Have you ever tried to sell something that is invisible to your customers?
Such as selling your customers on the value of your service over the competition?
Generally every business has something that they sell, because you can’t touch it or see it, can be a challenge to communicate the value – or have proof that the customer received it!
I was having a great time with good friends over dinner one night when this topic came up.
My friends own a carpet cleaning and restoration company, and they had just spent over an hour with a customer asking them to prove that he received Scotchgard™ on his carpets.
He paid for it, but wanted proof that the technicians had in fact applied it to his carpets.
The customer had gone to the extra step of going online to YouTube and watched videos on how to test for Scotchgard! And his carpet didn’t bubble the water drops for as long as the video said it should. (btw your customers are doing this too. People have access to more and more information and they are getting online to check. They just may not be telling you!)
One of the challenges is that often your customers are not present when you’re doing the work you do for them, and unless you can make the invisible visible, you are expecting a leap of faith from your customers.
So the customer called the carpet cleaning company and my friends spent an hour with the customer on the phone finding out the details, educating him on the process and the product (Scotchgard) and they backed everything up their guarantee – they would happily redo his carpets or refund his money.
What the owners did (brilliantly) was turn this customer with a concern/complaint into a raving fan. He was so impressed with how they handled his questions that he has now become an advocate for their company!
So crisis averted! But there is a very important lesson to pull out of this, which is to identify services or benefits that are invisible in your business and brainstorm with your team on how to make them visible.
For example in the future when applying Scotchgard, the carpet cleaning company could create a Scotchgard certificate that they leave with the invoice or they could create a before and after image with information of what they have applied and how it protects their carpets or upholstery.
Take a look at your business – where do you have services or products that may appear invisible to your customers – for example advertising environmentally safe services (a dry cleaner advertising green cleaning), great customer service, or better quality products.
Then one at a time, discuss and brainstorm with your team – how can you turn the invisible into the
visible for your customers.
By making the invisible visible you make it easier to market to your customers, easier for your team to deliver value, and easier for your customers to tell others about you generating word of mouth advertising.
