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.