Friday, March 26, 2010

Discover How the Customer Compares Items

For many purchases, the shopper weighs the characteristics of the different products against each other before deciding. Listen to how the customer compares product characteristics, capabilities, or benefits. Then you can decide how to most effectively and efficiently steer the prospect toward the alternative that carries best value for both the purchaser and the store.
     If you’re not sure, you could say, “What questions do you have for me to help you compare the choices here?” The wording of the customer’s questions lets you assign the shopper to one or more of the decision styles described by researchers at Virginia Tech and Pennsylvania State University. Here are the three main ones:
  • Is the shopper using deal-breakers? “If it can’t do crosscutting, it is out of the running for me.”
  • Pro-and-con weighting? “Well, this one doesn’t have the feature I came in here looking for, but it has some other features you have made me realize I could use.”
  • Rating by the numbers? “This second model gets 28 mpg and the other one gets only 24, so in the final analysis I’ll go with the second one.”

     The product comparison style used by a shopper is related to the person’s education level. Those with less education tend to be deal-breaker deciders. Those with more education tend toward rating by the numbers. The style also has to do with cultural background.
     Whatever the education or culture, you might have come to realize that after doing the comparison, a shopper will often end up buying the choice that isn’t the top rater. Many purchases are made more by emotion than by reason. Still, those emotions are more likely to be positive when the customer is convinced you’ve given them the information to compare items in ways that fit their style.

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