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If you sell a service, make visible what’s invisible to increase your sales
If you sell a service, make visible what’s invisible to increase your sales. Read on and I tell you why.
I love going to PC World as being a gadget freak, this store just makes me feel good. In fact I first visited PC World in the early 90’s in the fledgling days of computers and I vividly recall wheeling a pram around the store with my newly born son gazing at all the technical delights on the shelves. I take my hat off to PC World for getting many things right.
They reduced their prices during the early noughties when they had stiff competition from the net. They’re now very competitively priced.
They’ve put more people on the floor to help with queries and most of them seem to know what they’re talking about these days and how to get it across. That’s good training for you.
They keep improving their range of products and services.
One that took my attention the other day was their fixing service called the TechGuys where guys and girls will fix and upgrade your PC for a small cost. Everything is listed on a sheet with the price but the cleverest thing they’ve done is they’ve made the service transparent. You can clearly see what is normally invisible. They’ve made this service visible and at the same time, more valuable.
And how have they done this?
They’ve positioned the Techguys right bang in the middle of the store and surrounded them with a clear screen. It resembles a gold fish bowl. Customers can clearly see all the techno guys with their multi screwdrivers, earthing gadgets and hammers bashing away on your PC boxes and laptop cases. You can clearly see them at work uploading new driver software with Bios screens flashing away, busy replacing hard-drives with their heads deep inside PC cases. Changing power units, loading software, adding Blue Ray drives and generally looking very talented and expensive.
You then look at the prices on the board and read – change hard-drive £15; update driver software £15; Upgrade memory Sims £15, PC Health check £50. Now you know what’s really involved in doing these things, you think you’re getting a good job done at the price quoted.
And the queue of people proved it was working.
Well done PC World
So if you sell a service, how do you make the invisible suddenly visible?
• If you sell life assurance do you have real case studies to show the effect of a death claim on a family?
• If you fit replacement clutches and make an engineering charge, is your customer aware of the complexity of such a job and the expensive equipment you had to buy to fit out the garage.
• Is your customer aware of the kind of training you go through before you can advise them or cook for them?
• Are they aware of all the regulator hurdles you have to go through before you put the service to market? How many laws you must adhere to thus ensuring the very best service.
• How much do they know about the sophisticated software you commissioned to ensure total customer satisfaction and a seamless integration with the customer…or the cost of this.
• Or the global online web meetings you attend to ensure the best service to your customers and that these meetings occur at 3am GMT?
• If you sell private medical insurance, do you show your customers the inside of a private room in a hospital that they can use? Or a 360 degree web movie of a room that you can show with your laptop or via YouTube. Or how easily you can make a claim with a cute little case study ready in the wings.
Think about your service and how you promote it to your customers. Make visible what’s invisible.
PS. A fabulous book you might want to pick up which really shows you how to sell a service is Harry Beckwith’s “Selling the Invisible” – well worth a read.
I love going to PC World as being a gadget freak, this store just makes me feel good. In fact I first visited PC World in the early 90’s in the fledgling days of computers and I vividly recall wheeling a pram around the store with my newly born son gazing at all the technical delights on the shelves. I take my hat off to PC World for getting many things right.
They reduced their prices during the early noughties when they had stiff competition from the net. They’re now very competitively priced.
They’ve put more people on the floor to help with queries and most of them seem to know what they’re talking about these days and how to get it across. That’s good training for you.
They keep improving their range of products and services.
One that took my attention the other day was their fixing service called the TechGuys where guys and girls will fix and upgrade your PC for a small cost. Everything is listed on a sheet with the price but the cleverest thing they’ve done is they’ve made the service transparent. You can clearly see what is normally invisible. They’ve made this service visible and at the same time, more valuable.
And how have they done this?
They’ve positioned the Techguys right bang in the middle of the store and surrounded them with a clear screen. It resembles a gold fish bowl. Customers can clearly see all the techno guys with their multi screwdrivers, earthing gadgets and hammers bashing away on your PC boxes and laptop cases. You can clearly see them at work uploading new driver software with Bios screens flashing away, busy replacing hard-drives with their heads deep inside PC cases. Changing power units, loading software, adding Blue Ray drives and generally looking very talented and expensive.
You then look at the prices on the board and read – change hard-drive £15; update driver software £15; Upgrade memory Sims £15, PC Health check £50. Now you know what’s really involved in doing these things, you think you’re getting a good job done at the price quoted.
And the queue of people proved it was working.
Well done PC World
So if you sell a service, how do you make the invisible suddenly visible?
• If you sell life assurance do you have real case studies to show the effect of a death claim on a family?
• If you fit replacement clutches and make an engineering charge, is your customer aware of the complexity of such a job and the expensive equipment you had to buy to fit out the garage.
• Is your customer aware of the kind of training you go through before you can advise them or cook for them?
• Are they aware of all the regulator hurdles you have to go through before you put the service to market? How many laws you must adhere to thus ensuring the very best service.
• How much do they know about the sophisticated software you commissioned to ensure total customer satisfaction and a seamless integration with the customer…or the cost of this.
• Or the global online web meetings you attend to ensure the best service to your customers and that these meetings occur at 3am GMT?
• If you sell private medical insurance, do you show your customers the inside of a private room in a hospital that they can use? Or a 360 degree web movie of a room that you can show with your laptop or via YouTube. Or how easily you can make a claim with a cute little case study ready in the wings.
Think about your service and how you promote it to your customers. Make visible what’s invisible.
PS. A fabulous book you might want to pick up which really shows you how to sell a service is Harry Beckwith’s “Selling the Invisible” – well worth a read.
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