I have long believed that most price shoppers in DeathCare begin with the price question solely because they don’t know what else to ask. That belief supports another which holds that what most shoppers are really looking for is someone they can trust. Thus I understood why it was important that we engage shoppers over and above simply answering their questions and that the longer the conversation the more likely we are to win the call.  All was well in my little land of making 2 plus 2 = 4.

Conversely, I have always struggled with what is, to me, the almost obsessive way DeathCare providers chase after unprofitable calls and ignore profitable calls.   Think about it!!   We will spend an unreasonable amount of our advertising money to attract direct cremation.  We will start cremation societies, and compete aggressively on price to go after what is (for at least a little while longer) the smaller, albeit growing, part of our market. Yet we spend little or nothing going after the higher end…who are often our best customers.   This inordinate and incomprehensible behavior has reached its peak in the pet cremation trend.

To be sure, I completely get the idea that pet services afford us an opportunity to interact with families we don’t currently serve in a positive way.  But spending in excess of $150,000 to chase after unit margins of less than $125 is beyond my mathematical ability.  I cannot help asking myself how much greater my return would be if I spent that same $150,000 chasing after unit margins of $6,000.  Then it dawned on me.  And if my epiphany has merit, it scares me. Perhaps we have so much trouble with price shoppers and so willingly distract ourselves…even to the point of sacrificing limited resources…because we, ourselves, don’t adequately relate to the value we bring.   Most price shoppers don’t know what the questions are so they resort to price.  It may be that we, too, have forgotten how to quantify the value of a life lived for ourselves and so we feel inadequate in explaining it to others.  Or, worse yet, we don’t know the answers.

If you are successful with price shoppers I hope you will comment.  Enlighten me.  What are the trigger points?