Customer Obsession: Negotiating the Ideal Customer Relationship

If you want to build your negotiation strategy around customer obsession, you need to understand psychology, expectations, and relationships. Only by connecting with clients where they are can you ensure deals that work for everyone. 

Understanding Customer Experience 

A customer will have three levels of interaction with your company. 

• Brand Experience – How they feel and interact with your brand marketing, from your name to your ads
• User Experience – How they engage with your products when they have them installed
• Customer Experience – How it feels to be a customer of your company 

The customer experience is at once all-encompassing and hyper-specific. It includes every interaction with your team, from online conversations to how your sales team dresses and how trustworthy and approachable you feel. The value of your company isn’t only in your product. It also lies in how you interact with customers on a personal level. 

To be properly customer-obsessed, there are several factors you need to consider and plan for with every interaction. Your team should work to understand and work with each client’s 

• Organisation and Values – What is important to them? How does their company operate? 
• Strategies – Where do they want to be in the next 2-3 years? How can you help them accomplish this? 
• Personalities – What will the individual client or buyer respond well to? What are their specific pain points? 
• Cultures – How does their geographical history inform their values and expectations? 

To see the full picture of these factors, you need to think of them as an iceberg. The words and actions that you see are only the tip. Beneath the surface, you will find your customers’ beliefs, biases, dreams, and feelings. 

The Psychology Behind Negotiations 

Understanding how to successfully negotiate with clients requires you to understand how they think and feel. Deldt has found these models of psychology to be extremely effective over the years. 

Getting Eye-to-Eye

There are ten motives that each person you interact with will have. Some will be focused on only one or two, while others will be a consistent spread. These include 

• Connection 
• Status
• Power
• Curiosity
• Hands-On 
• Performance 
• Structure 
• Recognition 
• Safety 
• Autonomy 

Each person will land somewhere on a scale of -5 to +5 for each of these values. This is also true for every company. Before going into a negotiation, you should understand where you land on these values, where your customer lands, and how you can adjust to reach their eye level. 

For example, if you typically value status at a -3 but your client values it at +3, you can work to respect their status. Rather than focusing fully on the negotiation, you can take a moment to compliment their car, watch, or outfit.

Alternatively, if your company thrives in curiosity, but the buyer rates it at -3, you will want to stay aligned with what they know, avoid pushing new ideas, and show that you cherish their given business. 

When you are at the same level for values and reach their eye level, communication becomes simple. You may need to change and adapt for every single negotiation, but your customers will see that you understand them and align with their values. 

The Lewis Model 

After working in over 30 countries across the globe, Richard D Lewis developed a model of how different cultures operate. He split them into three major groups and placed each country on a spectrum within those modes. 

• Linear Active – The cool, factual, decisive planners. Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg 
• Multi-Active – The warm, emotional, impulsive planners. Argentina, Mexico, Brazil
• Reactive – The courteous, amiable, accommodating, compromisers. Vietnam, China, Japan

When you are operating an international company, you need to understand and adjust your strategy of negotiation to meet your client within their cultural setting. 

Heldt’s team is based in Germany, one of the core cultures for the Linear Active mode. He wanted to send some of his managers to negotiate with clients in Italy. Italy falls far closer to the Multi-Active mode. This drastic difference in culture can cause roadblocks when working together. 

To prepare for the different cultures, Heldt sent them to Italy without any PowerPoint or data. He simply instructed them to have dinner with different clients and connect with them. This strategy brought home €240,000. 

To find the eccentricities and values of each new culture, you can find people from that culture internally. 

Key Factors in Customer Obsession 

If you want to cultivate customer obsession in your negotiations and beyond, you need these core competencies. Your team needs to build and maintain them at every opportunity. 

Trust

Robert Bosch famously said, “I’d rather lose money than trust.” This is the base for every customer-based interaction. Trust must be earned over time, so you need to protect it whenever you can. 

Understanding the values that you and your customer hold helps to build this trust. Consistency is key.  

Communication 

It’s important to remember that you are constantly communicating, even if you aren’t using your words. Body language, consistency, and how you present yourself all communicate volumes. 

Take the time to curate your appearance and mannerisms to build up the relationship you have with people. Focus on the cause and effect of your actions, words, and experience. 

Negotiation 

Negotiating with customers is far more about people than numbers. You need to be skilled at effective communication, empathy, and flexibility to create a genuine bond and achieve what you need. 

Have several possible paths to success so that you can change your strategy to fit the situation. Adjust your mindset to fit each situation. 

The biggest thing to remember during these negotiations is to get to eye level with your client. Meet them where they are and they will be far more willing to engage with you. 

Conclusion 

Sales and pricing teams need to understand the inner workings of their customers. It isn’t enough to have a stand-out product or the best deals, B2B companies need to have the best relationships. 

Understanding the values, cultural background, and communication styles of your customers will help set you apart from the average company. Using this information to tailor your negotiations to the needs of each client is the best way to show your customer obsession and come out on top every time.