Statistics show that any given time only 3% of potential customers are actively seeking to buy a new product or service. Vendors and service providers have to work hard to convince potential customers that their product or service is better than the competition.
But, what are some avoidable mistakes that companies make that could potentially turn customers away? Here are three examples that we recently encountered.
But, what are some avoidable mistakes that companies make that could potentially turn customers away? Here are three examples that we recently encountered.
- Not letting a prospect buy a product before the trial period ends.
We recently signed up for a free trial of a SaaS product. Before the trial period ended, we initiated the purchase process only to be presented with a message that asked us to come back to buy the product when the trial was over. While we appreciate the extra free time of using the product, why risk the chance of turning away a potential customer who's ready to buy now?
- Getting caught too much in sales qualification.
Sometimes when a potential customer expresses an interest in learning more about a specific product, companies get caught up too much with trying to identify whether the "lead" meets all their sales qualification criteria. What do we mean? We recently reached out to a vendor regarding a product we were very interested in. Our initial goal was to identify whether the specific product would meet our technical specifications. This was an important requirement in deciding whether we could continue conversations with the specific vendor. The vendor was more interested in finding out whether we had an active project and whether the inquirer was the person in charge of the project. We never got an answer to our question. Had we had a confirmation that the product met our requirements, we'd be in much deeper conversations with their sales team and seriously consider buying their product. While we understand that some of the criteria used by companies are helpful to assess the potential of a sale, the lesson here is not to miss seeing the forest for the trees.
- Delaying first response to potential customers.
Many companies do not respond quickly enough to incoming inquiries by potential customers that come from the web. According to a research done by Harvard Business Review that involved 2,241 companies in the US, the average response time among these companies was 42 hours. 23% of these companies never responded at all. The same study showed that companies that tried to contact potential customers within an hour of receiving an inquiry from the web were more than 60 times as likely to qualify the lead (which was defined as having a meaningful conversation with a key decision maker) as companies that waited 24 hours or longer to respond.
It's been more than 96 hours since we placed a web inquiry to a new vendor. Let's see how long it will take for them to respond.