With a product configurator, you can configure products
07 October 2011
But can you also sell products with it?
Many industrial companies now have access to product configurators: tools that enable you to turn a generic product – with multiple options and characteristics – into a specific product variant. There is nothing wrong with that. Without a product configurator, it is difficult to monitor the rules that determine which options and characteristics can be combined and which ones cannot be combined. The product configurator ensures that an accurate bill of materials can be compiled. But is that adequate to score sales with your customer?
Problem
The problem is that customers don’t buy bills of materials. Customers have needs. And, at times, customers are in pain without knowing what’s causing their pain. The use of a product configurator in the sales process might help your sales department, but will it also help the customer?
Advising
In the competitive battle for customers, the focus is increasingly being placed on advising the customer. The customer would like to be assisted in discovering the bottlenecks and in finding a solution. In this process, the customer must be able to allow his decision-making criteria to play a role. For some customers, sustainability plays a large role, while for other customers it's the total cost of ownership, and for still other customers it's the reliability of delivery. Wouldn’t it be great if the sales rep could immediately show the customer what the effect of these criteria would be on the solution that is being offered? And wouldn’t it be great if the sales rep can show what would happen if the considerations of the criteria change?
Well-founded advice
That is precisely what we mean by Guided Selling: help the sales rep ask the right questions to enable you to find out what the customer actually needs – not in terms of product functions, but in terms of the customer’s goals. You not only get more information from the customer than you ever had before, but the customer also gets well-founded advice. Every customer enjoys that, which increases the likelihood that you will make a sale. Guided Selling helps you configure products correctly, but above all Guided Selling also helps you configure the right products. And in that way, you remain a step ahead of your competitors.
Otto van der Tang is Managing Director at Sofon - supplier of sales support software. As Otto has a lot of contact with clients, he has a clear insight into how companies that deliver customer-specific products and services can realize improvements within their sales and quotation process.
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