Glossary entry

German term or phrase:

Abwerbung

English translation:

soliciting / enticement (of customers)

Added to glossary by Bernhard Sulzer
Feb 22, 2009 07:37
15 yrs ago
1 viewer *
German term

Abwerbung

German to English Bus/Financial Marketing / Market Research
I have read the glossary entries and am still not really sure what is best here..this is in a list entitled:
Abwerbung durch sonstigen bekannten Wettbewerber and uses the term often:
Abwerbung durch xxx

The client this is for is a services provider in the field of energy services (heat metering / water meters etc etc.)


I wonder whether "taking away clients" may work
Any help much appreciated
TAI
Stephen
Change log

Feb 24, 2009 09:11: Steffen Walter changed "Field" from "Marketing" to "Bus/Financial"

Mar 8, 2009 10:20: Bernhard Sulzer Created KOG entry

Discussion

Ellen Kraus Feb 22, 2009:
in reply to asker´s comment: whether human resources or clients, the term I suggested may be used for both categories.

Proposed translations

+3
4 hrs
Selected

soliciting (of customers)

soliciting (solicitation) of customers through/by the competition

I believe this term could be used within your context, especially in the phrase "Abwerbung durch" / "soliciting (solicitation) by the competition"
although to solicit is of course also used for "anwerben".
But its negative connotation might be what you are looking for here.
If it's too strong, then maybe something like

competitors' client pitch
competitors' advertising (campaigns)
client (customer) enticements by other ...competitors
special client offers made by other ...competitors
advertising (campaigns) by other well known competitors

Abwerbung is an active noun if you will, and abwerben is a particular activity, carried out through, for example, special offers which is expressed in the "werbung"/advertisement" part of the word. Here, the "ab" part brings in the negative connotation. I believe that should be expressed as such in English as well.

It's the competitor who's doing the wooing, the winning (them) over.
I think it is mostly possible to use such terms by rephrasing the sentence, see below. But this is more difficult for "Abwerbung durch xxx" - maybe not quite a loss, but the attempt to steal/take away customers (but these might be too strong).
"Abwerbung" can be done by advertising. In addition, maybe all is not lost yet. It could possibly just be the attempt to garner customers.

a few more options:
within a longer sentence:
the competition's attempt to reach for / woo / win over our customers
The competitor tries to entice clients (away)

for "Abwerbung durch xxx":

enticement (of clients) through the competition / through other well-known competitors

http://www.oneclub.org/oc/education/clientpitch/
client pitch

Peer comment(s):

agree Kim Metzger : Enticement of customers http://www.dict.cc/german-english/Abwerbung.html
4 hrs
thank you, Kim!
agree mary austria : It's definitely solicitation!!
5 hrs
agree Inge Meinzer
10 hrs
Something went wrong...
4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Selected automatically based on peer agreement."
+3
16 mins

head hunting or luring away staff

wäre mein Vorschlag

--------------------------------------------------
Note added at 18 Min. (2009-02-22 07:56:07 GMT)
--------------------------------------------------

Luring away another firm's employees.(Letter to the editor) ... find Air ... 1991 as operations officer and now is senior operations and personnel officer. ...
www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-151713883.html - 58k - Im Cache - Ähnliche Seiten
Note from asker:
sorry but this is not about human resources
Peer comment(s):

agree Ingrun Wenge
8 mins
thank you !
neutral Jutta Wappel : Correct translation of the word itsself, but in this case it's about taking away CLIENTS, not staff.
35 mins
that goes without saying, I just repeated the term of the reference I posted.
disagree David Moore (X) : Okay, so I disagree with Jutta; in fact, it NOT about taking away clients, it's about LOSING them...
37 mins
strictly speaking that´s no reason for disagreeing. the asker is intelligent enough to realize that I meant clients rather than personnel.
agree Colin Newberry : OK then, luring away clients or clientele.
1 hr
thank you !
agree Oxana Snyder : luring away
8 hrs
thank you !
agree Harald Moelzer (medical-translator)
23 hrs
Something went wrong...
+3
42 mins

customer poaching

... if it's for clients/customer
headhunt (with Ellen) for management staff
entice away or hire away (or poach) for workforce level staff
Peer comment(s):

agree Jutta Wappel
10 mins
Danke, Jutta.
agree Michele Johnson : I like this best of all. It may be a little informal for the context.
10 hrs
Thank you, Michele.
agree Harald Moelzer (medical-translator)
22 hrs
Danke, Harald.
Something went wrong...
59 mins

S.u.

The way you have framed this, the "Abwerbung" can go either way - as indeed it can. Here it is clearly customers wandering off to the (other known competitors), and I should word it "loss of clientele" to other known competitors.

The other way, it would need wording "gaining clients from...", or something along those lines. But here, it is your customer who is suffering the loss, they are NOT gaining clients.
Peer comment(s):

agree Ventnai
16 mins
disagree Kim Metzger : Abwerbung is enticement in this context.
7 hrs
That's obvious; so you might note Stephen has asked for a translation, not a definition.
Something went wrong...
-1
9 hrs

Hiring away

perhaps keep it simple? hiring away from clients/competition
Peer comment(s):

disagree Kim Metzger : Nothing to do with hiring. It's about customers, not staff.
44 mins
Something went wrong...
9 hrs
German term (edited): Abwerbung durch Wettbewerber

business/customer stealing by competitors

When given more control over the amount of information
available, via an exclusive contract, each advertiser in this case faces a reduced threat of customer stealing by competitors.
http://www.pitt.edu/~esther/papers/Neg2002(Complete).pdf


This confirms the theory suggesting that firms consider business stealing by competitors as a serious threat (see section 2 and appendix A for theoretical references).
http://www.cpb.nl/nl/pub/cpbreeksen/memorandum/22/memo22.pdf
Something went wrong...
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