This post isn’t my usual blog content. Typically my writing time is spent sharing tips and tricks to build website traffic or perfect your Facebook ads. This time, I wanted to share something I keep running into in my experience with my work, as well as a hot topic at industry events.
Earlier this year, I went to INBOUND marketing conference in Boston. There was a trend I kept picking up on and this trend also happened to be the focus of the marketing department I run at the company I work for. Learning about it really resonated with me as I have been experiencing this and watching my clients experience it as well. I wanted to share this in hopes it helps someone improve their business and marketing in ways they might not have thought about.
This post is for both marketers and business owners. It’s time us marketers start looking at the whole picture and it’s important for business owners to understand that customer experience and marketing go hand-in-hand and everyone should be involved in it.
Customer experience begins from the moment they see your brand to finishing your services. There are many models to represent this, but a very simple way is with three phases: attract, delight, and engage. This funnel demonstration cuts out many steps to represent the entire customer experience from start to finish.
Attract: This is the phase where you attract them to your business. They typically have no or little knowledge about your business. Any part of your networking or marketing strategy can attract them in this phase.
Delight: This is when they become your customer. For explanation purposes, this funnel moves fast! Once they become your customer or client, this is when you “delight” them. It’s important
Engage: This is the part where you have built a relationship with your client or customer. They now have an idea of what you have to offer. Once they are through this phase, you can send them back through the funnel with a new product by attracting them to come back.
This is not a funnel most marketers typically see. Us marketers are usually part of the attract phase of the funnel and then we leave the rest to you business owners. This is a mistake. Not taking a look at what happens after we promise these prospects great service and products, is hurting the effectiveness of our marketing.
If us marketers attract these prospects straight to poor service or poor quality products, they’re not coming back and as a business owner, you will never be able to climb out of the never-ending cycle of needing “fresh” new people to sustain your business. Honestly, Repeat customers are the best ones. They are more likely to spend more and keep coming back if you make them happy and truly focus on your processes.
Focusing on these processes and services makes our job easier too. The more people that like you, the better your reputation and the easier it is to find new people that are willing to give you a chance. The ways of attracting clients and customers and keeping them is changing.
There was once a time when marketers were trusted. Cheesy commercials, cold calls and random emails actually worked! And well! All of those great marketers before us got a lot of business but ruined those channels for the rest of us. Now things are different. People don’t read all of their emails and many of us won’t even answer calls from numbers we don’t know because we know they might be a telemarketer.
The business is still there to grab, but no one is buying those sales emails or calls anymore. Times have changed and people are responding differently to marketers. The old deceptive marketing tactics of false promises and fake statistics have made people put up their wall and become very suspicious of marketing claims.
Be authentic. We are in the age of transparency. Transparency is working these days. And really well. The more human you are and the more you share about your struggle and your or your brand’s story, the better results you will begin to see.
With the movement of social media and advertising into everyone’s lives, more and more people are craving an authenticity that we stopped getting many years ago. With the trust so low, showing people the real face to your brand will intrigue people, build a connection and allow for a trusting relationship to build.
Their peers. People are turning to their friends more than ever for recommendations and experiences. According to BrightLocal, 93% of local consumers use reviews to determine if a local business is good or bad. This has become a really big deal. It’s time to put together a review strategy to improve how you look online to those who are complete strangers to your brand.
Also according to BrightLocal, 68% of Americans report positive reviews making them more likely to use a business. These statistics aren’t that surprising since even you might have experienced this yourself during your own purchase behavior. It makes it even more important to get more and greater reviews, as you don’t want to be left behind by your competitors that are taking action.
Getting good reviews is actually pretty straightforward. The best way to get good reviews is to make a true impression on your customers or your clients. When your products or services are out of this world, getting organic reviews is much easier. When people come to love you, they will want to help you out and share their experience with others.
Another way to get them is to simply ask. No matter what you sell, you should have systems in place that help build a relationship with your If you offer a service that develops a close relationship with your clients, this will be a lot easier. If you have a more distant relationship with your customers, you still need to bring it to their attention. Unless you have made a grand impact, they might not think to leave you a review if you don’t mention that you would appreciate one. This could be done with a simple email if you’re never face-to-face with your customer.
While a good reputation is important, you don’t get it without happy clients and customers. So how do you make them happy? Loaded question. But let’s start with how convenient you are to your client or customer. Your goal is to solve a problem for them, not become one. While this is even more relevant for service-based businesses that have a longer customer experience, this applies to all business models.
While we are in the era of transparency, we are also in the era of convenience. Having a “light” customer experience is more important than ever.
With the shift technology has created, the world is moving faster than ever before. We are in a world where we can get any product we want straight to our front door with just a few clicks or even speaking it into a little device on our kitchen counter. We have the whole world at our fingertips and it’s important to note this when looking at the barriers we create to provide our product or service.
If the only way to do business with you or buy your product is to call you, you are going to lose a lot of business. Even if you have the BEST product or service out there. It’s just the way the world is. Creating a light customer experience is something that needs to be done. If you don’t, just know that your competition will.
Automate processes
This is a big deal. A lot of people are busy and they want solutions to be as fast and convenient as possible. The business that provides the fastest and most convenient with good quality wins. Automatic scheduling, responses, contracts, applications, etc. are a must. There a ton of tools to automate processes. My favorite is Zapier, which has thousands of capabilities.
Remove barriers
Any task that requires a human being to move a customer along the process towards their solution is a barrier. The more back-and-forth phone calls, mail time or manual work that is involved in a process, the more barriers there are between the customer or client and the solution they are seeking. The more we can cut the fat out of these processes, the better off we will be at giving our clients what they want or need from us.
Have good communication
There is nothing more frustrating as a client or customer than not getting a response back or not knowing the status of something you are anxiously waiting for. While having personal communication is great for developing a relationship with your customers, automated communication is better than none.
There are plenty more ideas and ways to provide great service. I am not an expert on every way to run your business, but these are the things I have learned as I stay up to date on the current trends in my industry and watch the role and meaning of being a marketer change.
I wanted to share this to give more insight and accountability for marketers and business owners to become more of a team when we join together to grow your business instead of segmented roles that aren’t always understanding each other or moving in the same direction. I believe this approach and understanding will help everyone reach their goals and become better at what they do. I don’t think we should be reaching for anything less.
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