Studies show that awareness of a company’s products and services declines as promotion is stopped. This problem represents one of the reasons many companies employ missionary salespeople to maintain an ongoing awareness and familiarity with their product lines. Other types of salespeople also use this presentation strategy. Route salespeople rely heavily on reminder presentations (sometimes called “reinforcement presentations”) to maintain their market share. Salespeople, such as the Tom James Company’s Alex Homer introduced in Chapter 1, know that if they do not make frequent calls and remind customers of their products, the competition is likely to capture some customers (Figure 12.2).

The reminder presentation is sometimes a dimension of service after the sale (see Chapter 15). Sales personnel, such as the B2B detail salesperson described in Chapter 1, working with repeat customers are in a good position to remind them of products or services they offer. In B2C selling situations, retail sales personnel can remind their regular customers of additional products in their own department or another department located in some other area of the business. Some products require special care and maintenance. Busy customers may need to be reminded of the maintenance services offered by your company. In some cases, the service department is a major profit generator, so reminder calls need to be given a high priority.

Reminder presentations are often used by salespeople who may have been unsuccessful in a previous call. Sometimes, when the buyer has a strong relationship with a competing supplier, the best you can hope is that the current relationship weakens. You want to be top-of-mind when that happens, and a reminder presentation can often achieve that result. There are also some customers who, after they understand you are truly committed to getting their business, will eventually give you a trial order.

Some customers get used to the great quality and service you provide and begin to view your product as a commodity. Once this happens, the customer may ask for a price reduction. To keep customers focused on value rather than price, remind them (from time to time) of the value-added services you provide.8