I cannot tell you how many times I have had conversations about how many options you should give to a customer. We have proven over the years that there is a significant change in the consumer’s choice when given more than TWO options.
Recently, my girl friend bought a condo at the beach. In this condo she had an upstairs that had a very large shower. But she wanted a bath tub. So she calls out a plumber and I happen to be there when the guy shows up.
During this visit, he takes out a tape measure, measures the walls, the floor, and other parts of the work. Now she is the owner… But since I am there he directs all of his questions to me. BIG MISTAKE. Not only is she offended because it seems like he doesn’t get who the TRUE buyer is, ultimately he also just throws out some prices that seem ridiculously high for the work.
We talk a little and he tells us he’s going to go back to his office and have one of his “inside girls” type up the “estimate” and email it back to us. What if he had a program that he could pull up that would calculate all of the work, merchandise it in a format that would give her visualization of the products and even some descriptions of what was going to be done in her home. Maybe even a few options.
Instead, a couple of days later she gets a “We hereby propose” email that has about 4 bullet points and a cost of over NINE THOUSAND dollars. And only one option at that. So for her to get another option, she would have to call more people to get more opinions.
It ends up that she calls three more plumbers out for the same work. And each had the same process. One option, One price. And ultimately who she will decide on is who is the cheapest because not one of them tried to offer more than one option, and/or build trust with her on the work that they do. What made them different, or more professional looking.
We know from some of the manufacturers and distributors that we work with that over 70% of all sales are made in the base-line product. Yet, in our program our dealers sell 19.7% BEST, 24.5% BETTER, 30.2% GOOD and only 19.7% BUDGET. What happens is most buyers kick out the best and budget models as viable options and over half (54.7%) buy the middle of the road. That’s why you need that $16,000 Best model to make the $12,000 Better model look much better in price. By only offering 3, when the customer kicks out the upper and lower, they are left with ONLY one option. And people like choices.
Additionally, The customer doesn’t have all the information that you have in your head. They don’t know there could be a possibility of as many as 10 options they could choose from. That’s why 4 is just right. It is called “Paralysis by Analysis. You can read about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis
In summary, Don’t be afraid to offer four options. It could mean the difference in you being the four proposals that the customer was looking to compare against. And if you come off as the expert, why then would they need someone else’s quote.
I hope you enjoy using this program as much as we enjoy supporting it. We are so excited with all of the latest enhancements and all the ones that are yet to come.
STAYING COOL,
DeWayne Gibson
