It might seem strange to consider customer service as part of marketing, but it absolutely is. After all, where would you be without your customers?
If you have profiles on review sites like Yelp, be sure to encourage customers to review you there (while staying within guidelines about how you can and cannot solicit reviews).
Make sure your customers have multiple channels to reach you. Calling customer service lines is all but archaic these days, as technologies like chatbots are rapidly replacing them. Social media,too, is a great way to connect with customers where they’re already spending time.
Whatever channels you use to connect with customers, make sure you’re prompt at responding to them, and that you do your very best to remedy a bad experience they’ve had with your brand. How a customer feels after walking away from this interaction will determine whether she buys from you again or refers new business to you.
I don’t buy anything without coupons. Well, if I do, I feel cheated and like I paid too much. From half off meals I get on Daily Deal sites to attraction discounts from the Entertainment book, I and a lot of other people never have to pay retail.
I say yes.
Even if that person never comes back (there are coupon-hoppers that would rather save on a meal at another restaurant rather than pay full price at yours a second time), people are social, and they’re sharing where they go.
I’d like to share a little story about why it’s important to empower customer service to solve customers’ problems promptly.
I needed to order coffee pods for my Tassimo coffee maker recently, so I clicked on an email with a promotion. I added sales items to my cart, then tried to add items from other pages. But the two weren’t connected. So I couldn’t have a single purchase for both sales items and regular items.
Fail #1: Technology didn’t make my user experience easy.
I prevailed through this issue and went on to place my order. A day later, I received an email saying that one or more items from my order weren’t in stock. Only customer service didn’t have visibility into what items they were. Upon logging into my account, I couldn’t even see my order.
Here’s a story. I love sharing stories to illustrate a point.
I received a call from someone who consults for Facebook. Since I didn’t recognize the number, I let it go to voicemail. She wasn’t specific about what she wanted, but it had to do with my husband’s startup. Did Facebook want to buy them? Integrate with them? The possibilities were interesting.
She said she’d email me too, so I went to my email to see what the deal was. She didn’t reveal a lot more in the email, but her signature screamed salesperson. Not interested.
So I emailed her back and told her politely that we weren’t in a position to advertise at this point.
Within the next week, she left three more messages.
Hi Susan! This is X from Facebook, just checking back with you! Blah blah blah.
Clearly, if I was interested, I would have responded by now, right? Plus I had emailed her.
By the third call, I was livid. I wrote her another email, this time with the subject: Please stop calling me. (How’s that for an attention-getter?)
You’ve left me three voicemails after I emailed you back telling you I wasn’t interested in advertising. This is beyond persistent. Please take me off your list. Thank you.
So when I attended DellCAP (that’s its Customer Advisory Panel, FYI) a few months ago, I said I believed they were listening to what we told them. One of my contacts from the event sent us an update today, which shows that they are indeed listening and working toward change. Iwanted to share it with you. Here’s what they sent:
We heard: Offended by up sell while trying to get support.
Dell: We’reincreasing audits of support agents and call monitoring to ensure agents are following guidelines for the initiative.
We heard: I would consider paying a premium for better built in support.
Dell: Your Tech Team (YTT) is a support option available. YTT plans increased marketing to make support option advantages more widely known to customers.