A customer’s inquiry typically solicits a resolution to a stated, short-term problem. If your solution relieves the customer’s immediate pain, without contributing to their long term progress, then you’ve produced transactional value like any other commodity. And you’ve wasted an opportunity to reveal your organization’s experience, expertise and competency in a way that differentiates your business.
But, if prior to proposing your solution, you discover why resolving the customer’s need would contribute to their success, then your solution can become more than a transaction – it can be an investment in the customer’s future. Learning more about their current circumstances, and how their current challenge is constraining longer term progress, opens the door to a dialogue with the customer that transforms your solution – from the resolution of an immediate problem that produces transactional value into an opportunity that creates strategic value for the customer by removing an obstacle that is inhibiting the achievement of their goals.
Customers prefer to work with providers who create strategic value for them. Your solution creates strategic value when it:
- Produces quantifiable benefits that resolve the customer’s immediate issue while also contributing to the achievement of a longer term goal or aspiration; and
- Strengthens the customer’s competitive advantage.
Creating strategic value for customers builds enduring relationships that are the foundation of sustained growth.
How can you better discover what each customer values?
How can your solutions create strategic value for your customers?
