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Product Isn’t Everything

I meet owners, managers, sales reps and others who insist that “I know my customers and don’t need a survey to learn what they’re thinking.” Salespeople with this attitude go to sleep one night believing they enjoy a great relationship with an important customer only to learn the next morning that the account has been lost. In these cases, it’s easy to blame an evil competitor, irrational price competition, management that doesn’t understand the industry or the value that the supplier brings to the table. However, the loss or unhappiness of an account need not come as a surprise. The resultant grief frequently can be avoided.

Print suppliers do a better job these days of gathering information about customers and prospects. Some information is usually better than no information, but in too many cases the right questions aren’t being asked. In particular, I’m referring to job comment cards, mini-surveys sent to buyers asking for feedback about a specific job.

The assumption behind the cards is that buying decisions, supplier selection and supplier evaluation are based solely on the manufactured product, and that successful completion of a job earns the right to do the customer’s next job. It’s dangerous to assume that by giving a positive job approval rating, the buyer believes the supplier to be superior to other potential print suppliers. In fact, the buyer may believe that several companies could provide the same good product. In the commoditized environment in which we now function, delivery of a satisfactory job on time at a competitive price may do little more than earn the right to compete for the next job from that account.

Are You Neglecting Customers?
Good product doesn’t always win. It’s the least that people expect. That leads to an information gap in most graphic arts companies: Most salespeople (and companies) don’t really know the reasons their customers do business with them. Customer relationship management (CRM) software doesn’t address this issue. Business planning effectiveness is seriously impaired without knowledge of customers’ perceptions and experiences.

Instead, many companies invest in brochures, mailings, events and other means of promotion assuming that they know the target’s “hot button” issue when they really don’t. Trying to sell without understanding both product and non-product buying motives is like trying to swim in a pool without water.

You may ask, “Why are we doing well if we lack information about customer perceptions, experiences, needs and buying motives?” There could be several answers. Unconscious competence could be at work—doing the right thing and superficially understanding customers. Luck might be another reason. The likely response is habit. The decision to change a print supplier is similar to the decision to switch dentists: it’s difficult, if not impossible, to empirically evaluate a print supplier and a dentist. So the orders keep flowing. In the meantime, a supplier becomes complacent even though customer motives and perceptions may change.

This is the context in which a buyer’s definition of neglect diverges from a supplier’s definition. The latter keeps in regular contact with the customer. There are no apparent difficulties. Work flows smoothly. What’s the problem?

Buyers increasingly define neglect in terms of the quality and quantity of communication. Faced with questions about the effectiveness of print compared with online promotion and word-of-mouth advertising, the need to make direct mail more productive to offset increased postal rates and the need to minimize costs, customers may view failure of a primary supplier to provide this information as a form of neglect.

Information has value. In an ideal world, every sales call would include at least one piece of information that the buyer considers useful, helpful or actionable. Every new job also would be welcomed with at least one idea to make the product more productive and/or less costly. The key is to think less about the product you’re selling and more about the benefit the customer is buying.