Perry Dekkers, Commercial Director, Dümmen Orange:
"Innovative products and services are driving success"
How important is the alignment of data for your customer focus?
Well, we are currently implementing a CRM tool (Salesforce.com) for keeping track of our customer data. It helps us to manage our customer information at one place and makes relevant information online and real-time available. In practice this means that we can provide tailor-made services to our customers based on actual and personalised customer data. For instance, if one of our colleagues has provided technical advice to a customer in one week and the account manager speaks to the same client the next week, the account manager has to know what has been discussed the week before in order to follow up on the progress and to give the most appropriate support. Previously this was not centrally and real-time available. Data is increasingly elemental for our customer focus.
How do your customer teams operate?
As said, our customer approach is tailor-made wherever possible. We aim to work with key account management where needed and with digital services where possible. This means that customers have an entry point into Dümmen Orange that suits their needs and can advise them on our product range and services. For more extensive customer support the account manager teams up with fellow-colleagues from other departments such as product management, marketing and production to define services for the different customer bases.
How does digital exchange fit your customer focus?
We believe we have good insights in our customer needs and wishes. We know that our customers prefer to have personal contact rather than phoning or placing orders digitally. The challenge is to find the right balance in combining the offline with the online world. Of course we will continue to visit our customers but at the same time we need to optimize processes to help us to improve and optimize our customer support. So if there are processes or services that when digitised better serve our customers, we will digitise them. I would like to illustrate this with an example: we have made our website mobile-friendly as nowadays everyone uses mobile phones in their greenhouses. So wherever they are, growers can check whether a Dümmen Orange product is available. We will have to keep on improving details here, and more digital services will be introduced. But it is important to have real time digital data available for our customers.
How sustainable is Dümmen Orange?
Dümmen Orange aims for being a sustainable front runner in our industry. We launch new crops on the market that improve our customers’ profitability mix. Our customers require e.g. varieties that are disease resistant, heat and cold tolerant and have lower water usage. Another trend that we build on is producing our cuttings in a more integrated way. For instance, we have implemented our GreenGuard protocol for pot mums first, which implies the use of as few chemicals as possible, resulting in more vital, healthier cuttings. This approach reduces risks for our customers.
How does marketing help your customer focus?
The way we position our products and marketing concepts in the market has great impact, because telling a story about a plant and branding a plant helps our customers selling the product and brings them in a better sales position towards their customers. It creates buzz, and people start talking about it. Actually it’s a matter of providing relevancy and raising awareness. I enjoy seeing how all these Dümmen Orange initiatives come together and how they help improve our growers’ position in regards to their own customers.
Source: Plant Profit