When to follow or lead a customer?

I have heard it so many times: “we were not successful but it is all the customer’s fault”. “He is difficult to manage, makes illogical and stupid decisions, doesn’t know what he wants… etc”. To be honest, I also have done it myself in the past.

The reality is however, that it is never ‘because of the customer’. It is because people who interact with the customer don’t have the necessary skills to gain the required level of trust from that customer. Once you build up this trust level, all the above problems disappear as snow under the sun.

In reality, we see too many customer-facing people making 2 important interaction mistakes:

1. They follow too much, they accept everything that the customer says or wants and are only acting in a ‘reactive’ mode. Saying ‘no’ is not an option for them. This is a dangerous situation. In a sales process, you will rarely win a deal if you are just a follower. In a service situation, the customer generally wants more than you have initially foreseen in your proposal or solution. You risk your project to become unprofitable, because these people have difficulties to manage the customer’s expectations.
2. They lead too much. Some people think that they are more intelligent than the customer, they know it better, they have more experience…  In reality, this is happening a lot amongst senior technical people. They are the master of their solution and nobody knows it better than them. What they forget is that the success of a project is only determined for 10% by technical quality, and for 90% by communication quality. They don’t care nor show empathy for their customer, they are only interested in the technical beauty of their solution. Customers will never trust this kind of people fully.

Every customer can be quite different and the interactions with them can be complex. Many people think they have to try to lead their customers by being proactive, adding value etc… True, but not too soon! Trying to lead customers when you don’t know them, will not have the expected impact. You will create a perception of arrogance, and this is not what you want.

The golden rule is that you first have to show care and empathy to your prospects/customers. You have to listen, try to understand who they are, their drivers, ambitions, professional situation, their company etc. You need to genuinely want to help your customer. The customer has to feel that he is understood and respected. Here, you are following your customer.  You acknowledge his existence, his power, his intelligence, his emotions, the way he wants to work etc…

Once you fully understand your customer, his thinking, his emotions… you can start to lead him. As a sales or delivery person, you have certainly your own vision about the process, the solution, the way of working etc.  Once you have gained a certain level of trust, you can start adding value in your conversations, not by telling how you see the next steps, but by asking strategic questions that trigger the customer’s thinking in a way that he recognises that his vision has some shortcomings. This is the ideal moment to start proposing carefully your ideas to fill in that gaps. Now, you are acting in a ‘pro-active’ mode.

You are unconsciously taking him into a situation where you are in the driving seat. The customer is now following you. Once this is the case you have gained his trust.

The best customer-facing people are able to consciously alternate between following and leading a customer and gain a level of trust that competitors will never have.

Peter Janssens, Co-Founder WinIgnite