Paul warns about overwhelming the customer with too many choices.
Show Notes
“A multitude of choices will create a poverty of attention.”
Customers want only choices that are most relevant to their needs.
Profile your customers based on their needs, then recommend those relevant services.
Introduce your services in stages. Don’t spill the beans all at once.
Re-educate the buyer on a regular basis. Revisit services you’ve mentioned in the past.
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How do I make customers aware of services without overwhelming them?
(Transcribed from podcast)
We’ve got a question coming from the website. So just a reminder for all those Q and A Podcast fans out there, make sure you visit TheQandASalespodcast.com. While you’re there, you can ask me a question and I will turn it into a show just like I am doing right now.
So this question comes from Alayna. And Alayna is in the banking industry, and her question is very, very specific: How do I make customers aware of our services without overwhelming them? What a great question. I know this is a question, Alayna, every salesperson has struggled with from time to time, so we’re going to answer it on today’s show.
Before we get into that, a quick shout-out to our sponsor, Andrea, over at The Creative Impostor Studios. We are now, right at about 80 countries where we have been downloaded. This podcast continues to grow, and a big part of the reason is because of Andrea and her team and all the support that she provides. So, if you have a podcast or you’re thinking of starting one, reach out to Andrea and her team. They can help you. We’re going to have a link over to her website on this episode’s webpage.
Next thing, let’s talk about Selling Through Tough Times. Selling Through Tough Times just hit the number one new release on the Sales and Selling category in Amazon. This book is just—it’s going crazy. It’s a message that’s timely, that salespeople need. Selling Through Tough Times is your go-to guide for building mental resilience and growing your sales during any downturn. So, go to Amazon or wherever you get your books. Find it, pick it up, read it, and apply what you learn.
Let’s get back to the question: How do I make customers aware of our services without overwhelming them? Great question, Alayna. And let’s think about how we make decisions, first of all. So let’s say we have a customer—a banking customer—that comes in. They open up a new account with you, whatever it may be. And, of course, we want to make them aware of our complete menu of value—our services that we have to offer. But we need to remember that a multitude of choices creates a poverty of attention. And what that means is that the more we present to our customers, the less they can focus on one particular item.
For example, if we give them a brochure and walk them through ten value-added services that we have to offer, they’re not going to be able to pay special attention to any one of them. We’re better off presenting one or two versus presenting all ten.
Now, too many choices can also have a negative effect. Barry Schwartz wrote a great book called The Paradox of Choice, and I’ve mentioned this on previous podcasts. But what he says is that people love options, we just hate to choose. In fact, he highlights a famous example. In fact, I think it was one of Barry Schwartz’s neighbors. He was talking to them and this particular neighbor was responsible for selecting the investment options for their company’s 401k. And, here’s what had happened. The neighbor mentioned that they had struggled with participation in their 401k, meaning people were just not signing up to use it. So, they thought, ‘If we give them more options, that’ll spur more people to get involved. It’ll generate more participation.’
Well, it actually had the opposite effect. What they found is that the more options they gave their employees, the fewer the people participated. And it’s because almost when we have too many choices, we freeze. We choose to do nothing.
And then finally, remember customers only care about what’s extremely relevant to them. So as we give you some tips and ideas, Alayna, just remember those three things:
- a multitude of choices creates a poverty of attention;
- too many choices can actually have a negative effect;
- and customers only care about what’s extremely relevant to them.
So I’m going to give you a couple tips—four tips, really. So that’s more than a couple of. Really a couple couple is a way to say that, I guess. But anyway, Alayna, let’s get right to it.
Tip number one: profile your customers based on their needs. What I would do is think about the different types of customers that you have coming into your bank—what customers that you’ll meet with, or that you’ll call, or you go meet at their house, whatever. Profile those customers based on their needs. And then take a look at all of the services that you have to offer and share a couple of relevant services based on that particular customer’s needs. The overall theme here is, we don’t want to give them all of our services and make them aware of all of those services all at once. By doing that, we are going to create a poverty of attention, as I mentioned earlier. So tip number one: profile your customers based on their needs, and then recommend services based on what’s important to them.
Number two: identify common problems that your customers are experiencing. Anytime there’s a problem to be solved there is profit to be made, both for you and for your customer. So, think about some of the common banking problems that your customers have and ask yourself, “Okay, what services do we offer that will satisfy—or solve that problem,” rather. And in every time you’re able to solve that problem, you’re going to peak that customer’s interest. Again, we’re not going to mention all 10 or 12 or 15 or 20 services that can solve that problem. You want to pick one or two—the most relevant.
Third tip: introduce your services in stages. Remember, this is a campaign. When you’re bringing a new customer on board, it’s not for just a mere transaction. You are beginning a journey with them. We call it the Critical Buying Path®; it’s your end-to-end customer relationship. So you don’t need to, you don’t need to spill the beans all at once. You don’t need to make them aware of everything at that one occurrence, because every touch point that you have with that customer is an opportunity to create value and educate that customer. So view the interaction as more of an onboarding campaign. Every maybe, month or so, or every couple months, you’re going to be engaging with that customer. And maybe at those engagements, pick one or two services that you can educate the buyer on—make them aware of. So I would introduce your services in stages.
And tip number four—and this is the final tip: re-educate the buyer on a regular basis. Even though you share a couple of services with your customer, if they don’t have an immediate need for that service on that day, there’s a good chance they’re going to forget about it or they’re just not going to pay attention to it because they don’t have an immediate need.
So, for example, let’s say, online banking as a service that you wanted to offer your customer. If you offered them that service on the day they come into the bank and they don’t have an immediate need for it, meaning they’re not sold on the idea, they don’t want to use online banking; they’re afraid of it for whatever reason. If they don’t have an immediate need that day, they’re likely going to forget about it. So, a few months later, go ahead and re-educate them on online banking—the benefits and the outcome that they are going to gain. And by doing that, eventually, you’re going to re-educate them on a day where they do have a compelling need and they’re more likely to engage and move forward.
So just as a thought, don’t ever assume that your customers know all of the services that you have to offer, even if you’ve already shared that information with them. Because if they didn’t have a need for it on that day, they likely forgot about it. So we need to re-educate that buyer. Alright, Alayna?
Well, thank you for submitting the question. That is what we have for you today. Again, a quick recap: number one—profile your customers based on their needs. Number two—identify common problems that you can solve with your services. Number three—introduce your services in different stages. And then, four—re-educate the customer on a regular basis.
Make it a big day.
