{"id":10083,"date":"2020-07-08T18:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T22:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=10083"},"modified":"2020-07-10T20:45:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-11T00:45:56","slug":"understanding-customer-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/understanding-customer-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Customer Needs: Your Guide to Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why is understanding customer needs<\/a> so important in the sales process? How can SPIN selling help?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Understanding customer needs not only helps you make a customer connection<\/a>, but also helps form and eventually close the sale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Understanding Customer Needs<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In sales, a need is defined as a want or problem stated by the customer that the seller can address<\/strong>. Salespeople discover, develop, and work on understanding customer needs and expectations in the investigating stage of a call. This requires both questioning skills and an understanding of how customer needs develop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to fully commit to understanding customer needs and expectations, you need to know that needs develop differently in small and large sales, and they require different sales approaches to gain commitment<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A customer\u2019s need to buy a relatively inexpensive item can develop quickly, with little or no input from a salesperson. For example, you might be walking through an airport, and a $15 gadget in a store display catches your eye. Within a few seconds of looking at it, you feel a need to buy it. There\u2019s very little time between the development of the need and your commitment to buy the gadget. Similarly, in a small sale, asking one or two problem questions<\/a> that highlight a need may be enough to motivate the customer to buy a relatively inexpensive item immediately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, a customer’s perceived need for a bigger-ticket purchase takes much longer to develop. A sales rep uncovers and \u201cdevelops\u201d the need by exploring a problem the product will address, and creating an urgency to address it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often, sales reps who are deemed \u201cweak closers\u201d are actually poor investigators\u2014they fail to get commitments because they haven\u2019t sufficiently developed the customer\u2019s needs in the investigating stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sales reps in major sales<\/a> need special skills to help customers develop needs; the key is using SPIN questions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Needs in Different-Size Sales<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The differences between small and large sales underscore why reps in major sales need a unique skill set. This is part of understanding the marketplace and customer needs. Consider the example of the $15 gadget purchase at the airport compared to a large purchase:<\/p>\n\n\n\n