“In my business, customers only care about price.”
Sound familiar? We hear this a lot from our customers and prospects. Many of our customers are in industrial supply or similar types of companies and offer products that have little differentiation from their competitors so you can see how one might think this way. But is price really the only thing that matters?
I think back to growing up in Northern PA. My father was a plumber and had two choices for plumbing supply companies in our area. One was a major regional player. They had larger facilities, a more diverse selection, better inventories, and were often cheaper due to economies of scale. The other was a smaller company with one location, a bit less selection, and was usually anywhere from a couple to 10 percent higher in price. So, he bought from the larger company since for a small businessman, paying 10% more wouldn’t make any sense right? Wrong!
As it turns out, the personnel were much more responsive to my father and his needs. He was an insignificant player for the larger regional provider, but his business was material for the smaller distributor. The smaller company was much more responsive in assisting with quoting projects, provided accurate expectations for when material would be delivered, and made my dad feel like an important part of their business. In other words, they delivered a superior experience.
This was LOOONNGGG before Customer Experience (CX) was a thing. But these guys understood the value of developing happy and loyal customers. Pretty soon, my father no longer compared prices and only called the larger distributor when he had an urgent need and the smaller distributor (which was also further away) didn’t have immediate availability.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise, I often see similar examples when talking with my friends. They tend to go to either Home Depot or Lowes based on factors like service, whether they like the store layout of one better than the other, proximity, etc. Rarely do they compare prices between the two even though they sell exactly the same things. Local lumber yards stay in business because contractors prefer them and their service over the large national sellers, even though the big guys and their economies of scale usually offer a lower price.
So, if you think your customers only care about price, then you are likely leaving money on the table. Customers will pay a higher price and increase their spend with companies that deliver industry-leading experiences. If you want to understand more about the power of CX, let’s schedule some time to discuss the data and science of what a great CX program can do for you.
