Do You Help Your Customers Define Their Needs?

I recently came across this blog I wrote back in 2012. The information is worth repeating. When a customer is searching for new packaging equipment do you assist them in defining their needs, or try to sell them your equipment? Hopefully, you are helping them define their needs. In the long run, this will benefit everyone.

Our company has put together several questionnaires that we send to companies that have contacted us in need of packaging machinery. Each questionnaire covers a different type of machine, depending on what the end user is hoping to accomplish (i.e. they want containers capped or bulk containers sorted and placed on the production line). The questionnaire covers everything they could possibly consider for both their current need and potential future need for that equipment. In many cases the customer is reminded by the questionnaire to check on something they may have overlooked in their search for the right equipment. They may determine that some of the questions are not important to their needs and that is fine, but now it won’t come up later as being forgotten.

We find this method of ‘selling’ a win-win situation. By the time the customer is ready to place their Purchase Order they are confident that they are making the right decision having covered every possibility and looked at all the options.

The author, Marge Bonura, is the Director of Sales & Marketing for New England Machinery, Inc. (NEM). NEM is a leading packaging machinery manufacturer of bottle unscramblers, cappers, orienters, retorquers, lidders, pluggers, pump sorter/placers, scoop feeders, hopper elevators and much more. The company has been in business since 1974 selling to the food, beverage, pharmaceutical, personal care, chemical, household products, automotive and other industries. For more information on NEM, visit their website at www.neminc.com.