Knowing how customer value proposition is quantified is important because when you can measure and express it in numbers, that means you know more about it. Whatever the matter may be, it’s very important to understand that there is an equation going on in the mind of your customer when they make a decision to purchase your product and determine whether they will receive value out of it or not. They’re quantifying that value in some way, shape, or form.
That quantifying value in the mind of your customers is a very important issue.
How do you build a quantified value proposition?
1) Identify the number one problem (pain) in the mind of your customer.
When you’re talking to these people that have pain and urgency for which your product or service is the solution, what’s their number one pain point. If that one is not met, nothing else matters. If that one is met, then number two may be important.
2) Understand the customers’ process for as-is state
You got to figure out the customer’s number one pain first before you can understand the process for how that customer arrives at that pain. What were they doing?
For example, Paul, a skiing enthusiast, had to get in his car and drive to the airport to go skiing, and he had to put the equipment on the top of his car, or when he arrived at the ski resort, he had to stand in line to get his equipment. That is when the pain emerged.
So for your customer, when does the pain emerge in their current process?
3) What is the possible future state with your solution?
What is the possible future state if they use your product or service? How does the pain go away? What is it like when the pain goes away?
4) Quantify the value from the customer’s perspective?
How do you quantify the value from the customer’s perspective? Now that typically is quantified in four different dimensions; Is it better, faster, cheaper or easier? If it is better, by how much? If it’s cheaper, by how much? If you don’t know the equation going on in the mind of your customer to determine the value, you don’t know your customer well enough because there is an equation going on.
You need to figure out what it was in Paul’s situation, what do you think his equation is? His equation is time; time lost on the slopes trying to rent his equipment. Now money may be an important factor. But time is the key issue for him. He’s a high speed mover; you need to know what equation is going on in the mind of your customer.
All this process of quantifying the value aligns the organization internally with the customer, and then aligns the solution externally to the customer. You want to understand what’s valuable, better, cheaper, faster or easier in the mind of the customer.
Considering the quantified value proposition example, Paul’s biggest pain point was time caused by standing in line. Gearup Canmore, a mountain sports rental service company, took the current situation of driving time to go get his equipment (40 minutes), picking it up and fitting (30 minutes), dropping it off (5 minutes) and the research involved (20 minutes); all of that totaled to 95 minutes spend per trip. For the five trips Paul took per year it totaled to 475 minutes (95 minutes*5). Then the amount of money spent was somewhere between 900 and $1,000.
With their solution, the amount of time spent on upfront one time research was 45 minutes, and then to subscribe online (5 minutes), and then book (15 minutes) and returns (10 minutes) had a total of 195 minutes (30 min *5+45 min) spend per year. There was a one-off subscription fee of $600 with an unlimited number of trips per year. Paul saved 280 minutes (475 min – 175 min) or three hours of slope time. Better yet, he saved $300 or $400.
He got that number one pain and urgency addressed, which was time; instead of spending time in line but on the slopes skiing. He also saved money while he did it.
The key to understanding quantified value proposition is you’ve got to figure out what equation is going on in the mind of your customer. Are they thinking better? Are they thinking faster, cheaper or easier?
One of the biggest problems that most startups make is they set their prices too low because people tell them that they need to be the lowest price. Well, they are only competing in one of four dimensions, which is cheaper. If you got the cheapest price, people are going to think you have the cheapest product.
What is your real dimension? What is the dimension that your customer is interested in? That is the key.
Summary
How customer value proposition is quantified is a process that involves a business first identifying the customers’ biggest problem pain point, understanding the process for how that customer arrives at that pain, possible future state of the problem before quantifying the value from the customers’ perspective.
When quantifying the value, the business should focus on which of the four dimensions of better, faster, cheaper and easier matters to their customers.