As markets consolidate, larger suppliers emerge that are able to lower their pricing through economies of scale and lower cost production. As a result, price pressure is often blamed as the reason for the loss of a customer. But is price truly the reason when we see customers move to a different supplier? Many companies do not understand what drives their customers’ buying criteria and supplier selection decisions.  Rather than trying to compete strictly by reducing costs,  stay close to your customers and work hard to create and communicate your unique value.

How to Reveal Customer Buying Criteria

If it’s been awhile since you explored your customers’ buying criteria and supplier selection process now may be the time to invest in this initiative. This work often entails conducting customer research. The goal of such research is to surface why your customers buy from you, what they like about working with your company, and what they feel is not working or could be improved.

Consider questions such as these when creating your research. 

• What problem are you trying to solve for your business with these products
• How do you expect these specific products to solve this problem?
• What buying criteria do you use in selecting the product and why are these important?
• Who is involved is creating the buying criteria?
• Who is involved in evaluating how well the products meet the buying criteria?
• How are suppliers being selected and evaluated?
• Who in the organization participated in the supplier selection process
• For existing customers, why do they do business with you and what could be improved?
• For prospective customers, what do they like about the suppliers they use, what would it take for them to do business with you.

By understanding why products are being bought, buy whom and from whom, you can adjust your business plan and Marketing plan. Conducting this kind of research through a neutral resource will help you to begin to understand what your true value is in the market and to your customers.

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Align Your Customers’ Buying Criteria With Their Buying Process

You’ve unearthed your customers’ buying criteria. The next step is to align these with how your customer’s buy.  One of the primary roles of Marketing is to motivate targets to engage in a dialogue with our respective organizations and in doing so find enough value in our offer to take the appropriate action toward purchase. Understanding the buying process of customers, what decision criteria they use to evaluate product/services in our space, who needs to have this information and when, and what steps they take toward making a purchasing decision is one of the most important services Marketing provides. 

Mapping the buying process and linking these to your customer’s buying criteria is essential to pipeline engineering. Pipeline engineering reflects a specific stage within your customer’s journey. Below is a quick outline of some of the key steps. For more help, check out the Pipeline Engineering workshop.

• Clarify the customer segments business issue. (If you don’t know, conduct some research and/or engage your customer advisory board).
• Ensure your offer superbly addresses this business issue. If it doesn’t you may need to revisit your offer and its positioning.
• Capture and organize the customer’s buying process and the decision that needs to be made to take the target from one stage in the process to the next. This involves understanding the logical culmination of activities, what we call the incremental behavioral commitments, the customer takes and asks you to take toward the execution of the purchase. The more you understand what these activities are, the more deliberate you can be in developing the appropriate strategies and tactics that address these. As a result, we have an opportunity to shorten your sales cycles and waste less time and money.
• Determine the what touch points and channels are most effective at each decision point. As part of the buying process, every customer needs to decide whether your company offers enough value to take any action. They must believe that what you offer can help them resolve their problem. Only then will they take the next step which is determine whether what you offer will deliver required results. This necessitates that you know what results are required and be able to illustrate how your offer produces these results. These initial steps are table stakes for moving customers to the next step in consideration and ultimately consumption.  

Learn more with the white paper Don’t Waste Your Bullets: Customer Engagement To Accelerate Revenue And Improve Alignment. 

FAQ:

• The business problems customers are solving
• How your products address those problems
• The criteria used for supplier and product selection
• Who is involved in creating and evaluating these criteria
• What customers like and want improved about your offering
• What would make prospects switch to your company

• What problem are you trying to solve with these products/services?
• What specific criteria are most important in supplier selection and why?
• Who defines and evaluates these criteria?
• For existing customers: Why do you stay, and what could be improved?
• For prospects: What do you value in your current suppliers, and what would prompt you to switch?

• Map the customer’s buying journey, including decision stages and behavioral commitments
• Ensure your offer addresses the customer’s key business issues
• Tailor your strategies, touchpoints, and channels to support decision-making at each stage
• Demonstrate the value and results your solution delivers at critical decision points

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