Gambling with customer success is never a good idea, but you’d be surprised at how often shortcuts are taken at organizations today. Reasons vary – short term vision for sales, unwilling or uneducated leadership (#peterprincipal) – or just lack of bandwidth and resources. Regardless of the reason, it’s past time to bite the bullet and integrate customer success into your business model to ensure customers are happy and engaged with your product or service.
It may seem obvious, but shortsighted businesses will struggle even more as customer budgets tighten up in a tough economy. The truth is, your organization can’t afford to neglect customer satisfaction and the need to fuel associated brand loyalty.
1. Reduce Churn and Burn
So you’ve made the sale, great! What steps are you taking to ensure your customer is going to call you back when they want to purchase more of your product, or have you already set your eyes on the next sale and abandoned them? Some hand holding up front is going to be the key to your success rate with future opportunities.
Don’t let your customers feel like a competitor can offer a better experience. How does your company enable customer success and secure recurring revenue or upsell opportunities? Some things to think about:
- Do you include accurate and easy to understand end-user documentation or easy to digest quick start guides to help your customer feel comfortable about using your product?
- Do you have any sort of professional services to ensure a proper enterprise-level rollout for your product? You and your customer need to become BFFs – putting in the extra effort here will cultivate long-term customer loyalty.
- Do you have a point-of-sale email onboarding program to offer tips & tricks or content focused on how they can get the best use out of the product?
- Do you have a responsive helpdesk or useful FAQ section on your website for self-serve assistance in off hours?
2. Adopt an “Outside In” Mentality
What kind of feedback loop do you have? Is the vision for your roadmap fueled by a tyrannical (worst case), or uninformed (not much better) quest for more sales vs. giving customers what they need? If you aren’t doing the research to make sure that “if you build it, they will come”, then you’re in for a world of hurt.
Have you considered creating the framework necessary to fuel development or enhancements of your product that meet the mark with your current and future customers? Do you:
- Query sales and customer service for input on what customers care about most or areas for improvement?
- Have a beta customer program to get early feedback on new product ideas or enhancements to existing products?
- Actively seek customer feedback to show them you care about their opinion and are dedicated to delivering a quality experience?
- Are you actively working to foster the trust necessary to lead to repeat business or referrals?
3. Reduce Cost and Maximize Revenue
You may have a great product, but if your customer isn’t aware of how great it is, or knowledgeable about the benefits, you’re going to take a hit to your revenue and your reputation. Ensure your customer is going to be successful up front by educating them on how to best use your product and offering top-notch support when needed.
Some thoughts on how to help your customer get the most out of your offering, encourage brand loyalty and repeat sales:
- Reduce buyers’ remorse, returns or complaints by making sure your customers are satisfied with their purchase and the overall experience with your company by proactively addressing their needs and providing killer support. You’re going to reduce returns and complaints, save on costs like return shipping, restocking efforts, customer service resources, and preserve your reputation and customer trust at the same time.
- Increase customer retention by putting in the effort needed to build strong and lasting relationships. Deliver the value they expect upon purchase. Customer acquisition costs more than retention – keep them happy and coming back for more!
- Foster that customer relationship, ensure their success, and increase revenue per customer by helping them realize first hand the benefits of your product and how it helps them or their business.
4. Create More Effective Marketing Campaigns
If you don’t really understand customer needs, your marketing campaigns are not going to resonate and be effective. Getting feedback on what customers care about most and how they are using your product in the field is going to help drive engagement with your campaigns.
Whether you’re touting how your product increases productivity in the workplace, cool new features, or providing a sneak peek on upcoming solutions, speak their speak and put in the context of their reality.
Customer feedback helps you:
- Fine tune your messaging and touch on the benefits or pain points your target audience experiences, understand their motivations or challenges better, at a deeper level to create compelling, digestible content.
- Show you hear ‘em loud and clear. By leveraging customer feedback to steer your campaigns, customers are more likely to participate in promotions you’re running. AND, they’re more likely to share your content to others, extending your reach in a much more impactful way than buying some cold, stale list that’s unusable with any reputable marketing automation platform (sorry folks, the days of spamming at will are decades over).
- Use customer data to drive decision-making. By analyzing customer feedback, metrics from surveys, and even complaint logs, marketers can dig in and identify customer preferences. They can determine what to focus on (or what to stay away from) and create highly targeted campaigns that guide your team to develop the right content, ensuring more successful marketing initiatives.
The Gist of It
A downturn in the economy is going to make it more and more difficult to acquire new customers and keep your business in a healthy state. Make sure you’re doing everything you can to keep the customers you do have happy by taking care of their needs, and create a cycle of repeat customers and steady referrals for your trouble.
– The Trident Team