Tell Me Again – Why Do You Buy From Us?

The most difficult part of creating effective sales strategies is to determine the make-up of your customer base – and then target prospective customers with your findings. You need to determine the key reasons why your customers buy from your company. The best way to do that? Don’t just query your in-house team, ask your existing customers.

Easier said than done? Not if you follow a few time-honored steps.

Create a Questionnaire – Comparing Apples to Apples
Before you start picking up the phone and calling every customer contact, take the time to sit down with both the sales and customer service (support) teams. Find out what the important communication has been with customers, and then put together a list of questions that summarizes your collective thinking. 

The essential part of the process is creating a questionnaire that standardizes the message at the same time it categorizes the responses. Not that you need to read from a script, but more that your company is speaking with one voice. TIP: We tell customers for our questionnaire software that it is never enough to just get answers from prospects, you need to educate them on your expertise at the same time. While you are gathering information, place weight on the responses to key questions that focus on your company’s core strengths and competencies. After all, your findings are intended to shape your next sales strategies and you want to be able to quickly deliver on your own promise!

Your Findings – The Usual Suspects!

So what are you most likely to find out from your customer questionnaire? Most likely things you already knew, but you may also elicit customer emphasis that requires you to shift your sales priorities. Some of the most common reasons why businesses select one vendor over another are the following:

• Price – Especially When Sold As Value

  Price is – and has been – the number one reason why customers buy from one source vs. another. In fact, the September Retail Ratings Report indicates that more and more, consumers are looking for value – and do not care about what retailer they are buying from. Particularly in areas such as electronic goods, the closer in look and features products are, the more difficult it is to differentiate the value-adds. Price becomes the driving force. How do you add value to commodity-type products? Smaller businesses have difficulty supporting guarantees and warranties, so make sure you use top quality components and add strong service and support. See Equix Computer for a good example of how to combat the Goliaths of the computer world. For well over a decade, they have stayed nimble - and alive - by providing desktop computers and servers that just don't quit!

• Convenience & Ease of Installation – Saving Time & Money

  If you can show that your products can be put into use quickly with a minimum amount of customer-side installation time, you will win over a significant segment of the market.

• Customer service, training and technical support

  Particularly in these times of leaner and ever leaner organizations, the company that provides the best service wins not only the account, but also the pricing battle. Many businesses are willing to pay a higher price to know that the installation, operation, maintenance and eventual repair products they purchase will not hamper their business.

• Brand awareness

  As with consumer purchasing, businesses are very aware of the power of major brands, and it may not matter whether the "big brand's" products perform even close to others in their class. It seems like the higher the sticker price, the more impact a brand name will have on the purchasing decision. Despite the fact that the experience of the actual team is the most critical aspect of a retention decision, brands are even important in the retention decision of service professionals.

• Stability

  In the past few years, longevity of business and the assurance of financial health have become increasingly important in the decision process.
  

If you are adding market research to your next sales strategy plan, the chances are good that you will be increasing the chances of achieving the goals you have established. The best way to undertake market research is to poll your customers and find out why they buy from you. After all, you already have a relationship based on success!