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The sales process has not changed, but the way customers move through it has changed dramatically. Pricing is no longer just part of the selection stage. It is almost always the leading question in the consideration stage. If you are not listing pricing on your website, you are losing customers you never hear from.
Transparent pricing builds trust before the first call.
You hear about a product or service and research it that evening from the couch. You skim the company's homepage to make sure it is what you are looking for. What is the next thing you look for? Pricing.
If you find it, you decide whether it is good value and within budget, and if it is you keep reading. If you do not find it, you may jot a note to email for details, or you move on. If you write the note, the odds of following through are slim. You do not want to be hounded by a salesperson for something you are not sure you need because you do not know what it costs. You are busy, so you abandon the search.
Your customers' online habits are the same as yours.
We recently helped a client select a content distribution vendor. They had a defined set of needs and had already identified candidates.
One vendor sent a proposal within days that addressed the client's specific needs and put all the pricing on page one, then followed with a short presentation and answered our questions. The second vendor scheduled an hour-long walkthrough of features and benefits, ended it by asking whether we would like to see pricing and then spent two more calls talking through a pricing model based on what they thought the client could spend rather than what the client needed.
The second vendor had the better platform. They still lost, because they failed to sell the most important thing in the process: trust.
Customers want a quality product at a fair price. Transparency about pricing builds trust. Dancing around it does the opposite and leaves one question in the customer's head: what are you hiding?
Pricing is one of many things a customer evaluates. When you tell the complete story, including price, customers judge your company and your product on their merits, and the fear of being undercut on price fades.
We believe our clients should give customers pricing information up front, so we do the same. Our rate and the three ways we bill are on our Pricing page. Take a look and let us know what you think on our ‣ page.