If you asked your customers to pay based on the service they received, what type of results would you expect? Would you come out ahead, on par, or be taking a loss?

I heard this question while watching a recent episode of “Last Restaurant Standing.” Restaurant owners had to pre-determine the

prices of their meals — cost of food and overhead, plus profit mark-up representing how much the service would be worth to customers. When diners came in, they would order their selections from a menu without prices. At the end of the meal, customers would pay only what they felt the experience was worth. Apparently service didn’t live up to expectations because all contestants fell short of their proposed earnings.

Now, I don’t expect any distributor to carry out this exercise, but if you truly believe you’d be on the losing end, now is a good time to evaluate your business based on services alone. In this tight economy, if customers are solely choosing their distributors based on products, they will switch to a competitor for the smallest of price differences.

During this time, more so than ever, distributors must give customers the best bang for their buck. Don’t skimp on training, delivery, emergency services, account walk-throughs or any value-added item you offer in an effort to trim your own costs.

If your service is worth the extra dollars, then customers will keep coming back regardless of the economy.

As I mentioned earlier, customers will try to spend less on products, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop buying them. Instead, salespeople will have to develop new tactics for selling. Check out our podcast, “Selling Products In a Recession” at www.cleanlink.com/cleantips for some extra advice.




 

 

 

 

 

 




POSTED ON: 3/1/2009