By Teresa (Hilligoss) Goodnight
TGoodnight@zayo.com
Continuation of Guest Blogger Teresa Hilligoss Goodnight’s series “SALES AND CUSTOMER SERVICE: TELECOM EVOLUTION’S MISSING LINK?”
An incredibly sharp friend who is a buyer at a large wholesale telecom company once told me a story. Their sales were dropping as fast as their prices. What could they do to get things moving? They needed revenue fast. It occurred to their sales team that inside their own company was one of the largest groups of telecom buyers in the industry. They thought “Hmmm…Why don’t we ask THEM what they look for in a vendor?” The novel idea led them to my friend’s team, who actually left them astonished with their answers. PRICE WASN’T ON THE TOP OF THE LIST. In fact, it wasn’t even discussed until the sales team brought it up. My friend’s answers were reiterated by the rest of the team with this enormous buying power. Surprisingly, instead of pricing, they stressed flexibility, quick turn-around on pricing, responsiveness, service delivery, management of orders in queue and network reliability. The conclusion was astounding-price didn’t even factor in if the service stunk.
My friend said the sales team was surprised. The fact was that the big bad sales team of the big bad company didn’t want to believe that so many other factors (including their knowledge of the network, proactive solutions, fast quotes and relationships) were much more important to their buyers than price. How could that be? Was it possible that THEY were at fault? If you took away under-pricing-would these “highly successful” sales people have a leg to stand on? How would they survive a post mortem funnel call without price as a reason to cite from week to week? What if their CEO/VP of Sales took away the credibility of losing deals on price (some would rightfully argue price never had credibility to lose)? Where would they be?
So what do you think happened next? The project was abandoned and considered a waste of time. I love saying it. It makes me laugh every time. Of course, the sales team ignored the answers, assumed they still knew best and continued to cut prices across the board until there was little or no margin left in the tier 1 business model in telecommunications. Their belief about price didn’t align with the information they found–so they dismissed it. This is a great example of a belief that hasn’t been tested having a negative impact.
What happens when a company doesn’t believe they offer value, then cuts pricing and thereby drives profit margins to miniscule upticks and even substantial losses? From what I’ve seen in the last 15 years–I’d say “Welcome to telecom 101.”
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