Offering Discounts: How Homeowners Will Respond to Incentives

Consumers are preconditioned to look for shortcuts. Shopping is now more of a sport than ever – pricing battles online, value ratings based on comparisons with other vendors, and basic word-of-mouth reviews all contribute to the psychology of a buyer.

So, when you arrive at the kitchen table (or Zoom presentation) when you’re introducing your best options, that same ‘evaluation skill’ that is developed by most savvy customers kicks in, and your homeowners begin their decision-making process. This is where Pricebook makes your job easy.

Above and beyond the comparison-method of Pricebook’s best-better-good presentation format, the introduction of discounts (seasonal, manufacturer, or dealer specials) can be an effective sales tactic to help close more deals.

Offering a discount communicates to the homeowner:

• We value your business, and we want you to tell others about us
• We understand this is a large investment, and we are flexible in our pricing to win your business
• We realize you have a choice of many other companies, but we want you to choose us

Let’s take it from another perspective. The Daily Question: What’s for Dinner?

Making a decision on what to have for dinner is easy. There’s very little pain or risk in choosing one dinner favorite over another. That’s because the factors that go into preparing and enjoying the meal are well known and understood. Prep time, ingredients, cost of materials, flavor – these components are all quickly measured – and then quickly forgotten. “I wish we had decided on tacos instead of cheeseburgers last Tuesday.” – said nobody ever.

If you’re replacing an entire furnace or installing a multi-stage HVAC system for your home, there’s so much more riding on this decision – and with good reason. The homeowner can–and will–take their time, learning about each option, and apply their ‘evaluation’ to the information they’ve received.

This is exactly what Pricebook was designed to do for dealers: make presenting multiple options easy, provide complete equipment data for homeowners, and display pricing that everyone can understand – in order to provide solutions for the homeowner.

Which brings us back to discounts. The discount isn’t fancy, fashionable, or new. Offering a discount is a sales tool. It incentivizes the homeowner’s decision, giving them assurance that the choice they’re making is one based on solid data AND immediate value. Yes – it applies an urgency to the homeowner to make a decision.

In the end, the homeowner does have a decision to make. They are the ones with the problem – you’re the one with the solution. With Pricebook, you’ve already presented the options that will solve their problems. The discount is one tool that – when applied – can be effective in bringing the decision to a close.

We’ve talked about transparency in the sales process, too – check out our post here.