The Paradox of Choice
Watch the author Matt Dixon (1:09) explain reasons for recommending to your prospect:
In the Paradox of Choice Schwartz shares four reasons choice makes people miserable:
The solution may feel obvious: pare down the choices so your prospect doesn’t struggle with the valuation problems leading to indecision.
It’s not that simple.
Two Skills Needed for Effective Recommendations: Proactive Guidance & Advocacy
At some point, high performers purposefully eliminate options from consideration and recommend to their customers what they should buy.
The first skill the authors call “proactive guidance.” The rep shifts from a reactive posture (i.e., “Help me understand your needs”) to a proactive posture (i.e., “Here’s what you need”).
Proactive guidance demonstrably influences win rates.
Win rates jump from 18 percent to 44 percent when reps used this one skill—an improvement of 144 percent (see Figure 4.2).
Proactive guidance may sound like a subtle nudge, a small direction offered to a customer. “This configuration is our most popular,” one rep explained.
Another “most of our new customers start with this plan and then upgrade later as their needs evolve.”
More powerful than making a general recommendation, the rep offers his or her personal recommendation.
This “advocacy” behavior suggests not just the rep personally advocating for a specific choice, but that the salesperson is on the customer’s side in making this decision.
This advocacy technique can lift win rates by 74 percent (see Figure 4.3).
In combination, proactive guidance and advocacy are powerful ways to overcome valuation problems.
High performers use these techniques to break the “paradox of choice” Schwartz tells us can lead to purchasing regret, post-decision dysfunction, and, often, no decision at all.
Their analysis is shared in these graphs.
In instances in which customers experience low levels of indecision when recommend skills are demonstrated at a high level compared to a low level, there’s a 240 percent difference in win rates (see Figure 4.5).
Avoid Amplifying Indecision
Recommendations can overcome the customer’s indecision about what to choose. It’s more important to know what to avoid doing.
Average performers handle customer indecision with more questions: “What’s important to you?” “What are you looking for in a solution?” “Are there questions I can answer for you that would help you decide?”
When a customer is stumped about which option is right, this approach backfires, and significantly so.
When reps diagnose needs and offer their personal recommendation, win rates are 36 percent, well above the average of 26 percent in all calls.
When reps engage in “open-ended diagnosis” not offering any sort of recommendation—win rates plummet to 14 percent.
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