Last Updated on Monday, 12 October 2009 11:59 Monday, 31 August 2009 00:00

The fact that many customers use google before purchases might not be huge news. But the extent of this behaviour might surprise you. According to research published by the Swedish Post in the e-barometer for the second quarter 2009, 71% av customers are doing research using Google before making internet purchases. When it comes to other purchases the figure might be lower, but for most expensive purchases it's reasonable to assume that a majority of customers are googling before making purchasing decisions. And according to a Report by SCB titled Privatpersoners användning av datorer och internet (eng: Consumers usage of computers and internet) searching information about products and services are the second most common usage of the internet after e-mail.

As salespeople this is a behaviour we should be very aware of and take into account in our business process. For example.....

..... it might do us good to sometimes google after inte around our own products and services. That gives us the chance to know what kind of information customers have before we meet them. With all the product information, tests, consumer reports etc that are easily accessible on the intetnet we otherwise might find that the customer we are meeting actually knows more about the current market situation than we do. For some sales people that are used to having an information advantage this could feel threatening. In reality it might however be good thing since a lot of research indicates that the best business deals are made when neither part has an information advantage. So the challenge for salespeople should be just to keep up with customers so we don't find that the information advantage have been reversed.

Another consequence of the customers more freequent use of the internet as an informationsource is that salesreps nowdays generally meet the customer in a late stage of the purchasing cycle. This of course increases the chances of closing the deal quickly, but can also be a disadvantage since we lose early contact with the customer. we might even entirely lose some customers that we previously might have influenced to do business with us, since they excluded us based on infomation on the internet. This means we have to make sure that the information that the customer finds about us on the internet is correct and that our presence on the internet also captures their interest and creates a lead that we can follow up with a personal contact quickly.