Radical Value: How to Take Your Company to the Next Level Through Radical Customer Centricity by Boundy Mark

Author:Boundy, Mark [Boundy, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

SEVEN

Chapter 7: Looking For Value Through The Customer’s Eyes

Looking for Value Through the Customer’s Eyes

Value can occur just about anywhere in your customer enterprise. Look through the business profile of a prospect to see where they may appreciate your offer’s contribution... and don’t just look in all of the obvious places. Look at some of the ways value can be generated in a list like the one below:

Figure 7.1 Partial list of possible business value creators

Remember: any of the value above can be discovered and/or provided by you or channel partners.

By Offering Value, Your Company Starts to Be Of Value

Here is how the value multiplier effect works. By delivering an offer that helps your customer achieve valued outcomes, your company starts a virtuous cycle. Companies want to do business with suppliers who make them more successful. Adding value to a customer’s business tends to multiply value back to yours.

As the value you bring to your customer grows, the relationship between your two companies changes.

Different Levels of Relationship Value — How the Customer Sees You

Columbia University’s Noel Capon, in his authoritative work on Key Account Management and Planning [36] , identified three quality levels of the customer relationship. Miller Heiman Group’s CSO Insights [37] uses five: inserting two new intermediate categories in positions two and four between Capon’s at levels one, three, and five. A quick Google search will find other relationship hierarchies; four levels is a common number. Level names/labels are different but synonymous. Regardless of the number of levels, higher customer relationship levels are associated with increasing customer-valued outcomes.

A bottom-level/basic customer-vendor relationship consists of meeting customer specifications/requirements, usually accepting customer terms & conditions with little modifications. Customers see little differentiation between such suppliers and are motivated to break ties via price, delivery, payment terms, and the like.

A vendor moves up the hierarchy by exceeding specs in some customer-valued way. Price ties are broken on functional differences, sometimes even supporting modest price premiums. Personal relationships, trust, and credibility start to matter at this level since service levels might be one of the “exceeding specs” factors a seller provides.

The middle level(s) have more needs satisfaction and consultative conversations, and customers regularly connect product/service to an outcome. Sellers can have access to project leads and budget owners for these projects and can position value-for-price somewhat effectively. Personal credibility and standard business perspectives are so common at this level that they are identifying characteristics.

In the upper level(s), a complex/consensus sale turns into a mission-critical sale . Customers see the seller’s product/service as solving their business level issues, sometimes even achieving important strategic outcomes. Some sources name these upper levels after the interconnectedness of such relationships. The price of the seller’s offer is de-emphasized due to the value of the outcome. In many cases, the outcome delivered can be felt multiple org chart levels above the authorized purchase signature level for the product or service itself. Suppliers have numerous cross-functional trusting relationships between functional peers, and there is a genuine partnership dynamic in play.

Customers

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