Know Your Customer’s Critical Path to Buying

Fortune companies do things differently. And that’s especially true when it comes to sales and marketing. For instance, they have a saying that guides their approach to customer satisfaction. It goes like this:

Everything that touches a customer is the result of a process.

In other words, “Everything your customer experiences is the result of a process.” Think about it. How many meetings do you have, all in the name of improving your customer’s experience? How much do you work on your mortgage, selection, production, orientation and service processes? My guess is a bunch.

But what about your sales process — how much have you worked on that? If everything a customer experiences is the result of a process, what happens when your customer experiences your sales process?

And most of all, how well does your sales process facilitate the decisions your customers must make before they decide to buy?

Today’s customers are more in charge than ever before, and at the same time they’re less trusting — and have less time.

Selling is more challenging than ever before. It’s not easy to deal with customers who know what they’re talking about yet don’t trust you and are in a hurry. It’s a customer’s world, and to make it a seller’s world, you have to change the game. And that means changing how you approach the game. You must absolutely, positively understand your customer’s decision process.

Your Customers’ First Decision and the Role of Comfort

When your customers arrive at your community, they have approximately seven alternatives: they can stay where they are; they can buy from you; they can buy a resale home; or they can buy from any one of your three to four major competitors.

Because each of their alternatives is confusing and difficult to evaluate, your customers will do what comes naturally to them: they’ll do a “quick cut,” reducing their choices to two or three. That makes their job of comparing much easier, which defines the first question they ask when they visit your community: do I put this builder in my “keep” or “eliminate” pile?

Customers are not there to eliminate you, as you’ve probably always heard. Quite the contrary, they are there looking for reasons to include you, reasons to extend their visit or reasons to come back and visit again. And it’s an easy point to prove.

What do you do when you visit a fine restaurant? Don’t you search the menu, choosing the two or three things that stand out most? And when the waiter arrives, don’t you ask their opinion of each? Home shoppers aren’t much different.

Your customer’s first home buying decision is to select the two or three builders that stand out most. Building value at this point in your sales process means being different, and that means setting yourself apart in terms of your product and your process.

And as far as your process, rapport is a waste of your customer’s time because they don’t want it or need it. Customers are trying to decide if they like you enough for further investigation, and all that requires is their experience to be comfortable.

Your Customers’ Second Decision and the Importance of Rapport

Now that your customers have reduced their alternatives from seven to two or three, they must decide which of their two or three alternatives represents their “perfect” decision.

We all know that there’s no such thing as perfect, but with so much money at stake, your

customers aren’t seeking a good or great decision; they want the perfect one. No surprise, huh? Their future is at stake. They can’t return a home like they can a low-priced product.

Today’s customers can’t afford to make a mistake, particularly with the market we’re in. Between qualifying for their mortgage, deciding which floor plan works best and getting the most lucrative incentive package, customers are overwhelmed with all of the parts and pieces they must consider. Value at this point in your sales process equals the definition of perfect. If you don’t help them define it, they’ll continue to chase it.

They’re choosing a builder to purchase from, and they need you. Once they put you in their “keep” pile, they need rapport. Rapport is essential for their shopping process.

Your Customers’ Third Decision and the Need for Trust

Once your customers have selected you as their builder they face another major challenge. They’ll ask, is this really the correct decision?

Making the wrong decision is your customer’s worst fear, and value building changes once again. Value now equals proof that their decision is the correct decision. Now it’s up to you to prove their decision is a good decision. Telling them is one thing, offering proof is another. Customer confidence is a critical issue, and trust is now what matters most.

Your Customers’ Fourth Decision and the Role of the Relationship

Now your customers stand at the crossroads: they wonder if they should or shouldn’t go through with your purchase agreement, and they ask, have I made the best deal I can make?

If they believe they have, at this point your customers make the biggest decision of their lives. They need a relationship for two reasons: to get the best deal they can and to be assured that you’ll be there if something goes wrong.

Customers move from comfort to rapport to trust to a relationship. And to be effective, it means you need to move too. That’s the critical path for buying.

Being Effective

With a new critical path for buying, we need a new critical path for selling. Today’s marketplace is a whole new animal because the world has evolved. And that means we must redefine our selling process. Part II will take a look at the critical path for selling. Look for it in the Aug. 25 edition of Housing Giants.