The 6 Disadvantages of a Custom-Made Guided Selling Tool

What is a guided selling tool?

A guided selling tool helps your website visitors make the best purchase decision based on their personal preferences and needs. Instead of customers endlessly scrolling through technical specifications and trying to understand details they don’t fully grasp, a guided selling tool automatically provides product recommendations and displays the best options tailored to their situation. It asks targeted questions to the user and, based on their responses, helps select and recommend relevant products.

Imagine you’re looking for a new laptop but aren’t quite sure which specifications you need. Instead of choosing from hundreds of models with different combinations of RAM, processors, and graphics cards, you can use a guided selling tool on your website that focuses on the applications of the product specifications.

A guided selling tool asks you what you primarily want to do with the laptop. Are you a gamer? Do you work a lot with video editing software? Or do you just need a laptop for basic tasks like word processing and browsing the internet?

Depending on your answers based on your intended use, the guided selling tool provides the most relevant product advice. For instance, if you indicate that you’re looking for a laptop for video editing, you’ll be recommended models with a powerful processor, sufficient RAM, and a good graphics card. If you primarily work on the go, the guided selling tool might point you towards lightweight laptops with long battery life and a compact size, making them easy to carry in your bag.

A custom-made guided selling tool or guided selling software?

If you’re considering implementing a guided selling tool on your website, you have a choice: do you go for a custom-made solution or opt for guided selling software? There are many differences between these two options. Will you choose guided selling software, which provides a ready-made solution, or will you reinvent the wheel to have complete control? Let’s briefly discuss what a custom-made guided selling tool is and then outline the differences between the two options.

What is a custom-made guided selling tool?

A custom-made guided selling tool is, as the name suggests, a tool that is completely tailored to the needs of your business. It is built from scratch by one or more developers specifically for your company. In other words, you build the code yourself.

The 6 differences between a custom-made guided selling tool and guided selling software

There are several differences between a custom-made guided selling tool and guided selling software:

1. Cost and maintenance: Custom-made solutions are often expensive to purchase and maintain.
2. Selling a ‘No’: Custom-made guided selling tools often use strict filters (filter = exclusion), which means you might miss sales opportunities when your offerings don’t exactly match the customer's needs and preferences. For example, even if you have a product that perfectly meets the customer’s needs but is just slightly outside their set price filter, you might lose the sale.
3. Dependence for updates: Want to make changes? You’ll likely face some dependencies. Custom solutions often require a costly development team, which can be slow and expensive. There is often no interface or back-end where you can easily make these adjustments yourself.
4. Limited insights and personalization: Custom-made guided selling tools often lack capabilities to analyze customer data and cannot be easily adapted based on customer behavior.
5. Lack of product fit overview: A custom-made guided selling tool typically does not provide an overview of how well a product actually matches your specific needs, nor does it show alternatives that might be a better fit.
6. From product features to customer needs: A custom-made guided selling tool usually focuses on technical details but often lacks the insight into what the customer truly needs.

 

1. Costs and maintenance

Custom-made guided selling tools can require a significant investment. These custom-made  tools can quickly cost more than €10,000 and come with ongoing development and maintenance costs. This can become quite expensive in the long run, especially if you need frequent updates and adjustments.

The advantage of guided selling software is that you don’t have to make this initial investment and you can get started right away. You can begin for as little as €99 per month. As an added bonus, you can even try it free for 14 days if you're still unsure. 😉

 

2. How you end up selling a 'No' to your customers

Suppose you’re looking for a new electric bike with the following needs:

• I want to easily climb hills without much effort.
• I want to bike long distances.
• I want a bike light enough to carry on the train.
• My budget is up to €1,500.

With a custom-made guided selling tool, you might enter these criteria:

• Hilly terrain.
• Minimum 70 km range.
• Lightweight frame.
• Budget up to €1,500.

But what if there isn’t a product that perfectly matches these needs?

Custom-made guided selling tools often show only products that exactly meet your filters, which can result in missing valuable options. For instance, a bike that slightly exceeds your budget but perfectly matches your specific riding needs might not be displayed. You might go through the custom-made tool and find that there are no results meeting your needs.

Disappointed, you leave the webshop, unaware that there is actually a bike that perfectly matches your needs but is just €100 over your set budget. Due to these strict filters, you miss the chance to find a bike that suits you better, resulting in a lost sales opportunity for the store and a frustrating experience for you as a customer. Essentially, you end up "selling a no" instead of a "yes," missing the opportunity to adapt flexibly to what your customers are truly looking for.

With the Best Match feature from Qonfi, you always receive the most relevant product recommendations. Instead of focusing solely on technical specifications, we go a step further. We compare your choice with other options that might not fully meet your filters but align better with what you are actually searching for. For example, you'll still get to see that perfect bike, even if it's just €100 above your original budget.

 

3. Reliance on developers for updates

With many custom-made guided selling tools, you often rely on a development team if you want to make changes, such as updating your product range or adding or modifying a question, answer, or image. This can mean waiting for a developer, which can be time-consuming and often costly. Not only does this consume a lot of time and money, but it also makes it harder to quickly respond to changes in your offerings or market trends.

With Qonfi, you don’t have this dependency. You can easily adjust your guided selling tool without technical knowledge and implement changes immediately. This allows you to quickly align your tool with the latest trends and customer needs without long development cycles or high costs. You have full control without dependency.

 

4. Limited insights and personalization

As the saying goes, knowledge is power. Custom-made guided selling tools often have limited capabilities for data-driven optimization. This is because custom solutions frequently do not measure interactions and preferences. You don’t get a clear picture of your users' preferences as standard.

For example, suppose you have a custom-guided selling tool for selecting garden furniture. This solution filters products based on specifications like material, color, and price. However, without measuring these interactions, you gain no insight into customer preferences. This lack of data keeps your tool generic and prevents you from optimizing the customer journey and aligning the tool with your customers' needs. Additionally, you won’t see where users drop off, making it impossible to optimize the customer journey (and the tool). Ideally, you want to measure everything as a standard. This way, you can discover what your customers are truly looking for. You can then use these insights to analyze whether your product range meets these needs and target specific audiences with your marketing.

While it’s impressive that a custom-made guided selling tool can provide real-time filter recommendations, its true value emerges when you automatically track all given answers and subsequent product recommendations. This allows you to gain insights into your customers’ needs.

Guided selling software, however, automatically measures these interactions and preferences as a standard feature. It provides precise insights into what your customers are looking for. You can see which answers are most frequently selected and which are not. These insights can be used for optimizations, purchasing decisions, marketing strategies, and adjusting your product range.

 

5. The overview of the product check

Many visitors land directly on a product page, for example, via Google Shopping. Imagine a visitor looking at a duvet, such as the ‘Washable Blue-Mastic Easy Duvet’ priced at €79.95. While it may seem like a suitable option at first glance, the customer might wonder if this duvet truly meets their needs or if a better alternative exists.

With our Product Check, you look beyond just the features of the duvet. The product is compared with your specific needs to determine if it is indeed the best choice. If it’s not the best option, a better alternative is suggested.

For example, if you’re considering the ‘Washable Blue-Mastic Easy Duvet’ for €79.95 but are unsure if it’s the right fit, Qonfi’s Product Check can show whether this duvet is truly the best choice for you or if another duvet might better meet your needs. For instance, a better alternative like the ‘Washable London Blue-Jeans Duvet’ for €89.95 might be recommended. While slightly more expensive, this duvet may better align with your preferences, such as being easy to use on vacation and machine-dryable. This helps you gain more confidence in your choice and find the duvet that truly suits you.

This feature makes your product pages much more user-friendly by helping customers find exactly what they need. Instead of wading through a sea of products, the Product Check offers targeted recommendations that align with their specific needs and preferences. This allows customers to quickly see if the product they’re viewing is a good fit or if there’s a better alternative. It helps them overcome doubts and make a well-informed decision with confidence.

 

6. From product features to customer needs

Custom-made guided selling tools often focus too much on technical specifications like size, weight, and other product details. This means they may not fully address what the customer actually needs. For example, if you're looking for a camera for vlogging, a custom-made tool might tell you about the camera's resolution and lens options, but it might fall short if you often record in varying light conditions or need a lightweight camera that's easy to carry. As a result, you might get recommendations that are technically accurate but don't quite fit your specific situation.

This can lead to two problems: you might not get recommendations that match your needs, or you might be overwhelmed by a long list of options that aren’t really relevant. This makes choosing the right camera difficult and frustrating, which can lead to uncertainty and even abandoning your search before making a good choice.

Instead of focusing solely on product specifications, guided selling software allows you to engage with customers to understand their real needs and preferences. As a marketer, you have control over the questions you ask and can emphasize the customer's use cases rather than just the technical details of the product. You can then match products to their needs based on these specifications. For instance, if you often record in varying light conditions or need a rugged, portable camera, you can make more tailored recommendations.

This approach ensures that the recommendations are not only technically correct but also truly aligned with what the customer is looking for. By taking this personalized approach, you reduce choice stress and help customers find the product that best fits their needs more quickly and easily, leading to a better experience, higher customer satisfaction, and more conversions.