Waste service companies must acknowledge The Amazon Effect by providing a “Buy Now” button on their Web sites.
By K. Ryan Hasse
The following is probably the most important information that you will come across for your hauling business. We recommend you take a few minutes and read every word. What you are about to read is abrupt. We do not hold back. We care about your success. We are here to help you compete and win.
Just the Facts
Eighty Percent of Customers Expect to be Able to Buy Your Products and Services Online: 24/7/365 Right Now
Referred to by some as The Amazon Effect, today’s customers want simplicity: Google “garbage service near me”, find a hauler (any hauler with an easy sales portal and a good Yelp review), see a quote, buy, pay, done—two minutes without a “pesky” sales rep. Some customers do not care about your company story. Today’s customers want convenience and immediate gratification.1
A Majority of Buyers Prefer Online Self-Service Via an Online Sales Portal
According to Forbes, 67 percent of customers prefer to shop anonymously. They want the peace and convenience of bypassing the pressure of a sales rep. They want the ability to comparison shop without the sales pitch. According to Forbes, customers want an “almost completely frictionless shopping experience with near-immediate results.” Only 27 percent prefer to talk on the phone. Is your sales organization phone based or via a slow e-mail response? If so, you are on the losing side.
Ninety Percent of Customers Expect a Call Center to Answer their Sales Questions
It is only after customers experience your online sales portal and have a question will they then expect to talk to a customer service representative, rather than dealing with an answering machine or an e-mail. According to Forbes, a four-hour response time is way too long. This is why so many Web sites have chat functions nowadays.
Is your call center up to the task? At 8pm? On Sunday at 10am? On Thanksgiving? Probably not. That is why haulers need to offer an online sales portal backed by an experienced customer call center. The sales portal is 24/7/365 capturing the ‘buy now’ buyer.
A Majority of People are Introverts; Sales Reps are Undesirable
Why do grocery stores have self-service lines? Psychology. According to Myers-Briggs, a majority of people are “I”, as in: Introvert (vs “E”, as in Extravert). In fact, according to the Forbes article, “61 percent would choose using a kiosk over speaking with a sales associate.” It also lowers the cost of sale. With an online sales portal, you can appeal to your customer’s psychological profile and reduce your cost of sale.2
New Customers Judge the Quality of Your Company Based on How Easy it is to Buy Online
Seems a bit ridiculous, right? But the facts are the facts. According to the Forbes, customer perception of your business, and the all-important first impression, weighs heavily on the initial customer experience. Customers equate an easy online sales experience with quality; they are nearly synonymous. A high-quality sales portal exudes organizational quality to today’s customers. If you do not have an online sales portal, you are losing business you never attempted to get. And to today’s on-demand customer, you do not look good.
Expedia and Priceline Have 95 Percent of the U.S. Travel Booking Marketplace3
Think about that for a minute. Did the airline, hotel and car rental industries want to show and compare their prices online for all the world to see? Maybe not. But that is what the customer wanted. Like it or not, online shopping for waste service will happen. It is smarter to be an early adopter, leading the industry, rather than sticking your head in the sand. Leave that non-strategy to your competition.
Mobile Experiences
According to Forbes, “92 percent of shoppers prefer stores that have mobile experiences.” Having a mobile enabled online sales portal is key to the new economy and selling to on-demand customers. In addition, seventy-seven percent of the population now owns a smartphone—do you offer mobile enabled sales? While it is true that ages 18 to 29 have the highest smartphone ownership, ages 30 to 49 and 50 to 64 have astonishingly high ownership percentages as well—89 percent and 73 percent, respectively; even the 65+ retirees have 46 percent. These numbers are slated to increase for all demographics and nearly all of these people will buy waste service at some point in their lives.4 According to Google, three out of four smartphone owners use their phones first to address their immediate needs.5
Purchasing Convenience is Now a Competitive Advantage
The on-demand economy is expanding rapidly across all industries.6 Do you think your company is immune or that the waste industry will escape this fact? Imagine that you are a new homeowner. The trash is piling up in the garage. You pull out your phone and Google “trash service near me”. Who do you find? Most likely a big trash company. They have a “buy now” button. Their price seems fine. Their price is something like you have paid in the past and two minutes later, you are done. The trash in the garage is as good as gone in your mind. Heck, you do not even notice it now. The problem has been solved.
Now, imagine you are the hauler. The potential customer never even called you. Why? Because you are on Page Two of a Google search. And, even if they did find you online, in today’s on-demand economy, phone and e-mail takes too long.
The national companies are big for a reason. They acquire customers. Even if you offer services or a level of customer service that they do not, they have name recognition, a strong search engine ranking, and an online sales portal where customers can see a live quote and sign up for service. Because of this, they can get business and customers you never even knew were looking for service. Sadly, it is not until your driver drives by the new cart that you discover the hauler service switch; a customer you should have gotten but did not because you did not sell to them the way they wanted to buy.
How Do You Win?
Show up to the game! You have got name recognition in your community, right? The first step is to design your Web site to rank well with the search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc). The second step is to offer an online sales portal for your buyers. You can design your own, which can be costly, or you can deploy one already built by a third party. With the right Web site and online sales portal, competing against the big companies is made a lot easier. It is time to show up to the game instead of forfeiting as a no-show.
The Customer Has Changed
No matter how good you think your company is relative to the competition or the big companies, no matter how much of a lock you think you have in your town, the market has changed. The customer has changed. Your inferior competition can win more new business—business you never had a chance at getting—just because they have an online sales portal and you do not. You can ignore it and hope for a change, but, frankly, that is not a winning strategy.
K Ryan Hasse is CEO of SalesStryke Software, creators of The TrashBolt Software Sales System for Haulers, GarbageBolt, a national online waste services booking site, and GarbageBolt for Charity, the loving way to buy waste services. K Ryan Hasse has started several companies, including several tech companies from capital raise to sale. He is actively involved in business consulting, helping businesses reach their goals. He can be reached at (612) 605-6800 or via e-mail at [email protected].
Notes
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/02/22/what-the-amazon-effect-means-for-retailers/#3d9eb5db2ded
https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/my-mbti-results/how-frequent-is-my-type.htm
Investors Business Forum
www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/data/immediate-need-mobile-experience
https://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolis/2017/11/20/impatience-is-a-virtue-how-the-on-demand-economy-is-making-mobile-consumers-impatient/#2c91f622344c