Artificial Intelligence

Exploring the Parameters of the Elements of Value

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When looking for value drivers to prove how much clients value services you offer, the value elements provide a detailed breakdown outlining the emotional, functional, and social impact that the services afford them. Clients look at the prices of services versus their perceived value, framing their purchasing decisions on such a comparison. If the perceived value matches the price of the service, customers are more likely to pay for the service. 

What the value elements do is provide a value proposition to customers that prove the customer a perceived value and actual value match up. Managing value can be difficult for sales professionals, especially considering the customer’s perceived value strictly lies with the customer and when knowing that driving profits is the main objective of sales teams. However, the value elements provide the building blocks allowing sales teams to understand the different motivations behind purchasing decisions. Also, the elements of value offer validity to value propositions and facilitate ways to improve service quality, so the value is easily noticeable. Here are the parameters of the value elements that sales professionals must consider. 

Overview of Topics Covered

Addressing Functional Needs

The most fundamental element of value necessary to validate sales approaches and buyer decisions is providing functional values. Functional value is the perceived utility that a product or service offers clients i.e., the solutions that it provides. Essentially, this is the most basic of the value elements, providing lasting monetary, time, security, and/or quality benefits to clients. 

Products or services with functional value ensure that clients save time and money. Additionally, the functional value of a product/service shows that it minimizes risks, avoids the hassle, and reduces exertion, making life easier for clients. The functional value of a product/service also provides organization, integration, and connection while also offering sensory appeal and variety. Anything with functional value simplifies things for clients while having multiple use cases. 

Emotional Value

On a larger scale than functional value is the emotional value. Once the basic needs of a product/service are evident, clients look for the product/service to provide them with memorable experiences, allowing them to feel a deeper connection. 

The emotional value of a product or service provides additional meaning, rewarding clients and providing some source of enjoyment. Additionally, products/services with a high emotional value offer increased accessibility and attractiveness, affording them high control levels with every use case while having the desire to use the product/service long-term because of its visual appeal. Also, emotional value highlights wellness and therapeutic value, meaning the product/service is beneficial to the mental, physical and emotional health of clients. 

Life-Changing Value 

Beyond functional and social elements of value, life-changing value is a value driver that shows where a product or service offers magnified value, motivating and uplifting clients. 

Life-changing value reflects how much a product or service gives clients an increased sense of belonging, feeling valued in society, and improving their life perspectives. Additionally, life-changing values elevate self-actualization, which is considered the highest level of psychological development, a reflection of how a client can reach his or her potential by utilizing the product or service. If a product or service helps a client fulfill his or her talents and skills, then its customer perceived value skyrockets, giving it a stronger, longer-lasting appeal. 

Life-changing value also adds hopefulness and boosts self-worth, helping clients to feel like a product/service provides more optimism for them while using the product or service in question. 

Social Impact 

The last and most far-reaching of the elements of value is social impact, particularly focusing on self-transcendence. Self-transcendence deals with how much people display the ability to overcome limits as well as the increased desire for spiritual contemplation and realization. The logic surrounding self-transcendence comes from humility, promoting adjustability to changes in physical or mental attributes. 

If a product/service helps society and provides a sense of community, then it has the capacity to help on a broader scale, with clients more likely to spread the word about how productive the item is. 

How Does Conversational Value Highlight the Value Elements?

Conversational value is the glue that makes each of the above-mentioned value elements come together, highlighting the most important takeaways and engagement signals from every conversation, so sales teams identify these elements. With improved conversational value, sales teams can identify selling points and address client pain points, showing the functionalities that products/services offer. 

Plus, prioritizing conversational value and leveraging artificial intelligence tools to extract such value allows sales teams to analyze the emotional benefits a product may have. Indications like tone and certain buzzwords (customer value, for example) provide the insights that show how much a product/service means to someone beyond basic functionality. As a result, sales teams can improve their close rates by more than 10% as conversational value provides more efficiency and more ability to properly evaluate the meaningfulness in conversations to decipher the customer perceived value and 

ensure the value proposition put forward by sales teams matches or improves upon client expectations. 

The value elements give a good breakdown of customer expectations, and the increased advent of conversational value will help sales teams better meet those demands at every level. 

For the past 20+ years, Geoffery has worked in healthcare technology at the intersections of strategy, innovation, new product development, and commercialization. He’s been active in startup communities, as a speaker on go-to-market commercialization; a coach at Mass Challenge to over 130 CEOs and entrepreneurs and serve on the advisory boards for several companies. As the pandemic unfolded, he Co-founded Versational to uncover what's valuable to customers in conversations and suggest ways to respond.

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