Hey everyone-
I haven’t posted anything in sometime now. The reason for this is because I will be redesigning my blog to move over to an all video format and I’m saving my newest content for the big relaunch. It should be ready to go by the end of June. In the meantime, here is a recent video of me speaking at an event in Boston. I hope you like it!
Why do we recommend anything to anyone?
We only passionately recommend when we experience amazing, memorable customer service.
Sure, we might recommend because of a cheap price but that doesn’t get us as motivated or enthusiastic as great service nor does it drive genuine customer loyalty.
Side note: want to know the difference between customer experience and customer service? Find out here.
We’ve always known this recommendation thing to be formally called word of mouth (WOM) which is a marketing function. My grandfather built his entire seafood business solely on WOM and I’m sure yours did too. The organizations who thrive on WOM, regardless of era, are often more profitable because the cost of customer acquisition is very low which makes it even more attractive.
Not only does a positive customer experience drive WOM it also makes us a beloved brand and the media loves to cover admired brands. Think of Zappos three years ago, remember how many PR hits they received because of their amazing service. I suppose it could be said that customer experience is the new PR too.
Need more evidence? Learn what the ROI of Zappos’ customer service is here.
Customer experience isn’t the future of marketing because I believe they are one in the same and always have been. WOM and relationship building (another offspring of customer experience) have been around for centuries and will continue to have its presence in business.
Customer experience is sales, marketing, pr, hr, tech, everything! Now and in the future.
Andrew Mason (Co-founder, CEO – Groupon) is out. No shock there.
Groupon has been struggling, I don’t need to point that out. But, what has caused Groupon’s dismal performance?
Answer: they neglected their customer experience.
Last year, I wrote a two part series titled “Wall Street Hates Customer Experience” which highlighted Mason’s poor performance. Find part 1 here and part 2 here.
In Mason’s exit letter to the organization his last paragraph included this,
“If there’s one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart upon you: have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what’s best for our customers. This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness – don’t waste the opportunity!
Read the full letter here. It’s pretty witty.
He admits it. He ignored the customer and the outcome is completely dire for him and the company.
Jeff Bezos’ famously says, “we are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.” He means that he will invest into the customer experience even if Wall Street objects and shoots their stock down. Steve Jobs did the same, he would listen to what he believed his customers wanted and needed. This is why I believe Bezos and Jobs are the two greatest entrepreneurs ever.
Mason didn’t have the will to do the same and Wall Street had him wrapped around its finger ultimately spitting him out.
Your only motivation is to earn customer loyalty by delivering an amazing customer experience. Although difficult, ignore outside influences that aren’t coming from your paying customers.
What has happened to Mason can and will happen to you too if you don’t follow Bezos’ and Jobs lead.
See also:
The #1 Reason Your Customer Experience Strategy Will Fail
Customer experience isn’t sexy (or is it?)
As business leaders we are faced with many options to grow our business.
What are our options?
We can invest in a PR campaign which will increase our brand awareness. With a PR campaign we get to be in the media and everyone will see how successful our organizations have become.
How about a PPC strategy? This will surely bring us new leads tomorrow and put a feather in our hat because we can equate revenue growth to the campaign.
A website redesign will give us a new polished look almost immediately.
All three have their place in business but neither will grow our bottom line organically like a customer experience strategy will. Not too long ago, I wrote a post on the #1 Reason a CEO Won’t Invest in Customer Experience (find it here) which was picked up by Time magazine (read that piece here).
Quite simply, the reason is because the financial ROI of customer experience takes time. Your customers may say they will use you again and referral you, which they will if you deliver amazing service, but that may not happen tomorrow. We have to be patient to experience the ROI similarly to how organizations like Amazon are patient.
Let’s remember, Amazon started off in a garage similar to how many of our businesses started. Jeff Bezos (Founder, CEO – Amazon) says it best, “We are willing to be misunderstood for long periods of time.” What he means is that he will invest into his customer experience even when the payback is month or years away. Let’s not argue with his logic or strategy.
I get it! Launching a PR campaign is great, we get to paint our brand with an incredibly fine brush and it boosts our ego. It does sounds like fun but customer experience is going to ensure you are operating 5 and 10 years from now because your customers will be loyal to you.
Here are some stats for you from organizations who invest in customer experience:
Amazon = $269.47/share (as of Feb. 13th, 2013)
Apple = $41B in net income (2012)
Southwest Airlines = 39 consecutive years of profitability. In the freakin’ airline industry!!!
All three organizations believe in having the right customer experience systems and programs in place to grow their business.
Wait, maybe customer experience is sexy!
See also:
How to generate sales through social media by increasing customer trust
If you follow me on Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook you know I’m a HUGE Gary Vaynerchuk fan. He’s extremely passionate and he’s way ahead of the curve when it comes to business. @askgerber put together an awesome video series with Gary Vaynerchuk talking about everything from sales to social media to customer service.
If I were to ask you, “What’s your social media purpose?”
Would you have an answer?
If you did have an answer, I’m sure you do, would your entire organization be able to recite the same response?
In December 2012, I polled 100 social media professionals I’m connected with on Linkedin, actual people who are responsible for the social media efforts of medium and large sized organizations, here is what I found:
As you can see, there is a handful of different reasons why some organizations are using social media.
For me, the answer is, “We’re using social media as a means to service our customers.”
The most admired organizations in the world, found social media and thought, “We must service our customers here.” After all, they are having conversations about our service, product and industry at a million times/minute it only makes sense to have a unique presence.
Anyone reading this will have one of two stories:
1.”I once posted on an organizations Facebook page and never heard back.”
2. “I once tweeted at a company and they actually tweeted back! For that reason, I admired them as a brand.”
#2 sounds much nicer.
I wonder how many times C-suites have asked, “What’s the ROI of social media?” Well, here’s my evidence for you.
The other day Mashable came out with this Zappos article. It highlights Zappos’ Facebook activity and the leads it brought to their website. There are some very powerful stats here.
