What Works: The Key to Customer Conversion is Immediacy
by Leeia Ladipoh on October 13th, 2008
Whether you own a small brick and mortar business or a business that operates online, one of the greatest tools you can have at your disposal is the ability to act on information given to you by a potential customer and turning it into a conversion.
What Is Immediacy?
This process is generally referred to as immediacy; it means identifying exactly what it is that a customer wants at your point of contact through the correct interaction and then outlining exactly how you can fulfill their need.
The faster you can obtain and analyze information from a prospect, the less chance there is that the prospect will move on to a competitor before conversion.
Applying Immediacy to Your Business
So how do you go about implementing a policy of immediacy within your own business? Well, for a brick and mortar business it is a matter of having an adaptable sales pitch. You know that someone is interested in what your business has to offer just from the fact that they show up.
From there, the conversion is up to you. You want to find out how they found out about your business and which products exactly caught their eye, then go into detail about how the product can fill their needs and then make an attempt at closing the sale.
The whole pitch revolves around interpersonal communication; body language, vocabulary, and so on. And of course, you don’t want the prospect walking out of your store (online or otherwise) without making a purchase.
Immediacy and Online Businesses
For an online business, the aspect of immediacy can be a little bit trickier, largely because of the tools at your disposal.
Fortunately, innovations in analytical tools have allowed online business owners greater access to real time measuring tools which can determine what the people who are surfing your site are looking for most often.
Good analysis of this information (and it is relatively inexpensive as well, particularly when compared to the results proper use can yield) turned into a proactive pitch as soon as possible will, more often than not, allow you to complete the conversion.
In the Web 2.0 world, online business owners have the opportunity to put immediacy into action in much the same way as the owner of a brick and mortar business would. Any small business owner is working any time they go to a social function; if there are people there who might need their services of products, they are sure to let them know.
Using platforms like MySpace and Facebook allows business owners ample opportunity not only to advertise, but to see the immediate effects of that advertising and to act accordingly.
In other words, immediacy has come to cyberspace, even without the use of specific tools.
The ability to act on a prospect as soon as possible will help the business owner to obtain more conversions. Immediacy works, and you have to have an idea in place to implement this important tool into your business success kit.