Read on for tips about managing selling price expectations in the short term, streamlining your sales channels, and moving customers onto the platform.
Relax your ASP expectations in the near term
Get the “flywheel” spinning for long-term ASP expansion.
While the goal is to increase Average Selling Prices (ASPs), you should relax this expectation in the short term. While this may seem counterintuitive, it's critical. The same buyer shouldn't be expected to pay more just because they are buying through one mechanism versus another.
The goal has to be to get the “flywheel” spinning for long term ASP expansion. With more adoption of the platform, you will:
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Get better data.
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Spend less time with each customer.
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Spend time adding more customers.
More customers will drive more competition and bring in more data, which drives even better decision making, and so on.
Set yourself up for success
Don’t sell the same product for less through a different channel.
If buyers know that they can buy the same product at a lower price by calling their reps directly or by using traditional processes, that’s what they will do. If this is allowed to continue, your customers won't adopt PhoneX, and you will find that more customers want to stick with “the old way of doing things.” Ultimately, buyers will do whatever it takes to get a lower price, even if it is less convenient.
Transition to the platform while minimizing risk
Move one group of customers at a time onto the platform.
While it's critical to avoid pricing inconsistencies across channels, because it can create a disincentive for your customers to transition to the platform, you may be hesitant to force all buyers to transition to the new platform all at once, for fear of slowing down your sales.
One way to handle this is to segment your customers and transition one segment at a time. For instance, you might move all of your smaller buyers onto the platform and cut off all other channels for these buyers. You could then move to the next group, and so on, until you have only your largest buyers with an option to buy outside the platform.
It isn't reasonable to expect the transition to happen right away, and with some larger customers, it may never happen. You may always have to handle the largest of your customers in a special way. Read more about white glove service.
No strategy will be successful, however, if you price higher on PhoneX than outside the system.