For most businesses, the question of what to play while customers are on hold is not critical. Important, but not vital to customer satisfaction.

What if most of your business is handled over the phone? If you’re the iconoclastic savings bank ING Direct, you help customers cope with waiting by playing messages that are witty, informative and, most importantly, respect your customers’ intelligence.

Check it out!  ING Direct: On Hold Messages

Interactive demos are a great way to give your customers and prospects a good idea of what your product is and how it can benefit them. Demos are usually associated with demonstrating features of software or consumer products. And they’re just as effective for selling complex services or conceptual ideas.

Demonstrate how your product solves the problem–not just how it works.

Demos are nothing new, however many fall far short of their potential as a virtual sales tool. The biggest problem most demos have is they usually focus on how the product works, not on how it actually solves a customer’s problem. Businesses are missing out on a huge sales opportunity if their demo only addresses a list of its product features. Of course you need to talk about features (what does it do?), but more importantly, your demo needs to do it within the context of how those features solve your customer’s problem (why should I care?).

All demos are not created equal

Depending on which stage your customer is at in their buying decision (awareness, interest, trial, buy, evaluation, loyalty), you’ll need to consider how best to frame your demo’s messaging.

Awareness: First, customers need to recognize that they have a problem and that your product can help solve it. Once they’ve identified their problem, they begin gathering information from the Web, their peers and various media. At this stage, your demo must focus it’s messaging on how it solves their problem.

Interest: Once they understand the variety of solutions available and have identified your product as a possible contender, they begin to narrow down their choices. At this stage customers need help making the right choice. Your demo should now focus on how your product is unique and how it’s faster/better/cheaper than the competition. The messaging should be framed in benefits, not features. Use scenarios that your customer can identify with, then show how your features solve their problems.

Demos that focus on benefits are very effective at moving customers from awareness to interest to trials. These types of demos are called “tours.” They give your customer a broad overview of your product, what it can do and how it solves their problem. At this stage, because your customer is not yet a raving fan of your product or service, their attention span is short. Keeping your tour brief and focused on solving your customer’s problems will motivate them to take the next step.

Trial: At this stage, customers are comparing apples to apples. As they dig deeper into your product’s functionality, they will be comparing your features against the competition. Again, frame the messaging about the features in a contextual, scenario-based framework. Allow the user to play with the real thing or at least a simulation. As the user gets closer to making their decision, all things being equal, it will be easier for them to choose the one that is most familiar.

Buy: When they understand that your product or service best fits their needs, they buy. But selling your customers doesn’t stop after they fork over their cash.

Evaluation: What happens after your customer purchases is more important than what happens before. Post-purchasing service and support has a direct impact on customer loyalty. Demos that explicitly explain how a customer can complete certain tasks is, of course, called a tutorial. Tutorials can help users get acquainted with important features, give them confidence in using your product and help them self-service problems they may run into.

Unfortunately, many organizations use tutorials too early in their customer’s decision making process. If your customer is in the Awareness, Interest or even Trial stage, a tutorial-type demo can be overwhelming and paint your product as being too complicated. Ultimately, scaring off your customer in search of an “easier” solution.

Ask for the sale and track the results
You’d be surprised at how many demos don’t ask for the sale. Always include a call to action. What will your customers want to do next: request a live demo, call a rep, sign up? The call to action should be persistently visible throughout the demo. You never know when the light bulb will go off, make it easy form the to take action.

Finally, build some sort of analytics into your demos. What sections are most and least popular? How do customers move through the demo? How long are they engaged? Where do the lose interest? At what point do they exit and where do they go? How many customers did the demo convert? This type of information is invaluable in helping you make future decisions, how to position your product, what features are most important and what the demo’s ROI is.

An interactive demonstration should give your customers a good idea for how your product or service solves their problem, not just how it works. Tailoring the messaging at each stage of the customer’s purchasing decision process will improve customer conversions. And monitoring and tracking results gives you critical and objective information for what’s working and what’s not.