Stop Losing Customers Who Don’t Understand your Pricing
It is time to be more transparent with your pricing and stop treating it as a dirty little secret.
Innovation has been in overdrive since ChatGPT’s debut in November 2022. Consumer buying behaviors are evolving just as rapidly, and a few key metrics pushed us to pivot our go-to-market strategy at Livewire over the past 18 months.
According to industry research giant Gartner, customers are 80% through the buyer’s journey by the time they reach out to an integrator. They want answers and are very impatient (maybe you’ve become a little less patient online, too?). In addition, 75% of buyers prefer a seller-free experience. We don’t necessarily want to eliminate salespeople, but we want to talk to them only when we’re good and ready. What buyers really want to know is (spoiler alert): “How much does it cost?” It’s the top reason people leave websites. It also happens to be something most custom installation businesses shy away from talking about online.
CI business websites commonly feature calls to action such as “Contact Us” or something like “Our Services” that lead to a form fill. The rub is that prospects don’t want to contact that business right away. Why? Because their doubts haven’t been addressed. We’re asking prospects to get married when all they want to do is go on a date.
Consider an alternate reality. What if you had an easy-to-use interactive tool that delivered a price range to the customer and a farmable lead to your CI business?
I get it. You’re thinking, “Sure, Henry, it’s easy to discuss pricing if you sell t-shirts, but custom installation is different. It’s very complex.” I agree with you. Talking about pricing doesn’t necessarily mean you’re giving an exact number. It means education. It means explaining the elements that impact pricing, especially what Marcus Sheridan calls “The Big 5” in his seminal book They Ask You Answer:
- Cost — Customers want to know what things cost. Even if the answer is “it depends,” explaining the factors that drive prices up or down helps set expectations.
- Problems — Every product or service has drawbacks. Acknowledging common issues up front builds credibility and prevents surprises later.
- Comparisons — People compare brands, models, and solutions before buying. Creating side-by-side content positions your company as a helpful guide instead of a pushy salesperson.
- Best Of — Lists like “Best Companies in [Your City]” might feel counterintuitive (especially if competitors are included), but prospects are searching for them anyway. Better that they learn from you than somewhere else.
- Reviews — Social proof matters. Collecting and showcasing reviews signals reliability and creates momentum in competitive markets.
Transparent pricing can be as simple as writing content that covers “The Big 5” categories or taking it further by leveraging a transparent pricing tool like the HTA Home Technology Budgeting Tool or Priceguide [full transparency: I’m a co-founder of Priceguide]. Giving somebody a wide budget range ($50,000–$100,000) as a high-level estimate still gives a salesperson plenty of latitude when it’s time to configure the design.
Which company would you rather be? The one that gave an initial budget range and has a lead to work with, or the one that didn’t talk about pricing and lost the prospect to a competitor.
Whether you publish blog content about “The Big 5” or implement a pricing tool, the window is rapidly closing. Even if you’re convinced that talking about pricing is a terrible idea because you prefer to explain it in person, AI search may mean you’ll never even be found. Not talking about pricing opens you up to being skipped in a world where it’s no longer possible to just throw money at Google Ads.
What if you replaced all your legacy “Contact Us” buttons with “Get Instant Pricing?” Afraid of all the new business you’ll see in the coming months?
Stop treating pricing like a dirty little secret. Transparency sells.
Stay frosty, and see you in the field.
SOURCE: Henry Clifford/Residential Systems