Don’t Get Hooked On The Pipeline
Don’t Get Hooked on the Pipeline
In today’s evolving digital reality customers don’t proceed through their journey to purchase in an orderly checkout line – They are too independently minded to be funneled in a one sized fits all fashion through the stages of customerhood. Dealers who focus too specifically on pushing customers through the funnel as if it were a one way pipeline of steps that need to be taken in the established order often push the customer right out of the showroom instead.
In a recent Harvard Business Review article , Frank V. Cespedes discusses this common tendency amongst sales people to become overly transfixed on the customers progression through the traditional stages of the sales funnel.
“For the past half-century, buying has been framed as a hierarchy of effects: moving a prospect from awareness to interest to desire to action. The AIDA formula and its variants are the basis (often, the unconscious basis) for customer-acquisition activities in most firms. It’s an inside-out process that assumes buyers move sequentially through a “funnel” or “pipeline.”
But research indicates a different reality. Buyers now work through parallel activity streams to make a purchase decision. Let’s label those streams as explore, evaluate, engage, experience.
Consider buying a car. U.S. auto buyers spend about 13 hours online researching car models prior to purchase, and only 3.5 hours at dealerships. Yet more than 90% of cars are bought at dealers. But because auto shoppers can access prices, product reviews, and other information online, their behavior is changing. More than 50% will leave a dealer if a test drive is required to get the vehicle’s list price. Nearly 40% will not patronize a dealer whose website doesn’t list vehicle prices, and about 40% will leave the dealer if prices aren’t posted on the vehicles.”
It’s simple sales 101. As shoppers wish to explore, evaluate, engage, and experience, sales people need to provide assistance with these priorities in whichever order and timeframe that the customer feels most comfortable with,
And how does a salesperson learn these nuances about their customers’ wants and priorities? – By asking intelligent questions, listening to the answers, engaging customers with solutions, and ensuring that their experience is pleasant and productive along the way… You know… sales
Cespedes goes on to point out that
“Ongoing discussions with customers are another, often overlooked source of insights to improve the experience — what some call “conversational intelligence.” Firms like CallMiner, Chorus, NICE, TalkMap and others apply real-time natural language processing tools to capture and analyze call recordings, chat transcripts, and product documentation from call centers, sales conversations, and customer support groups. These technologies help to stay up-to-date with key determinants of customer experience and, equally important, their first-party data captures the “voice of the customer” in their words, not that of the engineer or brand sloganeer. Growing privacy regulations, and restrictions on customer data by Apple and others, make this input increasingly valuable.”
BDC United’s proprietary hands on approach to conversational intelligence helps set us apart from other BDC solutions, and our proven solutions can set your dealership apart as well.
Learn more about how BDC United can empower your business with conversational intelligence, and help your sales team avoid succumbing to dependence on the pipeline.
https://hbr.org/2023/03/sales-teams-need-to-stop-focusing-on-the-customer-funnel