Your Customer's Experience

Customer Experience is another of those overused terms thrown around by businesses and owners who have only a conceptual understanding of the subject.

Customer Experience is, at its core, the feeling your customer has at the end of their time with you. In a more academic sense, Customer Experience has become a carefully followed branch of study among the world's most future focused organizations. From a prospect's initial impression of your website to a smooth, easily understood transaction and ultimately retention after the sale...your customer's experience must be considered. Are your forms and invoices easily understood? Does your team represent your culture?

Let's take a look at the components of a successful Customer Experience Strategy. 

1. Sales & Marketing - It's not uncommon for these two departments to operate independently of one another within an organization, but that simply won't fly in the Win-Win Marketing™ world in which we hope to live. Marketing is the idea. The big, beautiful brains full of colors and fonts and beautifully worded metaphors....those guys are the brain of an organization. The Sales Force is the mouth. They're the ones explaining the ideas and hopefully convincing people of their value. If these two departments don't have effective communication and cooperation, a catastrophe will inevitably occur. Salespeople have big egos. Marketing people have big egos that they keep quiet. Find a way to nurture both and your customers will feel very welcomed. A sales team that's screaming the same ideas and messaging that a marketing team spent weeks of time and passion to create is a sign of a well organized company. The kind that will be worth the check your prospect hopefully writes.

2. CRM & Systems - CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is one of the most important systems a company can have. Your investment into your CRM is just as important as the investment into your tools and equipment. Your CRM is where you store your client data. You choose the data and how you use it and that is what will set you apart from your competition if you play it right. Asking a customer for their date of birth is just creepy unless you actually send them a card or something to make them feel special on their birthday. The amount of useful detail that can be cultivated within a robust CRM is unfathomable. If you're not familiar with the options available to you, ask us. We've got the right fit for your business....let's find it together. 

3. Market Research - Know your market. Listen to them and be willing to adapt according to their ever-changing demands. As business owners, it is very easy (trust me) to get so laser-focused on our vision that new information has a tough time getting in. It needs to get in, Our businesses are like trains. Our sales are running alongside us, trying to hop on, but we're travelling too fast and we can't slow down. We're too focused on our destination, Terrible analogy aside, sales are hard to come by. When we we allow ourselves to actually hear the information our market is sharing with is, doors open all over the place, These days, the amount of data available from our clients is astonishing but harvesting it all can be a nightmare. Relax. Trending Up Digital Services can gather real, useful information from your specified market and then develop a strategy 

4. Everything Connected - Get connected. Find ways to unite your team. Proper communication is key in all aspects of a successful business, but especially from a CX perspective.  When your sales team shows up for the initial meeting. their support team should be on standby, waiting to be called if needed. No matter what question the prospect may throw at any member of your team, the answer should be no more than a few clicks away. A well connected team gives comfort to the client getting ready to write a substantial check to you. 

5. Continuous Innovation - Would you be excited to pay a company for services you suspect to be out-of-date? Nobody wants to put trust, money, or time into something they feel is obsolete. The last three years have proven nothing if not for the fact that those who are unwilling to adapt will be starve. Complacency is the new "C" word in the service industry. With so much access to new ideas...new tools and methods...new processes, those who stick to their comfortable ways will be left behind. That being said; the amount of information available to us can be distracting. We can analyze our way into inaction which leads to very weak bottom lines. Know your market. Know your product and be confident. Adapt where necessary, but also be smart enough to know when something is just a shiny toy and when it something that could move your team forward. 

6. Culture & Leadership - A company's culture can be just as much a marketing tool as any cleverly concocted ad or social media post. Culture is not something that can be faked. It has to start with leadership and be spoken every day. The message has to be clear and easily repeated. Chick-Fil-A and Raining Cane's have tremendous cultures. Every employee at Raising Cane's knows the story of their founder raising the money for his first location as a Salmon Fisherman in Alaska. There's a sockeye salmon hanging somewhere in most locations as a nod to this bit of their shared history. Give them something to be proud of. Give them a talking point that they can easily and excitedly repeat in your market. You don't have the benefit of delicious chicken to offer your prospects so your messaging better be as good as your service and your follow-up after the sale. 

Customer Experience requires business owners to place themselves in the shoes, homes, cars, showers, yards, clothes, and budgets of our entire market. Could be a specific group or an entire country, we all have a "market." Let's work together to provide yours with the best customer experience possible. 

Top 5 Reasons Why Digital Marketing is So Important for Your Service Company

 

"Online" used to be such a misunderstood word. It was a scary world where scary things could happen to those who didn't know how to navigate it's various pathways. The mystery of the internet has been revealed over the past few decades, but it doesn't mean it's any less confusing. So, why should you even bother? Why clog your brain with statistics and trends that don't bring dollars to your bottom line?

Well, as the title of this article might suggest....here's Trending Up's Top Five Reasons you should be employing a strong, well crafted, online marketing strategy. 

ONE: Your Customers Are Online

Let's face it....you're here online reading these words just as your prospects are online reading other words on another site. Our mission is to bring the two parties together. But is just being there enough? Can you just throw up a cheap website and expect to land new clients? 

What if you're not looking for new customers or enhanced revenue? What if your desired "prospect" is a qualified employee? Well, guess where that prospect is hanging out on a daily basis....LinkedIn. Effective management of your online presence is the same as maintaining the physical appearance of a brick and mortar site. If you're physical store was in a main thoroughfare where potential business saw you everyday, would you care about it's appearance? You bet you would. 

TWO: Your Competitors Are Online

If your potential clients are online, so are your competitors. The good news is that the internet is a big place and in this Win-Win Marketing™️ world we're creating at Trending Up....there is plenty of food at the table for everyone. We don't need to worry about "beating" your competition. Our job is to make sure that your online presence is as appealing as possible. We put a lot of science and experience into the strategies we deploy. When a potential customer goes looking for your services on the Internet, the only way you can give yourself a fighting chance of landing on their radar is with a proper Digital Marketing Strategy in place. Winging it simply doesn't work in this day and age. Your investment into a marketing strategy with an established agency like Trending Up is going to cost far less than the distress, lost opportunities, and damage to your reputation delivered by a weak strategy. 

Yes....your competitors are online, but you can be a more appealing choice. You can do the things they are not doing to capture more of the vast audience out there. Many of your competitors may look big and intimidating with graphics and logos, but that doesn't mean they're active. Focus on your strategy and use it consistently. That's all you can do.

THREE: Compete Globally

You may not have ever considered a "global" presence for your service company. Most of your clients are local. So are your vendors, employees, and distributors, but that doesn't mean that your online presence should ignore the world outside your existing sphere. Partnerships are made across the planet these days. You don't necessarily have to provide a service for a client to be a source of influence. Your social media posts could serve as inspiration for a young company across the globe....your Customer Appreciation Video could get the attention of a much larger parent company with interests all over your area. Obviously, unless global expansion is on your list of goals for the upcoming future, your focus in this area will not be as intense as the others, but it is important nonetheless. The world is connected. You should be plugged into that connection. 

FOUR: Targeted Acquisition

The days of "wasting half the marketing dollars spent" are over. In generations past, marketing was done with the same concepts as an ad on the side of a bus, or Direct Mail. There was a lot of hope involved in those early strategies. Not today. Today, we can focus our marketing efforts down to a very specific group of people. Global capabilities make the potential audience infinitely bigger, but we still have to aim those efforts somewhere. Got a new service you want to push? Let's say you're a plumbing company and you know you're going to be doing some trench work for a family in a specific neighborhood. Would it hurts for the neighbors to start seeing your logo in their social feeds for a few days prior to work beginning? How about a blog article regarding the benefits of the specific service you happen to be doing for their neighbor? A before / during / after video that eases their minds about the process. You could potentially create months of work for you and your team in one geographic location and it all springs from one job. The possibilities for targeted marketing strategies are endless and somewhat overwhelming. Get a professional involved so you don't damage your reputation, but once you see the benefits, you won't know how your business survived without it.

FIVE: Brand Loyalty / Recognition

Your image is all you've got when it comes to marketing. The reputation of your brand; the future of your team; it all depends upon the effectiveness of your marketing. Like it or not, brand reputations are managed online. Respond in a horrific manner to a customer review...your brand goes viral for all the wrong reasons and that Win-Win Marketing™️ concept is out the window, Manage your online presence correctly, and your brand is a welcomed sight in the browsers of prospects around the world. Strategy. Consistency. Patience. They're all going to be tested and those who stay the course are the ones who reap the benefits. Instant success is a myth. You have to design, deploy, analyze, adjust, and commit to a Digital Marketing Strategy and see it through. Details are key. Get your building blocks in place and then put them everywhere. Building blocks for brand recognition are your logo, your colors, your tagline, and your elevator pitch. (More on each in coming articles!) Get those down and do not change them. 

Humans are visual. We see things and our mind makes connections before we even realize what it is we're seeing. Colors, Logos, taglines....they're all big examples of that. When was the last time you had trouble spotting a McDonalds? Whenever we hear the phrase "just do it" our brain automatically pictures that famous swoosh. Your brand is what makes you attractive or ugly in digital terms. The cruel reality is that few people look at anything ugly next to something beautiful and choose the former. Those who do are only doing so for weird purposes. You know it's true,

Bottom line is that you need a proper strategy for your online presence,. Whether it's a product, a service, an event, or a job posting you want people to hear about...effective design, deployment, and tracking is what makes or breaks your marketing efforts. It's what we do. 

The SEO & PPC Partnership....

You spent years learning your trade. You've learned lessons that left scars, you've adopted the language of your profession, and you've helped numerous clients do the things in their homes that they wouldn't dare try on their own. Trending Up Digital Services respects that. 

Your world is just as terrifying and unfamiliar to us as digital marketing is to you and your co-workers. Could we install a sump-pump ourselves? Sure! There's YouTube Videos galore. Everybody's an expert at everything these days, right? You know where I'm going with this, don't you? Just because the information and the "how-to's" are available, doesn't mean everything is a project you should attempt. 

The amount of skill and knowledge required to successfully execute a large-scale Plumbing, HVAC, or Electrical project is overwhelming to someone going into it with only a "we'll figure it out" mentality. That's not an insult. Do-It-Yourselfers have made Service Industry Professionals a lot of money over the years for the same reasons that Service Industry Professionals have made Digital Marketing Agencies a lot of money....YouTube Videos and How-To posts on Social Media only work a fraction of the time. 

Marketing is no different. Miss a step and your success is unlikely. Misunderstand a basic concept and it can throw off the best laid plans. Two of the most common digital marketing concepts you'll hear discussed are "SEO" and "PPC." In passing, these concepts seem competitive to one another, but they could both potentially play an important role in your marketing success so let's find out how, shall we?

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is meant to increase the organic traffic to your site through enhanced visibility and site authority. In other words...proper SEO management will put your business at the top of search lists when prospects look for services you provide. Google "HVAC Repair Near Me" and see what pops up. Do you know any of those companies? Are they significantly more knowledgeable than you? Is there a reason they should be first in line over you? Of course not. They've simply employed someone who understands SEO.  So can you..

PPC, or Pay-Per-Click generates traffic through targeted ads in Search Engines and other strategic sites. Unlike a highway billboard you pass at 80 mph, or the peeling vinyl ad on the side of a bus....PPC ads are targeted specifically to the audience you choose. Could be age specific, interest specific, or even based on geography but the point is that PPC is the aimed where you want them. 

So how do these work together?

PPC & SEO are very different ideas, but the information and data one provides can greatly benefit the other. Many of your prospects wouldn't click on a paid advertisement (PPC) if it was guaranteed to prove the existence of Santa Claus. Others love them. Some of your prospects will click on anything that pops up in their Social Media feeds because that's their safe-space but they wouldn't trust a search engine list to save their life because they don't understand how the list is built. Neither is wrong. Ignore one side of the equation and you're ignoring an enormous market with money to spend on services you provide and products you sell. 

It's important to employ both concepts in your overall marketing strategy. If it's still confusing....give us a call. We'll handle this if you promise to handle our next plumbing issue, HVAC, or electrical issue. 

Win-Win Marketing™....it's what we do fo YOU so let's get started today. 

What is Win-Win Marketing?

The phrase "win-win" gets thrown around a lot, but when one takes the time to truly define the concept, it's about as clear as mud. When one tries to apply the loosely defined term to their operational systems, it gets even more confusing. 

How can there be a "win-win" in business? Isn't the whole essence of business to conduct transactions? A transaction in which one gives....or "loses"....their money or goods in exchange for the product or service being offered by the company. Very basic, but true definition of business in general, right? But what if there was a different way to look at it?

Imagine yourself at 6 years old. Go ahead. Close your eyes....picture yourself at six years old. Where are you? Who's around you? Now...be honest; are you happy? When you were six years old, the world was full of endless possibilities. Remember the aisles of toy-stores? Did you take the time to read the P&L of the manufacturer before picking one? Do you remember one time in your life when you told your parents that you needed to run the decision by a committee before narrowing your field? Of course not. 

Now, imagine your current self guiding that 6 year old version of you through the launch of a business. Would you encourage young-you to lie, cheat, steal and do whatever it takes to make a dollar? Would you encourage a gangster mentality? As fun as that sounds, it is far more likely that we would nurture the innocence of that version of ourselves. We would use that opportunity to steer our younger self clear of the guilt delivering "shortcuts" we've regretted for so long. 

A business victory does not require a loss. Partnerships can benefit both parties. Transactions can provide value to both sides. 

Trending Up Digital Services employs a Win-Win Marketing  strategy for every client with whom we are fortunate enough to work. No deception. No manipulative practices or misleading reporting. We win when you win. We're part of your team and we do not like losing. 

Let's get together and Win-Win!

www.trendingupdigital.com 

800.852.8676