Business2Community: How to Recognize (And Avoid) Dirty Pricing Secrets

June 9, 2014-

By Patrick Schneidau

If you’re looking to make a customer fall in love with your company, consider your pricing strategy as a key pillar in the relationship that supports both parties. Very often, however, there are dirty secrets that could be undermining your strategy. Here are five examples of these secrets that could make your company miss out on return-on-investment opportunities:

1. Clueless: Many companies think they have control over the prices their sales teams are quoting, but much of the time they’re actually clueless. Companies need to have a system in place to capture and analyze sales data that will provide visibility into pricing variations and discounting for a given product.
2. Say Anything: Be wary when a customer pushes back to get a better price with the promise to buy in bulk. Unfortunately, as we all know, these promises just don’t hold water. Make sure you have visibility into whether customers are meeting their promised volume commitments, as you’ll likely have to justify offering a volume discount.
3. Life As We Know It: Sometimes sales reps offer similar pricing to different customers because on the surface they seem very similar. What works for one should work for the other, right? Wrong. Take a deeper look into customer analytics to make sure you have all the details. This extra step might reveal that they’re in different areas of your customer segmentation and should be treated differently.
4. She’s Just Not That Into You: When a potential customer calls to ask for your best price, sales analysts typically compare prices other companies are paying for the same product. In some cases, even your best quote results in prospects walking away and not buying from you. It’s a common mistake to assume that your pricing is too high, when in fact it could be one factor among myriad reasons, including that your product might not have been exactly what the customer needed. All you’ll get out of this interaction is, “she’s just not that into you.”
5. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: Making a prospect wait 10 days to get answers about a bid is an easy way to lose a promising lead. Avoid the lag time by streamlining your pricing optimization software and processes so you don’t leave a prospect hanging for too long.

A pricing strategy can have a major impact on your relationships. If these dirty little secrets hit too close to home, take note and take action. These mistakes are easily avoidable using pricing optimization software, which gives you visibility and control to help your customers fall in love with you.