The Price Talk Trap: Do Your Customers REALLY Know What They Want?

In this age of advancing technology, where you can become a subject matter expert in a matter of clicks, it’s possible to be swayed by the argument that your customers already know what they want. And, if they know what they want, then you can do nothing except remind them of the particular features and benefits your product or service. Is this really true? 

I was listening to some sales consultants in a Call Centre last week as part of a client sales training diagnostic process. This is always interesting and gives you lots of information regarding sales process, sales capability and the culture of the team, department and organisation. The business mentioned they wanted people to sell more consultatively and to stop falling back on the price discussion – an excellent strategy.

Unfortunately, for the sales consultants I listened to, it involved asking one question (arguably a good one); “what’s important to you about the provider you choose”? When most people said, “the price”, guess what? The consultants went back to talking price comparisons rather than asking deeper questions to uncover other important considerations. 

Many customers are well aware of what they want and why. But (and it is a BIG ‘but’), they WILL answer your questions if they are the RIGHT ones.

Asking one question is not enough. You need to go at least ‘3 deep’ with your questions.  You cannot assume they know everything about what they want.

The reason I say this is because, when you’re researching information online, you’re generally looking for your ‘logical’ criteria to be satisfied. As we advocate at Neural Networks, people buy emotionally then justify their decision with logic.  This is where your good, tough, timely and relevant questions come into play.

Your questions must be different from any your customer has been asked by other people. They must also lead to the tough conversation that nobody else has had with them in order to engage the customer emotionally and uncover their true buying criteria.  You can no longer ask the same, generic sales questions that everyone has been trained to ask!

If you would like to explore questioning in more detail, or discuss your broader sales training needs, please contact us.