Value beyond the price tag
Price becomes more important when customers have difficulty distinguishing between their choices.
I’ve seen this across industries throughout my career. As products mature and alternatives become easier to compare, suppliers can start to look alike. Specifications line up and service offerings sound similar. Procurement teams have clear numbers to put side by side.
Price becomes the easiest point of comparison.
For companies competing in mature markets, this raises an important question: Do your customers understand the value you provide beyond the product?
The Pebble
Some of a company’s greatest value can be found in the problems its experience helps customers avoid.
A supplier recognizes a production risk early because the team has seen it before. An experienced account leader knows when a decision could become expensive.
Sometimes a five-minute conversation saves days of work because someone knows which questions to ask.
These contributions affect the customer’s economics.
Experience can reduce costs and save time. Reliability can reduce risk and give customers greater confidence in execution. Both influence the value of the relationship.
This becomes especially important when products themselves offer fewer obvious points of distinction.
When companies can connect their experience to measurable business outcomes, customers have a clearer way to understand what they receive. That creates a stronger basis for differentiation and can deepen the customer relationship over time.
The Ripple
Look beyond what you sell and examine how your company contributes to the customer’s business.
Where does your experience improve a customer’s decision?
Where does your team reduce cost or risk?
Bring those examples into the commercial conversation.
Strong companies understand where their people influence customer outcomes. Their commercial teams can explain that value through specific examples and connect their work to results the customer recognizes.
This requires confidence in what the company provides and a strong understanding of the customer’s business. The better you understand their operation, the more precisely you can explain where your experience contributes.
That changes the basis of the commercial conversation. Customers can evaluate the relationship through the business results it supports as well as the price they pay.
Over time, that connection can become an important part of customer loyalty. Customers remember the partners who understand their business and contribute to better outcomes.
The Question
What value does your company create for customers that never appears on the invoice?
