobbyist We have six cells of information about this one customer. This information is a marketing and sales resource because Customer Frontline would find this and other customers that qualify for targeted promotional offers such as: Who is qualified to attend our brass performance clinic? Who is qualified to receive a preferred customer incentive to buy a Coronet? Every cell in a database is a sales qualification “target”…see the next slide…

Customer Intelligence: Corbett #25369 The five screens below contain more than 100 cells of information stored in Customer Frontline and AIMsi that profile the buying qualifications of our sample customer household. A full line store would have the sales intelligence to find and solicit this household for a piano, or beginner French horn, or step up trumpet, or entry level acoustic guitar, etc. Transaction History AIMsi Basic Customer Information AIMsi – Customer Frontline Marketing Profiles for Future Sales: Piano, Combo, B&O Customer Frontline Customer Frontline, combined with AIMsi, is a proven marketing database and sales management investment!

HAVING A DATABASE IS ONE THING… The corporate asset value of a customer database is determined by three attributes: 1) system design; 2) accuracy and timeliness of data entries; 3) data navigation capabilities to find and close sales opportunities. Customer Frontline meets each of these three qualifications as follows: 2. Accuracy and timeliness: we train front line sales people how to listen and qualify customers for future sales opportunities. Sales people learn what to enter into Customer Frontline to build a marketing database of sales opportunities. Sales employees are accountable and motivated to use Customer Frontline as a daily routine to reach their sales targets and goals. 1. System Design: Customer Frontline is designed from over 40 years of experienced front line musical instrument retail selling. System updates and enhancements evolve from consulting, training and learning from retailers that use Customer Frontline. If it’s in Customer Frontline it is already a proven sales and marketing management asset. 3. Data access and navigation: as you will see during our webinar presentation, the most intuitive and easy to use data search tools are designed into Customer Frontline. With an easy to use point and click procedure a sales person can find customers according to specific buying qualifications. For example: “find all households with beginning level musicians, assigned to me, who are qualified to buy a step up tenor sax”. Customer database management is at the core of every successful retailer regardless of industry. Retailers will tell you their sales employees close more sales at higher margins from opportunities that were previously missed before using Customer Frontline.

WHEN CAN WE SCHEDULE A WEBINAR? We would welcome the opportunity to set up an on line meeting for you to see a live demonstration of how the combined Customer Frontline – AIMsi system will help your company sell more to each of your customers Al Slivinski The End 