Customers See the World Differently

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Gary Gerds Leave a comment

Customers see the world differently from their product and service providers. They are interested in different things; they have different goals and objectives. These differences dramatically affect their overall customer experience.

Here is a case in point. I recently asked my financial planner what I thought was a simple question:  Where is my portfolio at in relation to the market high that occurred in October 2007? In other words, where am I today relative to the high watermark? How much did I lose, and how long will it take me to make up the loss? I thought this was a simple question. His response surprised me. He said, “I don’t know, no one has ever asked me that question.” While it was standard to measure his customers’ current portfolios against the previous year, apparently comparing that information to the market top from several years ago was a much more difficult question.

I get that financial advisors are equipped to tell us where we are year-over-year, but as an investor I want to know where I am relative to the top, how much I have lost, and when I can reasonably expect to get back to even. That information is important to me because it looks at my overall financial picture, not just what I regard as a year-to-date snapshot. Knowing I am up X percent relative to last year is somewhat comforting but not particularly useful.

Now that my financial advisor has found a way to answer my question, I am sure he is using this knowledge to anticipate and answer similar questions from his other customers before being asked. He has taken another step in looking at the world the way at least some of his customers do.

Another example:  The dreaded service engine light. I recently dealt with one of those maddening car problems that intermittently occurs and disappears without apparent cause, which caused the service engine light to go on. After several trips to the garage, during which the same part was replaced multiple times, the mechanic succeeded in causing additional problems, and eventually the car would not start at all. I gave up on the original mechanic, towed the car to another garage that diagnosed the problem, replaced another part, and returned the car to me. 

Yet although the car now ran, the service engine light – in other words, the original problem – was still occurring. To make matters worse, the second garage charged me another diagnostic fee to address this original problem. In their eyes they did what they were asked to do:  fix the engine that would not start. They were correct in claiming they fixed the problem I brought the car in with, but from my perspective they did not address the initial issue that caused the service engine light to go on in the first place. They were not seeing the world from my perspective. Several hundred dollars later, I still have a car with an intermittent service engine light problem.

 Are you providing solutions that your customers would say only solved part of their problem and only answered part of their question? Are you meeting basic customer requirements (providing year-over-year data, getting the engine to start) or are you addressing true customer needs (Where am I relative to the downturn? Can you comprehensively fix my car and address all the problems?). Are you looking at the world through your customer’s eyes – or your own?

Customer Trust, Service Improvements

Your best deserve better…

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Eric Engwall Comments Off

We recently started a project with a new client, which is always a great time to evaluate how we got the business and what the deciding factors were. The company is a large provider of employee benefit plans to major employers, and someone we have courted for quite some time. In the course of the sales process we learned a few things about our prospect-turned-client that were notable to us, things that ended up being significant factors in our successful effort to win their confidence and their business.

Early on, for example, we learned that our new client – who will be using our Customer Review interview process – is already doing business with one of the “household names” in the third-party customer survey world. Through that survey research provider, our client is reaching out to hundreds of their customer contacts on a monthly basis. Upon further discovery we learned that the process is well established, that they are generally pleased with the current provider, and have no plans to discontinue surveying their customers using the existing approach.

While it’s not at all unusual for us to be working alongside a survey provider within a common client, the obvious question always is: “If you’re satisfied with what you’re already doing, why do you need another approach?” And by extension, why do you need E.G. Insight? The answers, of course, make all the difference between winning the new client or not. Here’s essentially what our contacts told us:

    • We’re not reaching the right people. The third-party survey is effective at getting feedback from day-to-day contacts about operational performance and service quality issues. The senior-level decision makers within their clients, however, are either not interested or not in a position to comment on the routine transactions and interactions that take place.
    • We have had some unfortunate surprises. On several occasions executives from our client conducted “top to top” meetings with their customer counterparts. Prior to the meetings all indications were that the relationship was solid and there were no significant problems, issues, or threats to be concerned about. What the meetings uncovered, to the surprise of our client, was a very different truth. The day-to-day contacts may have been fine with the current service levels, but the senior-level decision makers were operating from a different set of criteria. They raised problems that were previously unknown and that the survey data hadn’t detected.
    • Our contacts don’t like to be surveyed. Our client has received several comments from those same senior-level contacts that they didn’t care for the existing survey process, declined to participate, and wished to be removed from the list. The survey firm and its personnel were professional enough, but the method and the content were wrong. They weren’t appropriate for people above a certain level within the customer organizations. The customers also expressed that they didn’t want to speak with a researcher. Instead, they were interested in having a frank and open discussion about objectives, problems, and opportunities with someone they knew and trusted – someone involved in the relationship and who has a vested interest in meeting the customer’s needs and retaining their business.

Ultimately, the decision to engage E.G. Insight came down to a statement made by our senior contact. After outlining the issues and examples listed above he said, “Our best customers deserve better from us. And so do we.”

Best Practices, Customer Feedback, Customer Relationships, Point of View, Voice of the Customer , ,

E.G. Insight Enters Into a New Strategic Partnership

Posted on August 4, 2011 by homepage Comments Off

August 3, 2011 – St. Paul, Minnesota – E.G. Insight, Inc. is proud to announce a new strategic partnership with Barbara Geraghty and the Achieve the Summit organization. This new partnership between Barbara and E.G. Insight adds Achieve the Summit’s popular Visionary Selling sales training program to E.G. Insight’s portfolio of products and services. This new partnership training will amplify the effectiveness of E.G. Insight’s Customer Review Process, a structured method of gathering face-to-face customer feedback from an organization’s most important accounts, as well as E.G’s other sales and customer feedback related offerings.

Gary Gerds, co-founder and managing partner of E.G. Insight, said:

“We are excited to bring this updated version of the very successful Visionary Selling sales training session to audiences in North America and Europe. Visionary Selling aims to become your partner in elevating skills and accelerating results with your salespeople.  Visionary Selling develops the confidence and competence to establish a high-level interface, understand the customer’s business operations, collaborate on key initiatives and demonstrate impact on financial metrics to get the business. Visionary Selling integrates, complements and builds on established selling skills to quickly “kick performance up a notch!”

The integrated Visionary Selling learning system builds a sales force that can establish long-term, highly profitable sales relationships with executives and high-level decision makers. Visionary Selling training is available in a track for small and medium business sales and a track for Major Account sales where C-Level executive interface is essential.

Visionary Selling delivery options are customized to learner objectives and include web-based software for account research and financial acumen, experiential classroom training with business simulations and role-plays, webinars, eBooks with sales tools and application tips to reinforce and integrate new skills, and Management Toolkits that assist sales managers with reinforcing and coaching new skills in the field.

About E.G. Insight - E.G. Insight helps companies worldwide develop and implement feedback processes that yield a better understanding of the current health of critical business relationships, and further assists clients to use that data to make better business decisions and guide organizational improvement.

For more information please contact Gary Gerds at 1.651.288.1480 or gary.gerds@eginsight.com.

Featured, News Releases ,

It’s all about Price! (True or False?)

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Gary Gerds Comments Off

Why gather customer feedback from purchasing people? They only care about one thing: price. We often hear this from potential clients who believe purchasing people are driven only by the need for price reductions. They are convinced that speaking with employees in purchasing roles is more or less a waste of time. Those who work in purchasing think prices are too high, yet you think your pricing is justified and, if anything, maybe too low.

Too high, too low, never the twain shall meet – why waste the time talking about things you can’t control?

Decisions are not made on price alone. In the 21-plus years we have been in business, our clients have conducted Customer Review process interviews with hundreds, if not thousands, of purchasing people.  In the course of completing those interviews, our clients made a very interesting discovery: the higher up someone is in the purchasing area, the broader their field of vision and the broader their perspective. They become concerned about a wider variety of issues, including availability, risk management, quality, supply chain, global sourcing, technical support, response time, documentation, understanding regulatory issues, and of course, price. For these folks price is important, but it is not the only thing they think about. Price might not even be one of their top five concerns.

In fact, sometimes your price can be too low. One senior purchasing manager told me during an interview that when they discovered my client was selling a product below cost, it was a red flag because they immediately worried my client would stop supplying the product after customers had incorporated the ingredients into their new products.

Price can be everything and it can be nothing. I once conducted a Customer Review process interview with an experienced purchasing person my client had warned me about. My client told me before the interview this person only cared about price: “Price is everything to Joe.” But during the interview Joe said, “Price is everything – and it is nothing.” I probed for more information. Joe said if my client’s quality, personnel, safety record, attention to detail, project communications, and other key performance metrics were equal to or greater than the competition, then the customer’s decision would come down to price, which then meant everything. If on the other hand, my client fell short in any of these areas, then their price meant nothing in light of their other shortcomings. Price can be everything and it can be nothing.

Price is still important. Please don’t misunderstand. Price is still important and will remain important, especially in particularly cost-sensitive industries or when dealing with basic commodities. Price is also very important to more junior-level buyers who are often incented on the basis of cost savings and whose focus often is very narrowly focused on getting the best price possible.

Are you the low price provider? Do you successfully compete on the basis of price? If you are like most E.G. Insight clients, you are not the low price provider. To be successful, you must go beyond price to find other effective ways to compete. You need to have a clear understanding of and ability to leverage your strengths. One way to do this is by speaking with senior purchasing people to discover their concerns, what excites them, how best to solve their problems, how to give them a good night’s sleep. In short, you need to find a way to meet their needs. Talk with them, listen carefully, and you will discover it is not just about price.

Business-to-Business Sales, Customer Feedback, Customer Relationships, Voice of the Customer

Customer Relationships and the Trap of the Familiar

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Eric Engwall Comments Off

Recently, the sidewalk outside of our office building was closed for about ten days due to road construction. On several of those days I drove past the orange cones and barriers to our parking lot and not even two minutes later walked around the corner to take the sidewalk like I always do, as though nothing had changed. Each time I sort of chided myself for my short memory and then crossed to the other side of the street to get to the office. While I knew the sidewalk was closed, I was still operating on my normal unconscious routine until I was confronted by the bright orange barrier that said “Sidewalk Closed.”

One of those mornings I realized that in all the time I’d been walking my route to the office I had never been down that side of the street or seen the building from that vantage point. So, I stopped and looked up toward the spot where our offices are. Because I followed a normal routine I hadn’t appreciated the color of the brick, the architectural nuances or the way the morning sun lit up that side of the very familiar edifice. I really had missed out.

Sometimes our clients have much the same experience when dealing with their customers. The relationships are stable. The people they interact with and their requirements and expectations are familiar. They get into a routine. Sure, from time to time events take place and conditions change, but very often all appears to return to normal. They revert to the comfort and unconscious nature of the familiar pattern. And just like my walk to the office, they miss out on things.

To avoid missing opportunities and failing to see potential threats in customer relationships, consciously change your routine. Look at your customer from a new angle. Just a few simple ideas to avoid the trap of the familiar:

  • The next time you meet with them, ask different questions. Instead of discussing products, deals and problems ask about trends in their market. Inquire about business challenges they anticipate and opportunities they want to pursue. To get at different information, have a different conversation.
  • Be conscious about your routine, and change it up. Consider what you might be missing and do something new to discover something new.
  • Talk to their other suppliers. Compare notes and knowledge with other companies that serve that same customer.
  • Call a contact that’s less familiar to you to build a new relationship, verify what you know, and potentially uncover something useful.

The street repairs outside my office are finished and the sidewalk is open once again. Tomorrow I’m still going to cross to the other side of the street, just to see things from a different perspective.

Business-to-Business Sales, Customer Relationships, Voice of the Customer