Strategy

05/01/2013

The secret that some companies have discovered to win more customers

A few years ago, I wanted to have my house painted.  I called three diffferent companies for estimates,  and had the opportunity to observe how three different companies sold essentially the same product:  a professionally-painted home.

Each company came well-recommended, and I was confident that I would be happy with the work of any one of the three.  But the one that I ended up hiring was the one that required the least amount of effort for me to hire.

EasyThey made it easy for me to become a customer.

The more effort that a prospect must invest to become a customer, the less likely that  prospect is to become a customer.  Let's look at one company that has experienced exponential growth, in part by making it easy for their prospects to become customers:

Salesforce.com

For years, SAP and Oracle  were the market leaders in CRM software.  Until Salesforce came along and made it much easier to become a customer by eliminating many of the traditional barriers to buying and using software:

  1. Enduring lengthy sales cycles aggressive software sales reps.
  2. Handing over large amounts of cash to buy software licenses.
  3. Buying and configuring computer hardware.
  4. Installing the software on the hardware.
  5. Configuring and customizing the software.
  6. Using the software.

Traditional software vendors required the customer to leap five hurdles before arriving at their desired destination. 

Remove the hurdles to buying, and  you're  making it easier for the customer to get to the point of being a customer, and using your product.  That's exactly what Saleforce did - they removed those first five steps, and  in so doing, became the fastest company in history to reach 1 billion dollars in revenue.

So, ask yourself the following four questions:

  1. How many steps does your company require a prospect to go through in order to become a customer? 
  2. Which steps can you eliminate, by making some creative changes? 
  3. Which ones can you "hide" so that the prospect doesn't have to endure them?
  4. Which steps can be combined, to reduce the prospects' perceived pain? 

What companies have you bought from, because they made it easy?

  Hurdles

Posted at 07:39 AM in Customer Experience, Customer Journey, Marketing Best Practices, Strategy | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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12/06/2012

Will the "eBay Now" service be a success? Will customers come calling?

When you invent a category, you become that category, and the category is you.  To customers, you  and the category become synonymous. 

But what happens when you jump into an entirely different category? 

Will your current customers follow you?  Will new customers be attracted to you?

That all depends...

Ebay now appeBay created the on-line auction category, and built an empire on that concept.   Internet-based auctions became their Blue Ocean.  But this article in Wired Magazine reveals how eBay is expanding into an entirely different line of business:  One-hour deliver of products from local retailers.

The service promises to deliver customers products that they order from local retailers, within one hour.  That's a far cry from what eBay is known for, and from the strategic advantages and capabilities that it has built and refined over the years.

There is nothing unique about eBay Now(that's what  the service is called); in fact, the business model can be easily replicated by competitors.  For example, the US Postal Service has introduced a service through which they will deliver products on the same day that they're ordered.  (Sure, eBay Now's competitive slant is delivery within one hour, which is of course faster than same day.  But let's face it - how often does a consumer really need that flat-screen TV within 60 minutes, instead of just one day?

Here's my prediction:

eBay Now will have limited success at best.  It's moving into an area that leverages few, if any of its core competencies.  It's also doing something that can be easily replicated by competitors, at a lower cost (The US Postal Service already has the core delivery infrastructure in place.)

Will eBay Now be successful?  What do you think?

  Fish out of water

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Posted at 09:50 AM in Best Practices, Strategy | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

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