Category: Social Media

The Power of Real-Time Feedback to Drive Business Success

Posted on by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

In today’s fast-paced and customer-centric business environment, gathering real-time customer feedback and engaging in social media conversations are both vital practices.

These approaches enable organizations to gain valuable insights, enhance their products/services, and deliver the exceptional experiences our customers have come to expect. By actively listening to customers, organizations can meet customer expectations, drive loyalty, and gain a competitive edge. Here’s how.

 

Understanding the Value of Real-Time Customer Feedback

There are many benefits of real-time customer feedback, the two most important being:

The power of gaining timely customer insights: These are at the core of every customer-centric organisation. Real-time feedback allows organizations to stay agile, make informed decisions, and then respond quickly to changing customer needs.

According to a study by the Aberdeen Group, companies that leverage real-time customer feedback are 33% more likely to retain customers.

By promptly addressing customer pain points, organizations can reduce frustration and escalation, while at the same time enhancing satisfaction and loyalty. This increases both customer retention and revenue growth, two things every organisation wants.

Turning feedback into actionable improvements: Organizations can transform customer feedback into actionable improvements by employing techniques such as sentiment analysis, categorization, and prioritization. These methods help extract valuable insights that can then be used to drive meaningful change.

A leading e-commerce company revealed that analyzing customer feedback using sentiment analysis led to a 25% increase in customer satisfaction ratings. By systematically analyzing feedback data, organizations can identify trends, common issues, and areas for improvement, enabling them to prioritize and implement impactful changes.

 

Implementing Feedback Collection Mechanisms

There are numerous ways in which an organisation can gather real-time customer feedback. Here are three of the most popularly used ones:

In-app feedback and surveys: Collecting feedback directly within digital channels, such as mobile apps or websites, offers an organisation numerous benefits. By implementing in-app feedback prompts, targeted surveys, and pop-up questionnaires, they can capture customer sentiments in the moment. As a result, they gain valuable insights that can help them improve their offerings, without having to rely on the customer’s memory.

A survey conducted by Qualtrics found that 72% of customers prefer providing feedback within a mobile app.

Airbnb successfully collects in-app feedback on a permanent basis, as anyone who has used their service knows. It enables the company to enhance the user experience, resulting in continuous improvements and increased customer satisfaction.

Live chat and support interactions: Real-time feedback gathered during live chat and customer services interactions provides immediate insights into customer experiences. Organizations can leverage chat transcripts, agent feedback forms, and post-chat surveys to gather valuable feedback and measure customer satisfaction.

After implementing post-chat surveys, one telecommunications company recorded a 20% increase in customer satisfaction scores. People like being asked their opinion, especially when it doesn’t take much effort, as in near real-time questioning.

Post-interaction ratings and reviews: These also play a significant role in collecting real-time feedback. Encouraging customers to provide ratings and reviews immediately after their interactions, helps capture their experiences and sentiments while they … Click to continue reading

Win Online: 9 Ways to Make a Great Website that Engages More Successfully

Posted on by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

What makes a great website?

What makes a website great for your customers?

What makes a website great for your potential customers?

The answers to these questions will help you to publish a successful website. One that encourages current and potential customers to find, see, like and then engage with your content. All of these are precursors to buying your products and services for many customers! 

I published a post on this topic many years ago, which included the seven elements that must be on your website. It is called “The 7 essentials of Customer Centric Websites.” and it still makes a useful (and short) read.

One of the major changes since then, is that today, with mobile more likely to be the screen of reference, we have gone from a “no scroll” to a “must-scroll” format. Words have given way to more images and now also to videos. We have gone from information to entertainment, from push to pull, and from “ours” to “theirs.”

Many articles about optimising websites talk too much about technology and usually include company rather than customer priorities. But you, fellow customer centricity champions, know that everything should start with the customer! So I’d like to build on my earlier post to lay out what it takes to win online these days.

 

9 Essentials of a Great Website

Checking a website is often the first step a customer makes when they are interested in buying a brand or learning about a manufacturer. Therefore we should ensure that ours responds to their needs, whatever the reason for their visit. I have chosen the nine essential elements of a customer centric website below.

Please let me know what you think, by adding a comment below.

1. It’s for the customer, not (just) you

Although your website is about you and your company and/or brands, it is your customers, both current and potential, that need to like it.

Therefore, start by thinking about for whom you are developing the site and what their desires and needs are. Use our  4W™ template to ensure that you go as deep as possible in your understanding of them. I also suggest you read “12 things you need to know about your target customers” for more on what information you need to gather in order to describe them in depth.

 

 

2. An intuitive structure

We don’t have time to read, let alone learn how to navigate a website. Customers will leave if they can’t immediately find what they are looking for. This explains why many – dare I say most? – businesses have a 50% plus bounce rate. (See 20+ Average Bounce Rate Benchmarks -2022 update)

It may still be necessary to have a sitemap for those visitors who need help in navigating or are less logical. However, it no longer needs the prominence it once did.

Put it at the bottom of the page in the footer and don’t waste valuable real estate by placing … Click to continue reading

Why UX Design is Vital to User Satisfaction and Ongoing Job Security

Posted on by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

One of the greatest changes that the current pandemic has prompted, is the increase in the use of technology. From smarter homes to an improved online experience, people have a lot to gain from the situation. This is why UX design is vital to satisfying our customers’ demands and needs

To be fair, the trends were already there, covid just speeded them up. Recent reports have shown that:

  • 62% of consumers shop online more now than before the pandemic (Bazaarvoice)
  • 36% of consumers shop online weekly since covid, up from 28% pre-pandemic. (Digital Commerce 360)
  • 29% currently shop more online than in person, while 35% do both equally. (Digital Commerce 360)
  • Ecommerce accounts for 16.1% of all US sales, compared to 11.8% in Q1. (US Department of Commerce)
  • BOPIS (Buy online pick-up in-store) surged 259% YoY in August 2020, as many shoppers are concerned about the safety of in-store shopping. This is a 59% increase in August over July! (roirevolution.com)
  • 12% more time is being spent on digital this year. (Merkle)

Clearly, things have changed dramatically and businesses, both B2C and B2B are scrambling to catch up. Here are some thoughts about what is important to know when trying to meet our stay-at-home customers’ changing desires:

 

FROM TEXT TO VOICE

Most of us have grown up with text communication, but Gen Z, those born after 1996, are more comfortable with voice. They are less formal but far more impatient than previous generations.

They expect Alexa, Siri, Cortana and similar voice-activated personal assistants to be available whenever they have a question. With this type of search expansion into daily life, being on the front page of Google is no longer good enough. You have to be the number one answer to their questions!

AI IS NOT ONE TECHNOLOGY

Despite what digital marketers may have hoped, AI is not the solution to all our problems. It is simply a series of technologies addressing various current and future customer needs.

Unlike normal analytical processes, using AI needs developers and users to start with the end in sight. Knowing what we are looking for, rather than waiting to see what the analysis brings us, requires a very different thought process and skill set.

The questions asked become as important as the answers received, if not even more so. Therefore it is advisable to make them the best questions you can possibly ask. Your digital marketing has everything to gain and nothing to lose by better understanding these new customer’ demands and how technology can be used to meet them.

AI IS NOT 100% ACCURATE

AI is still in its infancy, despite great leaps forward in some areas in the past few years. For example, language translation is still far from accurate today, but that doesn’t mean it’s not useful. Anything that moves us toward increased customer satisfaction from our digital marketing efforts is great. However, we must understand their limitations and not be fixated on perfection.

One of the … Click to continue reading

The 7 Keys to Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Posted on by Alan Hale

Ever wonder how to get more people talking about your business? It’s simple.

Offer them incredible products and services that solve their problems and fulfil their needs and desires. Then when you have converted them into customers, continue to keep them satisfied and give them something to talk about by surprising them too.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But as you know it’s not. I realise that only too well in my own service offerings. Which is why I decided to write this article about the 7 key elements that will get people talking about us!

Every strategy comes with its own set of rules, and the same is true for word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM). Yes, this means that you can actually create a strategy to generate positive word-of-mouth for your business. In fact, this has become an essential part of marketing as people have started to lose trust in the reviews they read online – more on that later. Friends, family and trusted advisors are those they turn to for a valued opinion these days.

But first: why does Word-of-Mouth matter?

To start with, it is important to understand what cognitive dissonance is. According to Wikipedia’s definition, it occurs when

“a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values; or participates in an action that goes against one of these three, and experiences psychological stress because of that. Coping with the nuances of contradictory ideas or experiences is mentally stressful. It requires energy and effort to sit with those seemingly opposite things that all seem true.”

In other words, people are always searching for ways to reduce their stress that is caused by cognitive dissonance when shopping and selecting brands. One of the ways they do this is by searching for confirmation that they have made the right choices. Receiving positive word-of-mouth opinions of products and services from friends or family members will reduce the dissonance, as it confirms people’s beliefs in what they have purchased.

Given that consumers need input to reduce the risks they take, especially when purchasing a brand for the first time, it is marketing’s job to provide a maximum amount of information to build trust. Whether this is through advertising or online customer reviews, it is important to show both transparency and popularity to enhance confidence.

This has become a challenge in recent years as a result of the exposure of significant fake reviews on many websites, including Amazon. There are now even services to highlight these paid or fake reviews, such as fakespot.com and reviewmeta.com. If you are interested in this topic, then I suggest the article on “10 secrets to uncovering which online reviews are fake.” by Catey Hill.

So how can we improve customers’ trust in what we offer? Here are seven ideas I came up with to include in your word-of-mouth marketing:

 

#1 Make Customers Delighted!

If you value your customers, offer them more than they expect! It’s not only the great product or service that generates loyalty … Click to continue reading

The 7 Essentials of Customer Centric Websites

Posted on by

I was recently reviewing corporate FMCG / CPG websites and what a shock I got! These are organisations with the consumer in their name, so they should be consumer-centric, right? Well yes of course!

However, very few of them seem to have taken the consumer’s perspective when creating their websites and even fewer delighted me sufficiently to make me want to return to their website, at least any time soon! 

 

From what I have seen so far, it appears that most organisations build their websites to share information with their customers. However it is the information THEY want to share, not the information their customers might want to have. So I thought about what would be important from a customer’s perspective. Here is my list, but please share your own ideas or additions:

 

The 7 things that MUST be on your website

  1. A clear structure that is intuitive – but still include a sitemap for those that need further help or are less logically minded
  2. Contact links or details on the home page, including telephone numbers, email, postal and street addresses and social media account links; it is why many of your customers will go to your website in the first place.
  3. A list of your products, br ands and services you offer, with details of ingredients, limits to usage, distribution or other details that might be of interest and relevance to your customers
  4. An About section showing the company details, including its management, geographical areas covered, mission statement, values, strategy and culture, as well as the latest news, both for investors  and customers
  5. Valuable content from the customers perspective, which is regularly updated and has cross-browser compatibility with web-friendly images. Since videos are one of the most popular elements researched on the web, it is a good idea to include them, as well as your latest TVC and print advertising – people love to watch and comment on them.
  6. A FAQ section with most often asked questions, which should be constantly updated with new information as customers connect with queries
  7. Utilities such as search, sign-up, subscribe and RSS feed for them, tracking and statistical analysis for you

 

A good example for inspiration

One of the better ones I recently came across, and which is also a lot of fun to interact with, is the corporate site of Reckitt Benckiser. It really interested and engaged me for quite some time and in many different areas. For example, instead of the usual list of its br ands and their logos, it shows what it calls its Powerbr and line-up displayed on a retail shelf or in the rooms of a virtual home (I admit the supermarket bell irritated me somewhat but you can turn it off). You then click on the picture of the product to get more information on it, including its latest advertising. яндекс

This way of inviting interaction actually made me want to click on all the br ands to find out … Click to continue reading

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