I recently brought my car in to Discount Tire here in Denver to purchase a new set of tires. The rep suggested a suitable tire and then began to put together a deal. This included a credit for my old tires, a road hazard warranty, free installation, and free quarterly rotation and balancing for the life of the tires. So far, so good.
Then, before presenting me with the total, the rep asked me a question: “Mr. Curtin, does your wife ever drive this car?” I said, “Sure.” He then said, “Would adding a feature called ‘siping’ to the tires in order to provide extra safety by increasing road traction while decreasing braking distance by 200% be important to her?” Naturally it would.
Although I’d never before heard of siping, I added the $10 per tire treatment and increased the amount of the sale by $40. It turns out that siping involves scoring the tire with tiny grooves that increase the tire’s elasticity and grip on the road. Now, some of you skeptics may think I was taken but that’s not the way I see it. From a psychological standpoint, I feel assured that these tires will do the best possible job of gripping the road in the elements and braking to a stop quickly when necessary.
For me, safety is a priority when buying tires. Guess who else knows that safety is a high priority for me—and most of its customers? That’s right: the people at Discount Tire. Now I don’t know what their profit margin is when this feature is added but I imagine it’s pretty high.
Now consider your own customers. What’s important to them? Safety? Comfort? Speed? Accuracy? Convenience? Something else? Think about the products and services that you offer. What sort of value-added enhancements might you make available that your customers will feel good about purchasing?
Not every customer will bite but if it’s positioned correctly and matches one or more of the priorities of your target customers, enough will to make it well worth your while.
