General

Enquiries, usually sent by the buyer to the seller, are inquiries about the price of a certain product. In negotiating transactions, although foreign trade inquiries themselves do not have legal binding force, they are a method of contacting customers and an important means for us to investigate and explore market dynamics.

International trade is mainly conducted through email for trade negotiations, unlike domestic trade, which is often conducted through phone calls or interviews. After all, email is not as convenient as email, and it is also a written proof.

There are many sources of email addresses for both buyers and sellers. It may be through the exhibition, and there may be contact email addresses on business cards. It may also be possible to search customers online, find contact email addresses, and then contact them!

I often hear salespeople complain about "the quality of foreign trade inquiries is not high", "there are inquiries that have not been converted", "some Indian customers just come to compare prices"... presumably everyone is familiar!

But are there only platform issues and customer issues? Is there really no problem with our own handling? What are the common problems that foreign traders often encounter when responding to inquiries?

1. Respond to inquiries in a hurry

Business people are all the same. When they receive a foreign trade inquiry from a buyer, they will be very happy, and then immediately respond to the other party. However, many people are overjoyed and lack a systematic analysis process when rushing to respond to the email, resulting in incomplete consideration of the email content and unclear information. Therefore, it is recommended that everyone spend 30 minutes to analyze the buyer's inquiry and the buyer after receiving the inquiry in the future.

2. Blind quotation

When doing business, we should first classify the customers we contact, such as terminal customers and traders, or large and small customers. The advantage of this approach is that we can make different quotations based on different customers.

Generally speaking, for end customers, customers pay more attention to the quality of the product rather than the price; For traders, the likely thing that can arouse their interest in the product is the price.

After receiving an inquiry email from a customer, take the time to visit the customer's website to find out what products the customer specifically manufactures, and then quote the customer for some outstanding points.

3. Simple quotation

Nowadays, some salespeople are often reluctant to take the time to prepare a relatively complete quotation when making a quotation. Especially for older salespeople, they often simply quote a price to the customer. However, customers often want to know more from the quotation, and they want you to send a detailed and complete quotation as much as possible. If you just muddle through, it will keep the customer away from you.

4. Business knowledge is not comprehensive enough

Doing business cannot rely solely on one's own imagination, but on the other's perspective on what they will focus on. Do not deal with the buyer, nor write false statements. Answer all the buyer's questions in a positive and complete manner, and clearly inform them as much as possible; If it is not possible to do so, it is also necessary to inform alternative solutions.

5. Do not track after quotation

Many foreign trade salesmen are not good at this point, they just sit and wait after quoting the price, and sometimes the customer is snatched by others while you are waiting. Therefore, after quoting prices, it is important to follow up with the customer in an organized manner. If the customer does not respond, it may be because they have not received the quotation, or because the customer feels that the price is too high and has not responded, or because the customer has received too many quotations and has forgotten.

Attention: Timely reply! Timely reply! Timely reply!

If you fail to respond in a timely manner, and other suppliers seize the opportunity, the order that originally belonged to you may slip away.

In fact, there are methods to follow in foreign trade. If you believe that foreign trade only relies on experience and skills, then you are wrong. Foreign trade has a professional process. Foreign trade inquiries and offers have certain routines. As long as we are familiar with a few sentence patterns and remember the high-frequency words of foreign trade, foreign trade is easier to master.

As a foreign trade sales person, every time you deal with customers, you should pay attention to the above mentioned points. When you truly master the above skills and turn them into habits, your foreign trade inquiry response skills will greatly improve.