Getting Urgency Right

As a customer, I've found myself if a few situations lately in which a seller has turned me to the competition - not because they were not interested in selling, and not because I was not interested in the product, but because they made a critical mistake regarding the urgency of the purchase.   In their desire to march me to the cash register, they made some critical mistakes that soured me on the prospect of buying from them.  This is not a new experience, and I have a sense it's a much broader problem that sellers mistake their customers' level of urgency and behave in a highly inappropriate manner in attempting to close the deal.

It's likely worthwhile to consider the nature of urgency itself, because like many terms it has been garbled by misuse - something is said to be "urgent" simply because someone feels a sharp desire to have it, which is to say that it's important to them - but that does not make it urgent.   Urgency is more than the importance of taking an action.   It pertains specifically to the speed at which it must be done - which is to say something is only urgent if there is a cost to doing it tomorrow rather than today, or next month rather than this week.   If there is no consequence for failing to act immediately, then it is not urgent, however important it may be for reasons other than time.

From the perspective of the seller, revenue is urgent all the time.   Having money today means being able to invest or spend it before it loses its value - though that's less important in the current economy.  These days, a dollar in January is worth 99 cents in December because inflation and interest rates are nearly flat.  There once was a time it would be worth only 90 cents, or even less, because of the rates of inflation and interest were much higher.   But even though the financial rationale for urgency is less poignant, it still remains a psychological need that relates to security - the more time it takes a customer to decide, the more likely it is they will decide to buy from someone else.   There is an almost palpable sense of fear that failing to close the deal today means losing the deal forever.

That shouldn't be a fear for brands that are confident in their quality of their product and the fairness of their pricing - in such a position, a firm should have the confidence to say "take your time and shop our competition, we're confident you will be back."  For that reason alone, companies that want customers to close the deal as soon as possible seem a bit shady and convey the sense that there is a better deal to be had somewhere else and they are nervous the customer will find it, given time. In the incidents in which I have walked away from a too-eager vendor, this anxiousness has been the "red flag" that made me step back from the "buying" process and back into the "shopping" one to find a different vendor, and I don't think I'm alone in this.

As I consider this problem, I also recall instances in which the vendor's lack of urgency caused me no small amount of frustration: I was at the point where I was ready to purchase and a salesman continued to provide information about the product.   Or in a more direct sense, having to wait in line to complete a purchase represents a situation in which the customer's sense of urgency is poorly accommodated by a vendor who puts its own processes ahead of the customers' priorities - though this is generally for a different reason (the customer's sense of urgency comes from a desire to use their own time efficiently, rather than an immediate need for a product).

The essence of the problem in either instance is the seller's inability to appropriately accommodate the customer's level of urgency - to rush them into completing a purchase too quickly or to prevent them from completing the purchase quickly enough.   Given that, I don't expect there can be a single answer to the question of how fast is fast enough, because it largely depends on the customer's priorities - which differ from person to person and moment to moment.

Consider the way in which customers purchase an umbrella.   When it is not raining, there's little sense of urgency and the customer can inspect the merchandise casually, considering whether it is durable and the color he might prefer and whether he might get a better deal if he waits a week or a month for a sales event.  When it is raining, all of this is set aside - he does not care about the style of the item or its durability, color, or price (within reason) but needs a quick solution that will help him avoid getting wet.

In the same examples, the seller must react accordingly.   The attempt to close the deal on an umbrella on a sunny day is difficult to the point of being nearly impossible - and attempting to convince the customer that it might start raining at any moment is not likely to give the customer a sense of urgency he lacks.  By the same token, discussing the features and qualities of the item during a rainstorm is likely an annoying waste of time to a customer who is in urgent need of a solution and isn't thinking about the value of the product beyond its ability to serve the needs of the moment.

Of the two, a seller whose urgency exceeds that of the buyer is likely the more detrimental.   It's rare for an eager buyer to break off of the process and seek another vendor because the seller is not moving quickly enough, likely because the eager buyer recognizes he will have to invest time (that he doesn't want to spend) in finding another vendor.   On the other hand a leisurely buyer who is confronted by an anxious seller is willing to take time, not necessarily in interacting with vendors, before making the purchase and is more inclined to stall or walk away.

And it's also inherent to the nature of commerce that, for financial and psychological reasons, sellers are more prone to want to create a sense of urgency than to encourage slower pace - though the (few) sellers who do so are likely to be regarded as qualified and confident in the quality and price of their product.   As such, a less stressful selling process is likely not only a more pleasant experience for the customer, but gives them a long-term impression of the quality of the brand.

But ultimately, success is a matter of properly assessing and accommodating the customer's level of urgency - and the more difficult prospect of letting the customer control the speed of the process rather than attempting to control them to suit the seller's own desires.