Introduction

If you’ve ever been in any sales situation, you’ll know customers almost always have questions or objections. People need to feel confident about the solutions they work with. You’ll need to answer questions and overcome objections to close a sale. Customers often visit product/service websites the same way they’d view a sales call or meeting. The challenge with sales through websites is anticipating visitor questions or objections. When you meet with a customer in-person or through call, you have context through conversation and the ability to read the person. However, on websites you’ll need to anticipate what your visitor concerns will be. With clever design, analytic data, and UX tools, we can create websites that help you generate leads and qualify customers.

‍

What is a sales objection?

A sales object is a barrier that blocks a buyer from purchasing. It usually comes from a place of uncertainty holding the buyer back. Thankfully with a bit of empathy we can understand our buyer’s perspectives and overcome their sales objections.

Common types of sales objections

• Budget
• Trust
• Need
• Urgency

Overcoming objections

Using the LAER Process (Listen, Acknowledge, Explore, Respond), we can approach buyer sales objections with empathy.

On Hubspot, author Leslie Ye breaks down  the LAER Process into 5 different steps that we can apply to our web designs:

1. Anticipate
2. Listen
3. Acknowledge
4. Explore
5. Respond

You can read in more detail about Sales Objections and the LAER Process on Hubspot’s Blog.

‍

Apply LAER in Web Design

When users visit landing pages or other web pages that are selling a product or service, they are visiting with the intention to solve problem they have in their life.

Sometimes users know what problem they have and are searching for the right product. For example, User needs a ride to the airport. They go online and try to find a service that will take them to the airport. In these situations the user knows what they need. Other times, products are trying to sell themselves to users with problems they didn’t know they had. This is often the case with new product categories where use-cases aren’t well established among consumers. In these situations, overcoming sales objections is especially important.

Anticipate

When we “anticipate” a user visiting a website, we are trying to understand why they are coming to us. What is the purpose of their visit? Do they have a problem that they are intentionally trying to solve? Or were they captivated by some sort of advertisement and redirected to our page?

Once we understand our user’s intentions on our website, we can start to gather data on how they’ll respond.

Listen

This is step where we apply UX skills in web design. We don’t want to force a product onto someone. We need to listen to the needs of our users. What features are important to our users? Are they concerned about pricing? This knowledge helps us inform the decision making in our designs. For example, if we know pricing is the highest priority for the users we are targeting, we can include a pricing section on our website’s homepage. In order for us to overcome sales objectives, our website needs to know how to offer value to its users.

Acknowledge
Simply speaking to a user’s concerns will help them feel validated and more open to continuing a conversation (in our case not exiting our website). Highlighting a potential sales objective can help build trust. We need to show website visitors that our web page is inviting them and listening to their needs. This step is crucial because many users will exit a website in 10-20 seconds. You can read more about this here. That means we need acknowledge a users objections and establish trust extremely quickly.

Explore
Once we’ve acknowledged a potential objection from our users, we need to figure out why they have that objection. There’s usually a good reason for their objection. For example, we have an airline website. User’s may assume that ticket prices will be expensive because of their past experiences flying with other airlines. There’s always a deeper reason for objections for us to explore.

Respond
This is the final step to overcoming objections. After exploring reasons behind objections you can offer solutions to those objections.

‍

Real life examples

Every business that is reliant on their website for generating business will anticipate its target user’s objections and try to overcome them on their website. I’ve curated a list 4 excellent examples from big brands like Uber.

Uber

In this example, Uber is anticipating an objection around time. Many people are searching for ways to earn extra income, but often the barrier is in scheduling around existing commitments such as full-time job. Uber overcomes this objection by clarifying the agency you get in working for them. You can “make money on your schedule.”

Calm

Calm does an excellent job overcoming objections. In my own anecdotal experience, a lot of people feel overwhelmed and scared when committing to anything related to personal health. I remember even for myself attending the gym or practicing mindfulness took a big leap of faith because I felt unsure about what I was doing. Calm alleviates these concerns by highlighting their beginner programming. They also provide sample to the user.

Athabasca University

Khan Academy

Best Practices

Hero Section

In your hero section include visible metrics or graphics that social proof. This will help you build trust with your website’s audience. You can include items such as number of downloads, 5-star review counts, awards, and accreditations. Doing so will help your website provide value right away to its visitor. Your visitor will immediately see that others trust your product.

Feature section
Highlight features that your product has that your visitor might not have known was possible. In Uber’s feature section, they show their users they can earn an income and fit around their user’s schedules. Users may not have committed to a competitor product because it didn’t fit their needs. They may assume other similar products are the same, but you have the opportunity to clarify what your product can do for the user.

Pricing section
This is one of the most common objections people will have. People often quantify the value of digital goods by viewership or dollars. An easy way to overcome this objection is by being transparent with your pricing. Clearly display the costs associated with your product/service and clear explain the value your product/service offers for its cost.

FAQ section
Your feature section and testimonials may not answer all of your visitors questions or concerns. An FAQ section at the bottom of your website will give you one more chance to turn your visitor into a lead. You can use this section to answer some of the more obscure or niche questions people may have about your product or service.