Customers at the center 

CDW is a leading provider of technology solutions for business, government, and education. Since 2004, CDW has had the voice of its corporate customers at its fingertips through three private communities of approximately 300 members each, built and managed by Communispace. Community members are influencers and/or makers of technology purchasing decisions who are eager to learn from their peers, and have a voice in shaping the policies, products, and services offered by CDW.

CDW continuously taps members of its private communities for all kinds of indispensible advice and feedback on its products and services, marketing ideas, and innovation. Members can also interact with each other in the communities, providing them with a place for networking and support.

During late 2008 through early 2009, the communities embarked on a key initiative to help inform and inspire new approaches to the sales process for CDW. They focused their work on advising the company on how to build relationships with prospects early in the sales process, and it has had a big impact on CDW’s business. From helping to improve the “cold call” experience, to creating best practices for prospect outreach, CDW has worked closely with the communities to take a new look at many aspects of its sales process resulting in a more customer-centric approach.

Re-inventing the cold call 

First, members helped CDW understand how they experience cold calls. For many, this sales tool tended to evoke a mixture of annoyance and anger. Members revealed that they were receiving more cold calls over the last six months than ever before, perhaps due to the economy. For CDW, this meant that other IT vendors were being more aggressive with outreach and impacting the “clutter” and reception of cold calls in general. They knew this meant that it was even more important to differentiate itself from the pack with a better approach. 

Members gave CDW an enormous amount of feedback on how the first call should go, becoming the basis for many of its best practices. Members also helped refine the language and messages used in the “key pitch,” even suggesting some of their own ideas, which helped CDW focus on those elements in the call that they, as receivers of the message, felt would be most effective. At the end of the project, CDW had a new approach to the cold call—one that was created by the people on the other end of the phone.

Best practices designed by customers 

Throughout the process of exploring the initial sales experience, community members provided invaluable input about how they wanted to be treated, what they needed to know, and how information should be delivered. Sales Managers learned that in order to get the relationship off to a great start, they needed to think harder about their recommendation for a client’s initial purchase. Members also provided ideas for effective initial promotions and offers as well as guidance to Sales Managers on how to prepare for meetings with them. All of this informed important elements of their sales strategy.

Community members told CDW that they wanted marketing materials to feel more personalized and CDW listened. In the most recent campaign to prospects, instead of a mass, impersonal email, the outreach came directly from Account Managers. The first test has led to additional ways to personalize the email campaigns and marketing materials—creating yet another best practice for the sales team.

Thought leadership through partners 

Another key element of the sales strategy for CDW was to showcase its thought leadership—the added value that came from working with a knowledgeable partner who could offer solutions for businesses. Community members helped CDW become much smarter about how and where to partner with third party resources.

Asking the communities to weigh in, CDW learned about the five key resources most of its customers turned to when trying to get help buying IT products. This information was central to its new strategy of partnering with these resources—where it could offer CDW white papers, expertise, and other added value to show that it is much more than just a vendor.

Starting off on the right foot drives business results 

By providing insight into how they experience early sales outreach efforts, community members gave CDW concrete ways to build strong relationships right from the start. The best practices and new approaches have become the standard for CDW Sales Managers, further proving their impact. This new approach has become part of sales training at CDW’s Sales Academy. New Account Managers using these best practices have been more successful in bringing in new customers than other sources such as CDW.com. That is, about two percent more of CDW’s new customers are coming directly from the Sales Account Managers than the Internet. This is especially important considering that new customers brought in by Account Managers are about four times more valuable than customers from other sources. By listening to their customer communities, CDW was able to create a more personalized approach to sales, driving average customer value 17% higher than the previous year, before these best practices were implemented.

Given the challenging economic climate, CDW Account Managers need to be equipped with the best ways to build meaningful customer relationships. In approaching the sales process with a deep understanding of their customers, they are already a step ahead of the competition.

“At CDW everything we do revolves around our customers,” said Scott Harrison, Director of the CDW Sales Academy. “As the economy grew more uncertain over the last two years, we knew that we were going to have to provide an even higher level of service to our current and future customers. In order to demonstrate our commitment to helping them run their businesses, we listened, learned, and implemented key suggestions from our Communispace community members into our training programs at the CDW Academy. As a result, these best practices provided our Sales Account Managers with the opportunity to generate more sales leads, build stronger relationships, and help customers re-focus their priorities on what’s important now, while developing their business.”