I bought a car this fall, and I picked the dealership before I picked the car. That is backwards from how most people shop. The dealership in Houston I wanted has a reputation for how it sells and for how it takes care of the customer afterward, and that mattered more to me than the badge on the hood.
When we got to price, we landed on a number I was happy with. I pushed once more to see if it would move. The young salesman looked at me and said, "Mr. Shriver, we probably don't have the best prices. We offer a better experience and better service. I understand if you want to shop somewhere else, but this is our best price, and you're paying a little more because of the service we offer and the experience we give our customers."
So, I paid a little more. It was a small fraction of the purchase, and I knew another dealer would have gone lower. He had said out loud what I spend most of my week saying to my sales team and to my customers in different words, and he held his number.
AV integration competes on price constantly. The low bidder, the cheapest of 3 quotes, the longest value engineering list. A job won on the lowest number still has to earn its margin somewhere, and the places left to find it are usually the engineering hours and the commissioning schedule.
This week I told a prospective customer in Houston that we were not the right fit. They were clear that they wanted the lowest cost, and they were right to be clear. We were not going to be the low bidder, and a system designed by an engineering based company with a service model behind it was more than they were asking for. I thanked them and left it there.
The customers who have bought from us for 10 years and longer did not pick us on price. They paid more than they had to at the start, and they keep calling because the systems work and the people who built them answer the phone. I would rather charge for the service we deliver, say so to the customer's face, and let some sales go. The salesman got my sale, and I expect he gets the next one too.