Category: CRM

From Good to Extraordinary: Ignite Your Business with Personalized Customer Delight

Posted on by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

It’s time to move from customer satisfaction to customer delight. After all, no one wants to be good when they can be great!

These days, providing a delightful, personalized experience for customers is no longer just a luxury—it’s a necessity for sustainable business growth. While every business is personal, which we would do well to remember, many companies shy away from truly getting close to their customers. Perhaps they’re afraid they will learn that they’re not as awesome as they like to think they are!

However, it is precisely through building strong engagement and trust that businesses can unlock their full potential.

It’s time for a paradigm shift in your approach to customer service, empowering your employees to exceed customer expectations, so they can drive sales, and foster long-term loyalty. (I wrote about this a few weeks ago; take a look at “4 Ways to Empower Your Employees to Give Outstanding Customer Service” for more details)

By understanding the importance of effortless customer journeys, personal connections, and continuous improvement, organizations can transform their customer service into a powerful growth engine.

 

The power of effortless journeys

Every touchpoint in the customer journey presents an opportunity to leave a lasting impression. To provide a truly personalized experience, businesses must go above and beyond mere satisfaction and aim for effortless interactions at every stage.

Understanding and anticipating customer needs is crucial to achieving this. By leveraging data, market research, and customer feedback, companies can gain valuable insights into their customers’ preferences, pain points, and desires.

Armed with this knowledge, businesses can tailor their touchpoints to meet and exceed expectations. Whether it’s a seamless online purchasing process, a user-friendly mobile app, or a responsive customer support system, every effort should be made to eliminate friction and make the customer’s journey as effortless as possible.

And the effort is worth it:

  • According to a study by Salesforce, 84% of customers say being treated like a person, not a number, is crucial to winning their business.
  • Research by Accenture reveals that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations.
  • A report by Deloitte found that companies that prioritize personalization see an average sales uplift of 10-20%.

 

Smiling for that personal connection 

Building genuine connections with customers is the cornerstone of exceptional customer service. A smile is one of the most powerful tools to establish this connection.

Even in a call centre environment, where interactions may be limited to voice-only, a smile can be heard through the phone and can significantly impact the customer’s experience. Encouraging customer service representatives to adopt a friendly, empathetic tone and providing them with the necessary training and resources to do so can make all the difference.

Customers appreciate feeling valued and heard, and a warm, personalized interaction can leave a lasting positive impression. By investing in employee development and creating a culture that values the human element of customer service, businesses can cultivate stronger relationships and inspire customer loyalty.

Building engagement and trust with customers has a significant positive impact on business:

  • A survey conducted by Edelman shows that 81% of consumers say trust in a brand is a deal-breaker or deciding factor in their purchasing decisions.
  • According to the Temkin Group, companies that earn $1 billion annually can expect to earn an additional $700 million within three years of investing in customer experience.

 

Becoming your customer

From my experience, there is no better way to help employees understand your customers than becoming them.

To provide excellent service, businesses must immerse themselves in their customers’ reality. This involves regularly contacting customer services and experiencing the service you give firsthand. By actively engaging with your own customer service channels, you will gain invaluable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your operations.

I remember once contacting a client’s customer care hotline only to receive a message that they were closed and to call back during office hours. Now this might seem reasonable, except that this client sold food preparation ingredients. And when might the customer need help in using them? When they are preparing their meals; before breakfast, lunch and dinner.

None of these fits in with normal working hours, so they were frustrating their customers without even knowing. When I pointed this out to them, they changed their opening times to start earlier and end later. The result? A significant and measurable increase in customer satisfaction.

A hands-on approach allows you to identify areas for improvement, streamline processes, and enhance overall customer satisfaction. Additionally, monitoring customers’ calls and actively listening to their feedback on social media can provide deeper insights into their preferences, pain points, and satisfaction levels.

This knowledge empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions and refine their offerings to better align with customer expectations.

The impact of proving exceptional customer service has been proven in numerous studies:

  • A study conducted by American Express revealed that 86% of customers are willing to pay more for better customer service.
  • According to a report by PwC, 73% of consumers consider customer experience to be a crucial factor in their purchasing decisions.
  • Research by Bain & Company shows that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can lead to a profit increase of 25-95%.

 

Counting customer delight, not just satisfaction

While customer satisfaction is important, it is no longer enough to merely meet expectations.

To stand out in a crowded marketplace, businesses must focus on delighting customers by going above and beyond what is expected. Surprise and delight are powerful tools for fostering customer loyalty and driving word-of-mouth recommendations.

By continuously seeking innovative ways to exceed customer expectations, businesses can create memorable experiences that leave a lasting impact. This can be achieved through personalized gestures, unexpected rewards, or simply going the extra mile to resolve customer issues. By counting delight as a key performance indicator, businesses can shift their mindset and cultivate a culture of continuous improvement and customer-centricity.

And if you’re still wondering whether delighting your customers will boost business, here are a few statistics that confirm it will:

  • A study by Gartner suggests that by 2023, more than 50% of consumer product investments will be redirected to customer experience innovations.
  • According to a report by Temkin Group, customers who have had a positive emotional experience with a company are 15 times more likely to recommend it to others.
  • Research by SuperOffice indicates that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.

 

Transforming Data into Actionable Insights

To further enhance customer service and drive business growth, organizations must understand the power of actionable insights derived from multiple information sources including market research.

However, in today’s data-driven world, it is not enough to collect information or conduct surveys. Actionable business insights come from synthesizing and combining various sources of data and information to gain a comprehensive understanding of customer behaviour, preferences, and needs.

By transforming data and information into knowledge and understanding to develop actionable insights, businesses can make informed decisions that lead to positive changes in customer attitudes and behaviours.

In C3Centricity we work with our proprietary seven-step process called CATSIGHT™. It offers a systematic approach to unlocking the power of customer insights and leveraging them to fuel business success.

If you’d like to learn more about our online Mastermind course and in-person training on actionable insight development, please book some time for us to discuss your needs or click the link below.

LEARN MORE

Conclusion

In today’s customer-centric landscape, businesses must embrace the power of personalized experiences to drive growth. By focusing on painless, seamless, effortless touchpoints, businesses can build positive personal connections. Then by proactively engaging with customers, aiming for delight rather than satisfaction, and leveraging actionable insights, organizations can create a culture of exceptional customer service.

This culture fosters customer loyalty, drives record sales, and positions businesses as industry leaders. By implementing the strategies and insights outlined above, businesses can unleash the full potential of personalized experiences and set themselves apart in a highly competitive market. The time to prioritize exceptional customer service is now, and the rewards are endless.

The evidence presented throughout this article, including statistics on the impact of personalization, the value of trust, and the influence of exceptional customer service on sales, supports the notion that investing in customer delight is not just beneficial but imperative for long-term success. By implementing the strategies and insights discussed, businesses can transform their customer service into a powerful growth engine, leading to increased customer loyalty, positive word-of-mouth, and sustainable business growth.

In conclusion, the time to prioritize exceptional customer service is now. By adopting a customer-centric mindset, leveraging actionable insights, and consistently delivering delightful experiences, businesses can stand out from the competition, create strong emotional connections with their customers, and achieve unprecedented levels of success.

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.

Who is your website for? If it's not for your customer it's time to rethink. Click to Tweet

 

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 it at the top. If you make it easy for people to find what they are looking for, they will never need to revert to a sitemap, and are even less likely to leave for a competitor’s website.

If you make it easy for people to find what they are looking for on your website, they will never need to revert to a sitemap, and are even less likely to leave for a competitor's website. Click to Tweet

 

3. Customers can contact you however they want

Some websites force the visitors to their website to complete a form if they can’t find the information they were searching for.

My recommendation is to do away with impersonal forms and drop-down menus. They usually force customers to use your classification. And even worse, they sometimes don’t even acknowledge that the request has been received!

Instead, make them feel special, valued and appreciated. Make them feel like you are excitedly waiting to hear from them, and that you want to know what they have to share or ask. Acknowledge the request and give them an idea when they can expect a reply.

Customers want to be treated as individuals, not as just one insignificant member of the masses. How do you treat your customers? As the precious clients they are for your business?

 

A second recommendation is to include contact links or your full details. These should appear on the home page, and include telephone numbers, email, postal and street addresses, and social media accounts.

With the global nature of the internet, a customer has the right to know where you are based. And if you don’t tell them, they may imagine the worst!

Your customers have the right to connect as they wish, by whichever media they prefer. Do you give your own customers a choice? Click to Tweet

 

4. Full details of your products, brands and services

Today’s customers demand information. In addition to knowing who and where you are, they also want details about ingredients, sourcing, limitations of usage, distribution and availability.

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They want reassurance about your practices. Are they sustainable? Is your vision acceptable and your practices ethical? The more information you provide, the less need people will have to contact you with such requests for more information.

Today’s customers demand information. In addition to knowing who and where you are, they also want details about ingredients, sourcing, limitations of usage, distribution and availability. Click to Tweet

One more recent addition to this already long list of information, is company purpose.

There is a lot of debate about whether or not customers care about companies and brands, but the covid pandemic has brought company support to the forefront. The best have been able to demonstrate their purpose through their actions. McKinsey wrote a great article on the topic that I highly recommend. It’s called “Demonstrating corporate purpose in the time of coronavirus.”

 

5. Details about your company

Anonymous websites are no longer tolerated, as I already mentioned. Customers demand to know with whom they are engaging. So you can no longer hide who you are. But customers need far more than just your contact details.

A detailed “About” section must also be provided, with clear information about all aspects of the company. Topics to include are your management or team structure, operational areas, mission statement, values, strategy, culture, and if you have one, your company societal purpose too. You should also add the latest company news, both for investors and customers.

With the continued rise in the interest of visual content, incorporating a media section can add further interest too. In it, you can provide images and films of your products and advertising. This will ensure that your brands are correctly presented online, as everyone will have access to professional, quality photos and videos.

Today’s customers demand information. In addition to knowing who and where you are, they also want details about ingredients, sourcing, limitations of usage, distribution and availability. Click to Tweet

This visual section has one further advantage. That of making it easy for customers to both comment on and share their favourite ones.

Advertising, in particular, is popular for sharing on social media, so make sure you have the best possible selection of both the latest and historical but popular material available. Adding social share buttons will make it even easier for them.

 

6. Valuable content

Regularly updated content is good for your SEO rankings as well as for encouraging your customers to return frequently.

Think about the topics of most interest to them. Perhaps you could answer common questions they have through a FAQ section or blog.

Or provide useful recipes, styling tips or other relevant information about product usage that your customers will find appealing. Frequently added new content will have people coming back to visit your site more often.

As mentioned above, visual content is vital today as people read less. If you struggle to create sufficient new content, or just want to get your customers more involved with your brands, then inviting them to provide it is a win-win for both of you.

User-generated content (UGC) as it is called, enables customers to share their real-life experiences with your brands, products and services. You can take advantage of this by offering space for them to add photos, videos and comments. Their stories help convey your brand’s values to other people and build trust.

Purina has been doing this successfully for many years, as owners love to show off their pets. They have even turned user-generated content into advertising. And many other brands have been inspired by what their customers share with them. For an insightful overview of some of the best campaigns, I highly recommend “14 Inspiring User Generated Content Campaigns.”

 

7. A responsive design

We are all multi-screen users today, moving seamlessly from smartphone to tablet, and from a laptop to TV. We expect the same quality of experience no matter what screen we are using. So a great website needs to be optimised for this.

We are all multi-screen users today, moving seamlessly from smartphone to tablet, and from a laptop to TV. A great website needs to be optimised for mobile. Click to Tweet

I am always amazed when I view a website that is not optimised for mobile, Yes they still exist even today! It really does negatively impact the customers’ experience and will certainly damage the brand’s image in the medium term.

A further reason for having a responsive design is that in the last year or so Google has started to penalise those websites that are not optimised. Your potential customers may never learn about you because you won’t appear on the first pages of search results.

 

8. Engaging content and entertainment

Even if your customers come to your website looking for information, they are often also expecting some form of entertainment. Whether through useful tips and guides, or quizzes, games and competitions, customers demand to be surprised and delighted by the experience you offer them online.

Even if your customers come to your website looking for information, they are often also expecting some form of entertainment. Click to Tweet

We all love to learn more about ourselves, and the rapid rise of fitness bands and Facebook quizzes are a clear indication of this. Who can resist an invitation to discover “What your favourite colour means” or “What your favourite foods say about you”? or “How male/female is your brain?”  Incidentally, the second one was developed by Unilever’s Knorr brand.

I bet you just clicked or plan to click on one of those links, didn’t you?! See how powerful quizzes can be?

And don’t forget our very own C3C Evaluator™ for assessing how customer centric you are. 

 

9.   High level of security

Companies record more and more information about their customers than ever before. At least we now have the possibility to define what we are willing to share and what we are not. However, I, like many of you too I’m sure, never bother going into the details of the cookies we are asked to approve.

But in return, we all expect our details to be kept safe. While it remains your responsibility to ensure a secure environment, you can also help, by only asking for the details that you will immediately use for business purposes.

Ask yourself, do you really need telephone numbers if you will never call or text? Do you need postal addresses, occupation or other details that may be possible to collect?

By only requesting the information that you will use, you will reduce the chance of being hacked, due to the lower value of your database. But you also risk losing fewer customers than you would if you require detailed information, especially at the beginning of the relationship before trust has been built. You can always build up your information on your customers over time as they become more comfortable with providing it to you.

Only request the customer information that you will use, not everything you can. You risk losing fewer customers than you would if you require detailed information, especially at the beginning of your relationship. Click to Tweet

Of course, no matter how much information you collect from your customers, you need to protect your database from cyber attacks, whether that risk is high or low.

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When I wrote the original post on customer centric websites, I mentioned Reckitt Benckiser as a best-in-class example. Today, when I look at the leading CPG / FMCG websites, I find many others that deserve a mention. I, therefore, decided to ask you, the reader, to vote for your favourite customer centric website and why you consider it to be a great example? Please share your ideas below in the comments.

And if your own website doesn’t pass the above nine essentials test, perhaps it’s time to make some changes? We can help with a detailed website audit which will pinpoint how to optimise it for your customers’ experience.

5 Powerful Ways to Upgrade Your Customer Journey Maps

Posted on by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

Mapping your customer journey is an important part of understanding and satisfying them better. Since the travel and leisure industries are still in turmoil after covid, I believe that now is a good time to review how they treat their customers. And this should include their customer journey mapping.

Through the example of an experience I had with the Hilton Group, I share some important lessons about getting customer service right! These will be invaluable as the travel industry fights to recover. 

 

Background

Each year around Christmas time, my family get together for a weekend of fun somewhere in Britain. Last year we met up in Bristol. As a Hilton Honors member for more than twenty years, I offered to book rooms for all of us in the local Doubletree.

I expected to get a better rate with my membership, and certainly cheaper than those offered by all the booking sites. Well, I reserved five double rooms for the weekend, as well as a table for ten in their restaurant for dinner on the Saturday evening.

I booked directly by calling the hotel, as I always prefer to do. I expect to be recognised for my loyalty – and if possible rewarded too! On this occasion I was proven seriously wrong!

A couple of weeks after booking and pre-paying for all the rooms, I received Hilton’s weekly newsletter offering me a significant discount for the exact same hotel and dates. Clearly their online pixels had identified me as being interested in this hotel, but they hadn’t connected this interest with my having booked directly. You can already see from this, that their customer journey mapping is incomplete.

As Hilton offer a “guaranteed lowest rate” I reached out to their call centre and was told that yes I was entitled not only to the lower rate, but to an additional 25% discount for having made the claim. I was told how to complete the claim form and I hung up ecstatic that I could save my family even more money – which we would no doubt spend in the bar before and after our dinner!

Imagine my surprise when the next day I was informed that my claim had been refused! I was notified that the guaranteed lowest rate only applied to third-party sites and not to Hilton’s own website!

[bctt tweet=”Guaranteed lowest rates should mean just that! Otherwise you’re just cheating the customer. #CEX #CRM #Customer” username=”Denysech”]

I immediately responded and was again told that their guarantee didn’t apply to their own rates. In addition, as I had pre-paid I could not get the lower rate even if it was now being offered!

Not being one to take “no” for a final answer, I contacted their corporate customer service group again, as I felt my loyalty was not being recognized. I was once more given the same response, but this time was informed that my request would be forwarded directly to the hotel concerned – no doubt to get me off their (corporate) backs!

The hotel immediately responded saying that although it is corporate policy not to include direct bookings in their lowest rate guarantee (?!!), they would in this case give me the special offer. I was very pleased that they at least recognised the benefit of customer satisfaction and restored my faith in the Hilton group – somewhat.

That should have been the end of this story, but it’s not. Hilton surpassed themselves this time in terms of customer service, or rather a serious lack of it!

My brother called me the following week and informed me that the hotel’s website was showing that their restaurant was closed on the day I had booked it. I immediately rang them and spoke to the same person, who remembered me and assured me our table for ten people was booked. She said she would double check again just to be sure, so in the afternoon I called back not wanting any last minute problems with my family.

Surprise, surprise, I was told the restaurant was booked for a private party. What about my reservation made more than a month ago? Shouldn’t someone have contacted me? I demanded to speak to the manger, who apart from profuse apologies, said she would raise the issue in their operations meeting later that day.

She called me back that evening, to say that there was nothing she could do. It was their mistake and they would be happy to book me elsewhere in the city. I explained that my family had booked six rooms for two nights at their hotel so we could eat at their famous restaurant (my married sister had booked separately). No solution offered; an admission of fault but no compensation offered and no alternative other than to book at another restaurant! Their suggestion was their sister hotel down the road, a bland, modern affair, with no atmosphere.

This farcical situation continued during the whole weekend, but I won’t bore you with the details, as I would rather use this incident to demonstrate how Hilton (and you) can be better prepared.

 

Three Lessons Learned about Customer Journey Mapping

So what lessons can we learn from this example, even if we work in a different industry? I came up with the following points, but I would love to hear what other issue of customer journey mapping you are having; just leave me a comment below please.

 

1. The customer journey map needs to integrate all possible contact points.

Think about all touchpoints when developing your customer journey mapIn Hilton’s case this is clearly not done. I was personally offered a cheaper rate at the hotel at which I had already booked five rooms! Clearly they had identified that I had reviewed prices online and then offered my the cheaper rate.

Without their email, I would never have known and would not have checked prices again since I had already booked. More importantly, I became dissatisfied with my booking, having been informed by Hilton that I could have paid less by booking closer to the date of arrival.

Lesson: You must include all touchpoints in your customer journey map, to avoid disappointing your customers. By using an incomplete model, Hilton opened themselves up to annoying a loyal customer rather than just appealing to potential new ones.

[bctt tweet=”Include all touchpoints in your customer journey map, otherwise it’s a dangerously incomplete model.” username=”Denysech”]

 

2. If you mess up admit it AND correct it

After calling to book the rooms, the hotel put me through to the restaurant to book a table for the Saturday night. Everything was confirmed and I would not normally have checked details until arriving at the hotel and checking in.

The excuse that the closure of the restaurant is on their website didn’t go down well with me when I called to check. After all, they themselves had taken the reservation in person, so why would I need to go to their website? In addition it was not possible to book the restaurant on their website!

Lesson: An apology for a mistake is not its resolution. Proposing to book another restaurant in their sister hotel was nothing more than I could have done myself. I didn’t feel that the Hilton staff were interested in correcting the situation that they themselves had created. They did not go out of their way to make things right, which is even less acceptable for a loyal customer.

When your company makes a mistake, find a solution that is acceptable to your customer, not just the quick fix that suits you. Now is your chance to not just satisfy, but to surprise and delight them too. It then turns a bad memory into a great one!

[bctt tweet=”An apology for a mistake is not its resolution. Don’t expect your job to be done until your customer’s problem is solved and they are delighted!” username=”Denysech”]

3. Follow up to make sure the customer is happy

Don't just satisfy, surprise and delightI often speak about delighting the customer but your first aim is to ensure your customer is happy with the solution that you propose. Only after that can you look to see how you can go above and beyond what they expect, so they are both surprised and delighted with how they have been treated.

Lesson: Replacing a faulty product or service is what our customers expect. Offering free samples, a further discount, express delivery or additional attention is not. These are the small touches that surprise and delight. They are also the things that your customers will share with friends and family, if not the whole world through social media. Suddenly you have gone from being the bad guy to the cool guy.

[bctt tweet=”Replacing a faulty product or service is what customers expect, but it’s not enough! Do more to surprise & delight: these will be shared with friends and family.” username=”Denysech”]

Customer journey mapping has become much more complex today, as the touchpoints our customers are using, before, during and after purchase, have expanded exponentially. However the process of identifying and understanding the complete journey remains essential to delighting each and every customer.

 

BONUS Ideas

1. One further element which I suggest my clients add to their journey maps is the emotional state of their customers at each point of interaction. This simple addition is a powerful addition and clearly shows where a brand needs to improve its customers’ experience. It highlights those touchpoints where their customers’ emotional state is sub-optimal and needs improving.

2. And one final suggestion that I give my clients, is to become your customer. Go our and buy what you are selling. Experience different outlets, different buying experiences, covering as many, if not all, the touchpoints. It will amaze you how much you can learn from this simple exercise. 

Do you need help developing or updating your own customer journey map?

C3Centricity offers several 1-Day Catalyst training sessions on the topic.  Download the brochure to learn more.

If you prefer, we can also work directly with your team to review and revitalise your own customer journey mapping.

The 7 Keys to Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Posted on by Denyse Drummond-Dunn

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.

[bctt tweet=”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. #Brand #Marketing #WOMM” username=”Denysech”]

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.

[bctt tweet=”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. #WOMM #Brand #Marketing” username=”Denysech”]

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 but the implicit message that “you matter to us!” That’s what every customer wants to feel!

Building solid relationships depends on rewarding your customers with exceptional service and perhaps a creative surprise. This can be complimentary priority shipping, free samples, coupons or unexpected gifts. Anything you can do to show customers that you value their business, especially when it is unanticipated, will build loyalty.

While some may say it is important to do this on a regular, ongoing fashion, I disagree. If the surprises become expected, then they no longer amaze. And this also means that you should not rely on just one single way to delight your customers. Variety is the spice of life after all!

[bctt tweet=”If you value your customers, offer them more than they expect! It’s not only the great product or service that generates loyalty but the implicit message that “you matter to us!” That’s what every customer wants to feel! #Brand #Marketing #CustomerDelight” username=”Denysech”]

#2 Focus on Brand Commitment

In the book Spreading the Word, Tom Brown defined brand commitment as:

“An enduring desire to maintain a relationship with a specific entity.”

Your Facebook brand page may offer you a unique opportunity to build and nurture a relationship with your fans. But, it takes more than just generating Likes, to get people to talk about you! Have a look online and see just how many Facebook pages have almost zero engagement!

So, ask yourself these three questions every day:

  1. “Do our customers have an enduring desire to maintain a relationship with our brand?”
  2. “What do we do to earn our fans’ trust each day?”
  3. “What more can we do to surprise and delight our customers?”

If you focus on maintaining your customers’ desire to continue a relationship with your brand, this will set up the ideal conditions for successful word-of-mouth marketing, which you never know may even go viral.

Brands with a strong and above all engaging fan base on Facebook can count on daily likes, but more importantly also shares and comments. This engagement will increase visibility and accelerate reach. This social proof will increase your brands’ attraction and generate an ever-growing number of fans. If you want to learn more on this, check out  Mari Smith, known by many as the queen of Facebook. She has some great tips and free resources that you will find extremely useful.

 

#3 Offer Distinctive Products and Services

When it comes to distinctive products, for many, one brand immediately comes to mind: Apple. Steve Jobs succeeded in building a strong brand that people associated with innovative products that rock! Every time Steve introduced a new product, like the iPod, iPhone or iPad, people just had to talk about it!

Many argue that Apple has lost some of its sparkle since his demise because his visionary approach has been replaced by more upgrades than innovations. But Apple remains successful and highly profitable – at least for the shareholders.

When you think about distinctive service, I’m sure Zappos resonates with you too. Not only does Zappos offer shoes online, but they also value their customer’s trust more than anything! This is why their core value is to WOW their customers.

WOW involves differentiation by doing more for your customers than they expect. Zappos is not your average company, and their customer service is anything but average or ordinary. They achieve this by expecting every employee to deliver WOW in everything they do.

Since Zappos talks so openly about their culture and also shows the value of it by becoming incredibly successful, many other companies have strived to follow their example. Today, these include Southwest Airlines, Nordstrom, USAA and L.L. Bean. Sorry, these are all US examples; if you have great customer service examples from companies in Europe or Asia, then please add them in the comments below. I am sure there are many, but the US does seem to have an advantage over other regions when it comes to walking the talk of customer-centricity.

If you offer new distinctive products or services, people just want to talk about them. It’s up to you to generate viral-ability by offering them great content about your brands, so they can share it with friends and family. Think about blog posts, videos, podcasts, games, badges and other promotional material.

[bctt tweet=”If you offer new distinctive products or services, people just want to talk about them. It’s up to you to generate viral-ability by offering them great content about your brands, so they can share it with friends and family. Think about blog posts, videos, podcasts, games, badges and other promotional material.” username=”Denysech”]

#4 Nurture Involvement

Offer solutions that connect to the mental relevancy of your customers. Think about how to trigger a big desire or confront significant pains or frustrations they may have with current offerings. Get into the middle section of your customer’s brain (limbic) to create somatic markers. These markers connect personal experience with your brand and will stimulate brand choice when purchase decisions are taken.

For example, Coca-Cola will generate feelings of happiness and friendship in a lot of people, thanks to its consistent core message. This is why it outsells Pepsi in most countries, despite regularly losing to Pepsi in blind taste tests.

Continue to nurture these feelings and your customers will want to share their experiences with their acquaintances.

 

#5 Connect with Market Mavens

Influencers or market mavens are individuals who have up-to-date information about many kinds of products, places to shop and other facets of the market. They are also people who are most likely to respond to information requests from friends, family, or social media followers.

Influencers love to educate others, and in doing so, they also increase their own status. Connect with these market mavens and make them your brand advocates. But watch out for fake recommendations they are asked to make. Customers today want to know when reviews are being paid for by the brand in question. If the person who makes the review is a trusted influencer, this shouldn’t be a problem. But trying to hide over-positive recommendations for your brands behind false identities and websites will eventually be found out.

 

#6 Identify your brand advocates

When it comes to word-of-mouth marketing, referrals by your greatest fans are your most effective type of marketing offline. If you want to include these influencers in your strategy, you first need to identify them. This is what the infamous NPS score supposedly does.

Satmetrix, Bain & Company and Fred Reichheld developed the Ultimate Question on which NPS depends: “How likely are you to recommend us to a colleague or friend?” From the answers, the Net Promoter Score is calculated. People that rate your brand as a 9 or 10 are considered to be “loyal enthusiasts who will keep buying and also refer others, fuelling growth”.

The NPS score has suffered much criticism since it was first developed back in 2003. According to Satmetrix, NPS varies widely by industry so it is essential to benchmark your performance against the average, which generally is anywhere between 30 and 50.

The NPS score also appears to be more relevant for service companies than for consumer products. The chart below, confirming this, summarises the 2020 industry average for the US; click on the graph to go to the article.

 

#7 Join the Conversation at Your Peril

When companies see the great things their customers are saying about their brands online, they can be tempted to join in the conversation. Don’t! Adding comments to your customers’ opinions will make them look as if they have been developed by you. I know you want to thank them, but do this on your Facebook page and always in general, rather than personally to any person individually.

However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t mention your customers. Just do it as quotes from your customer services and care centres, rather than by adding a reply to already posted comments.

Customers prefer to talk amongst themselves, even though they know you will most certainly be watching. If you join in, then they feel as if they have lost control. And it won’t do anything in terms of building trust.

So watch, listen and learn rather than joining in.

[bctt tweet=”Customers prefer to talk amongst themselves, even though they know you will most certainly be watching. If you join in, then they feel as if they have lost control. And it won’t do anything in terms of building trust. #Engagement #CustomerCentricity” username=”Denysech”]

Conclusions

Although no one can predict the viral-ability of customer experiences on the social web, word-of-mouth marketing matters more than ever. Understand these 7 key elements and create your own strategy to stimulate positive word-of-mouth.

Need one more recommendation on word-of-mouth marketing? Then it’s this. Buy the book called “Word-of-Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking”. It is written by Andy Sernovitz, with the foreword and afterword by none other than Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki!

I would love to hear your thoughts on word-of-mouth marketing. Please share your reaction in the comments box below. Thanks.

To learn more about connecting with your customers, please also check out our website here: https://c3centricity.com/

This post is a revised version of an article that was first published on C3Centricity in 2012 and regularly updated ever since.

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