How to Shorten Your Prospect's Decision Making Process

Today we’ll cover the idea of shortening your customers’ decision making process with positive word of mouth. There are essentially 5 stages in the decision making process.

They are:

Give the product a chance and transitions from a “no” to a “maybe”.

Check out the options and investigate the different products available.

Observe the product to check for potential benefits, features and operations to see if there is a fit with their needs.

Become a customer and purchase their first item. They will be discriminate with their first product as they form their opinion of you.

Purchases again and starts spreading positive word of mouth as an advocate of your products.

So, let’s take a closer look at each one of these.

From “No” to “Maybe”

This stage is really important because if your potential customers don’t even take a second look at your products and services, then you have no chance of sealing a deal. This is why you need to offer credible information and well thought out pricing, guarantees and incentives.

Investigating Your Products

At this stage they are taking a closer look at your product line to see if there is actually anything that could benefit their life. This is where you need to make sure your hard information is right out there in front for the customers to see and compare.

Trial Period

Customers often feel more at ease and ready to purchase when there is some sort of a trial in place. They usually want to try vicariously through someone else, so they don’t feel any risk involved. A good way to offer this is through demo videos, product demonstrations or a tour of your facilities. This stage may invoke a reaction of “I tried it and liked it. You should check it out.”

Make a Purchase

At this stage, they have taken the risk of purchasing one of your products or services and are now evaluating how easy, convenient, cost effective and satisfying your product or service is. At this stage a common reaction would be, “It was really easy to use and learn from. It’s really great, you should get it!”

Advocates for Yours Products

At this last stage of decision making the customer is immensely pleased with your product and often keeps using it and/or comes back for more products and services. They are likely telling everyone they know how much they like it, that they use it every day and have already (or will be) back to your establishment for more.

Related: Six Priceless Lessons I've Learned in Business and Life

We talked a minute ago about the different types of purchasers. Now we are going to take a closer look at their characteristics, so you can figure out which tactics are best to use at the right stage of the decision making process.

The Innovator

Wants to stand out from the crowd

Know what’s hot and trendy

Likes “strange” or “weird” new products

Wants to be the first to try and will talk about it animatedly

Early Adopter

Driven by excellence

More concerned with possibilities than realities

Always looking to be a leader

Always looking for a new vision

Middle Majority

Wants to be perceived as competent

Concerned about practicality and easy comparisons

Needs an easy way out if not satisfied

Wants products that meet the industry standard

Late Majority

Generally skeptical and wants to know the risks upfront

Needs to shop around for the best deal

Needs a support system

Wants what everyone else has

Laggard

Needs it to be completely safe and traditional

Needs reassurance that nothing will go wrong

Won’t try new things unless it’s the last resort

Will search for loopholes and problems

Wants to use it in the standard industry way

As you can see, each type of consumer wants something just a little different depending on their personality type. The key to successful word of mouth is to target and cater to each type of consumer. If you need help identifying the types of consumers you are currently helping and how to attract the types you are lacking, try our FREE test drive for the resources and tools you need to get the job done.

Next time we’ll talk about how word of mouth messages are delivered and what you can do to help facilitate that.