acquisition behavior compass - psychology of customer engagement

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Eksterlaan 5 2566 JW Den Haag Tel. +31(0)70 744 2373 [email protected] www.thecustomercompany.nl MEMO The Predictable C lient 1 Adapt your organization to economic behaviour . You will achieve massive improvements in marketing and sales performance. “Are you serious? Did you just suggest customer behaviour is predictable?” Not a common thought, I admit. But wouldn’t it be nice if we would know how our customers make decisions? If we could create a movie script up-front that describes customer behaviour, not only “what” but also “why”? Ever since the fifties, when the field of marketing shifted from a logistical nature to a commercial one, scientists and managers have tried to catch the secrets behind economic Behavior. Today's trend suggests that the loyalty of clients has reached an all time low and their Behavior has become less and less predictable. But this article turns the tide. This research article shows that economic Behavior consists of recurring psychological and social principles that significantly improve our ability to predict economic Behavior. In my business career in marketing and sales management, I have not been able to get much support from the existing knowledge of economic Behavior. Models such as AIDA gave me an adequate description of the chronology of 'how things went’. These models look back in history to explain what happened. But at the same time these models offered hardly any tools for me to design my companies’ interaction with customers, to design our actions based on expectations of the future. It was difficult or maybe even impossible to adapt the Behavior of my company to the economic Behavior of my customer. Like me, many marketers have chosen to focus their strategies on customer value and hence our influence on company performance has grown considerably. The entire organization has become a field of play for the marketer. Products and services nowadays undergo a detailed analysis of their significance for the customer. 1 This paper summarizes the Dutch master thesis “De Voorspelbare Klant”, published at AOG School of Management, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in 2003. Publications in the Dutch NIMA Tijdschrift voor Marketing and Sales Management Magazine.

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Eksterlaan 5 2566 JW Den Haag Tel. +31(0)70 744 2373

[email protected] www.thecustomercompany.nl

MEMO

The Pred i c tab l e C l i en t 1

Adapt your organizat ion to e conomic behaviour . You wi l l achieve massive improvements in market ing and sales per formance .

“Are you serious? Did you just suggest customer behaviour is predictable?” Not a common thought, I admit. But wouldn’t it be nice if we would know how our customers make decisions? If we could create a movie script up-front that describes customer behaviour, not only “what” but also “why”? Ever since the fifties, when the field of marketing shifted from a logistical nature to a commercial one, scientists and managers have tried to catch the secrets behind economic Behavior. Today's trend suggests that the loyalty of clients has reached an all time low and their Behavior has become less and less predictable. But this article turns the tide. This research article shows that economic Behavior consists of recurring psychological and social principles that significantly improve our ability to predict economic Behavior. In my business career in marketing and sales management, I have not been able to get much support from the existing knowledge of economic Behavior. Models such as AIDA gave me an adequate description of the chronology of 'how things went’. These models look back in history to explain what happened. But at the same time these models offered hardly any tools for me to design my companies’ interaction with customers, to design our actions based on expectations of the future. It was difficult or maybe even impossible to adapt the Behavior of my company to the economic Behavior of my customer. Like me, many marketers have chosen to focus their strategies on customer value and hence our influence on company performance has grown considerably. The entire organization has become a field of play for the marketer. Products and services nowadays undergo a detailed analysis of their significance for the customer. 1 This paper summarizes the Dutch master thesis “De Voorspelbare Klant”, published at AOG School of Management, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in 2003. Publications in the Dutch NIMA Tijdschrift voor Marketing and Sales Management Magazine.

The internal organization and enterprise culture have become victim of rigorous customer focus programs. And ICT managers working on CRM systems and all sorts of web development projects have become regular representatives in the meetings of the marketing department. So, customer orientation “is a choice” and marketing management has become business management. Still, it is curious that the marketer focuses all activities of the company on its customer, while leaving the sales and services processes untouched. We all agree that the customer engagement moments in the sales and services processes are the moments of truth. We know that not the product features should get sales focus, but customer needs and the customer’s desire make the right decision. It is time for the marketers to bring more customer focus in this 'final Frontier' in the value chain: the sales process or rather, the customer’s acquisition process. This research focuses on the Behavior of a customer within a single purchase. How do customers learn about a product what they want to know? How do they behave when they make a major purchase? And what is it that makes the customer choose for that one offer but not for the others?

Doubt o f a Market ing Manager

⎯ Is this plan sufficient to position the service/product in the market effectively. ⎯ Does this direct mail piece address the customer properly, is it vivid enough. ⎯ Which info do we put on our website. ⎯ Why are there so many different types of sales training. ⎯ The brochure tells exactly what benefits the service/product has for the client, but I feel something is

missing.

Doubt o f a Sales Manager ⎯ What should I address with this client the next time I see him. ⎯ Why did I loose this deal, I thought we were almost there. ⎯ Shouldn’t we give just a little bit extra discount. ⎯ Maybe we can show him a demo to make him decide. ⎯ What to do to improve my relationship. ⎯ What can I do to make the customer “grant” me this deal.

Many current publications on improving commercial success concentrate on client value, strategy and related subjects such as ‘customer relationship management’ and ‘multi-channel management’. This sort of article generally begins with the client, but then soon switches to everything that has to happen to increase the value for the client. In practice, however, the translation of the concepts and models presented towards sales and marketing communications proves tricky. The theoretical, perhaps good ‘ten rules for a superior relationship with your client’, are not always up to it when it comes to the unruly reality. In many companies, tactics, steering and implementation of sales and marketing communications activities are a question of feeling. They seem to be areas ‘that everyone understands’. This is understandable, because the results of sales and marketing communications activities are generally readily measurable. By simply trying something (start then think) management gets a reasonable picture of

what is going well and what is not. Common sense delivers the rest. Slowly but surely, there is a ruling feeling nowadays that commercial strategy is an intangible profession, in which intuition and social sensitivity have the greatest impact on success. The results are readily measurable, but we have started to accept that the causes for these results are less clear (successful sales managers often gain a hero’s status, but helping or correcting less successful colleagues is less successful). This leads to actual lack of steering in marketing communications and sales activities, which hurts the company. With an understanding of client Behavior, companies would be more capable of anticipating their clients’ Behavior. Steering the commercial organization could also be improved by basing it on ‘reasoned knowledge’ instead of ‘felt knowledge’. In the end, the client will benefit from the improved communications.

The problem owner o f revenue shortage : market ing and sales departments

⎯ Higher pressure ⎯ Increasing responsibility, colleagues start stressing accountability ⎯ Competition cascades from deal-level to calendar-time level ⎯ Higher demand for marketing communication leads to “seminar fatigue” with the client ⎯ Risk of failing revenue targets: panic football ⎯ Hit the ball forward, goal keeper in the enemies’ territory, shoot whenever you’ve got a chance while

knowing it’s against all odds Decisions by the Board to enhance the commercial decisiveness of marketing and sales departments regularly end by increasing the pressure on the commercial staff. Sales staff is more expressly ‘managed’ with respect to their tasks instead of on their results. The number of visits or phone discussions is measured, and if the cards are really against you, management will even set targets for performing tasks. Every salesperson that completes ten sales visits per week gets a cinema ticket and those who one week complete less than five are ‘out of here’. That this sort of ‘high pressure’ activities dampen sales’ motivation should be clear. Yet the end justifies the means. Unfortunately the whole sector is down at the moment, so the competition has probably used similar methods. In this way, everyone is lining up one behind the other for a place at the client’s conference table, as if you’ve drawn a number at the butcher’s. Generally speaking, competing salespersons have the same contact person. What’s forgotten in the planning is that the ‘sales pitches’ presented in this way eventually end up irritating the clients too. In ‘war-room meetings’ estimates are currently being made as to which products and services are most promising for business in the short term. And this is not just about sales; marketing is in the spotlight too. Mailings and price policy are being strictly monitored. How cheap are our competitors doing it all? What was the response to that mailing? You can do better! In no time, within the management team, the marketing and sales directors are at each other’s throats. There are accusations about inadequate effort and poor leads from marketing. The competition’s prices are always just that little better and marketing knows everything just that moment too late. On the other side, sales never provides win/loss reviews and doesn’t follow up on anything, so how can marketing possibly ever get to know anything? With all these things going on, a lot of internal energy is lost while the only one who can actually have an impact is not even at the director’s table. That’s the client. Only clients can help their supplier turn the

commercial tide. Clients have their own reasons for purchasing or not purchasing the services in question. Intensifying the existing marketing and sales activities means no more than ‘pushing harder’ against the client’s reasons for not buying. In 1992, Peter Senge in his ‘5th Discipline’ indicated that pushing against this system makes little sense in the long term as the system will simply push back harder and nothing will change. To improve commercial decisiveness, companies have to learn to better capitalise on the ever-changing reasons clients have for making purchasing decisions.

From sales or ientat ion towards purchasing or ientat ion

Is there a predictable behavioural pattern that people show when acquiring high involvement products or services? Can we differentiate the value people give to functional value versus the value of experiences? Are the prime decision making drivers emotional or rational? Does the reality of the working week differ to that of free time? Why does the concept ‘homo economicus’ exist, while many people feel emotional and insecure? In my research, I have looked at client Behavior, with a particular focus on clients’ human side. Do people demonstrate a predictable behavioural pattern when buying high-involvement products and/or services? Then I can prepare my own action based on that. What do people find important where it concerns functional value versus experiential value? Is the “measurable benefit” more important than the perceived benefit? Even in B2B? Emotional drivers or economic drivers before acting? COULD OBSIOUS LESS GOOD FOR MORE MONEY GAIN CLIENT PREFERENCE? I say, think Microsoft.

The not ion o f “c l i ent” de f ined from mult ip le angles

I have specifically focused on the field of high-involvement-purchasing: in many cases the product will be ‘expensive’ or demand a degree of sacrifice as experienced by the customer in some other burdensome way. Economic and psychological processes are clearly important here. Then, in the research, we chose to approach high-involvement-purchasing Behavior from the perspective of various psychological disciplines.

⎯ Marketing, behavioural sciences, neural psychology, social psychology, knowledge sharing ⎯ Customer value, emotional intelligence, elaboration likelihood, prospect theory, approach and

avoidance conflict, motivation-hygiene theory, exchange and equity theory, the knowledge creation framework

⎯ Real life, qualitative and quantitative testing of the client model by gathering direct and indirect data ⎯ Qualitative research with consumers, B2B cases, over 300 workshops

The first important research topic is the way in which the client experiences bringing his desired objective into his or her reach. Considering this specifically addresses the client’s internal experiential world, we opted for a behavioural-psychological perspective of the high-involvement-purchase. Secondly, we had to investigate how the client gathers the information about his or her objective. Through this information retrieval, the client will come into contact with potential suppliers.

This brings us straight to the third focus of the research; we have to look at the way in which the client experiences his relationship with the potential supplier. Topics two and three relate expressly to interpersonal communications and are therefore addressed from a social-psychological perspective.

Start ing point : s tate - of - the - art knowledge

These theories are the “pillars” that support the Predictable Client model and will be addressed in this paper: ⎯ Purchasing Behavior

− R.D. Blackwell, P.W. Miniard, J.F. Engel (2001); Consumer Behavior; Harcourt College Publishers

⎯ Communication − R.E. Petty, J.T. Cacioppo (1986); Communication and Persuasion: Central and Peripheral

Routes to Attitude Change; Springer Verlag ⎯ Loss & gain

− D. Kahneman, A. Tversky (1979); Prospect theory: An analysis of decisions under risk; Econometrica 47

⎯ Approach and avoidance − S. Epstein and W.D. Fenz (1965); Steepness of approach and avoidance gradients in humans

as a function of experience; Journal of Psychology 70 ⎯ Organizational Knowledge Creation

− I. Nonaka, H. Takeuchi (1996); The Knowledge Creating Company; Oxford University Press ⎯ Exchange & equity

− R. Brown (1986); Social Psychology, The Second Edition; The Free Press

Purchasing Behavior : Customer Decis ion Process There is a lot of existing research on the behavioural pattern that people show when buying high involvement products or services.

⎯ One of the leading customer Behavior models is the Customer Decision Process of Blackwell, Engel and Miniard: Need Recognition, Search for Information, Pre-purchase Evaluation of Alternatives, Purchase, Consumption, Post-Consumption Evaluation, Divestment.

In their book “Consumer Behavior”, Robert Blackwell, Paul Miniard and James Engel describe the Consumer Decision Proces model (CDP). This model is the current ‘state of art’ model based on which consumers’ decision-making model is reflected. The model shows how consumers purchase products to solve problems and illustrates the activities that occur before, during and after purchasing the product in seen phases.

Communicat ion There is a predictable way in which people acquire the information they need when planning a future purchase

⎯ Elaboration Likelihood Model: information is processed passively first, and then actively. The higher the involvement with the topic, the more likely the client is to put effort into processing information

Petty & Cacioppo described the way people are processing information via two different routes. They described the two routes in the Elaboration-Likelihood Model: as soon as a client is offered information, he or she will process it via either a central processing route or a peripheral route. The peripheral route uses little or none of the client’s cognitive baggage, but ensures that a series of automatic mechanisms are activated as a result of which the client’s attitude is influenced. The central route uses the client’s cognitive baggage to elaborate on the information presented (elaboration) and to understand it. In their research, Petty and Cacioppo showed that people more often than not tend to process information via the central route than via the peripheral route when they are motivated to process the information and to the extent they have the capacity to interpret the information based on their cognitive baggage. This motivation to start processing information, present by definition in high-involvement purchases, is a function of the personal relevance of the information. The capacity to interpret on the other hand depends mainly on the available cognitive baggage and the comprehensibility of the information presented. If these factors are present, the client tends is more likely (likelihood) to process the information presented via the central route.

Losses & Gains There is a predictable way in which people deal with risk of loss and the opportunity to win.

⎯ Prospect Theory: the experienced value changes when risk of loss or opportunity of gains appear, thus changing the judgment of functional value. Emotional drivers to take action change when risk of loss or opportunity of gains are presented, while the economic drivers remain equal (Daniel Kahnemann, Prospect Theory, 1979. (Shared) Nobel prize 2002)

Research by the psychologists Kahneman and Tversky showed that people place great faith in their own capacity for judgment, even when sometimes they know better. People also overestimate their own capacities and fail to place decisions in a broader context. This overestimation of the self is kept in balance by a need to invest everything to avoid loss. Loss would appear to hurt people more than profit or the chance of profit. Investors whose portfolios shrink in value from €4 million to €3 million will be unhappier than the investor whose portfolio grows from €1 million to €1.1 million. This would appear to be the case despite the economic-utility theory that states that the investor with the larger portfolio is happier. In cases whereby people have to make a decision the probability of a €1 loss is more significant than the same probability of a €1 profit. According to Kahneman and Tversky, people take less risks in the event of a possible loss than we should from a rational perspective. This is augmented by the fact that people tend to incorrectly estimate the probability of events. Results that occur frequently are projected too low and improbable results too high; extreme results don’t feature in our thinking while they are possible.

According to Kahneman and Tversky’s Prospect Theory, high-involvement purchasing decisions are driven by conflicting prejudices. On the one hand there’s the overestimated self-confidence by the client, while on the other there’s the fear of taking a risk. According to Kahneman and Tversky, the probability perceived by a client that a high-involvement purchase goes wrong will have an impact on the client’s choice process. The application of this theory on high-involvement purchases supports and strengthens the previously-addressed Approach & Avoidance Conflict. Both theories subscribe to the importance of emotions in this area of application.

Approach & Avoidance We can predict how the intensity of people’s fears and attractions change over the period of one decision making cycle.

⎯ Epstein & Fenz, 1963, Approach & Avoidance: predicts that people are first attracted to a desired goal, only to see the negative consequences later. Appreciation for functional value changes by the different emotional experiences. The impact of emotional drivers can increase up to the extent that they overrule the economic drivers.

Studies of the Approach & Avoidance Conflict by Epstein and Fenz in 1965 indicate that two motives differ in the sense that their power of persuasion is related to the (be it physical) distance to the desired object, the goal. As can be expected, both the approach and the avoidance-motive are strongest close to the desired object. The closer people get to an attractive object, the stronger the tendency is to approach it. The closer people get to a threatening subject, the greater is the tendency to flee from it. However, avoidance motives would seem to disappear more quickly as the distance increases than approach motives.

As soon as the feared object is further away, it seems far less frightening, while an attractive object is still attractive from afar. From a distance, the positive aspects appear more inviting than the negative aspects seem threatening. Everyone has examples of (married) couples who split up, get back together again only once again to split up. Separated physically from one another the mutual attraction is stronger than the negative feelings that led to the collapse of the relationship. Once they are back together the original negative feelings come back strongly again as a result of which the relationship again breaks down. Once it is recognized from where the ambivalent attitude from both partners stems, their ‘glue attempts’ can be understood.

Studies into the reactions by parachute jumpers before their first jump show how negative feelings (the fear of death or getting hurt) get stronger as the moment of danger approaches. The day before the jump, the

positive feelings (the tension and the kick of the jump) still dominate. But as the parachutist approaches the moment of jumping (arrival at the airport, boarding, waiting for the jump signal) the avoidance impulses increase strongly. At the moment of the jump, the avoidance impulses are many times stronger than the approach impulses. If there were no associated conflicts, such as shame, the parachutist would divert from his or her plan to jump. If the avoidance feelings had been this strong a week earlier, the parachutist would probably not have placed himself or herself in such a powerful conflict situation.

Organizat ional Knowledge Creat ion There is a structured way in which people share knowledge with each other.

⎯ Nonaka & Takeuchi described in their Organizational Knowledge Creation Framework how the people will acquire knowledge from other people. They show how knowledge is connected to past experiences and then perceived implicitly.

The Organizational Knowledge Creation Framework by Nonaka and Takeuchi is divided into four phases. Phase 1, “Socialization”: the process of sharing experiences as a result of which implicit knowledge is created,

such as shared mental models. The key to gaining implicit knowledge is experience. Without any shared experience it is extremely difficult for a person to project himself or herself within another’s mental world. Phase two, “Externalization”: the process of translating implicit knowledge into explicit concepts. It could be difficult to find an adequate verbal expression for a mental picture, as a result of which metaphors and analogies are often used in this phase. Using attractive metaphors is extremely functional for gaining the motivation for moving to the direct route of information processing. Phase three, “Combination”: the process of translating the previously-presented general concepts into the other party’s experiential world. This means reconfiguring the existing information into a specific situation with the other party.

Within companies, the fourth phase, “Internalization”, is strongly related to ‘learning on the job’, as the combined knowledge is applied within the work as a result of which the employee’s implicit knowledge starts forming. In the case of the high-involvement purchase, this is the phase in which the customer starts to form an idea of ‘what it will look like at home with this specific product’, the hard data are combined with the customer’s emotional picture of the product. In the ideal knowledge transfer situation, this phase has some ‘learning on the job’ aspects. You could imagine a test drive or a live demonstration. Finally there’s the phase in which the client starts to transfer his or her own knowledge to the surroundings. He or she starts to transfer his or her explicit and implicit knowledge to family and friends. This is the moment indicated with the picture with the arrow that returns to the Socialization quadrant.

Exchange & Equity We understand how people’s need for relationship changes when it comes to making important purchasing decisions

⎯ Social Exchange and Equitiy: higher involvement with the planned purchase demands a higher social equity with the supplier. The impact of emotional drivers can increase up to the extent that they overrule the economic drivers.

There is a difference between ‘social exchange’ and ‘economic exchange’. If you enter a Mercedes garage to buy a car and talk to the salesperson, you initiate an exchange that is primarily economic. It is socially-acceptable to start nagging, asking for a discount, comparing quotes, but some people find it embarrassing to talk about money or prices. The reason why this happens is that we confuse negotiation with social exchange. If you’re invited to a wedding, nobody is going to ask what the price of the present should be. Economic exchange and social exchange are not always divided clearly.

Generally, when exchange happens via personal interaction, economic and social aspects are combined. One of both parties, such as the Mercedes salesperson, will benefit from adding a layer of friendship to the economic exchange. The car salesperson will insist on introducing himself or herself personally, shaking hands, etc. As a result it becomes unpleasant to negotiate hard and more difficult to buy elsewhere. The client may benefit from keeping something of a personal distance, but this is tough as he or she too needs more than just a business relationship as the purchase gains more of a ‘high-involvement’ character. After all, if the dealer is not there for him or her if there should be any unwanted problems, this creates an extremely undesirable situation for the client. This is illustrated in the figure above: increasing involvement, economic exchange and social exchange jointly determine whether anxiety is created on the customer’s side. The tension created with the customer increases as economic exchange and involvement grow but is not supplemented by a proportionate level of social exchange. Equity Theory In fact the Equity Theory is a more general form of the Exchange Theory. The building blocks are the same for both theories: costs, reward and benefit. The Equity Theory adds an additional concept: Investment. Here, a person’s investment relates not only to financial investment but rather everything that entitles him or her to rewards, costs and benefits. Applying the Equity Theory to a high-involvement purchase means that a greater investment by the salesperson will lead to a greater degree of morally-felt purchase obligation by the client.

Building a model that predic t s customer Behavior Bringing all these theories together generates a model that predicts economic Behavior.

⎯ Creating a representative model of customer behaviour in five

steps − Knowledge creation is a circle − Knowledge exists in cognitive and emotional dimensions − The client acquires knowledge on himself and on his

supplier(-s) − Positive and negative emotions − Building on existing and tested process steps

Acquis i t ion Behavior Compass The introduction of the Predictable Client: the Acquisition Behavior Compass (ABC-model)

⎯ CUSTOMER & SUPPLIER

− Left: customer reflects on self − Right: customer judges supplier

⎯ EMOTION − Top half: inspiration, expectation,

opportunism − Lower half: conservatism, safety,

negativity ⎯ LEARNING

− Learning process: a circle − Outer circle: topics of conversation,

explicit knowledge − Inner circle: emotions, intuition, felt

knowledge − Phases aligned with Blackwell c.s.

To illustrate the ABC model, we here describe the purchase of a large sailing boat by Paul van Galen. Paul had been a driven sailor for 30 years and already had his own boat. It was a small boat of 5.70 meters with an external engine that cost him around 20,000 guilders. He had quite regularly thought about buying a large yacht, but that was more of a dream than reality because of the financial consequences. Until Paul received an unexpected inheritance of €250,000.

Phase 1: desire & need search From the moment that he is financially capable of realising his dream wish, Paul feels an explicit need to purchase a large yacht. Yet, his problem definition is not yet complete. Motives such as freedom, sports, speed safety and status are not yet clear to Paul. Paul goes to a boat exhibition, where he goes and looks at a number of vessels. Although externally Paul does not seem to have the profile of a client with sufficient financial means to be in the position to purchase such a large yacht, a number of salesmen notice Paul’s genuine desire and the genuine nature of his questions. Based on discussions on sailing on larger boats, Paul makes a first analysis of his wishes. His doubts as to whether or not he should invest the money in another cause – pension or house – lose to his desire to be able to make longer trips by boat. Phase 2: excitement & solution search Paul goes home filled with impressions of yachts that are within his reach. He has a bag full of brochures that he reads avidly and discusses with his partner. Slowly but surely, Paul experiences a process whereby some of the yachts start surfacing as favourites. His enthusiasm grows and he starts daydreaming about them. Phase 3: mistrust & evidence search In the follow-up process, in which Paul continues his decision-making process, he contacts the national Touring Club and reads test reports by renowned sailing magazines to test the promises made by the yacht dealers. Questions such as ‘is that boat really safer’, ‘how luxurious will be cabin be after a few years’, ‘what do others think of the sailing characteristics’ turn out to be important to Paul. He seeks evidence as substantiation. A small deviation between the evidence he finds and the suppliers’ promises scare the living daylights out of him. He dreads the thought of this major expenditure not being perfect immediately. While a few of his original favourites fall by the wayside, Paul also discovers new possible boats that he had not seen before. Because he is continually gaining knowledge about the shortcomings of his favourite boats, he can now look for others with greater focus. Phase 4: insecurity & risk search Not until he has to choose between 2 yachts, both equally ‘valuable’ for Paul, does he take the boats out for a test. One of the yachts is 14 meters in length and extremely fast. The other is less long – just ten meters – but greater focus has been laid on safety and luxury in the cabin. The choice is soon made, however. Paul steps on a 14-meter yacht for the first time, about 2.5 times larger than his own boat, and feels extremely uncomfortable because of its size and seeming uncontrollability. His self-confidence that he can handle this boat is apparently inadequate, despite the fact that he has been preceded by many other sailors. But the comforting words of the broker don’t help and Paul has already chosen the 10-meter yacht.

Create your customer Scr ipt

Your own predictable client is only a team session away. Gather marketing, sales and other front office staff to make a customer script. The metaphor is a film script: if you were to reflect on a done deal, on the sales process of that deal, you can see exactly which information the client used to be able to make his or her purchasing decision. The ABC model helps you to deduce that information beforehand and to put it in place for the client. Marketing and Sales can work together to provide the client with the correct information in doses.

The right-hand side of the film board contains the steps that a ‘model’ client takes, the left-hand side shows the sales & marketing resources and activities that the offering party prepared for the client.

The objective of the ABC workshop is to make such a script. The main thread is set down in the workshop, after which the workshop participants take home the assignment to create the content and format of each information carrier. Of course there is a need for interim alignment to keep the flow of information logical and flowing. Here is an idea how to proceed:

⎯ Preparation: − Create a customer engagement team: invite marketing, sales and other front office staff − Use a large whiteboard, or better, a wall covered with brown (wrapping) paper. − Give all participants large format post-it note blocks.

⎯ Brainstorm: focus on customer Behavior and do not involve sales or company messages − As-is description of your customer Behavior based on the ABC model

⎯ Analysis: − As-is process description SALES: match your sales efforts to customer Behavior; in what

moments of the customer decision making process were you involved − As-is process description MARKETING: match your marketing efforts to customer

Behavior; in what moments of the customer decision making process did the customer use your marketing materials/web/social media/brochures etc.

− As-is process description SERVICE: in what moments of the customer decision making process did your front office play a role

⎯ To-be planning: − Identify the broken (deal critical) decision making process of the customer, the white spots

in the sales process

− make a list of action items to support the customer decision making process where you have blanks in your as-is analysis.

⎯ Plan 20 win/loss reviews − Interview successful and failed bids of a specific service/product: Mr. Customer how did

your decision process go − Thorough team review of the interview questions

⎯ Review the to-be planning ⎯ Set up integrated marketing and sales campaign: multichannel communication including sales

moments of truth ⎯ Execute, report, feedback

Thanks for your interest. Need help? Contact us:

[email protected] T. +31(0)70 744 2373