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We hear it all the time: businesses are more digital than ever before, and this continues to impact almost every aspect of how things are run within a company. But even in a “post” Covid-19 world, what will we (hopefully) never replace with digital? Human interaction.
Connecting with others remains crucial to virtually any successful relationship, business or otherwise. Strong customer relationships are at the heart of just about every business out there – that one-to-one relationship helps them to know what their customer needs and to anticipate problems before they arise. It’s one of the few things that really sets a company apart from its competitors, especially as new ones pop up every day.
So what techniques should companies adopt to maintain personalized relationships in the midst of all things digital? Here are three questions every business owner should ask themselves.
Related: The 7 Stages of Customer Relationship Management
Table of Contents
To begin with, you need to assess where your company stands in terms of a single view of the customer and their journey within your organization. All internal teams that get into every customer relationship need to have information that is in real time. You need to know not only what products they use, but also what problems they’ve had, what their ultimate goals are for their organizations and their communication preferences – anything and everything. Further, once you have all that information available to you, everyone should have access to it; your sales, marketing, customer support and operations people all need access to the same set of data.
We recently surveyed 500 B2B sales, marketing, customer success, and operations professionals from midsize organizations to find out how teams are using CRM to improve customer experience. When asked what their strategic priorities were for the year ahead, only 17% listed aligned departments as a top priority, but 55% listed improving customer experience.
What many don’t realize is that you can’t have one without the other. Real-time feedback and the alignment of your company’s data and departments have a direct effect on the customer experience. Of those surveyed, the companies reporting the best customer service were 2.5 times more likely to experience significant revenue growth. Simply put, a focus on customer experience makes a huge difference.
Related: Customer Relationship Management: It’s More Than Just Conversions
Question #2: How can we go deeper with our personalization tactics?
Once you’ve got your data from real-time feedback shared across all internal departments, you’re ready to get personal. And in case you haven’t been caught up, personalization in sales and marketing today goes far beyond using a customer’s first name in an email campaign.
Personalized interactions and service will enable the exceptional one-to-one relationships mentioned above. How on earth can you serve your customers if you don’t cater to their very individual wants and needs? You need to know what their pain points are, what their successes are, and what they need most to get things done.
Basically, do your research and then create your personal reach. Note: There is no shortcut here. The calories you burn doing research or aggregating data will result in better results.
Furthermore, personalization can help reduce any missteps in communication. If a customer has a problem with something, the last thing you want is for your marketing team to email them with an offer or an upsell. In addition, you should always collect and include as much direct customer feedback as you can – field surveys, post questions and social media polls and ask direct questions. One tactic is to have your customer service team organize quarterly business reviews with customers. A 30-minute meeting held once a quarter can resolve issues before they get out of hand, while also looking for upsell opportunities. Once you get the answers, as mentioned earlier, that data needs to be shared with internal departments so that your employees can continue to have face-to-face interactions.
Related: Staying ahead of the curve: How the customer experience is evolving
Question #3: Do we take every opportunity to have a human touch?
If we get the chance to share our human side, we should excel at it.
Virtual backgrounds were fashionable early on in video conferencing because they gave a neat, homogenized view of each caller. Guess? That’s boring and could be a missed opportunity for a better, deeper connection. Show your customers your real background. Is that a guitar? A work of art that you admire? A plant you are tending or a book you are reading?
How can we use these signals to start real conversations and connect as people? While there were likely some exceptions early in the pandemic, when people rushed home to haphazard and makeshift workspaces, today’s remote worker is likely to have a space that reflects his/her personality and can add value to an interaction.
Another place to be more human is LinkedIn. If I do business with you and I visit your LinkedIn profile, what will I see? A laundry list of your qualifications is good, but I would like a short story about why you chose this field, what successes you have achieved and where your passion lies. Don’t miss these opportunities to inject humanity into the digital world.
Related: Creating Authentic Relationships and Building Customer Trust
Moving forward
Implementing these tactics within your organization will help you maintain successful customer relationships as things move more digitally, because let’s not forget what matters most: human interaction.
