Games Customers Play
In a hyper-connected world, the seller does not have any information the customers don't. Does that mean sellers have to live with the tyranny of the buyer?
We are all in Sales
Have you been a customer? You can become a customer when someone successfully sells you a product, a service or an idea. So who sold you the idea of joining Facebook? Who created the need in you to buy something when you are absent-mindedly surfing an online catalog? We often tend to limit our view of selling as the stereotypical used car salesperson. We all need to sell something each time we interact with someone.You are selling ideas and options and negotiating at every day. Daniel Pink’s book To Sell Is Human says, we are all in Sales. “Almost half of your time at work is spent in non-sales selling, which is really just trying to move others.” So how do we get better at it?
Games Customers Play can vary
Games Customers Play by Ramesh Dorairaj is full of anecdotes drawn from his experiences at Infosys, Wipro and Mindtree, He creates a two by two matrix – a great way to make sense of a buyer and seller equation. The way the buyer and seller view the transaction and their relationship is at the heart of the behavior they exhibit.
The book put in perspective, my relationship with the airlines I fly most often.
I mean, they are nice to me. In fact, they are the first to wish me on my birthday. They do it before my friends and relatives have. I wonder if they expect me to reciprocate. They had been dropping hints by announcing discounted tickets to celebrate their birthday. It was announced on the front page of the newspaper. But that did not prompt me to send them birthday wishes.
They wanted to make the relationship personal. But in my mind, the relationship is purely transactional. It is this difference in the view of the relationship that results in loss of sales. If some other airlines offers me a better price (& window seat) I would switch loyalties in a heartbeat. So what should the airlines do about this?
After I fly, I get a link from the airlines asking me to rate the experience. I do not fill that survey because I view my relationship with the airlines as “transactional”. There is clearly a mismatch between how the airlines views its relationship with the customer.I am annoyed by the airlines asking me to web-check myself. When I do it, I find I am being offered the choice of middle seats (which I detest) or a couple of options of seats at the far end of the plane. What makes them think I will fill up the questionnaire they send unless it is to vent about poor service. If I get a cheaper flight option will I even hesitate to switch airlines? Do they really believe that I will pull out the automated email sent on my birthday and snuggle up to them and say, “Awww… I will never leave you.”For a start, they have to stop sending me survey links because I do not want to build a personal relationship with the airlines that offers the illusion of choice with an early checkin but offers only middle-seats. (All other seats are paid upgrades). To me, that tells me that they too view the relationship as transactional. Trying to behave as if they really care about my feelings makes me feel that they are being manipulative.Games Customers Play offers four ideas for the airlines to consider:
Advice for Airlines
They can increase switching costs the way Gillette sells the razors with a unique design. If you switch to a competing brand of blades, the razor becomes useless and it is a dead investment. Nespresso coffee machines come with coffee pods or pellets that do not work with any other machine. That makes switching very cumbersome and expensive.
Provide the consumer the feeling of choice. When the watchmakers like Swatch give you different wrist bands that fit the watch. The consumer can change the bands and create a sense of newness without having to buy another wrist watch.
Incorporate social and emotional messages in the product. Here is a list of chocolates that have been made "ethically" <read this>
Leverage the IKEA EFFECT: When the customers gets a feeling of participation in making the product, they get emotionally vested in it and value the product or service even more.
Games Customers Play came across as a really well written book that has examples from B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) to make it easy for you to find that exact scenario that works for you. Ramesh's own experience in B2B selling lends authenticity to the examples he offers which he has seen. He shares a fair number of success stories as well as stories of failure.I would love to gift Ramesh’s book to the CEO of the airlines to help him understand why the buyer and seller’s view of the relationship needs to be understood. Ramesh has examples from every industry and uses them to tease out ideas you can implement. I found his book to be a terrific read. Knowing the forces that influence the balance of power between a buyer and seller can be the missing link to your missing sales targets. If you have a Sales team, gift them this book. It may change the way they sell to customers they have never managed to, as yet.
===========Follow me on LinkedIn or on Twitter @AbhijitBhaduri