In your funnel optimization you may seek to flatten out cycles of hurry and wait. Still, I believe it is important to recognize the need for the customer to take time to make decisions and build wait into your customer journeys.
This week I put my condo up for sale. It felt like a go live!
The photographers came yesterday and took beautiful pictures. The listing will go up today or tomorrow.
There was lots of drama to get here. First my washer leaked three weekends ago and that delayed us while I got it fixed. Then two weekends ago, one of our security guard concierges tested positive for COVID. The photographers wanted to pause a week to make sure it was an isolated case, and they weren’t coming to a building with an outbreak. (It was an isolated case. She is home recovering.) Finally, this past weekend I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned again. Everything removed from countertops. Floors washed and rugs vacuumed. I even ironed my duvet cover. The place was perfect when the photographers arrived.
Now we wait for a buyer to appear.
After that, it will all speed up again in the negotiations!
I adopted the phrase hurry up and wait when I did major go lives and upgrades of systems with millions of users. With any major rollout there is always a need to rush to get something done and then present it to the customer for approval. Or a wait until they or another vendor completes their part of the system. The path to go live is often an alternating cycle of intense activity and time waiting.
Learning to surf hurry up and wait has shaped my approach to engagement with customers.
I realize that, as the seller, you need to be prepared for any engagement with the customer. Certainly, that preparation can entail a lot of behind-the-scenes drama to be exactly right. Yet in the end, the decision to engage lies with the customer. Then you need to hurry up and respond.
In your funnel optimization you may seek to flatten out these cycles. The aim of growth is often to be in constant hurry with some customer. And you may use sales tactics, like timed discount offers, to create an urgency to buy so that you don’t wait. Or if you do nurture activities in the wait time. You don’t always notice wait.
Still, I believe it is important to recognize the need for the customer to take time to make decisions and build wait into your customer journeys. To include in your measurement metrics like Time to Marketing Qualified Lead, Time to Opportunity, and Time to Close. Part of funnel optimization is to balance our drive to shorten wait with the customers need to take time to make a good decision.
To surf hurry up and wait.
Where do you see this showing up in your work?
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