Guest Blog: How to Provide Mind-Blowing Personalized Customer Service in 4 Steps
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Abhiroop Basu writes about how “one-size fits all” marketing strategies will no longer work and he shares the steps necessary to create a personalized customer experience. Make sure you read the entire article so you download the whitepaper about customer engagement and personalized support at the end. - Shep Hyken
Everyone has heard about Jerome McCarthy’s “Four P’s” of marketing – product, place, price, and promotion. Indeed, it is a fixture in any business textbook that advocates the importance of the “marketing mix”. However, in the last few decades the importance of the Four P’s has eroded as they are ill-equipped to create the personalized experiences required by customers today.
The problem is that the “Four P’s” end up creating product focused campaigns, which target all customers as though they are the same person. This flies in the face of data which highlights the importance of personalization. A full 68% of marketers agree that personalized marketing based on behavioral data has a major impact on sale, and 74% say it has a high impact on engagement. Despite the obvious trend, only 19% admit to using such data.
The bottom-line is that the current “one-size fits all” marketing strategy is no longer appropriate for this savvier generation of customers. How can companies revitalize their marketing practices and appeal to customers? This article explores the 4 steps necessary to create personalized customer experiences that engage and attract.
Step 1: Forget your product
You probably have a good understanding of all your product’s salient features, however your customer does not care. More often than not, your potential customer will have a problem and will be shopping around for a product that can solve it. Hence, simply listing your own product’s features won’t be enough. Instead, focus on solving the problems of your customer.
Step 2: Understand your customer
To understand your customer’s problem, you need to first understand your customer. To do this you can create a “buyer persona” to tailor your communication for each customer. Each persona represents a different slice of a target audience. For example, an airline could have the following buyer personas: a vacationing family, a corporate traveler, and a honeymooning couple. Depending on which personas the company is interacting with, the marketing voice and tone can be adjusted to fit their needs.
Step 3: Find the relevant channels for communication
No two companies are the same and neither are their customers. Although social media, email marketing, and live chat are all important in engaging customers, it’s up to you to figure out your customers’ preferences.
In particular, customers today are becoming increasingly more demanding. They key for you as a company is to be where your audience is rather than always trying to drive traffic back to your site. According to a recent report from the Aberdeen Group, 94% of organizations provide service across multiple channels (including, email, telephone, e-services, web queries, remote support, social media, live chat, mobile messaging and forums).
Step 4: Build a Relationship with your Customer
You’ve attracted the attention of your customer, now you must hold onto it. Don’t keep forcing your product or solution down their throats, allow them to make their own decisions. Whenever you communicate with your customer treat it as a relationship-building exercise. Give your customers a chance to explore your product and describe their needs. Additionally, you should allow them to talk to your past customers and contribute to your community.
Marketing campaigns need to shift from focusing on the one-to-many advertising-based approach to a one-to-one, personalized, customer engagement model. Instead of reaching for the short term goals and constantly optimizing for higher profits, one-to-one marketing focuses on building a long-term relationship with the customer.
Get the Whitepaper FreeThis is just a taste of our research into customer engagement and personalized support. If you’d like to learn more download our whitepaper One to One Marketing – How to Add Personality to your Customer Engagement Campaign for free today:
Bio: is an opinionated tech and digital media blogger. In the real world, he works as Content Strategist for Zopim (a subsidiary of Zendesk) and can be found at abhiroopbasu.com. Follow on Twitter @abhiroopbasuu
For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.
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