It Shouldn’t Be Complicated

Last week, I spoke with the owner of a successful window washing business. His business was healthy and growing but he had a few concerns because growth had slowed and he was starting to lose some business based on price.

We spoke about how helpful a low value flanking offering can be when you start to see some price sensitive business leak away. He said that he has defined a lower-priced service – second story windows get washed with a squeegee instead of by hand. This reduces costs – no scaffolding and less time on site – that he can pass on through lower prices.

His big concern was how to avoid cannibalizing his very loyal, high-value business. We discussed who the price sensitive customers were. Turns out they typically found his number (and those of his competitors) in the Yellow Pages and/or were from a few specific towns. With this little insight, he developed two simple screens. The first was to note the telephone exchange the call was coming in from. The second was to ask the caller how they found out about his firm. If they said through the Yellow Pages and/or were calling from specific telephone exchanges, they are now offered the low-value flanker as an option. His regular customers that keep returning because of service and quality will continue to get the same premium offering at a fair price.

So often we over complicate the idea of price and offering segmentation. All it takes is a little knowledge about you customers and two or three simple questions to enable sales people to identify who they are speaking with. Much easier than getting streak-free windows!