Treating customers like people isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept, but it’s one that many marketers and businesspeople often get wrong — because it takes a lot of work. First, you need to know more about your customers. Then you need to create a plan to reach them the way they want to be reached — and timing, of course, is crucial. Not sure where or how to get started, here are a few tips for enhancing the customer experience that can help you on your way:
Understand the Customer Cycle
The customer life cycle is usually defined as three simple steps: attract, retain and extend. In other words, you want to bring new people in, keep the customers you have and continue to build loyalty. Planning and automating these communications can nurture the customer relationship at each point in the cycle, gradually transforming your prospects into the most loyal of fans.
Respond to Customer Behavior
This is the reason why triggered emails and drip campaigns were invented — to reach out to customers who reached an important milestone or performed a specific action and guide them to the next step. For example, if a customer signed up for online bill pay, but hasn’t made their first online payment, a message could go out to them that explains the process and provides assistance.
Turn Off the Megaphone and Start a Conversation
No amount of strategic planning, research or marketing automation will save a piece of communication that doesn’t abide by the unspoken rules of conversation. Because any piece of communication you create is part of a much larger conversation — one that occurs between you and your customer, over the course of time. Think about it. When you’re having a conversation with someone at a dinner party, do you start the conversation off by talking about yourself or do you listen first? Do you show off your fancy vocabulary or do you use words they understand? Do you talk to them in the third person or do you address them as “you”? Treat your customers like human beings and they’ll be less likely to cut the conversation short.
Consider the Message AND the Delivery
When it comes to personalization, messaging is important, but it’s also worth considering how the message is delivered. For example, do your customers prefer to receive your communications by mail or email? Where will they receive these messages? On their desktop or mobile device? If you don’t have the consumer research to support delivery of a message one way versus another, seek out feedback from your customer. Send out a survey or an opt-in email, and see what comes back. You may be surprised by the results.
Once your business is committed to enhancing the customer experience, you’ll likely start to see results right away. However, if you need help creating these and managing your personalized communication, Nordis Technologies can help. Contact us to find out more out about our Print Mail services and revolutionary customer communications management platform, Expresso.