Case Study 4: Economic Buyer Flow
V. Sattui winery in St. Helena, California is busy for a Saturday. It’s a wonderful sunny day in the valley.
The aroma of crushed grapes in the Fall is a fragrant symphony, rich and complex. It’s a warm exhale of the earth, where sweetness and tartness mingle. There’s a whisper of fermentation—a faint, intoxicating tang that hints at transformation.
Rene, newly hired CPO, is having a friendly discussion with Ken, CRO as you approach the private table in the cellar, say hello and sit down.
“Rene and I have a plan.” Ken says to you, smiling. “She’s read this amazing book on Role Modelship and came prepared to handle customers leaving and improve our growth by channeling role models.”
You smile wide. “Sounds great. Tell me more.”
Dark plums and sun-drenched berries are intertwined in a beautiful vase in front of you, softened by hints of green vines and dewy leaves. You notice how much more relaxed Ken is around Rene.
“We’re going to channel a graphic design company and how they handle their cancellation flow, which actually prevents more than 70% of their customers from leaving.” Rene says, her tone firm and kind.
Ken laughs. “It turns out cancellation flow doesn’t have to be an afterthought. And you don’t have to force your customers to send a letter to Congress, which is what it feels like we do today.”
You smile back. “Great idea. What does this graphic design company exemplify that we can leverage?”
Ken points to Rene. “This Situation, Observation, Benefits, Examples, Results (SOBER) framework you mentioned is pretty cool.”
Rene takes a sip of her wine, completely relaxed.
The scent carries whispers of an earthy summer warmth that’s both deep and fleeting, conjuring visions of rustic vineyards and the slow alchemy of fruit into wine.
Rene smiles. “Graphic design company cancelation flow paired with situation, observation and benefit, examples, lead to results. The situation is that our software is not unique to our cars, and we’ve oversold it in the monthly subscription plan. My observation is that we don’t remind customers they have a great deal on price. With my graphic design license, I was still paying $9.95/month, but prices had increased to $29.99/month. I’d lose my benefit if I canceled. This is how you turn a price increase into a marketing benefit.”
“It’s genius,” Ken chimes in. “The graphic design company also created loss aversion by reminding Rene of the premium features she used, for example the background eraser.”
“For example,” Rene says, “we could remind our drivers they used the heads-up display 130 times in the last 30 days. Loss aversion is a big part of why reverse trials work so well. After you’ve tried a premium feature, you become much more hesitant to lose it. The graphic design company has also made some clever UX choices that influenced my decision. The “Continue cancellation” button is a red annoying pop-up. The result of this flow is that keeping my graphic design plan felt as simple as closing out an unwanted pop-up.”
Ken takes a sip of his wine. “Show me the money, Rene.” We all laugh.
Rene chimes in. “Ken and I are going to talk to our peers about removing one of our culture values, the one on “hunger to win.” The result of that value is the aggressive overselling of features we don’t have fully working. We should be focused on what customers want in autonomous vehicles. So customer-first would be a better value tied to stewardship and fellowship.”
You nod, clearly pleased by the teamwork and progress. “Do you two have any ideas on how to reduce the Cost of Customer Acquisition (CAC)? More than $2.50 cost for every $1.00 of revenue is not sustainable. Our AI costs are already high.”
Rene looks through the window at the HeroMash autonomous vehicle parked outside. “Leveraging the same SOBER approach, we’re going to discontinue selling some of the personalization features to teenagers because those features are not being adopted. Our board of directors’ software on the other hand, is bought by humans willing to put their company badge on the table for our software. We’re the first to market with a secure autonomous vehicle board package. Our software allows busy executives to prepare for board meetings while riding in an autonomous car. That will be career-defining and something board members will want to demo at conferences next year.”
Ken chimed in. “Leveraging role models and SOBER is very good for us. We will reduce cost of customer acquisition by rolling out a board members program. Executives are a key economic buyer for the car and the software. Teenagers are not an economic buyer, and even though engineering can build a lot of cool features, my team will stop selling them.”
How do you coach and advise post this meeting?
You look at your HeroMash watch. Aristotle said that we become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
You are Marie. How would you encourage and coach Ken (CRO) and Julie (CFO) to channel their best role models to demo stewardship, fellowship, mentorship, leadership and sponsorship?