Simplifying The Buying Cycle

Now that technology has made it possible for people to shop from their easy chair or by surfing the web, face to face purchasing must be recaptured. If you want to own your customers' acquisitions or purchases, you have to make it as easy as possible for people to buy from you. The same technology that is taking customers away from us can also be our greatest ally if we learn to use it to our best advantage. Technology can help us create and use systems that keep us out there in the front lines with our competition. But you have to keep it simple. If you don't have what your best customers want when they want it, there's something wrong with your system. If you have to ask a regular, well-known customer for identification, there's something wrong with your system. If you don't track your best customers in your database, there's something wrong with your system.

Three things are critical to simplifying the buying cycle. Response to the customer has to make it easy for people to purchase from me, technology has to make it easy, and inventory has to be for what the customer is looking.

Responding to a customer is not merely helping Mr. Smith find what he wants in aisle 12. Ask yourself if you are responding to your customers' need to shop when their schedule allows it. Are you open the right hours? Hardware stores that close at five o'clock and are only open until noon on Saturday are a great frustration to most people who do their "fixing up" after work. Grocery stores that are open 24 hours have been a saving grace to people who work second or third shift schedules. Yet response is not limited to store hours either. Customers will know you as a responsive business owner if you have a sales staff that is open and accessible. That means your people are well trained and up to date on all the latest issues, features and trends in the industry. If I come into your store and I have to go through three or four people before I can get my questions answered, you have a problem with response. I want to talk to someone who knows the answers to the questions asked most often. Or, if the associate does not know, does he or she know how to find the answer quickly and efficiently. When a staff person in your business says, "I'll get back to you," does he really mean it? Does he really follow through?

Responding to the customer's needs is multi-faceted but critical to simplifying the buying cycle. Choice of payment options is key. Do you have attractive, hassle-free financing programs available? The smart owners today have issued their own credit cards with lines of credit. If a customer calls to see if you carry a certain brand or item do you tell her you'll set it aside with her name on it? When they are in, do you discover other things you can take care of, or do you let them discover it? Delivery is a big part of response and makes it easy for the customer to do business with you. My car is picked up and serviced through the night! If you are an auto dealer, do you call your customers and make arrangements to get their auto in for a service check or do you wait until they come in with a problem?

Technology has made our job so much easier but unfortunately, many of us are slow to connect with it. Have a database system that tracks how many times your best customers purchase from you in a year and the average purchase price. Do you have a call system that allows your staff to contact customers when you have new items in that would be of interest to them? Does your database include personal information such as phone, address, etc. so you don't have to waste time asking those questions when they purchase? Although this is similar to response, make sure you are using your tracking system to call customers ahead of time for servicing and maintenance.

You can have the most impressive inventory in town but if it isn't what your customers want, there is something wrong with your system. Business owners should be using every means available to track trends, customer wants and forecasting. Knowledge is a powerful tool, make the most of it. Do you send your staff to the shows and seminars and do they read trade material? Successful businesses often survey their best customers to find out what people want and where they're looking for it. Use the information highway to allow customers to log on to your web site and make suggestions or make inquiries about your products and services.

My challenge to business owners is to break down all the steps of acquisition and to focus on how to make each one of the steps easier. Consider this example: ask yourself if it is easy for your customer to:

1. Reach you
2. Get information
3. Purchase
4. Keep unit serviced
5. Get problems solved

If you conclude that you are satisfying them, something very important happens: the soft cost of each transaction tends to go down because it was easy! Every time you make it difficult for the customer to buy or take care of a problem, it puts pressure on pricing. Most important to keep in mind with all of these is to anticipate your customers' needs in each of these areas. Be pro-active, think ahead of your customers and you'll simplify the cycle and increase profits!

ARTICLE TAGLINE FOR THOM WINNINGER

Visit Thom's website at http://www.winninger.com

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