On a Journey to 10k Customers

Why customer service is about systems not just smiles

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 15:00:00 -0700

One of the oldest rules in the book of good customer relations says that by smiling you are at least part way to delivering effective service. Creating a positive atmosphere, especially when dealing with a difficult situation can help to defuse tension and allow you to effectively solve the issue at hand. Sounds sensible, but is it actually true?

Good systems save lives

The car dealer and customer service guru Carl Sewell wrote in his million selling business bible Customers for Life, ‘Saying please and thank you doesn’t ensure you’ll do the job right the first time.’ He proposed instead a mantra of ‘Systems, Not Smiles’, arguing that if you sign up to a skydiving school and jump with a parachute that doesn’t open, all the smiles in the world aren’t going to get you back inside one of that company’s planes. Better to have systems in place to ensure your parachutes are all in working order before people jump out of the plane. An extreme example certainly, but it’s best practice for any business to have appropriate systems and processes in place to meet their customers needs and avoid disaster of any scale.

Invest in cost-effective systems

While it’s true that being friendly is free, that’s no reason to offer cut price customer service. The best way to keep costs down and create happy, returning clients is by investing in robust, effective systems that ensure clients’ needs are met promptly and effectively while being easy to for staff to use.

All businesses should undertake regular customer service audits. They should assess how easy it is for clients to get in touch, how quickly customer queries are dealt with, and how satisfied customers are. Identify the key procedures that every member of staff needs to follow during any interaction and ensure staff feel confident using the systems. Train staff to prioritise what’s really important to customers and not waste time attempting to address less urgent issues.

Make your customers smile

Not every situation can, or should be dealt with in the same fashion. The best customer service representatives are those with genuine empathy with their clients. If a customer has a particularly serious complaint, or is especially upset, a fixed grin and an upbeat tone will only exacerbate the situation.

Getting to know your clients better and understanding what they want from you is the single most effective action a business can take in creating great customer service. Encourage them to tell you how you are doing, perhaps through a Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT) and you will be able to begin to address problem areas head on.

What you should really be aiming for aren’t customer service representatives with fixed, fake smiles, but skilled, empathetic members of staff who listen and react appropriately to their clients. Robust systems make this much easier to achieve. Ultimately, we want to be making the customer smile. That way everybody’s happy.

How to respond to complaints about your brand on social media

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 07:00:00 -0800

Social media is fast becoming the go-to destination for customer service complaints – whether businesses are ready for it or not. And it matters because forums like Twitter and Facebook are changing how the public perceives your brand.

Edison research found that only 50% of social customer enquiries received a reply. Imagine ignoring half of the phone calls. If you don’t offer effective customer support on social media, or worse, bad support, it’s out there for everyone to see.

With that in mind here are five social media dos and don’ts:

1. Go native

It’s easy to think of social media as being all the same thing, but every platform is different. They all have their own grammar and their own spoken (and unspoken) rules and etiquette; any of which you ignore at your peril. Whether it is Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, your approach for each should by different. Spend time in these worlds as a civilian and interact with companies you use to see how they do it. If you are a small business and all of this is new and sounds baffling and more than a little scary then you might want to consider social media training or even outsourcing to a trusted expert. Some people believe this is trivial, but good advice is a great investment and it will save you time and pain.

2. Learn the language

You’ll need to find your own voice, one that reflects your brand and is attractive to your customers. The key word here is empathy. Like learning any language it may take some time, and as this is a very public forum, restraint is urged! Come across as insincere and you could easily find yourself the target of ridicule. Check out some of the very best in the business – from big sites like Nike (@NikeSupport) and Starbucks (@Starbucks) and marvel at how easy they make it seem. But it’s not just the big boys who count on social media, have a look at the official Twitter handle for @OrkneyLibraries to find out how the little guys can really stand out on social media. They currently have double the number of followers than the island has people - not bad for a customer service account in a local library.

3. Be prepared

We wrote recently about the pros and cons of speedy response times for email correspondence. There is no argument when it comes to complaints on social media: be fast or go home. Not that going home is likely to provide shelter from the relentless world of social media. Recent research from Convince and Convert found that a third of customers expect to hear from you in under 30 minutes. When you’re running different social media accounts it can be easy to miss important mentions – particularly when people don’t use the @ symbol or one of your hashtags. Make sure you run frequent searches for any reference to your company.

4. Stay on message

You’ve set up all your accounts, and regularly check and reply to new messages in an open and friendly way. Your social strategy is winning, then suddenly a message goes viral, for the wrong reasons. Beware rogue agents within your company - misuse of the company Twitter or Facebook account can be hugely damaging. Online news outlets particularly love to replay disastrous online interactions. It’s no laughing matter; telling a customer to get stuffed in a public forum could cost your company dear. We recommend drawing up a social media code of conduct and perhaps restricting access to trained staff only.

Don’t set fire to your online reputation!

5. Who are you talking to?

Unsavoury as it may seem, you should read every single thing said about your business on social media. But do you really need to reply to everything? Thankfully, no. Life is too short to talk to bots (automated spam accounts), and no good ever came from feeding the online trolls. You’ll soon be able to spot genuine customer enquiries and be able to respond appropriately. When you do, it’s worth thinking also about the suitability of certain conversations. There are many things customers shouldn’t be sharing online, such as details of their accounts. Make sure you quickly move all sensitive conversations to a more secure environment.

Think carefully about how you use social media. With the right approach it can be a powerful customer service tool and one that can really boost your reputation and drive customer loyalty. Ignoring it is simply not an option.

The e-commerce buying journey and how to market to every step

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 07:00:00 -0700

Shopping used to be so simple.

You’d get the number 42 bus into town and walk down the high street until you found the shop you wanted – one that sells fashionable jumpers for instance.

You’d go in, perhaps talk to an assistant who would point you in the direction of some nice cardies. You’d choose one and head for the till, returning home a satisfied customer.

Looking good.

Except… was is ever that simple? There were three shops on the high street selling jumpers and one had a sale on. Another of those retailers was a department store with four separate entrances and many other products to tempt you before you even got to the jumpers. And when you finally did reach the till, after hours of pacing the pavements you were faced with a plethora of special offers to supplement your purchase.

The journey to an online purchase is, if anything, even more of a mission. It is one of the biggest challenges for any ecommerce company to understand every step of that journey, and make each one work to your advantage.

Experts have broken the buyer’s journey into five distinct stages. Your job is to make the customer’s transition through the stages as smooth as possible.

1. Awareness

Your customer first needs to be able to find you, so make sure you exploit every possible avenue, from social media to search engines and use the tools that they offer. Tracking customer analytics across multiple platforms will ultimately pay dividends. Use tools such as Google Analytics Behaviour Flow to find out what is driving them to you – it might be a social recommendation, email or search engine result. When you have discovered what triggers work for which people you can begin to target consumers with different types of content such as offers or even blog posts like this one.

Create compelling content that is likely to attract customers to your website. As an exercise, search for a product you know little about. If you want a big fridge for example, you’re unlikely to begin by searching for technical details. A general question like ‘best large fridges’ is far more likely. So target that term in your metadata, and why not write a blog post about what customers should be looking for in oversized cool boxes? You’ll soon find your website rocket up the rankings and your sales accordingly.

2. Comparison

A purchase can take anything from minutes to months and can be done almost anywhere. Research from Contevo has shown that Mobile shopping is the new normal, with 65% of online shoppers now begin their route to purchase on their phone or tablet. They may in fact be using multiple devices as part of their journey, following recommendations and links and switching from phone to tablet to computer and back again. This is known as omnichannel shopping and, according to digitalcurrent.com, Google found that 85% of ecommerce now works in this way. You need to make that flow as smooth as possible: make sure that your website works across all of these platforms.

3. Decision

E-commerce is all about psychology. The more you know about your customers, the more likely you are to see them through to a sale. We wrote recently about the importance of creating customer personas, those in depth profiles of different types of people who use your business regularly.

It’s all about psychology.

This is where it really comes into its own. Speak to real customers and find out what motivates them and pushes them over the buying line. Your website needs to be working hardest here - draw on this data to create the most persuasive product descriptions and useful technical details. It will all count towards persuading people that you’ve got the right product for them.

4. Purchase

Whether they are in the real world or browsing your website, customers are still driven to find the best product at the most competitive price. When they arrive at the online checkout don’t lose them with an unforeseen postage charge or overly complicated payment system. You might however want to throw out some added incentives - there are many ways to persuade people you are providing real value. It might be a voucher or a limited time special price. Don’t be shy, let your inner salesperson do their job here.

5. Retention

The sale is made and the product has been successfully delivered, but your job isn’t over yet - not if you want them to come back. Make sure customers are happy with the product via a follow up email and connect with them on social media. Now more than ever, a happy customer is your biggest asset - provide a great product and service to match and they’ll spread the word and set their friends off on a buying journey of their own.

And finally, Look up from your phone now…

A surprising development in a world increasingly powered by ecommerce is the continued role played by bricks and mortar shops. 72% of online shoppers surveyed by Invesp said they found the in-store experience was still the most important channel when making a purchase.

The customer is in the store, is it too late to market to them?

But that’s increasingly just the beginning of their journey, with 80% admitting to using their phones to check out reviews and online prices whilst still in the shop! When plotting your customers’ buying journey, it’s worth considering the value you are adding at every conceivable stage.

How quickly should I respond to customer emails?

Tue, 23 Oct 2018 06:00:00 -0700

Today we turn to one of the fundamentals of customer service.

On receipt of an email from a customer, just how quickly should you reply?

As quickly as possible is the unhelpful answer.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean firing off a reply with undue haste. Research from inContact shows that a speedy response produces the highest satisfaction from customers surveyed. But another study by Call Centre Helper put speed as one of the lower priorities amongst customer service teams.

Why the disconnect?

It may be beneficial to delay sending a response.

A tech support company we once worked with provided an interesting insight into this issue. They found that if they replied to an email within a few hours then the customer would always come back with another question. But if they waited for 24 hours, the customer had usually found out the answer for themselves via the online help desk. Everybody seemed happy with this outcome – the client was still receiving an offer of support, whilst the company dramatically reduced the amount of time spent answering questions [this resulted in our neat EvantoDesk scheduling feature - which enables an agent to send a response but schedule it to be fired off some time later).

One hour or 24?

But is a strict time limit appropriate for all enquiries? Are all customers equal, or should some be considered more equal than others? Certainly in the case of sales enquiries a 24-hour response period feels like a hopelessly long time. Chances are your potential client will have been snapped up by a competitor long before then.

Similarly it’s not wise to leave an email from an angry customer alone for too long (see our previous post on tricky customers). They might have calmed down by the next day, but more likely they will be even crosser and will have sent a series of increasingly irate messages in the interim. A swift response of no more than a few hours is always favourable in this situation.

It’s a matter of time.

A number of businesses, particularly in the US, pride themselves on answering emails within the hour – some less than 15 minutes. However these tend to be larger chains with well resourced customer service teams. For smaller companies the answer would appear to lie in the middle ground, and that might be an advantage.

Helpful beats quick

Speedy replies do not necessarily mean helpful replies. Better to take a little time and make sure the right person is dealing with the issue in a way that is of genuine value to the customer.

One thing is certain, as technology improves expectation for ever quicker responses are likely to increase. With a smartphone in every pocket people are no longer restricted to contacting you during business hours. They could be writing with an important enquiry out of business hours and there is now an added pressure to stay abreast of such developments. You will need to make a decision as to how switched on you and your employees need to be in this new 24-hour culture.

How to harness user generated content to market your online store

Mon, 15 Oct 2018 06:00:00 -0700

When he set out to create Star Wars, George Lucas famously realised that there was a lucrative side-line in producing spin off toys and merchandise. In doing so he was encouraging people to engage in his fictional universe long after John Williams’ rousing score had faded away.

Over time those same fans packed their toys carefully back in their boxes and picked up cameras to make their own home-made Star Wars videos. Although famously protective of his brand, Lucas came to encourage these efforts, and in doing so arrived at perhaps the most successful user generated campaign in history:

#MayTheFourthBeWithYou.

Of course, not all products are going to inspire Star Wars levels of creative adoration, but anyone can harness the power of user generated content (UGC) to enhance their business. Customers will readily post a picture, comment on your service or make a YouTube review. It is one of the most effective ways to market your business - a recent report from TINT found that 64% of consumers read customer reviews before buying online.

So what can you do to encourage people to create effective UGC, particularly if you’re selling a product or service that doesn’t naturally excite Facebook fanboys and girls, or get the tastemakers of Instagram liking?

Like your customers

You can begin by engaging with your clients through social networks. Don’t just post digital billboards - like and respond to your customers, particularly when they mention you. It’s something you’d do with your friends on a personal account, so why not do the same with your business? You’ll soon find that people begin to take part in your hashtags and enthusiastically share your posts. If they already like your product, it’s a short step to liking you - and they will want to show other people that you are part of their personal brand.

Don’t sell

A successful user generated content campaign is one that comes from real people. Hardly a major insight, but it’s key: web literate consumers are increasingly turned off by traditional advertising and in the apparently isolating digital world people want the personal touch us much as ever. An estimated 80% of mobile users now have access to adblocking software. In the future you are going to have to find another way of reaching your market - and that means UGC.

If you are going to launch a UGC campaign, make sure it is something that is true to your brand, and brings value to the customer experience. If you make alarm clocks for example, think laterally, and humorously about the role they play in real people’s lives. A hashtag like #AlarmClockFails where people recount their early morning disasters is far more likely to start a lively conversation on Twitter than a simple ad.

Embed

You’ve earned your customers trust – firstly via your excellent product or service and secondly as a trusted voice on their social networks. Now make them a key part of your online brand. It can be as simple as using customer tweets as part of a blog post, or embedding your social media feed on your website. If you want to do something more ambitious, you can use their photos or videos (with their permission) as part of a wider campaign to give your product a credibility boost. A survey by Salesforce found that 54% of people trust online recommendations and reviews from peers compared to just 20% when that information comes from the company itself.

If you do really well you might inspire an entire day in honour of your product like Star Wars. The #MayTheFourthBeWithYou hashtag has become phenomenally popular, but it’s not something dreamed up by marketing geniuses. Instead it’s a piece of witty UGC that has been co-opted by the franchise’s new owners Disney in 2013. It’s hard to imagine any corporation, even one with the cultural clout of Disney, being able to persuade the world to take part in such a global celebration – it’s the users that have made that possible.

Listen to your customers; they are your most powerful tool to attract customers from this galaxy, or one that is far, far away.

How to deal with a difficult online shopping customer

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 07:00:03 -0700

To: Customer Service 4U
Cc: The Managing Director
Subject: THE WORLD’S WORST SERVICE!!!

You’ll know the feeling; that uncomfortable tingle that accompanies an email stamped with an angry red exclamation mark and written entirely in capital letters. Receiving a complaint is part and parcel not just of customer service departments, but business in general. Conflict and resolution is something we all do to varying degrees every day. But what should you do when the sender is so furious they’re making your computer shudder?

Beware an angry customer.

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO BADLY TREATED IN MY LIFE

First thing’s first – DON’T PANIC! And do not fire off a hastily written apology with a link to your company’s FAQs. Or worse, an explanation as to why it is not actually your fault, and that they should have taken the time to read your terms and conditions. These things will only aggravate the situation. Remember that even the most swivel eyed complainant likely has a genuine grievance. They simply want you to understand, to apologise and to act.

Stay calm and don’t panic!

At the other end of the spectrum, you might be tempted to try and pacify the complainant by offering an immediate refund. But again don’t be too hasty. A study by the Carey School of Business showed that only 37% of upset customers were happy when offered credit. But if they received an effective apology on on top of the credit that figure rose to 74%.

Saying sorry is never easy. But do it well and you can go a long way to building trust, and even greater customer loyalty. This is a phenomenon known as the ‘service recovery paradox’, a term coined by Sundar Bharadwaj and Michael McCollough in 1992. If the customer hadn’t written their complaint in the first place, they wouldn’t know just how much you value good service, and by extension how much they mean to you.

DO YOU EVEN CARE ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMERS?

At the root of any effective reply is empathy. An angry complaint can feel like a personal attack – indeed it may actually be a personal attack. But don’t fall in to the trap of reacting defensively, which will only feed their fury.

Instead try and put yourself in their shoes.

Their email may read like an incoherent tidal wave of rage but you need to sweep all that away and look for the root cause of their problem.

But what if the problem is out of your hands - caused by a third-party delivery service perhaps, or other circumstances beyond your control? Never pass the buck.The customer probably doesn’t care, they just want the problem fixing - and that’s your job. Offer sympathy instead of excuses and show them what you are going to do about it. If necessary open an investigation. This complaint may actually be highlighting something that is affecting many more of your customers.

IS ANYBODY ACTUALLY LISTENING TO ME?

You’ve taken the time to really read the customer’s complaint and have investigated the causes. The next step is to reply. A study by SuperOffice found that 62% of emails are never responded to, a statistic that is particularly damaging when considering complaints.

Of course, it’s important to respond to complaints quickly. But it’s perhaps even more critical that you do it well, particularly when dealing with an overly emotional correspondent. Compose your reply in an unaddressed email to avoid potentially damaging accidental replies. When you have finished, put it aside and return to it later. You will be able to look at the complaint with a fresh head and spot any inappropriate language. Keep your tone conciliatory but not over apologetic. And if it’s particularly important, and you feel you have time, ask someone else to read your reply.

I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER!

Email has many advantages when dealing with emotive issues. It gives you time to construct a well written apology and calmly lay out the various options going forward. But for some customers only the direct approach will do and that means talking to someone. The potential for missing crucial parts of a complicated complaint is high, particularly if the original email was written in a fog of anger. If things are very unclear, or the problem is multi-faceted, your best course of action is to pick up the phone.

SORRY? YOU’RE NOT SORRY!

Finally, if you’re going to apologise, make sure you sound like you mean it! It’s all too easy, particularly in an email, to come across as insincere. Responses like ‘I’m sorry you feel this way’ put the fault back on the complainant while ‘We apologise for any inconvenience caused’ is a pat response and may make the customer assume they aren’t being listened to.

There is no huge secret to getting an apology right: Simply say sorry, then explain your reasons. For example, ‘I am so sorry your package was damaged’ is straightforward, simple and sounds authentic. It will then help to explain the reasons for the problem so the customer feels like they’re being listened to, and then explain what you are going to do about it. In most cases this should take the heat out of the situation and allow you to have a calm, reasonable dialogue that is not conducted in CAPITAL LETTERS.

How To Market Your SaaS Product

Fri, 28 Sep 2018 07:00:00 -0700

SaaS is a hard game.

A strategy is essential.

The sales funnel must be perfected by constant analysis and metrics.

Below is some essential, hard-nosed, practical advice.

Getting traffic.

An essential topic of course, and not an easy one, especially in a competitive and crowded space. But there are ways!

We won’t mention SEO here. It’s not something we’ve concentrated on too much so far. We have however, been quite successful with software directories.

Software Comparison Sites

For us, Capterra has been a major source of leads. We got named in the top 10 must user friendly help desk software solutions. There are other directories too of course, such as financesonline. For us, Capterra has accounted for 32% of our leads and 21% of our customers!

Again, monitoring rates is essential. We no longer use Google AdWords and focus all Pay Per Click on Capterra currently. But, as we regular assess the figures, this can and most probably will change.

Media Exposure

Help a reporter (Haro) is a great resource. You will receive a daily set of emails that contain requests from reporters for help with an article they are writing. This can lead to great exposure for you and your product, as well as high quality backlinks to your site.

Content

Of course content is a major way to drive traffic to you. White papers and great blog posts on subjects people need to know about are great sources of traffic.

On-boarding

On-boarding is the whole first half (retaining customers is the 2nd half, getting the leads is the warm-up).

Once a visitor reaches your site, how do you turn them into a lead i.e. a demo booked or free trial started?

Video Testimonials

One good way we have found is using short (60-80 second) case study videos from your best customers. This can be an important factor in converting a visitor into a free trial or demo lead. There is nothing like hearing about how great a product is from someone who is not involved with the product. It gives leads confidence to try or buy.

For us,

short 80 second video’s on our landing page boosted our leads by 23%

in comparison to having those same videos on a customers page alone.

The key to the videos is that they do not contain anyone from EvantoDesk in them. They feature the customers company and highlight what the customer loves about EvantoDesk and what problems EvantoDesk solved for them.

The sign up flow

The sign up for a demo and/or free trial process must be water-tight. Your website must be designed with the purpose of getting the visitor to sign up for a trial or demo. So, the flow must be right, with the call to action prominent. Try different layouts and compare sign-ups. Be meticulous.

The fields involved in signing up must be minimal. There must be as few fields as possible. So, perhaps just an email address and no other contact info. Certainly no credit card must be asked for.

The free trial experience

Once they’ve signed up for a trial, the hard work starts.

On-boarding emails must be timely and based on the customers engagement i.e. sending the same email to a customer who has used the product extensively to one who hasn’t signed in for a few days is a no-no.

If you note when customers are dropping out you can focus on that time-frame. For example, if they are dropping out in the first few minutes, you need to focus on that opening experience. The initial few minutes of their free trial should focus the customer on the most useful and best aspects of your product and the flow and intuitive layout must be apparent.

Within the first few minutes of their trial they must realise some or all of the value.

And, if the customer then doesn’t start a paid subscription during their free trial, you then need to send emails on that basis – i.e. offer to extend their free period. If that is declined, an email asking them why is also useful. We get about a 9% response from that and it’s all useful data with regards to working out how the software should be developed.

Look After Existing customers

From a monetary point of view, looking after your existing customers is vital because retaining existing customers costs effectively nothing compared to obtaining new ones.

Monitor metrics on your existing customers.

For example, we ensure that we monitor stats on the amount of activity on an account i.e. how many actions were executed each day. If and when this drops off, we can ensure that auto-emails are sent off to the customer to find out why and then we can engage and proactively resolve any issues the customer has.

Communicate with your customers.

Don’t flood them with emails of course! However, don’t be reserved either.

Don’t be shy with your existing customers, engage them appropriately.

A good relationship is built on good communication. So, letting them know about software updates once a month is a good way to let them know that not only do you still exist (and are approachable human beings), but also that you are investing time and effort into improving and developing the product.

If a customer leaves, find out why.

This is something we’ve always done and it was the reason perhaps that we still exist as a business. A while ago, we had a number of early adopters closing their accounts. To close an account it is mandatory to give us a reason. One reason cropped up a few times:

The UI was messy.

Ouch, that hurt. Our whole product was conceived to fill the gap in the market for small business, simple help desk software. It left us with a lot of soul searching and planning on how we could re-develop. We contacted all of the customers that had left (and those that remained) and got feedback on how we could re-develop the UI. The basis for our redevelopment was formed 100% by our customers, the best way.

Summary

The key take-away here is utilising software comparison websites and gaining media exposure can help drive traffic to your website, along with the usual suspects, SEO and great, valuable content.

Then the ball’s in your court. Your attractor website and on-boarding process must be finely tuned to maximise leads and then maximise paid-subscription customers.

Slicker, faster, better – EvantoDesk.

Fri, 28 Sep 2018 07:00:00 -0700

We’ve been hard at work over the summer months, really working on what our customers have told us they wanted from EvantoDesk.

It all was spun when the feedback we were getting was that our:

UI was a bit messy

Ouch! The whole point of EvantoDesk was for it not to be messy, to be simple.

So we stripped back the drawing board and consulted our customers.

The resulting UI is more simple, fluid and less clicks with time-saving functionality, such as the next button button and @mentions.

So, we have just released a new-look faster inbox:

Awesome @mentions to easily loop team-mates into a ticket -

And real-time reports for both ticket data and customer satisfaction:

Ticket response data:

Customer satisfaction:

The next release will include:

Auto-saving of replies
Support docs widget (can be combined with the EvantoChat widget) for your own website (you’ll still be able to host docs using your EvantoDesk domain).
When replying, automatically go to the next ticket
Simplified but real-time reports.

EvantoDesk is simplicity personified but not enough for our liking. We will strive to simplify each section day by day to put some EvantoDesk magic into small businesses across the globe.

Why customer personas are key to e-commerce marketing

Fri, 28 Sep 2018 07:00:00 -0700

Every one of your customers is a hero. But what sort of hero?

In our favourite books and films all protagonists go on a similar journey, known as the hero’s journey. They will overcome many obstacles to reach their ultimate goal. Those obstacles will differ, as will the hero themselves, but the end result will be the same – they will achieve their objective.

What does this have to do with my business, you might well ask? Presumably you don’t manufacture magical rings or run an organisation dedicated to witchcraft and wizardry.

But you are very likely passionate about your product, and you do want the heroes in your narrative – in other words your customers - to reach their goal: to do business with you and leave entirely satisfied with the experience.

Your job is to know your hero

In marketing getting to know your hero is known as making a ‘customer persona’, and it is much the same process as the one used by storytellers when they create a believable hero. Through research and analysis of real customers it is possible to build up an accurate picture of different hypothetical types or personas who regularly do business with you. Along with basic information such as age and economic status, you should also find out more personal details such as their interests and relationship status.

The more you know about your customer, the better you can understand how they will respond to certain approaches and the more likely you are to make a sale. A study by MarketingSherpa found that there was a whopping 174% increase in income generated from marketing that used customer personas.

Even for small startups, creating accurate customer personas has never been easier. You don’t need a powerful marketing team or acres of consumer research to do this – just start with what you already know. Talk with your customers, either by picking up the phone or via an online questionnaire such as Survey Monkey. Ask about their experience, take on board both the positives and negatives and you’ll soon have the information you need to build your first customer persona.

Your hero is beginning to look like a real person

Eventually you will round out their character and hone in on the specifics of their experience. You’ll discover details about why they bought from you over other brands and how they like to be contacted. This will allow you to begin to tailor their experience, addressing different groups in a format that speaks directly to them.

You will also avoid pitfalls that might prevent return business. For example, if you receive an email from a customer whose profile shows you they work in a busy business environment, they are unlikely to be impressed if they have to wait several days for a reply. In fact, it works both ways – MarketingSherpa found that email response rates rose 111 percent when using customer personas.

Every business will have more than one type of customer. Typically you will be interacting with three to five several distinct personas – the number of central characters in an average story. It’s not a huge group of people to get to know so make sure you really do know them. Give each one a name and even a face. Introduce them to everyone in your business. Over time you will add to their profile and they will become as well known to you as your favourite fictional heroes.

Now you have your cast of characters, send them out into the world.

Make the most of powerful online marketing tools offered by the likes of Google and other social media platforms. Facebook's paid advertising is particularly useful, allowing you to reach your audience by ticking off an impressive list of characteristics that relate to your customer profile, including age, employment, education and interests.

Just remember that the customer journey, like that of your favourite heroes, is ever changing. New challenges will arise, distractions from competitors or evolving interests that mean they can easily outgrow the persona you have devised. If you stay tuned in to their wants and needs and keep their profiles constantly updated, you’ll stay relevant to them and that journey will remain one you take together.

7 fatal customer service mistakes businesses make and how to avoid them

Fri, 28 Sep 2018 07:00:00 -0700

Chances are you will recognise every one of the failings listed below in your personal dealings with other companies. Slow response rates, poor communication, unsatisfactory resolutions... be warned this is a dismal list!

But had you ever stopped to think, while a tinny instrumental version of Careless Whisper plays on repeat on the other end of your phone, that you might have some bad habits of your own?

An eye-opening 2018 study by SuperOffice.com showed that out of the 1000 firms they questioned the majority were failing to deliver an adequate level of customer service.

Hopefully you will have trained your frontline staff and have systems in place to help provide the best possible experience for your clients. But there may be areas where you aren’t doing quite as well as you could be. And this really matters, because ultimately poor customer service means losing repeat business.

So, which of these seven fatal customer service errors bug you most - and which ones do you think you and your team might be guilty of?

1. You keep me hanging on

How quickly are you responding to customer enquiries? By the end of the day? Within 24 hours? How about not at all. The SuperOffice study found that an astounding 62% of emails are never responded to. Whether this is through deliberate negligence or a problem with your systems, it’s a sure fire way of driving away customers. If it’s the latter then some help desk software will mean you don’t miss another email.

2. Mind your language

Many businesses invest heavily in training telephone customer service staff to be friendly, knowledgeable and articulate. Less emphasis unfortunately goes on written skills. The art of good email communication is tricky – conveying often complex information using accessible language is not for beginners. Check your spelling and grammar several times before pressing send. And if nothing else, please get your customer’s name right!

3. Don’t play hard to get

Many businesses - particularly online - appear to be playing a game of hide and seek with their customers. Contact details are often hidden away at the bottom of a submenu, and when you find them there is no telephone number and a time-consuming contact system that demands you to prove you are not a robot. It’s the online equivalent of shutting your receptionist in a windowless basement room next to the toilets. In the real world, customers like to be greeted immediately by a friendly face. Why should your website be any different?

4. Are you even listening?

It’s amazing how often customer queries are misinterpreted by staff, resulting in an unhelpful response. These misunderstandings aren’t necessarily based on poor service but on the customer being unable to articulate what they want or need. Think about who you are talking to.

If they’re not an expert in the finer points of your business they might not know how to ask for help. If it’s not obvious, don’t just guess, make sure you ask the right questions and listen to what they say.

5. Not a robot!

Not everyone wants to talk to an online chat bot. Getting a canned email response that doesn’t answer your original question is beyond frustrating. And talking to a state of the art robotic telephone system might be a step too far. A 2018 survey by the analytics software firm Calabrio showed that 74% of customers were more likely to remain loyal to a company that allowed them to speak with an actual human.

That’s not to say that your investment in expensive digital customer service technology has been a waste of money; most people simply want options. Properly integrated human and digital systems will produce the highest levels of customer satisfaction.

6. Customer disservice

Mistreat your frontline staff at your peril. A 2018 report by the US customer service company Aspect showed that 45% of GenZ / Young Millennial (18-24) customer service agents want to leave their current jobs. That’s almost half of your core workforce heading for the door. What can you do to stop this? We recommend you lead by example: put customer service at the heart of your company and make staff at all levels outward facing. The same survey also found that 80% of staff thought up-to-date customer service software was critical to their work, but only 35% were satisfied with their company’s systems. Even the smallest businesses can help their staff with powerful and affordable software.

7. Answer the damn question!

What do we even have customer service for? To answer customers questions quickly and accurately. Only 20% of the businesses polled by SuperOffice were able to answer queries from the initial email. The root causes of this are a) inadequate training and b) not empowering staff to do their jobs properly. Customers increasingly expect instant resolution to problems and the best way to do this is by giving your staff the responsibility to do their jobs without the need to seek advice from above.

Is your business guilty of any of our seven fatal errors? Perhaps you’ve come across even greater customer service fails? We’d love to hear about them. Come say hi over on Twitter.