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For years, a truism among social media marketers is that B2B is a soft medium, better suited to raising awareness, thought leadership and passive relationship building than to pursuing hard sales objectives. We argued increased length of B2B sales cycles and difficulty of tracking customers from one platform to another as main reasons for not attempting full-scale CRM activities.
While those are both valid, one of the main reasons we steered clear was the sheer amount of work it would take to identify, track and funnel leads to sales in the absence of a comprehensive social CRM tool. Advising clients to build a custom database and assign community management resources to enter, tag and monitor individual leads by hand never seemed like a winning proposition.
And so, we stuck to strategies that made the most sense, to get the most bang for a client’s buck. And while establishing thought leadership by producing best-in-class content undeniably works, it’s got two things going against it, from an internal perspective. First, producing high-quality content on a regular basis takes a lot of work; second, it eats into time when employees could be pursing shorter-term wins through more familiar channels. Plus, we were always faced with the same measurement issues. If we can’t adequately connect follows, likes and mentions to the bottom line, how can we expect to convince skeptical managers and salespeople to participate in a program that seems like more work for questionable return?
Which is why I nearly jumped out of my skin with excitement back in March when I read that Salesforce.com was acquiring Radian6. Could we be on the verge of discovering the B2B social Holy Grail? Read More
Selling in social media was unethical in recent history. While brands shouldn’t be using social media to push product down people’s throats, they do have the opportunity to transact business on Facebook and other social media hubs. But how do we make it relevant beyond one-time flash mob deals?
The opportunity lies between social sales and social rewards. Existing brand loyalty program members that demonstrate faithfulness are the best target. Provide them with word of mouth activities that offer program points that can be redeemed for tangible goods and virtual experiences to foster a deeper level of brand loyalty. The intersection of these activities must benefit the brand and the community. Loyalty only occurs if users organically or voluntarily participate in the program, and they will only do so if the rewards are deemed valuable to them in return. It doesn’t always need to be some “Groupon-like” deep discount. It does, however, need to show the consumer that they are appreciated and incent them to return for more and more benefits… not just any benefit, but better brand experiences. How do we do it?
In a previous post we touched on the findings from Forrester’s recent 2011 Customer Experience Index Report. It essentially underscores a major problem plaguing brands today: poor customer experiences. If you don’t have the time or inclination to actually read the 20-page study, one need only scan the results for the Twitter hashtag #fail to come to the same brutal, yet not surprising conclusion: there are not many brands doing it well.
The extremely low Customer Experience Index (CxPi) scores and plethora of rants against brands signal a wake-up call for marketers increasingly challenged by fickle consumers, a multitude of options and dwindling brand loyalty. Though it seems logical if not obvious, many forget that the best experiences (whether online or offline) are customer-in.
To help marketers increase their scores and improve relationships with customers, we’ve created a marketer’s checklist, “7 Principles of Extraordinary Customer Experiences.”
“The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary.” – Sam Walton
We live in a world where we have access to just about anything and everything with a click, or two, of a button. There was a time when you would hear people talk about customer service and you would assume they were sharing a positive experience. Now when you hear customer service, you think of your worst story ever.
One of the keys to a successful business is how much emphasis you place on CRM. Henry Ford once said, “A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” Whether you order a steak in a restaurant or purchase an iPad online, now more than ever consumers expect to be “taken care of.” Fulfilling the feeling like you’re being “taken care of” can come in many different forms but the one true key is simple… just LISTEN!
Almost any business can get a customer to try their product or service once. In order to have the consumer return, companies need to pay special attention to providing a positive experience from awareness to purchase and far beyond. Organizations retain customers online and offline simply by listening. People want to be heard. They will share their experiences and opinions if you ask (even when you don’t ask) in the hopes you will improve their experience. Listening to your audience shows that you care about them individually and can even make them feel like they are a part of your brand, which builds advocacy. If your customer–and specifically, your customer who belongs to a branded social community–thinks their opinion matters and they feel like they have influence on how you operate your business, the sky is really the limit.
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Chris Wells | Critical Mass Chicago
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Consumers have a myriad of choices in today’s rapidly changing digital environment. As a result, digital marketers have to work harder to deliver extraordinary experiences that resonate with customers. Why is this important? Because it’s the extraordinary experiences we create for customers that allow us to build lasting and meaningful relationships with them.
In order to meet this challenge, it can be a worthwhile exercise to take stock of the terrific brand experiences we’ve recently encountered. To gain some outside perspective on capturing customer loyalty in the new digital social age, I asked a few friends to share their recent experiences with brands.
One friend recounted a recent direct mail piece he received from Southwest airlines and how it produced a significant and lasting positive brand effect for him. He explained that after coming home from a long workday, he opened his mailbox to find a birthday card from Southwest. It was personalized with his name and arrived a few days before his actual birthday. It was a simple birthday card that included a discount on an upcoming flight and a drink coupon. The message was also very simple and direct and included a statement to the effect of “Happy Birthday! Have a drink on us!” According to my friend, this simple gesture went a long way towards building a lasting relationship between he and the airline. Now he always checks for flights on Southwest before any other carrier.
Upon asking another friend, she recalled a recent experience with ProFlowers, an online flower delivery company. She received an email reminder about 2-weeks before her mother’s birthday. The subject line of the email was personalized with her mother’s name, saying, “Remember, Evelyn’s birthday is coming up soon!” Again, not a very complicated message, but a valuable one that made an impact with my friend and helped to ensure she’ll always think of ProFlowers each time she orders flowers for her mom’s—or anyone else’s–birthday.
Both of these are examples of simple but great customer experiences. The mere fact that my friends were able to remember the messaging, timing and impact of these interactions suggests they are the kind of brand experiences most marketers strive to achieve with their customers.
What do these two customer experiences have in common?
- They delivered VALUE and/or convenience.
- They were RELEVANT.
- They were PERSONAL.
We could all take these insights as lessons learned and call it a day. However, as digital marketers we are continuously challenged with how to take these kinds of customer experiences from “great” to “extraordinary” in order to build deeper customer relationships and brand loyalty. Forrester Research wholeheartedly supports this notion. Their 2010 Customer Experience Index indicated that favorable customer experience correlates highly to loyalty — especially when it comes to consumers’ plans for making additional purchases.
Read more about how to take these experiences from Good to Extraordinary
George Panopoulos | Critical Mass Chicago
I recently had a truly extraordinary retail experience when taking my son to visit the LEGO store out at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg (IL). The store layout, staff assistance, merchandising, customer-centric focus, the use of technology and overall shopping experience I had there made me stop in my tracks and recognize this was worth documenting. We say that we are in the business of creating extraordinary experiences at CM—and I strive for that every day in my work. But it is an experience like this in my personal life that helps me step back and reframe what “extraordinary” means any why we strive so hard for that bar.
It was such a blast that I decided to capture the ways that the LEGO store engaged customers, kept them in the store (for hours at a time) and pulled in foot-traffic in an otherwise gigantic and distracting 300 store mall. What better way to do that than in pictures, so you can see what I saw—and what LEGO fanatics keep coming back for.
Some of the “Extraordinary” highlights I noted during my LEGO experience were:
1. Immersive and interactive displays.
2. Ingenius targeted product development.
3. Makes buying easy.
4. Speaks to the enthusiast.
5. Utilizes technology.
Keep Going to see the extraordinary LEGO journey in each of these areas
