Learning To Listen Is Harder Than It Seems

Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to present to a group of solution providers and OEMs that are allied with Business Objects and that represent a cadre of different business intelligence applications. My travel arrangements made it necessary for me to buzz to the airport immediately after I walked offstage, but the e-mails I received afterward were mainly concerned with one slide I put up on the screen: the poor opinion that customers have of the IT services industry.

HEATHER CLANCY Can be reached via e-mail at hclancy@cmp.com.

The data came from a study I found on a Web site called RainToday.com, a research and marketing organization, and are part of a study of 200 IT spending decision-makers called "How Clients Buy: The Benchmark Report on Professional Services Marketing and Selling from the Client Perspective."

The results indicated that while about half of customers are "satisfied" with their IT services provider, a full 66 percent of them were at the same time open to switching suppliers. Perhaps even more scary was the fact that less than a third of the companies that described themselves as "very satisfied" with their IT services supplier also could be described as dependably loyal clients. When asked why, approximately 40 percent of the buyers said it was because they felt the solutions they had been sold didn't really meet their true needs.

It's no mystery that the IT decision-making process has been transformed dramatically in just the past two or three years, as managers who once used to shun the IT department look for ways technology can help them keep a lid on costs and make informed marketing and sales moves more quickly. What is less clear is how to talk to these customer prospects in the language they want to hear: the language of business.

With a good portion of the year still ahead of us, it may be time for you to ask whether or not you and your sales team are really talking the language of solutions or whether the center of your dialogues is still a particular product for which you're trying to earn a cool quarterly spif. Do your compensation plans for both technical and sales personnel include an ongoing customer satisfaction component, much like the client surveys that some of your vendors require of you in order to earn certain discount levels? For that matter, how willing are you to let your customers lead the dialogue and simply listen before offering up your advice?

I believe there are two simple things you can do to brighten this dismal outlook. The first is to remember many of your customers are a whole lot more savvy about IT than they were just two years ago—they're looking for you to help make the link to their bottom line. The second is to sit back and listen before you advise. Not only will it help build goodwill with your clients, but it may open the door to solution possibilities you haven't yet dreamed of.

What are your customers telling you?
CRN Editor Heather Clancy welcomes letters at hclancy@cmp.com.