“I want to pay even more!” is what I was told one day when offering to help save money on gas and electricity.
It was 2001. I was tied to a dialler, selling gas and electricity for Npower, working for a call centre called The Listening Company in Richmond.
The script was to talk the customer through a cost-saving calculator to show them how Npower was cheaper and would save them money. However, Npower often wasn’t cheaper.
It’s the same gas and electricity, no matter who you buy it from, so it was very hard to dress it up as “Ah, but it’s Npower, this is so much better than British Gas…”
One day, I rang a lady at home, went through the script, and then realised we were more expensive. I was about to politely end the call when she said:
“Okay, so how can you make it cost even more?”
I was surprised, as I had never heard this in the thousands of Npower calls I had made before. Slightly confused, I asked what she meant.
She said, “I don’t want to save money. In fact, I NEED this to cost a lot more, I don’t pay this bill, my ex-husband does! How do we make this more expensive?”
“Well, we could remove the standing charge, which will increase your unit rate, and if you’re using more gas and electricity, it will be more expensive?” I replied. She took it.
An odd call, however it taught me the difference between value and price. The value to her wasn’t cheaper electricity, the value was in making her ex pay more money!
Everyone perceives different value in what you are offering. What is worth £1,000 to one person could be worth £100,000 to another.
Make sure that your sales process identifies what the value is to each customer—it’s often something completely unexpected. Using sales techniques like MEDDPICC and SPIN will help you uncover where the customer sees the true value.
