Today’s customers are looking for an authentic connection with brands that make them feel like valued individuals. It’s not enough to treat them well – they expect your company to understand their needs and provide them with the products and services they really want. They expect you to think like they do, talk like they do, care about what they care about, and love what they love.
Research has it that 79% of organizations that exceeded their profit targets have a documented customer interaction strategy. To create strong customer relationships and drive brand success, here are six ways to make every interaction with customers totally fantastic.
Adopt a tone that matches your customer’s personality
Knowing how to speak to your customer is the key to outstanding interactions and personalizing business relationships. By understanding your customers’ personalities, you’ll be able to offer better solutions and products, share more engaging content to social media and ultimately make more sales.
Everyone who’s familiar with Dollar Shave Club knows about its straightforward, engaging, and youthful brand image. The company’s ability to cultivate a distinct brand identity helps them stand out from competitors. They “get” their customers.
What’s most important about the video is its quirky and engaging humorous quality. It imbues the marketing material with a rare sense of authenticity. While watching it, viewers are laughing and getting a great feel for a light-hearted company that prides itself on its no-nonsense offerings. The customers of Dollar Shave Club are quirky, have a sense of humor, and feel a valued part of the “club”. Even the packaging manages to ooze brand personality.
Match customers to appropriate areas of your business
Once your brand is aware of customers’ personality types, make an effort to match customers to staff or areas of your site with the most appropriate skills or information. While staff may be trained to work with customers of all types, certain individuals may be better qualified than others to manage, for example, customers with particularly complicated cases that cause them anxiety or frustration. Certain individuals may also be more relatable to your customer. Having a female member of staff responding to a customer query about a ladies wedding dress or having an American member of staff respond to an American customer may match the customer’s needs more effectively, for example.
Ask your customers for preferences (and remember what they are)
Empower customers by listening to their needs. Ask them how they would like to be treated and make sure that your business and staff remember their preferences. Carry out some research and work out which social media channels your customers love best, monitor what they talk about online, or ask them what products they’d like to see in your store. As for marketing offers, give customers the option to choose the time and frequency of such communications, always giving them the possibility to stop receiving them at any time. Asking customers what their preferences are, personalize the experience and at the same time increase their confidence in your brand.
Understand your context and have authentic conversations
Understanding context helps to make your interaction with them fantastic. Does your client often speak about children? Did they just move to a new city? Do they regularly talk about their pets? Instead of asking personal questions that customers might find intrusive, take note of the details they voluntarily share (typically online) and incorporate them into conversations. Providing customers with information or offers according to where they are in the buyer journey (and with context) can make them feel immediately that your brand values them as a person.
Make nice and unexpected gestures
Showing your customers appreciation is a great way to make interaction with your customer fantastic. For example, your company may send follow-up messages to customers after each purchase (perhaps when requesting a review), or service interaction, to thank them and offer more help, if necessary. In addition to loyalty programs and promotional events, sending them a message or an offer to the customer on their birthday is also a good idea. Finally, remember that proactive measures that reduce the customer’s effort are always welcome gestures – if your brand can communicate any important information before the customer asks for it, do so.
Create custom content
To create personalized content, your company can start by simply recommending products or services that your customers might like based on their purchase history. In addition, you can consider sharing video content on your favorite channels or customize the promotions that appear to customers when they enter your company’s page or application. HelpfulCrowd allows users to recommend similar products based on previous purchases.
With the variety of options that customers face today, they can feel lost and may even abandon brands when they are not satisfied. For this reason, companies that make a dedicated effort to build genuine relationships with their customers are those that earn their trust and loyalty. With a personal approach, your brand will stand out and create the authentic connections your customers are looking for.
