“Give me a reason and I will believe”
The assumption of business owners is to provide solutions that meet the needs of their customers, and as a result, raise the quality of lives of these customers as they use these products. Customers have had bad experience when a product that was promoted to meet certain need does not and leads to customers who become very logical before making a purchase, as they want to be very sure what they are buying has the ability to deliver on its promise and won’t require a second or third purchase of another product to provide the needed benefit.
Here are steps to persuade a logical customer.
1. Mention customers like them that have been served
Customers belong to a certain class and are related whether by age, social status, work environment, exposure, place of residence and many more. The reason for mentioning persons who have purchased these products is to convince them of their security of letting go of their money, mentioning names of persons could also be perceived as one way, it then becomes necessary to collect testimonials of people who have used such products and can talk of the particular benefit that has helped them derive satisfaction. Logical customers belong to the bracket of those who have the money to spend but want to be assured of what they are going into, their network is also robust, that when they make referrals, their circle of friend could even become a customer segment that would have a continuous demand for the products you sell. It is advisable to collect testimonials for display on your website or social media channels, the content could be in the form of text that has the picture of the customer, the thing about video is that it is visual and builds trust almost immediately when we watch the body language of those been presented to use, these clips can go from 30 seconds to 1 minute.
2. Strings of Conversation
Customers usually ask for procedures of using a product when they are unsure, take advantage of this conversation and provide them the necessary information needed, ensure you always keep records of conversations, whether calls or text messages, not just for monitoring and improvement but to be used for the purpose of reaching our customer who is unsure of whether to spend their money on our product or not. Great customers, when they get the benefit they had envisaged would always give a feedback in the form of “thank you”, you can display these strings of conversations from when they needed help to when the issue was resolved, and this proves that you are trustworthy.
3. Offer a discount that they are willing to pay
Customers have been ripped off their hard earned monies and would only part with something that they are willing to lose and not care about. Our goal here is long-term and overall change of perspective of the customer, so we drop the short term profitability thinking and move into the arena of securing these customers by altering their belief system. The truth of the matter is we are a stranger to them, and they have no reason to trust us, just like those they purchased from in the past. Now is our chance to change that narrative and offer them something worth more than they are willing to pay, it could be from a 30%-50% discount or even free if it is not a high priced item.
4. Offer them complimentary services for free
Customers have additional needs apart from what they intend to purchase and they usually let go of the second alternative, which the business might be offering, aside the discount given, they can be offered these complimentary services for free, but this is not to make the overall process sink into desperation, it can be in the form of a promise, that attaches a comeback after the product has been used, that they get the complimentary service, when they make a second purchase as they must have experienced satisfaction from the use of the product.
We should bear in mind that the goal is to win the customer, however, customers have the ability to make a choice of whether to come back or not, and our goal is to continue to be in business for a customer whether they are logical or not and serve them as individuals and not as a group.
Emmanuel Otori has over 9 years of experience working with 100 start-ups and SMEs across Nigeria. He has worked on the Growth and Employment (GEM) Project of the World Bank, GiZ, Consulted for businesses at the Abuja Enterprise Agency, Novustack, Splitspot and NITDA.
He is the Chief Executive Officer at Abuja Data School.
