The real competitor

A prospect likes everything in your demo, says "let's talk next week", and then nothing happens for two weeks. The competitor you lost to was not another supplier. It was keeping things as they are, and that option has one advantage over every supplier: choosing it takes no effort.

What the research found

In a well-known set of experiments from 1988, people answered written decision questions, such as how to invest money they had inherited. In some versions of a question, one option was described as what they already had, and that option was picked more often, whichever one it was. The authors summed it up like this: two options people like equally split about 59 to 41 in favour of the one already in place.

In 2021 another group repeated four of those scenarios with US adults online, following a plan registered in advance. The effect held in three of them. In the fourth, a choice of car colour, it disappeared. Switching colour cost nothing and carried no risk, so in the authors' reading there was little to hold people back.

Options that come already selected get a similar advantage. A meta-analysis of 58 studies with over 73,000 people found that the pre-selected option was chosen more often. Studies inside companies look at switching costs instead, and point the same way: switching costs and uncertainty went with buyers staying with their suppliers, and with staff resisting new systems.

What it means for you

Your offer is compared with other suppliers, and also with doing nothing. Doing nothing needs no setup, and if it turns out to be a mistake, nobody has to explain why they changed. So a better offer can still lose. The prospect has to believe that the move itself will be small and safe, not only that the result will be better.

Make the move small and safe

• A ready plan. Show the switch week by week, so the prospect can see where it ends.
• Named help. Say who will help, and with what, for example the person who will move their data across.
• A safe start. Offer a pilot, or a clear way back if it does not work out.

None of these has been tested as a way to win deals. Each one lowers a cost or a risk that the research says holds people back.

How Bamya CRM helps

Bamya CRM is a free AI-assisted CRM. It adds a ready plan in one click: the steps of the switch, as tasks for that prospect.

Research: Samuelson & Zeckhauser (1988), Journal of Risk and Uncertainty; Xiao et al. (2021), Meta-Psychology; Jachimowicz et al. (2019), Behavioural Public Policy; Heide & Weiss (1995), Journal of Marketing; Kim & Kankanhalli (2009), MIS Quarterly. Most of this evidence is individuals answering written scenarios and studies of default options; deals lost to "no decision" have not been measured in peer-reviewed research, so applying it to business prospects is an inference.