How to Turn Your Fax Machine into a Sales Tool

What works 24 hours a day, takes orders from customers while you’re asleep, and helps you give significantly better service to your customers? Today’s new generation of fax machines do all this –

and much, much more.

Bob Wilson, Jr., president of Innovative Office Systems, Derby, Connecticut, explains: “When buyers choose a fax machine, they justify the purchase by how much it will reduce their overnight courier bills. However, once the equipment is installed, sales managers are ecstatic to discover many more ways to use its extra benefits.” Formerly a senior technician with Ricoh Corporation for copiers and faxes, Wilson foresaw the growth of fax machines and in 1988 started his own company to sell and service faxes.

To interview sales-oriented fax users across America for this article, I “faxed” them a brief request for a quote. Some responded within thirty minutes; most within a day. Without exception, these are busy people who are usually impossible to reach by phone on the first try. I estimate that by “traditional” interviewing the time would have been triple.

Keeva Crelan, sales manager for Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, Stamford, Connecticut, reports, “Eighty percent of our corporate business is within a 15 mile radius of our hotel. Almost all of our clients have faxes and can quickly verify arrangements in seconds. Last minute changes often involve meeting arrangements or the names of guests, so it’s important to us to be perfectly accurate.”

Rohn Engh, director of Photosource International, an information service for picture buyers and professional photographers in Osceloa, Wisconsin, responded, “We deal with photobuyers at book and magazine publishers. They list their photo needs with us and we broadcast these (via U.S. Mail and electronic mail) to photographers who have large stock files. Photobuyers hesitate to communicate via electronic mail. However, the fax seems to have less intimidation to them. They fax us 20 to 1 over electronic mail. We also find that some photographers prefer to receive their market leads via fax, especially those overseas or where mail service is slow. We recently were in England for five weeks. We found fax a convenient and inexpensive way to be in daily touch with our office. As the fax becomes more universal in business offices, we foresee broadcasting via fax to many of our subscribers.”

According to Arnold Miller, treasurer of Quill Corporation in Lincolnshire, Illinois, “Customers send us orders 24 hours a day on our three fax machines. They `roll over’ so if the first machine is busy, the second takes the call. We use fax to send documents to our attorneys, accountants and consultants. We use fax now to check the credit of new customers; some banks won’t release this kind of information over the phone, but they will fax it. The bottom line is that fax makes it easier for our customers to order from us.”

Gerald P. Sloane, publisher of Connecticut Beverage Journal, Hamden, Connecticut, commented, “On deadline day, we used to have a traffic jam in our driveway from couriers delivering ads for our magazine. We also run a typesetting business, and customers often had to make three or four trips to see work in progress. I’ve changed all of our ads and business cards to include our fax number. The fax machine has even broadened our market.”

Mitchell P. Davis, editor of the Directory of Experts, Authorities and Spokespersons, Washington, DC, said, “I close sales quicker! When a prospect calls who wants to advertise in our directory, we use the fax machine to fulfill information requests.” Pete Silver is a speaker, marketing consultant and author, based in New Haven, Connecticut. He is also editor and publisher of The Marketing Communications Report monthly newsletter. For more information, write Pete Silver, 60 Skiff Street, Suite 500, Hamden, CT, 06517; Telephone 203/248-9800 or toll free 1-800/323-7383.