Customers have changed.
They aren’t just informed about the products they’re buying; they’re super informed. In some instances, a customer may even know more about a product than the salesperson because no salesperson in the world has time to monitor every consumer review and competitor promotion.
A few clicks of a mouse later and suddenly you’re playing catch-up trying to answer unexpected, informed questions from a customer.
Selling to the super informed customer is—dare I say it—super important, so here are a few things to keep in mind.
Go Where Your Customers Are
Where are customers getting their information online? Social media? Yelp? Yellowpages?
Wherever they are that’s where you should be too so you can monitor at least a portion of what’s being said about your brand.
Think of how impressed a client will be if you address that negative review on Yelp before they have a chance to bring it up. It builds trust and rapport, and you show the client that you’re still the expert.
Put Yourself Out There
The best way to control the kind of information floating around about your brand is to actually contribute content to the web.
This is where a solid blog and a good SEO strategy come in.
When clients Google you, what do they see? Best-case scenario, they end up on your blog or a white paper you published.
Then you know exactly what kind of information they’re getting into.
Be Completely Honest
It’s impossible to know everything that’s going on across the web, which means you won’t have an answer for everything—no matter how hard you try.
It’s always better, to be honest than it is to stumble your way through an answer that isn’t exactly reliable.
When a customer stumps you, suck up your pride, admit that’s it’s a good question (or a very legitimate concern), and that you’ll get back to them with the right answer.
What steps are you taking to better reach well-informed customers?