Customers’ expectations may vary among industries in many ways, yet they are always the same. Customers want a smooth, simple digital experience with excellent service and delivery.
The same restrictions apply when it comes to price.
I get to deal with industries all around the globe, from B2B to B2C, in my area of specialty, pricing and quotation to cash. I may be focusing on a particular topic such as price optimization, CPQ, quotation rebates, or others, but the most intriguing aspect is that I get to see pricing done in a variety of firms.
In my 20 years of experience in this field, I’ve discovered that learnings from one area may frequently be used to a totally other one.
This comprehensive picture is essential for determining where price possibilities exist that may considerably boost your bottom line. For example, the dynamic pricing capabilities we built for digital commerce is now being utilized in process industries to drive index and formula pricing in a much more efficient and streamlined manner than ever before.
In a recent talk with a clever and seasoned Bain & Company partner, we discovered that our field work with a variety of sectors has provided us with the expertise needed to create innovation. These tactics have also been employed to improve our procedures in order to satisfy client expectations.
These are useful insights for many people in the business, even those who aren’t on the price team but are touched by pricing in some way. Some of the insights would be useful to any CEO or sales and marketing expert.
Here are two excellent places to begin.
Gather input from the field: keep the client in mind
The best way to learn is to apply what you’ve learned in the classroom to real-world situations. In every business, innovation comes from seeing how procedures are implemented and identifying areas for improvement.
Whether it’s with your own customers or when other people utilize your solutions. Getting close to consumers and sellers helps you to think bigger and ask questions such, “How does it really work, why does it work, and how can it be improved?”
Naturally, you are attempting to tackle the same difficulties as others in your profession, regardless of industry. The feedback we get as a result of our field experience is diverse.
This is accomplished by recognizing that everyone in the field is trying to tackle the same challenges — not at the corporate level or in the office. It’s critical to go out there and engage with customers personally, or at the very least work closely with individuals that contact with consumers on a daily basis.
In order to grow that proof of concept, you and your team need really integrate yourself and your team with the customer success teams.
It’s all about refining and iterating at this stage, depending on what you’re learning about what works and what doesn’t. Over time, the final result will be teams that collaborate to find the greatest answer for the firm.
Because their involvement, design, and feedback were included into the solution, the finished product may be observed with confidence. You can be certain that it will function when it reaches the field for the rest of the team since you’ve worked with the field and sales teams to ensure that the solution will be accepted and bring value to them.
Obtain leadership support for cooperation
Any organization’s ability to drive change relies heavily on cross-functional cooperation. Companies may and should encourage better team cooperation and trust. It may seem self-evident, yet cooperation is frequently handled more as a theory than a reality.
If the leadership doesn’t completely support the field effort, it might all be for nought. Helping leadership realize that this is good for the whole business, not just one team, is one approach to achieve this.
For example, while deploying pricing software solutions, leadership must not only believe in the commercial organization but also recognize that we are seeking to enhance more than simply price. Our objectives are to enhance the commercial team’s performance by emphasizing some of their needs in addition to what we’re attempting to do in terms of price, and to significantly increase sales velocity.
We respect not just the blessing of commercial teams, but also their input on parts of our tasks like price and quotation, which might be a nuisance for them. It is possible to make this procedure more efficient and productive by giving them with instruction that they can absorb and comprehend completely.
Work out price in collaboration with other teams to ensure complete buy-in. Determine what facts they need to be confident in their pricing and defend it to the buyer. How can salespeople persuade customers to pay a price they don’t believe in?
Other teams may provide you with information you would not have considered, such as competition and peer pricing, or how sales sells goods and services.
In the end, it is the client who suffers if these procedures are not implemented. Customers expect you to try your best to provide them with the greatest product and service at a reasonable price.
You will take too long to send estimates and pricing to clients if you do not undertake the dirty but necessary task of field work and get buy-in from key teams, including leadership. As a consequence, you will lose your competitive advantage.
Thanks to Gabriel Smith at Business 2 Community whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.
