In previous chapters, we have talked about features and benefits. You probably remember from Howard’s SPIN-course, that features are facts about NCAB and benefits answer the question “What’s in it for the customer?”. The answer to this important question is usually “It lowers the customer’s total cost.”

The PCB itself is only a small part of the customer’s total cost. But when we deliver PCBs, or fail to do it right, we have a big impact on the customer’s business results – such as the cost of design and production, and the quality of the finished product. When customers see this bigger picture, they become more interested in quality, which makes our USPs more attractive.

To us, it may be obvious how our USPs will help bring the customer’s total cost down, but the buyers we’re dealing with may be so focused on the price that they forget the bigger picture. Therefore, it is important that we help customers make the connection between the USP and their total cost.

NCAB’s USPs basically fall into three categories: Purchasing power; Customer presence; Factory presence.

• Purchasing power
Our purchasing power gives us the opportunity to be strict with demands and to get our factories’ attention. For many of our factories we are one of their biggest customers. So, our purchasing power has an indirect impact on costs. It also has the very direct impact of getting the best possible terms.

• Customer presence
When we work close to the customer, we can make their design and purchasing process smoother. Even more important is if we can help them improve PCB-designs, which can sometimes reduce the PCB-cost by half. We have more than 120 technicians employed for this task – most of them local for easy communication with customers’ technicians. In our experience, 30% of RFQs have mistakes, and catching these mistakes early is a huge saver of time, money and pain.

• Factory presence
It is in the factories we make sure we keep our promises. When we deliver on time with zero defects, the customer can proceed as planned without disruption. In addition to saving money, our reliability reduces agony and allows customers to focus on the positive matters such as growing their business, which probably saves them even more money.

Customers will accept a higher price if it makes sense for them. They will also need to motivate to their colleagues (and to themselves) why they pay more. Use the USPs to give them some good reasons.