The sales process, i.e. the value chain optimised by the seller
This is a true story of a broken value chain. A story of a failed about the sales process, where the seller has not done the optimisation.
Let's start with a question. Have you ever met a salesperson who gets you excited and makes an effort, but in time disappears completely and you end up not even getting the product or service at all?
So...
The sales process, or value chain, for which the seller is responsible, is completely broken. This happened to me as a customer and it still annoys me months later.
Where the sales process started
I met the sales director of a large Finnish company on a golf course, and he got me excited about the B2B service he was representing and how it would fit my company's needs. We arranged a meeting to discuss my needs and the suitability of their service for future development plans.
Unfortunately, and fortunately, he was able to identify critical needs and constraints to the suitability of the service. I was very pleased with this approach (value was created through trust) and we agreed that I would not take this service from them to my company, but would take it to myself as a consumer. I moved smoothly into the consumer sales process for this large company and was assigned a designated contact person who contacted me immediately. Wow, my expectations were met!
The first wrinkle in the value chain or sales process
I was asked to respond to an extensive questionnaire and provide a reasonable amount of information in advance, so that I can be tailored a package of maximum value, which we will then go through together at our meeting. This is how much effort I put in so that the vendor could deliver as much value as possible in our future meeting.
I stressed to him that our meeting (which was only possible from their side on weekdays and between 8am and 4pm) was very specific and I very much appreciated that we were sticking to the schedule as I would have no other windows of opportunity to give them for over a month.
The salesperson arrived 25 minutes late for our phone meeting and apologised that the previous meeting had been delayed. I only had five minutes to spare and I didn't think we could have done it in that time. So we made another appointment for lunch time two months later.
The value chain is broken
A new meeting time has come. I waited another 25 minutes for my designated contact to get on the line. This time he did not show up at all. I emailed him to say that unfortunately I could not continue my part of this service process with them, but would continue with the old service provider.
A couple of days later I received an apology and an explanation: ”I hadn't remembered to put this new time in the calendar”. The value chain had been broken months earlier and customer value was not a guiding principle at the organisational level in the first place.
What can be learned from this failed sales process
Customer value is also created by optimising the sales process and streamlining the customer's daily life. Not just by product and service features, benefits or even price.
Stick to what you promise. Without it, you won't even be competitive, let alone have a competitive advantage - and then the figurative revolving door will at most revolve in the wrong direction, from your own customer base to your competitor's.
