The only way to find out is to assess whether customers actually like what you’re offering. Customer satisfaction is the crucial secret ingredient that any business needs to thrive amid stiff competition. If you’re not actively seeking feedback and measuring satisfaction, you’re essentially flying blind. So, how can businesses get an eagle’ s-eye view of what clicks with customers and what doesn’t?

This is where customer satisfaction research comes into play. At its core, it helps businesses understand how their customers feel about their products, services, and overall experience. This research provides actionable insights to help them make informed decisions, enhance their customer experience, and ultimately boost their bottom line. 

Let’s dive into why researching customer satisfaction is indispensable for any business aiming for success.

What You Get Out of Measuring Customer Satisfaction Levels

Customer satisfaction research is a must-have for any business looking to stay ahead of the curve. Let’s break down some of the key benefits they receive from it:

• Understanding Customer Needs: Identifying patterns and trends in customer preferences helps businesses tailor their offerings to better meet their needs. By collecting and analyzing feedback through market research, businesses can dive deep into what their customers truly want and feel about their products and services.
• Enhancing Customer Loyalty: Businesses are aware that satisfied customers are loyal customers. Researching customer satisfaction helps them pinpoint the factors that contribute to a positive experience, helping foster a loyal customer base that’s more likely to return and recommend your business to others.
• Improving Brand Reputation: Nothing beats the power of word-of-mouth marketing for businesses. Which is why businesses need to be vigilant of how their brand is perceived in the digital age, where word travels fast. By regularly conducting market research and taking into consideration customer feedback, they can manage and enhance their brand reputation.
• Driving Business Growth: Businesses know that happy customers are more likely to spend more, buy additional products or services, and provide valuable referrals. Research gives them the insights needed to drive these behaviors and support sustainable business growth.

How Business Can Improve Overall Customer Experience and Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction research is the gateway to ensuring you have the right strategies in place to attract and engage customers and earn their continued loyalty. So, how can businesses use market research to improve customer experience and satisfaction? 

The process isn’t as daunting as it might seem. All businesses need to do is focus on understanding the entire customer journey. What are a customer’s first impressions? How do they interact with your brand? What do they think of your customer service?

To get a complete picture, businesses need to use a variety of research methods. Surveys, interviews, focus groups, and social media listening can all provide valuable insights. But remember, data is just data. What really matters is how you use it to improve the customer experience.

To make the most of your research, consider partnering with a market research firm specializing in customer satisfaction. These experts have the tools, experience, and knowledge to help you uncover hidden opportunities, discover valuable insights, get actionable recommendations, and make data-driven decisions suited to your business.

Take the example of Borderless Access’ Customer Experience (CXi) solution. It offers businesses a comprehensive 360-degree view of customer drivers, enabling them to assess brand performance, pinpoint strengths and weaknesses, and segment customer loyalty effectively. By leveraging CXi, businesses gain valuable insights into their customer experience and brand positioning.

CXi utilizes advanced analytics, algorithms, and models to derive insights from a range of data sources and customer satisfaction survey results. Its services include analysis of customer motivations, evaluation of key drivers, and detailed brand loyalty segmentation. Beyond conventional metrics like C-SAT and advocacy scores, CXi also assesses the brand’s competitive advantage and repurchase intentions, which provides them insights into their customer experience.

The best part is, along with identifying the most appealing aspects of a brand’s experience touchpoints, CXi pinpoints areas for continuous improvement. This proves immensely helpful for businesses in modifying their products development and marketing strategies accordingly to ensure competitive advantage. 

Experience the Perks of Knowing Your Customers Inside Out

It is no secret that businesses that prioritize customer satisfaction tend to see better growth. By understanding your customers’ needs and continuously improving their experience, you’re actually setting up your brand for long-term success.

Then what are you waiting for? Start listening to your customers today. The insights you gain could very well be the key to unlocking your business’s full potential. Remember, happy customers are the cornerstone of any thriving business. They drive loyalty, enhance your reputation, and contribute to growth. 

So, make it a priority to understand and meet your customers’ needs as you get ready to enhance your business’s performance and achieve unparalleled success with in-depth market research!

Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP, and CEO of Experience Investigators, has long championed the idea that customer experience should be ingrained in the very fabric of an organization. “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department; it should be the entire company,” she says, echoing the late Tony Hsieh of Zappos. But how can organizations ensure that every employee, regardless of their role, contributes to a cohesive and positive customer experience? The answer lies in designing learning paths that are explicitly aligned with the customer experience.

The Importance of a Customer-Centric Learning Path

A learning path is more than just a series of training sessions or courses; it’s a strategic approach to employee development that builds skills and knowledge over time. When aligned with the customer experience, a learning path can transform an organization’s culture, making exceptional service not just a goal but a daily reality.

“Too often, we see organizations mandate training without explaining why it’s important,” Walters notes. “Employees are told to complete courses but aren’t given the context of how their learning impacts the customer experience. This disconnect can lead to disengagement and a lack of motivation.”

To avoid this pitfall, Walters suggests that organizations start by clearly defining their Customer Experience Mission. “Every single person in an organization is responsible for a great customer experience,” she explains. “But that’s only possible if every single person knows what that experience is supposed to be.”

For example, the Ritz-Carlton famously uses the phrase, “We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen,” to encapsulate its service philosophy. This simple but powerful mission statement helps employees understand the level of service expected of them, creating a consistent experience for guests.

Designing a Customer-Centric Learning Path

To effectively align your learning path with the customer experience, consider breaking down the learning journey into four key phases:

1. Customer Experience 101

The first phase should focus on educating employees about what customer experience truly means. This foundational knowledge is critical, as many employees may not fully understand how their roles impact the customer journey. Walters emphasizes the importance of defining CX in a way that resonates with your specific organization and industry.

“Customer experience is about the end-to-end journey that your brand has with your customers,” she says. “It’s not just about the customer-facing people; it’s about every single person in your organization understanding how they fit into that journey.”

2. The What, How, and Who of CX in Your Company

Once employees have a basic understanding of CX, the next phase should delve into how customer experience is executed within your organization. This includes specific strategies, processes, and metrics that are tied to CX goals. Walters advises making this phase highly relevant to your company, addressing the unique aspects of your industry and customer base.

“This is where you flip the script a little bit and talk about what CX does for you and your organization,” she explains. “Help employees connect the dots between their work and the overall success of the business. Show them how delivering great customer experiences can improve key metrics, like customer retention and word-of-mouth referrals.”

3. Team and Role-Specific Education

The third phase should tailor the learning path to specific teams and roles within the organization. Walters highlights the importance of recognizing that different departments interact with customers in different ways, even if those interactions are indirect.

“For example, your accounting team might not see themselves as customer-facing, but they play a crucial role in the customer experience through invoicing and payment processes,” she says. “By providing role-specific training, you can help every team member understand their impact on the customer journey and feel empowered to contribute positively.”

4. Experience Design and Improvement

Finally, the learning path should encourage employees to think about the customer experience from a design and improvement perspective. This phase is about fostering a culture of continuous improvement, where employees are encouraged to identify and suggest ways to enhance the customer journey.

“We want everybody thinking big,” Walters says. “How do we actually improve the journey for our customers? What mechanisms do we have in place to report issues and implement improvements? When employees are actively involved in this process, they become invested in delivering a better customer experience.”

Supporting a Long-Term Cultural Shift

Creating a learning path aligned with the customer experience is not a one-time effort. It requires a sustained commitment to fostering a culture where CX is a priority across the organization. Walters suggests several strategies to support this cultural shift:

1. Communicate the Why: Ensure that employees understand why the learning path is important. Connect the dots between their training and the overall success of the organization. “If you don’t explain the why, employees are less likely to engage with the learning process,” Walters warns.
2. Tie Learning to Your CX Mission: Continuously reinforce the connection between employee learning and the Customer Experience Mission. This helps employees see the bigger picture and understand how their actions contribute to the organization’s goals.
3. Embrace What’s Next: Keep employees informed about industry trends and future challenges. “Talk about innovation and the future of customer experience,” Walters advises. “By doing so, you prepare your employees to meet future demands and stay ahead of the competition.”

Real-World Examples and Anecdotes

To bring these concepts to life, Walters recommends using real-world examples and customer anecdotes as part of the learning process. “Customer stories can be incredibly powerful,” she says. “They provide concrete examples of what works and what doesn’t, helping employees internalize the lessons in a way that abstract concepts can’t.”

For instance, Apple and Airbnb are often cited as companies that excel in customer experience. Both organizations place a strong emphasis on aligning their internal training programs with their customer experience goals. At Apple, employees are trained not just on product knowledge but on how to create a welcoming and supportive environment for customers. Airbnb, meanwhile, focuses on empowering hosts to deliver personalized experiences that make guests feel at home.

A Win-Win for Employees and Customers

Aligning your learning path with the customer experience is a strategic move that can lead to better business outcomes, higher employee engagement, and more satisfied customers. When employees understand the impact of their roles on the customer journey and are equipped with the right skills and knowledge, they are more likely to deliver exceptional service.

“Learning is a key way to encourage and facilitate innovation within your organization,” Walters concludes. “By designing learning paths that are closely tied to the customer experience, you not only improve the service you provide but also create a more engaged and motivated workforce.”

As organizations continue to navigate the complexities of customer experience, the alignment of employee learning with CX will become increasingly important. By following the steps outlined by Walters, companies can ensure that their learning paths support a culture of customer-centricity, leading to long-term success for both employees and customers.

To discover what are the X factors that not only attract individuals toward your brand but also become repeat customers (or even brand advocates), you need to become thoroughly acquainted with your target customer’s journey. You must be ready to delight them at each point where they interact with your brand, and not just when they encounter your products or services. 

But how? In-depth customer experience (CX) research is your answer.

Mapping the customer journey is your gateway to creating memorable customer experiences, and CX research is the key that unlocks unprecedented insights that can elevate your brand engagement game. With CX research, businesses get to study and analyze how customers interact with a company or brand across various touchpoints, while gathering insights that can help you improve the overall customer experience, leading to higher satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy. Along the way, become expert at understanding customers’ perceptions, emotions, and behaviors throughout their journey with a brand–from initial awareness to post-purchase interactions.

So, how can customer experience research help you create a seamless and enjoyable experience for your customers that turns casual buyers into lifelong advocates? Read on.

Why is CX Research a Must-Have for Businesses?

Do you wonder what a typical day in the life of your customer is like? They might start by browsing online and reach your company website’s landing page, perhaps after seeing an ad on social media. They could then visit your store, speak to a sales representative, make a purchase, and later, seek support through your customer service channels. 

Each of these interactions is a touchpoint, and customer experience research helps you map out this entire journey to identify strengths and areas for improvement. This translates into the following advantages for businesses:

Enhance Customer Satisfaction: When businesses understand what makes customers happy or frustrated, they can make informed decisions to enhance their experience. Happy customers are more likely to stay loyal and continue doing business with you. 

Gain a Competitive Edge: In a saturated market, a superior customer experience can be a key differentiator. CX research helps you stay ahead by identifying opportunities to dazzle your customers.

Driving Revenue Growth: Satisfied customers not only return but also spend more and recommend your brand to others. This ripple effect drives sales and boosts your bottom line.

In other words, CX research is essential for companies looking to understand their customers better and create meaningful, positive interactions at every touchpoint.

Diving into Customer Experience Insights

Gaining actionable customer experience insights is at the heart of CX research. By leveraging these insights, businesses can create meaningful, positive interactions that foster long-term customer relationships. Here’s how businesses can gather these insights:

1. Customer Journey Mapping: Having a visual representation of the customer’s interaction with your brand from start to finish helps you understand the entire customer experience, while pinpointing areas where you excel and where you need to improve.
2. Qualitative and Quantitative Research: Be it qualitative research methods like interviews, focus groups, and observational studies on customer emotions and motivations, or quantitative methods like surveys and questionnaires that provide measurable data on customer satisfaction, both are rich sources of CX insights for businesses.
3. Behavioral Analysis: Understanding customer behavior by analyzing data from web analytics, CRM systems, and purchase history helps businesses personalize and optimize the customer journey, making them stand out in the eyes of customers.
4. Sentiment Analysis: Analyzing customer sentiments from reviews and social media through natural language processing (NLP) tools enables businesses to understand the overall brand sentiment and helps in making strategic improvements.

As more and more companies–ranging from large corporations to budding startups–realize the power of CX insights, they increasingly look forward to successfully leveraging CX research to transform their customer experiences.

Transforming Customer Experiences with In-Depth  Insights

Traditionally, CX research would primarily involve interviews, focus groups, and surveys to help businesses refine their CX design and strategies. Nowadays, market research firms assist businesses in gathering, storing, and analyzing their data with ease. Many companies are also taking research into their own hands, using diverse methods to collect, organize, and interpret data in-house. 

No matter which method you choose, the end goal of CX research remains the same–gain deeper, more tailored insights into customer experiences at every touchpoint. In this endeavor, Borderless Access, with its CXi, can give you the much-needed headstart. 

CXi is a customer experience measurement tool that provides businesses a comprehensive view of customer experiences through deep insights into customer behavior and preferences, enabling them to enhance overall customer satisfaction. It utilizes advanced analytics, algorithms, and models to extract insights from diverse data sources and customer satisfaction survey results. 

The CXi framework goes beyond standard measures like Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT) to provide a holistic view of customer satisfaction and brand perception. This enables businesses to gain a deeper understanding of customer experience than traditional metrics. 

Armed with such robust customer research insights and data-driven research methodologies and tools, businesses become fully equipped to deliver a high level of customer experience and transform their brand engagement.

Keeping Up with Evolving Customer Expectations

Businesses these days simply cannot ignore that they are operating in an era where customer expectations are higher than ever. Today’s customers won’t tolerate a bad shopping experience, even if it means sacrificing a great price or a top-notch product. 

In this “new normal”, businesses must be attuned to their customers’ needs, being proactive in addressing pain points to guarantee elevated experiences. To achieve this, investing in customer experience research is a must due to its unparalleled ability to offer insights that help businesses map out the customer journey, pinpoint areas for improvement, and make impactful changes that lead to  meaningful, lasting customer relationships that drive your brand forward.

If your company truly values the customer experience, it’s essential to delve into their individual journeys. Remember, every touchpoint matters, and with the right insights, you can ensure every customer interaction with your brand is a positive one. After all, there’s nothing more rewarding than a satisfied customer.

“AI is going to transform every customer experience that we know,” Jassy declared, underscoring the profound impact he anticipates AI will have on Amazon’s global operations. This transition marks a significant pivot from last year when the specifics of Amazon’s role in AI were still taking shape. Today, Jassy’s strategy is clear: embed AI deeply into the fabric of Amazon’s ecosystem.

Strategic Shift Towards AI

According to Jassy, Amazon is not just participating in the AI revolution but actively steering its course. The company has stratified its AI efforts into three broad layers, signaling a comprehensive approach to its AI integration. The foundational layer provides infrastructure and tools for developers to build their large language models, including investments in custom-built AI chips for training and inference tasks.

“These chips are a game-changer,” Jassy stated, pointing to Amazon’s development of both a training chip and an inference chip to facilitate more efficient AI operations. This development is critical as supply constraints, and soaring costs have companies scrambling for more affordable and accessible AI solutions.

Bedrock: Simplifying AI Application Development

At the middle layer, Amazon introduced Bedrock, a service designed to democratize AI application development. Bedrock allows companies to leverage existing AI models, customize them with their data, and seamlessly integrate AI capabilities into their operations without the overhead of developing the technology from scratch. “It is the easiest way to build a high-quality AI application,” Jassy explained, highlighting Bedrock’s role in making AI accessible to a broader range of businesses.

The Ecosystem of AI Models

The top layer of Amazon’s AI strategy involves applications that third parties largely develop. Amazon’s platform supports an extensive selection of AI models designed by Amazon and significant players like Meta and startup Cohere. This layer is crucial as it provides the flexibility and choice that customers demand, accommodating a variety of use cases, from simple tasks to complex AI operations.

Jassy also touched upon Olympus, Amazon’s large language model, noting its role alongside third-party models in offering customers choice and customization in their AI solutions. “Customers want different model types for different applications and use cases,” he said, emphasizing the diversity of needs that Olympus and other models address.

Looking Forward: The AI Horizon

As generative AI continues to captivate the tech industry’s imagination, Amazon is positioning itself as a participant and a leader in this transformative era. With deep investments in infrastructure, platform services, and strategic partnerships, Amazon aims to shape and capitalize on the evolution of AI.

The interview concluded with Jassy reaffirming Amazon’s commitment to staying at the forefront of AI technology, ensuring that its cloud services platform, AWS, remains the prime environment for AI development and deployment. “This is a gigantic space, and there are a lot of successful players in it,” Jassy noted, signaling Amazon’s intent to be among the leaders driving the AI revolution.

As Amazon continues to integrate AI into every aspect of its business, from logistics and customer service to new product development, the implications for the future of technology and consumer interaction are profound. With AI at the helm, Amazon is not just changing how it operates; it’s reshaping the entire landscape of global commerce and digital experiences.

Oracle has been experiencing massive demand for its cloud infrastructure, driven largely by AI. The company said it was struggling to keep with demand at its latest quarterly results. The company is building on that success with new AI capabilities added to CX.

“AI is continuously proving its ability to enhance user experiences and we are only beginning to see what this technology can do for customer service, sales, and marketing,” said Katrina Gosek, vice president of product strategy, Oracle Cloud CX. “The new AI capabilities embedded within Oracle Cloud CX will enable organizations to enhance customer satisfaction and drive more sales by automating processes that enable marketing, sales, and service professionals to spend their quality time on more meaningful tasks while the technology is helping to engage and serve buyers in a more precise manner.”

Oracle says its AI solutions are build on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and “supports over 50 generative AI use cases.” Oracle emphasizes that its solutions place a focus on data privacy and security, and that “no customer data is shared with large language models (LLM) providers.”

“Service resources are finite so it is critical that organizations can predict, plan, and proactively activate the parts of service that can be automated. This would also free up time to be spent on more complex and business-critical tasks that only a human can complete,” said Aly Pinder, research vice president, IDC. “The latest updates to Oracle Service are good examples of how AI and machine learning models can improve customer experiences and create the efficiencies needed for service workers to be more productive.”

Oracle has been leveraging its turn-key solutions as companies move to the cloud, touting the advantage it offers by providing a fully integrated experience. Integrating AI into its platforms and services is a good way to buld on that advantage.

Google has a long and established history of killing off products, with the site Killed by Google listing 295 products and services the company has shuttered. Most recently, the company has killed off Google Podcasts and Google One VPN in quick succession.

In response, Android Police conducted a poll of users to see how many still trusted the company’s services for the long-haul. At the time of writing, over 900 respondents had weighed in, with only 16% saying they were willing to use whatever services Google is working on.

In contrast, 42% said they were hesitant to trust that a new Google product would last more than a couple of years. A full 28% said they will not longer sign up for new Google services. Another 12% said they no longer rely on most of Google’s existing service, including well-established ones. A final 1% had something else in mind.

Google clearly has an issue that it needs to resolve. The company seems to be at least somewhat aware of its reputation, since the company unveiled its Google Enterprise APIs in 2021 in an effort to assure cloud customers that they could rely on the company long-term.

For everything else, however, Google’s reputation for dependability is in tatters. While some may say that Google’s commitment to new, consumer services don’t matter as much as its core search, advertising, and cloud computing, nothing could be further from the truth.

Like many companies, Google’s success depends on an interlacing combination of products and services, with each one strengthening and supporting the others. More than anything, each service builds trust in users and a willingness to invest in the company and its offerings.

Until Google shows it is willing to stick with services it convinces users to invest in, it will continue to lose trust it can’t afford lose.

Joana’s discourse, grounded in extensive research and industry expertise, underscored the indispensable nature of empathy in fostering meaningful connections with customers. Emphasizing the need for a nuanced understanding of customer sentiment, she elucidated how empathy, when wielded effectively, can catalyze innovation and growth.

“Empathy needs to be done in context… We must ensure that we’re attuned to the right point of empathy with the customer within our organizations,” Joana remarked.

Drawing from diverse contexts, including art and customer service interactions, Joana highlighted the potential perils of empathy when divorced from a comprehensive understanding of the customer’s context, intent, and emotions. She underscored the importance of transcending superficial gestures to cultivate genuine empathy that drives actionable insights and tangible outcomes.

“Knowing the context changes our perception entirely… Empathy can sometimes be speculative, selective, incapacitating, and even dehumanizing when we fall into judgment,” Joana elucidated.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, Joana advocated for a symbiotic relationship between empathy and efficiency, dispelling that the two are inherently at odds. By contextualizing empathy within the broader framework of organizational efficiency, Joana emphasized its role in delivering superior customer experiences and driving operational excellence.

“Sometimes, the most empathetic thing to do is to deliver an efficient experience to a customer… Empathy needs to be situationally appropriate,” Joana added.

In charting a path forward, Joana outlined a comprehensive framework for infusing empathy into organizational culture rooted in data-driven insights and organizational psychology principles. Organizations can foster a culture of innovation and resilience in an increasingly competitive landscape by empowering employees to navigate complex customer interactions with empathy and efficacy.

Joana concluded, “Cultivating empathy within the organization can drive innovation, spur change, and address customer concerns.”

As businesses navigate the complexities of today’s marketplace, Joana de Quintanilha’s wisdom serves as a beacon for organizational leaders seeking to unlock empathy’s transformative potential. By embracing empathy as a guiding principle, businesses can forge deeper connections with customers, foster a culture of innovation, and chart a course toward sustained success in the ever-evolving business landscape.

AI Integration at Klarna: Redefining Banking Services

Siemiatkowski highlighted Klarna’s visionary approach to banking services, driven by the ambition to become consumers’ digital financial assistant. The company’s pivot in 2015 reflected a forward-looking perspective, recognizing the potential for AI to revolutionize financial management. With the advent of AI chatbots, Klarna aims to empower users by providing personalized financial insights and optimizing decision-making processes. The successful deployment of AI technologies has enabled Klarna to achieve significant efficiencies, equivalent to the work of 700 employees.

Impact on Workforce and Cost Savings

While adopting AI may reduce the need for customer service agents, Siemiatkowski emphasized that Klarna collaborates with external providers for such services. The company’s focus on enhancing product usability and efficiency has naturally resulted in fewer customer service interactions. However, the implementation of AI represents a milestone in driving substantial cost savings and operational efficiencies.

Deepening Partnership with Openai

Siemiatkowski expressed gratitude for Klarna’s longstanding partnership with Openai, highlighting the mutual benefits derived from collaboration. As one of Openai’s largest customers, Klarna continues to explore innovative AI solutions to enhance its offerings and deliver value to customers.

IPO Plans and Strategic Considerations

Regarding Klarna’s IPO plans, Siemiatkowski emphasized the importance of timing and strategic readiness. The company’s profitability in key markets, notably the US, positions it favorably for a potential IPO. Siemiatkowski drew parallels with Google’s IPO, emphasizing the significance of proven business models and global expansion trajectories.

Navigating Boardroom Dynamics

Addressing recent boardroom developments involving Sequoia and key stakeholders, Siemiatkowski underscored the stability and continuity provided by longstanding board members like Michael Moritz. Despite occasional tensions surrounding control and governance, Siemiatkowski expressed confidence in the collective interests of shareholders and the company’s strategic objectives.

Looking Ahead: Klarna’s Commitment to Innovation and Growth

As Klarna continues its journey toward IPO readiness, Siemiatkowski reiterated the company’s commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and sustainable growth. With AI as a cornerstone of its strategy, Klarna seeks to redefine the future of banking services, offering unparalleled value and convenience to users worldwide. As the company navigates evolving market dynamics and stakeholder expectations, it remains steadfast in its pursuit of excellence and leadership in the fintech industry.

Dave Gerhardt, VP of Marketing at Drift, was recently interviewed on the B2B Growth podcast by John Rougeux who is VP of Marketing at Skyfii. Gerhardt discusses conversational marketing as a new B2B product category and how it is changing marketing from reaching out to you later to a conversation that is happening now:

Conversational Marketing is About Connecting You Now

Conversational marketing is a whole new way of thinking about marketing and sales. The traditional way of doing marketing and sales is all about later. Come to my website and fill out this form and somebody is going to reach out to you later, when it’s convenient for them. The big shift that is happening in marketing and business over the last five to ten years is customers have all the power today. You can’t make people wait. Information is free now.

I can find anything I want to know about a company without ever having to go to your website. It’s crazy to think that you are going to force people to go to your website, fill out a form, wait three days to hear back from your sales team, and then get a demo. Conversational is all about connecting you now with the people who are ready to buy now while they are live on your website.

B2P – Marketing to People

It’s not about buyers. It’s not about sellers. It’s not about sales. It’s not about marketing. It’s about people. That’s how people all communicate online today. I pressed one button in my car and I got a list. I ordered something from Amazon while I was here this morning to send back to my house and it’s going to be there tomorrow when I get home. There are countless examples of that. That is how we all behave online in our real lives today.

But then something happens weird happens. We go to our jobs in B2B and none of the tools that we use match how we actually buy as real people. That’s the most exciting thing to me about conversational marketing. It’s really closing the gap between B2C and B2B. We just call it B2P, marketing to people.

What Ties Our Products Together is Conversation

We have an email product and we have a landing page product. Black and white versions of those people would say everybody has email, everybody has landing pages. The thing that ties those together is conversation. That forces us to think about what is conversational email? What is conversational landing pages? What is conversational whatever? That one word forces our product team to think about how can we change this? If our fundamental stance as a company is that the internet should be one conversation, then how does that weave into everything that we build?

Ultimately what we care about is that email becomes a conversation. Meaning, the way that marketers have had to use email the last decade is a one-way channel. Email is meant to be a two-way channel. Marketers have been using it as, “John come to my webinar.” What happens if you actually respond to that email? Most of the time you can’t because it’s donotreply@ or it just goes to some inbox where nobody is answering it. That is a terrible experience. Our belief is that if you reply, “Hey actually I can’t make it. Can you reregister my colleague?” That should get handled. We are thinking of that from an evolution standpoint.

The same thing with landing pages. Most landing pages today are static. You go to the landing page, put a bunch of info in and you are gone. What if that was a real-time conversation on the page? That one topic has to weave itself into everything we do from a product perspective.

>> Listen to the complete interview with Drift Marketing VP Dave Gerhardt on the B2B Growth podcast.

Farfetch plans to use their IPO windfall to dramatically improve their technology which they see as the best way to improve the consumer experience.

Farfetch Founder and CEO José Manuel Ferreira Neves recently discussed Farfetch and the online luxury brand industry on Bloomberg:

Online Luxury is Growing 25 Percent a Year

It’s a very unique opportunity. You have this amazing global industry. It’s $300 billion, the personal luxury goods industry and only 9 percent is online. There are two opportunities here really. One is the growth of online luxury which is going to grow to 25 percent a year for the next seven years. This is a $100 billion opportunity shift in online luxury.

The big question is how is technology going to help brands and retailers really improve the consumer experience in the physical store. This is something at Farfetch that we are very passionate about.

China is an Incredible Opportunity for Online Luxury

China is a very exciting opportunity. Chinese citizens are at the onset of the luxury industry, whether they shop at home or when they’re shopping abroad. Online penetration is very low in China so this means that there is an incredible growth runway for Farfetch in the territory.

That led to our partnership with JD.com where we have our own team. We have the Farfetch China app and website, we have local customer service, local payment systems, and local marketing. It’s a truly localized service. That is what’s driving incredible growth to the Farfetch brand in that region.

José Neves, founder and CEO of @farfetch, told us about the company’s grand ambitions for China at the WWD’s Men’s Wear Summit this week. https://t.co/MrMj7y5VCG

— Jing Daily | 精日传媒 (@JingDaily) March 29, 2018

WeChat is an amazing app with over 900 million users. It is the Instagram, plus WeChat, plus PayPal, etc. of China in one app. That is very powerful and very interesting. Now with our acquisition CuriosityChina we are powering the retail presence of 80 luxury brands. We think that is very interesting for the industry and we think that is probably something that we will see for the western world.

How Farfetch plans to capture the growth in online luxury e-commerce https://t.co/t9HI0igMFV pic.twitter.com/RjvAel79li

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) September 21, 2018

Brands Now Using Social and Digital Marketing Extensively

I think brands move cautiously and they choose their marketing channels very carefully. As these newer channels have developed the brands have adapted to them and their now using social media and digital media extensively to create desire, to drive discovery of new products obviously transactions as well.

It’s a gradual pace but it’s really exciting that were at that inflection point where the brands see this as a tremendous opportunity.

Tim Mapes, Chief Marketing Officer of Delta Airlines, recently discussed how Delta uses its army of employees in its marketing:

All 85,000 Employees Are Brand Ambassadors

One of the dynamics of being in this role of Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Delta Airlines for ten years, when I think the average used to be 23 months, is the fact that Delta is such a values-driven organization and values transcend time. Marketing’s role within Delta is really seen to be everybody’s role. I have the opportunity to serve as Chief Marketing Officer, but 85,000 people are all brand ambassadors.

All 85,000 members of the company are selling, they’re promoting, they’re providing a brand experience in what they do each day. That’s very much conscious on our part. We share that view with everybody that we’re all having a net impression. I say often within the company, everything communicates.

Whether the flight attendants are happy, whether the coffee works, whether the lavatory is clean on the plane, whether the flights operate on time, all of that in your customer experience is a part of the net impression you have on your impression of Delta at the end of the day.

Delta is Using Data to Drive the Customer Experience

When you carry 185 million passengers a year and we know where you’re going when you’re going, whether you’re a Sky Club member, whether you have the American Express co-branded credit card, all of that data is resident in Delta.

Taking that in and knitting it together horizontally, not just so that we in the loyalty program can know that you as a Diamond flyer prefer to sit on an aisle seat and like gin and tonics,  but also that the last three flights you took had your bag misdirected, so we’re able to say up or down what type of experience are we delivering.

Prosperity Coming Out of the Roots of Austerity

I think one thing that’s fascinating about Delta is you’re talking about a 90-year-old company that nonetheless in the last 10 years has experienced the best in the worst year in the history of the company. So 9/11 2001 you’ve got obviously all the fallout and the impact of that on travel and then experiencing record profits more recently.

We’ve been paying our employees profit sharing in excessive of a billion dollars a year each of the past four years so even in a short decade of time you’re seeing prosperity coming out of the roots of austerity and problems.

Delta CMO: How Cool is That…

I grew up watching really two programs that I can consciously recall. One was Mr. Rogers. People think about puppets and silliness and kind of milk toast Mr. Rogers bless his heart. The transcendent qualities that he taught in terms of respect and that you’re special just the way you are, from a hospitality perspective and a diversity and inclusion, he was way ahead of his time. In a way, with kindness and grace that the company and all of our world would do well to have more of today.

The other was Bewitched because I got to watch Darrin, and this as a kid, but he just looked like he was having fun in advertising with a great social life and great personal life. I just thought wow,  advertising art that actually generates commerce. How cool is that…

Scott Heimes, Chief Marketing Officer at Zipwhip, discusses how two-way text messaging can be an extremely effective way to communicate with your customers in an interview on the B2B Growth Podcast:

76% of Consumers Have Received Text From Businesses

Over 76 percent of consumers have received some kind of text from a business. The most common are appointment reminders or bank alerts. This really just scratches the surface. Texting has so many applications beyond just alerts and reminders. There are sales and marketing, discount coupons and giveaways, customer support and service, recruiting and staffing, and internal communications at places like educational institutions. It’s so new and businesses are continuing to innovate in this medium. There are a lot of powerful use cases for businesses.

We have over 30,000 businesses using our software today. They range from very small businesses like yoga studios or lawn care services all the way up to multi-billion dollar insurance companies that are using our solution in their claim call centers. Industries include financial services, staffing and recruiting, healthcare, legal, and more. We have 156 professional sports teams that use our solution. They use it for ticket sales and customer service. There are lots of fitness gyms, radio and TV stations that use our text solution as well. It really does run the gamut of anybody that wants to communicate with their customers via this preferred medium.

Report Shows Increasing Use of Texting by Businesses

I just talked to the Director of Communications for the Sound Transit Authority, the public transit authority in Seattle, who uses our solution. They publish an 800 number to text or call when people see problems on the trains. Rather than get on the phone and calling, more and more people are texting those alerts. It’s really an interesting use case. Another one is during a recent hurricane down in Houston we had an insurance agent that was using our software to communicate with all of his customers in the area because the phone lines were largely down. Texting was working well to create engagement and communication during those tough times.

We recently created a report called the State of Texting which is a deep research study that highlights the adoption curve of text messaging as a business communication tool. It identifies how many consumers are already being texted by businesses as well as many other key insights and trends. One of the things we saw was that there are a lot of one-way texting tools where you get an alert from your doctor’s office, for instance, but you can’t respond to it. It was actually fired off by a CRM using an API that was just one way.

Text is a Great Way to Increase Engagement

Increasingly, consumers would prefer to be able to respond to those texts and have an actual interaction with a human on the other side to either reschedual that appointment or alert them that they are going to be five minutes late or something like that. We are seeing a trend where people want to be able to respond to texts and have an interaction as opposed to continuing to be one way.

For businesses, the communication channels of email and phone are just becoming less and less effective. Text is a great way to increase your engagement and responsiveness with consumers. They’ll actually respond to a text. One of the things we are doing as a company is everything we can to maintain the purity of the texting medium to make sure that spam doesn’t leak its way into this channel.

>> Listen to the complete interview with Zipwhip CMO Scott Heimes on the B2B Growth podcast.

Seamless Communication Matters

Being able to click between customers on one screen allows for a large call volume to be addressed. The truth is that an easier platform for employees to work in will help overall quality of each call. Endless tabs can lead to issues with efficiency for those at call centers. Automatic call distribution can also make sure employees have a reasonable workload. The truth is that customer service representatives will be far more helpful if they feel like they do not have to rush through a plethora of calls. 

Customer Retention Will Be Impacted 

There are companies that are known to be a nightmare to work with on the customer service side. Certain cable providers come to mind as there have been issues with overbilling along with subpar service. Empowering staff that helps customers is an investment in the customer’s experience. Keeping nearly perfect customer retention is a recipe for any business to grow substantially over the course of time. A call center that helps address issues or handle what is needed quickly matters to consumers in today’s age. Some issues cannot be handled on websites as they might be difficult to verbalize or a customer needs to be better informed. 

Call Recording Can Lead To A Much Better Customer Service 

Call recording can be so important when it comes to putting notes in a customer’s account. Detailed notes can allow customers to be transferred seamlessly along with seeing the customer’s past issues they might have had. Reviewing a call before a customer is put on the line is so important. Updating a CRM regardless of the length of an interaction, will be as important as ever. Keeping staff dedicated to taking notes and recording calls will result in a far better customer experience. 

Streamlining The Call Processes For Clients/Customers

The ability to have a customer get into contact with a client manager quickly can be important. Building a form of rapport over the course of time can lead to comfort between the call center employee and the customer. The truth is that most customers want to deal with a person repeatedly as they will feel more valued. Constantly being redirected to various departments does not instill a feeling in the customer that their specific account is valuable to the company. This is the reason so many want to work with a small business rather than a giant corporation, where they feel lost in the shuffle. 

Consider Other Avenues To Address Customer Problems

AI chat on a website to direct an individual can be an option although it might not seem personal. Being able to handle an issue on the computer while tackling another task might provide convenience for a certain segment of customers. Sitting on hold on the phone simply is not possible for those that have other things to do or a busy schedule on a particular day. Email might work for less than immediate issues but solving problems as quickly as possible needs to be a focus for a business.

Cloud solutions for call centers can make such a huge difference when it comes to the overall customer happiness with a company. Call center solutions on the cloud can make customer retention increase along with the overall reputation of the company with the client base.

Documents leaked indicating that T-Mobile planned to force customers on older plans to upgrade to newer, more expensive ones. Customers would have the option to stay on their old plan, but doing so would require a call to customer support. A T-Mobile spokesperson confirmed the plans to CNET, but the pushback from customers caused CEO Mike Sievert to say the plans were only a test run on a limited number of accounts.

According to CNET, T-Mobile has officially killed off the plan, saying customers can keep their existing plans without a call-in.

Company execs did make clear, however, that they will need to find a way to get customers off of older plans and will continue to test different options.

AI is being widely adopted across industries, but one of the biggest challenges that threatens adoption are copyright concerns. AI models need massive amounts of data for training, with many companies viewing the entire internet as fair game. This has led to legal and ethical questions, as well as lawsuits.

Google is now providing customers a guarantee that if they use the company’s AI models, it will provide legal indemnification:

At Google Cloud, we put your interests first. This means that when you choose to work with us, we become partners on a journey of shared innovation, shared support, and shared fate. We are committed to helping you evolve as technology advances, drawing on our depth of experience to ensure you can use the latest and best technology, while keeping you safe and protected. When it comes to the rapidly developing world of generative AI, this is imperative.

The company outlines a two-prong approach:

We put a lot of thought into how we can instill trust and confidence into these AI offerings, and today we’re pleased to share how we’re addressing one key area of interest for our customers: intellectual property indemnity as it pertains to generative AI.

We’ll explore this complex topic in detail below, but to put it plainly for you, our customers: if you are challenged on copyright grounds, we will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved. To do this we will employ a two-pronged, industry-first approach designed to give you more peace of mind when using our generative AI products. The first prong relates to Google’s use of training data, while the second specifically covers generated output of foundation models.

Taken together, these indemnities provide comprehensive coverage for our customers who may be justifiably concerned about the risks associated with this exciting new frontier of generative AI products. While these indemnities provide powerful protections, we are also committed to maintaining an ongoing dialogue with our customers about other specific use cases that may need coverage.

Getty Images recently offered a similar guarantee to its customers, and it’s a safe bet more companies will follow suit in an effort to spur further adoption.

According to The Mobile Report, T-Mobile customers logging into the app were shown billing information for other customers. After initial reports started showing up, some feared the issue might be the result of yet another data breach.

Fortunately, T-Mobile provided a statement to The Mobile Report saying a data breach was not the cause:

There was no cyberattack or breach at T-Mobile. This was a temporary system glitch related to a planned overnight technology update involving limited account information for fewer than 100 customers, which was quickly resolved.

While the clarification is certainly reassuring, the incident is still a massive privacy issue.

According to Neowin, users are presented with a poll asking why they want to install Chrome when they try to download it. The behavior is yet another escalation of other steps the company has taken to discourage users from installing a competing web browser.

Below are the questions asked:

We love having you!

Can you please take a minute to tell us why you are trying another browser?

• I can’t search Google easily
• I can’t access my Google documents
• I don’t have my favorites or passwords here
• Too many ads and pop-ups
• I don’t like the news feed
• It’s too slow
• My websites don’t work on Microsoft Edge
• My reason is not listed

The tactics are incredibly distasteful and reminiscent of the tactics the company employed against Netscape, tactics that ultimately got it in trouble with the DOJ.

The tactics are incredibly distasteful and reminiscent of the tactics the company employed against Netscape, tactics that ultimately got it in trouble with the DOJ.

While Microsoft has made strides toward being more open since those days, this behavior is absolutely shameful and shows no respect for the fact that the user has the right to install and use whatever software they want without being hassled about it.

Then again, given that Microsoft also seems intent on displaying ads in an operating system its users are paying for, the company clearly doesn’t seem to have all that much respect for what its users have the right to do.

Nirosha Methananda, Vice President of Marketing at Bombora, discusses the challenges of marketing without annoying your potential customers by bombarding them with marketing messages in an interview with Logan Lyles on the B2B Growth Podcast:

Marketing Is Really About the Customer Experience

As a B2B marketer, I get marketed to a lot. It’s something that I have increasingly noticed and I’m probably not the only one. That’s just becoming part of the experience in terms of being inundated with different messaging and different calls and this, that, and the other. Use this, do this, buy this, whatever it is. It’s really not a great experience. It doesn’t necessarily provide value. Marketers are so busy as it is, and I know that is applicable across the board with everyone we are marketing to. Being able to cut through the noise and having an understanding of all these different things is very challenging. 

Having on top of it being inundated with this constant flow of messaging like meet me, meet me, meet me, is not very helpful. That’s one of the things that I’m passionate about. It’s really about customer experience. I think that is something fundamental to marketing. I feel like we have gone down this path of almost over automating and having to constantly pounce on people without necessarily being conscious and mindful of what their experience is on the other end. From my experience, it’s leading to me switching off and ignoring messages. I’m sure I’m not the only one. 

Create a Marketing Strategy That’s Not Annoying

It also leads to this annoyance and irritation which leads to distrust of brands and that’s not great for this industry. From a customer perspective those bad experiences, unfortunately, more than good experiences, they stay with you for longer and you remember that. Another thing that we don’t necessarily think of is that it’s wasteful. It’s wasteful of time and it’s wasteful of money especially for marketing and sales where money is a precious resource. It’s not something to be wasted. That’s basically why I’m passionate about creating a marketing strategy that’s not annoying.

As an example, our Intent Event was our first flagship event that we did last year. It was a closed event so we did have limited numbers and we were limited as to what we could do with promotion. What we did was try to have mindfulness around what we were sending out and ensuring that it was helpful. Making sure that the recipients, the people that we invited, were given all the relevant information, but there was brevity in the communication as well as encouraging them to participate without forcing them to be there. 

There was certainly some urgency around some of our communication but it wasn’t you need to attend this and this is why you must attend this. It was more about being a bit more subtle in presenting them the idea and the concept of what it was, why it would help them, and exactly the information that they needed. What that meant was not sending out multiple emails, being very controlled around it, really thinking about what the experience was before the event, to during the event, to after the event. We were really focused on the customer and making sure that all of the content and communication was educational and helpful.

Everything from utilities to hotels often stuff bills with junk fees, many of which are not disclosed at the outset. The FTC wants to ban the practice, giving consumers a much clearer picture of exactly what they are paying for.

“All too often, Americans are plagued with unexpected and unnecessary fees they can’t escape. These junk fees now cost Americans tens of billions of dollars per year—money that corporations are extracting from working families just because they can,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan. “By hiding the total price, these junk fees make it harder for consumers to shop for the best product or service and punish businesses who are honest upfront. The FTC’s proposed rule to ban junk fees will save people money and time, and make our markets more fair and competitive.”

The FTC’s proposed rules would ban two practices in particular:

• Hidden Fees. Consumers told the FTC that dishonest businesses routinely engage in bait-and-switch pricing tactics that hide mandatory fees and deceive consumers about the price. This is because fees imposed later, but before the purchase is made, significantly increase the total that consumers pay. Accordingly, the proposed rule would prohibit businesses from advertising prices that hide or leave out mandatory fees; and
• Bogus Fees. Many consumers also said that they often do not know what fees are for, because dishonest businesses routinely misrepresent or fail to adequately disclose the nature or purpose of the fees. The rule would prohibit sellers from misrepresenting fees and require them to disclose upfront the amount and purpose of the fees and whether they are refundable.

The FTC’s proposal has wide support among other agencies, with the FCC, CFPB, DOT, and HUD throwing their weight behind it.

“No one likes surprise charges on their bill. Consumers deserve to know exactly what they are paying for when they sign up for communications services. But when it comes to these bills, what you see isn’t always what you get,” said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “Instead, consumers have often been saddled with additional junk fees that may exorbitantly raise the price of their previously agreed-to monthly charges. To combat this, we’re implementing Broadband Consumer Labels, a new tool that will increase price transparency and reduce cost confusion, help consumers compare services, and provide ‘all-in-pricing’ so that every American can understand upfront and without any surprises how much they can expect to be paying for these services.”

Rather than fret about this impending inevitability, prepare for it. Because you and your team can handle negative reviews poorly, or you can handle them with grace. When you manage the latter, you’ll be surprised at how much it can actually help grow your business. Read on to learn three tips for handling feedback to start improving your customer relations today. 

1. Enlist Tech Assistance 

There’s a lot to learn about the etiquette of handling negative reviews. First and foremost, however, you need a robust system in place so you can address them at all. Because how can you respond to a review if you don’t even know it’s there?

Reviews can show up on all sorts of different sites. You may get one on Google, Yelp, Etsy, Amazon, Shopify — the list goes on. Obviously, it can be hard to keep track of all these reviews by checking and rechecking websites over and over. You need to get a handle on where reviews are being left so you can address them as quickly as possible. That’s why you need to enlist some tech assistance.

Implementing a CRM for small business with reputation management capabilities is a great way to monitor your online reputation. Such CRMs can comb through popular review sites and alert you every time a new review pops up. That way, when a negative review does appear, you’ll know right away. 

If you already have a CRM without this feature, you may be able to integrate it with a reputation management solution to gain this capability. Time is of the essence when handling negative feedback, and operating without the necessary tech puts you at a significant disadvantage. Using a CRM with reputation management features means you can surface negative reviews and start handling them immediately.

2. Leave Genuine Responses

When it comes to actually responding to bad reviews, you need to be authentic. Giving unhelpful responses to someone’s poor experience will just drive them further away. People aren’t stupid — they know when they’re getting generic or insincere answers to their complaints. A major part of growing a good business is treating your customers with respect. So avoid inauthentic responses at all costs.

Instead, aim to sympathize with your customers. Approach your responses from a place of curiosity, respect, and integrity. Whenever possible, personalize your response by addressing your customers by name and briefly summarizing their comments. This gives them an opportunity to feel heard and not like they’ve gotten cheated by your business. 

Always include an apology when responding to a negative review, even if you don’t agree with what it’s saying. Sure, the situation may not be your fault, or this person may be blowing things out of proportion. But “the customer is always right” is true when it comes to how a customer feels. Validate their feelings and do your best to remedy the situation. Even if there’s nothing you can do, acknowledge your customer’s experience and take responsibility for it. 

3. Don’t Delete Negative Reviews

As you start to receive negative reviews, it can be tempting to simply delete them, especially at first. Who can blame you for wanting to keep your public record squeaky clean? But bear in mind that no person or company is without flaw. So it’s natural that a customer will receive a less-than-stellar experience eventually. It’s just as natural that your business will eventually receive less-than-stellar feedback.

This is why it’s so crucial to improve your ability to respond to negative reviews. Rather than hoping you can avoid them entirely, it’s better to focus your efforts on improving your responses. You may be surprised at how good a negative review can actually be for your business. A bad experience is actually an opportunity for your business to provide above-and-beyond customer service. 

Say a customer leaves a negative review of your product because the item they received was damaged during manufacturing. Now you have the chance to send them a quality replacement, expedited, at no further cost to them. Other customers and prospects will witness this narrative play out through your response to this customer’s feedback. They’ll see that, even when something goes wrong, your business maintains its integrity and puts the customer first. Such responses can increase trust in your brand, which is essential to developing your business. 

Keep Learning

Responding to a negative review isn’t something you need to do once then never think of again. While you can take steps to minimize negative feedback, it will be an ongoing part of your business you’ll need to attend to. This is especially true as your reach grows and you start to interact with more customers. 

As nice as it would be, running a flawless business just isn’t possible. And more customers mean more chances to make a mistake. Fortunately, mistakes present chances for redemption. So do your best to treat your mistakes as the opportunities they are. Use them to show the world your business’s integrity, principles, and reliability.