find, keep and grow your customer

April 12, 2009

Are you a good marketer? 17 questions to ask yourself every day.

Filed under: social media, customer experience, Innovation, customer service, branding/differentiation, internet marketing, marketing strategy —

BY TODD SCHNICK

We at Intrepid want you to be an intrepid marketer. And whether you are the CEO, the Marketing Director, or the janitor - we believe we are ALL in the company marketing department, and have a critical role to play.

So, we present this series of questions you should ask yourself - EVERY DAY - to see if you are doing the things necessary to be intrepid:

1. What have I done to destroy the status quo?

2. What actions have I taken to make a customer say “wow!”?

3. Have I reviewed and held myself accountable towards my written long-term plans?

4. Have I spent time trying to innovate and make my product or service - or customer experience - better?

5. Have I made the effort to meet someone new, and expand my network?

6. Have I done even a little something to Give Back?

7. Have I considered my customer when making any and all business decisions?

8. Have I helped anyone connect with someone of value?

9. Have I spent even a few minutes learning something new and continuing my education?

10. Have I identified the thing I least want to do - but most need to do - and just done it?

11. Have I refined and improved my ability to convey the value of my product or service?

12. Have I focused our sales process on solving problems or fulfilling needs - instead of pushing products and services our prospect might not need?

13. Have I brushed up on my ability as a storyteller - using this skill to make our prospects feel more emotionally attached to our company and brand?

14. Have I reminded EVERYONE in the organization they have a role in our marketing? And have I encouraged them to see themselves that way?

15. Have I realized that we are not really in the business of producing a product or service - we are in the business of marketing that product or service?

16. Have I refined my ability to differentiate my company in the marketplace?

17. Again, have I thought about ways I can destroy the status quo?

What are some other questions one should ask - each day - to become a better marketer?

BE INTREPID.

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February 28, 2009

Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of Business

Filed under: customer experience, sales process optimization, 1-to-1 relationship marketing, branding/differentiation, marketing strategy —

BY DON RIGBY

As published in the Tri-City Journal of Business

The need to stay in touch with customers, to cultivate top of mind awareness, to create preference for doing business with you has never been greater or more difficult to accomplish.  With the advent of exciting new communication methods, the ability to communicate effectively and respectfully will differentiate winners from the losers. Customers have an unprecedented number of choices in the marketplace — so the need to connect and be compelling is both imperative and urgent.

HOW TO CONNECT:  Don’t sell …Nurture.  This powerful communication strategy aims at the core of why people buy.  It’s fueled by an understanding of human nature, the need for trust, relationship and enabled by fresh new technology. It’s a way of connecting personally to build rapport and gently embed your brand in their hearts and minds causing them to call you when they’re ready to buy.  You can automate many of these processes to help you be more efficient and effective.   

With each prospect and client, teach them how to buy through ongoing, personalized correspondence and carefully sequenced touch-points.  Begin by documenting your approach. Map your process.  Do this and you’re ahead of 85% of the small and mid-sized companies who don’t.  This step-by-step process outlines your expectations of the sales and marketing teams.  You’ll minimize failure from human error while celebrating the human spirit.  People don’t care what you know until they know you care.  This simple idea revolutionizes the cultivation of loyal customers.  Set yourself apart.  Don’t sell. Through a nurturing philosophy, help people buy. 

HOW TO BE COMPELLING:  You earn it.  Your product or service offering is deeper, more relevant and better strategic fit than your competitors.  That’s because you know your customer–you’ve taken the time to understand their wants, needs and desires.  You’ve analyzed competitive offerings and created an added dimension that further solves the customer problem.  You operate with a true differentiator.  The only one that matters is one that’s admired by your customer.

Are the promises of quality and service good differentiators?   It’s not enough. You sound like your competition which adds noise and confusion to purchase process leaving price as the primary consideration.  Give your customer tangible reasons to make emotional decisions they can justify logically.

HOW TO CREATE PREFERENCE:  Live your brand promise.  Your brand is the sum total of what you say, how you deliver and the customer experience you provide.  In essence, your authenticity.  You can certainly influence your brand, but you don’t own it as it is the perception of how your prospects, customers, partners and vendors view you.  A well articulated brand strategy is the bedrock foundation of every successful enterprise.  It’s no longer optional or nice-to-have. It’s required.  

Your brand strategy serves as a blueprint for management and marketing decisions.  It articulates what makes you unique, supports long-term vision, explains why customers buy and aligns all your employees with messaging elements to reinforce the values and principles your company stands for.  

WHAT EXACTLY DOES YOUR COMPANY STAND FOR?  Hint: more than shaking the money tree.  The best brands are created from the inside out.  This requires outside objectivity.  I can’t empathize this enough–seek outside expertise to analyze your competition, talk to your customers, interview employees and review industry trends.  You’re too emotionally tied to you business.  Even though your opinions and bias make you less than objective, you should be involved in the co-creation process so the brand values of your company are authentic.

Your brand is more than your graphic logo, your positioning statement, your unique selling proposition.  You own and manage those elements.  Your brand is owned by your customer and their beliefs.  The single most relevant thing you can do is deliver a customer experience worth repeating.  When you properly manage customer expectations and then exceed them, you create brand ambassadors.  These non-paid soldiers will do more to validate and create demand for your business, but you must give reason. The good news, you don’t have to spend a dime.  Spending time to innovate around customer experience pays big dividends and begins with speaking to those who have already had one.  

To summarize, let’s break things down into two actionable takeaways; 1) If you’re not making enough sales, you’re not talking to enough people, 2) If you want to change your income, change your marketing.  Key word is change.  Yes, the market has changed and so must you. When the market was good, you could exist without a refined brand strategy, without documented sales processes and without compelling messaging to build awareness, preference and a solid foundation for a customer experience worth repeating.  Today is very different.  The market you compete in is less forgiving. Assuming failure is not an option, there’s really no choice but to out smart, out market, out sell your competition.  Do this and you won’t be out of sight, out of mind or out of business.   

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February 17, 2009

Customer Engagement Marketing In The World of Web 2.0

Filed under: sales process optimization, web/interactive marketing, internet marketing, marketing strategy —

BY ZAHIR PALANPUR

One of the cornerstones of the customer gap is understanding why our customers buy from us and what their criteria is in evaluating us and the options in front of them. Effective CRM and sales processes will highlight this critical step where you interview your customers to get this perspective and understand their needs and motivations to make their buying decision. 

So what if we could take this a step further and have your customer engaged in an ongoing interactive exchange to help you define and develop your products? Now, what if you could take it a step further and engage them in the selection process and have them help you in the marketing of your brand? This approach can dramatically increase the involvement and participation of your customers and sphere of users – they become part of your product development process, decision makers and marketers. This makes them highly vested in your brand. 

The ideas behind today’s web 2.0 networking technologies are making these ideas increasing feasible. Simply stated, Web 2.0 can be defined as that next wave of tools and platforms on the web that allows for greater collaboration and sharing of information including user generated content. It not so much about new technologies (as some of it has been around for awhile) as it is about new ways of applying it. 

You’ve probably heard about the main platforms like Linked In and Facebook and some of the tools out there like blogs and wikis. So how can you use this in your business context and how can it help you close the customer gap and “engage” the user group that makes your target market?  

A recent example that I can share with you is from what we did for a client. Late last year we partnered with them to launch a platform that you can view at - http://www.txstyle-mannington.com/. This is an exciting Web 2.0 / social media platform that allows target users for our client (in this case commercial interior designers) to submit design ideas, share these with their network of contacts and vote on the designs. It is taking the collaborative approach to the next with the user being involved in the product design creation process as well as the selection and marketing. By inviting people to come see what they have created and vote, the users are marketing for you and registration has risen rapidly from the first days of its launch. This has been very successful in the market with over 3,000 registered users and about 350 design submissions in the short time since it was launched. Equally compelling is the high level of interactivity including views, votes and comments – a designer called this the American Idol competition for the design community and said she had visited the site over 50 times in the last couple of weeks! You can imagine the level of engagement this has created and the potential benefits it can bring to our client. They couldn’t be happier! 

So think about how you can take advantage of this for your business. The above example may not apply to you, for that matter, no one platform or tool maybe directly relevant. Even blogs, one of the most common of these tools may not be right for all firms. By learning more about what’s out there and immersing yourself in these new tools, you will surely find the right mix for you. You now have everything from blogs, wikis and networking sites like Linked In to sites with specific applications like Yelp which gets customer feedback and business ratings on local businesses and Ning which allows you to create your own social network in a matter of minutes!This heralds a new level of marketing and sales that can best be defined as “Customer Engagement Marketing”. We’ll do our part in keeping you informed about by periodically profiling some of the tools, technologies and platforms on one of our web 2.0 customer engagement tool – here on the Growth Answers blog!

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February 14, 2009

Innovate the Customer Experience (Part 5 of 5)

Filed under: customer experience, marketing strategy, General —

BY STEVEN WINOKUR

The typical company focuses their innovation efforts on product development, R&D and delivery of their specific product or service. All those elements are obviously extremely important and vital to the success of the organization. In fact, those elements are also very important to the customer experience. This fourth tactic is about applying that same focus on all customer touchpoints.

When companies apply that same intense focus on innovation to their sales process, customer service and billing interactions, they can find excellent opportunities to create a better experience for customers.

A good example of this is some companies’ recent use of Twitter to provide customer support. Often, when people need support, they’re looking for it now. Rather than have users call in to a call center, you can “tweet” your issue to a Twitter address and someone can get back to you right away. The downside is you then need to make sure someone is there to receive the message and act on it.

One thing to remember as you look at customer touchpoints through the eyes of innovation – don’t forget the other 3 tactics, especially the first one. Figuring out what your customers desire at each touchpoint and then developing innovative ways to provide that puts you on the path of customer experience excellence.

Please post comments on innovative ways your company has provided a superior customer experience, we’d love to hear them!

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February 8, 2009

Customer Experience: Empowering Employees (Part 4 of 5)

Filed under: customer experience, Resources, sales process optimization, marketing strategy, General —

BY STEVEN WINOKUR

Your front-line employees have a tremendous amount of influence over the experience a customer has with your company. The simple mistake many managers make is that they simply expect the employee to do the right thing. The question is, what is the right thing? Without expressing to your employees how you want them to act, they’ll act according to their own impression of how they think they should act.

This gets right into the next comment – don’t skimp on training. Once you start building the customer-centric culture and measuring the experience, you need make sure all your employees understand how you (as the manager or business owner) want them to act. Is the number #1 priority making sure the customer is happy, no matter what? Is it something else? Whatever it is, your employees need to understand it.

Communicate is key here – employees must have a clear understanding of how they are expected to act. A big part of that is simply defining what you would define as good behavior. Once that’s done, you can work on measuring it and incenting it. Let’s look at an example in a call center.

If the desired behavior is for the call center agents to solve the caller’s issue on the first call, then you should track first call resolution numbers. But, make sure then you incent on that – don’t incent on call time. It doesn’t do much good to say we want to solve problems on the first call and then incent people on how quickly they get customers off the line. It is inconsistencies like this that can cause a customer experience initiative to fail.

How a customer uses your product or service is only part of the experience. How your employees interact with customers goes a long way toward how a customer views the experience with your company. You can influence those interactions – just remember to communicate to your employees how you want them to act. Then back that up with training, measuring and incenting to ensure the behavior you want is actually occurring.

Next, we’ll look at everyone’s favorite word, Innovate.

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February 7, 2009

GrowthANSWERS’ Don Rigby Makes The AJC!

Filed under: 1-to-1 relationship marketing, branding/differentiation, marketing strategy, General —

Business owners are being tested for courage. Some are reacting, others are pro-acting. Here’s an encouraging story published in the 2/1/09 edition Atlanta Journal Constitution how forward thinking businesses are proactively advancing customer growth.  Don Rigby, Managing Director of GrowthANSWERS, believes business owners must stay on the offensive. Smart companies use this down cycle to rethink, reinvent and innovate their way through this and win early in the rebound. To view this article (click here), but we want to know what other proactive business owners are doing today to ready themselves for tomorrow.  Share yours or other acts of courage your observing in the business community. 

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February 5, 2009

Defining, Designing and Measuring The Customer Experience (Part 3 of 5)

Filed under: customer experience, marketing strategy, General —

BY STEVEN WINOKUR

The second tactic on how to create a better experience has to do with defining, designing and measuring.

The first step is defining – quantifying and describing what currently exists. You can’t know where to make changes unless you understand what is currently happening. Once you have a grasp of the current experience for customers, you can look to what is important to them.

As you look at creating a better experience, you MUST understand what is important to your customers. It’s imperative for a company to understand what drives the customer’s perceived satisfaction of the experience and not what you think it should be.

For example, if customers want a support call answered by the second ring, then it makes more sense to hire more in-experienced people to answer the phone than to hire a lower number of  “experts” since the phone won’t get answered as quickly. Hold time may be longer because the in-experienced people don’t have answers and need to go find them, but the calls are getting answered quickly. IF they want their issue to be solved by the person who answers and not get transferred around, you’d better hire more knowledgeable people. It may mean the answer/hold time is longer, but their issue will get solved by the original agent.

As you look to what those factors might be, remember this simple statement by television’s Dr. House. “People lie.” In this case, they don’t do it on purpose. But while it’s important to ask them, it’s even more important to watch them. Watch how they use your product or service – even if it means going to their office or home. You can always trust what they DO – it’s what they SAY that isn’t always accurate.

Finally, you should build a systematic feedback loop to continually monitor and learn. Checking back with customers as you make changes allows you to ensure that your changes are impacting the experience in the way you want them to. Also, tracking the competitive landscape allows you to make changes as others in your industry do to ensure competitors aren’t delivering something you’re not.

One final note – don’t be afraid of negative feedback. All too often I see companies not want to hear the “truth” about their customer experience. First off, if you don’t know where a problem exists, how can you fix it? Understanding where the problems lie allows you to fix them for future customers. Plus, expressing what you are doing to fix a problem may save a client relationship.

Second, problems can often give you a chance to shine. How many times have you been in a situation where you were not happy and felt like you would never shop or eat at a particular establishment again? You spoke to a manager and he/she managed to fix the problem to your satisfaction. Often, you will give them another chance.

Remember, these changes won’t happen overnight. But they can happen. And when they do, you’ll see increased loyalty and growing revenue.

Next, we’ll tackle “Empowering Employees.”

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