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Tag: Customer Loyalty

  • The 3 Tiers of Customer Service (and How to Get to the Top) | Entrepreneur

    The 3 Tiers of Customer Service (and How to Get to the Top) | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The way I see it, your decision to read this article already puts you ahead in the customer service game. Here’s my logic: There are literally billions of human beings out there who, unlike you, will never read an article or book on the subject of customer service improvement because the subject isn’t of interest to them, and they don’t understand the power that customer service improvement can bring.

    Because of your demonstrated interest in the subject, I’m going to assume that you’re already providing “pretty good, much of the time” customer service. You’re already getting quite a few things right — at least on most days and in most customer interactions. So, take a moment to pat yourself on the back. (But don’t strain your neck.)

    If I’m right about this, it means that you’ve already learned the value of customer service from the moments when you have gotten it right, and you’re now inspired to take these successes even further. You’re ready to elevate and polish your relationships with customers to a sufficient level to build the customer connections (and business results) you’ve always hoped to achieve.

    In other words, you’re ready to get out of the middle of the pack — what I call Rung 2 of the Customer Service Level Ladder — and ascend to the top rung, Rung 3.

    When you’ve only reached the middle rung of customer service, while you may be judged more-or-less satisfactory by your customers, you’re not yet loved (or even probably remembered) for the quality of customer service you provide.

    Related: Yes, the Rich Are Different — Here Are 5 Customer Service Secrets I Learned While Working With Wealthy Clients

    The problem of providing “pretty good, much of the time” customer service

    Being on the second rung loads better than languishing at the bottom on Rung 1 (unacceptable service). Still, it will never inspire the engagement, passion and loyalty you need from customers to grow your business.

    The problem is that a merely satisfied (Rung 2) customer will still have a wandering eye. And how can you blame them? If your more-or-less-decent customer service is no better and no worse than what your competitors can also supply, where’s the value to a customer limiting themselves to only one supplier — you?

    What do merely satisfied customers look like? Picture them like this: Although they harbor positive feelings towards your business, they haven’t yet ascended to becoming a devoted advocate for your brand. Unlike a genuinely loyal customer, merely satisfied customers maintain (frustratingly) open minds and remain willing to explore alternatives to your business in the vast marketplace.

    Related: 5 Reasons Why Your Business Is Losing Customers

    A merely satisfied customer is like a free agent, always ready to be enticed by competitors

    In other words, here’s what you need to remember: A merely satisfied customer belongs to the marketplace. A loyal customer belongs to you.

    This is why it’s so important to elevate your organization’s performance to Rung 3, the level of iconic customer service, where customers now consider you their only possible supplier—a category of one—and start going out of their way to sing your praises and share the word about the extraordinary level of customer service you provide.

    Once you’re viewed this way in the marketplace, you’ll be able to use your new, elevated status to grow your company reputation and to reliably and repeatably grow your bottom line.

    Moving your organization up the customer service ladder: The art of anticipatory customer service

    If customer service were a game of hockey…that would be super weird, wouldn’t it?

    But let’s say for a minute that it is, in which case the highest level of customer service, anticipatory customer service, is like being one step ahead of the puck, giving customers what they want before they even know they want it, and anticipating their needs, desires, and questions even before they express them. It’s one step beyond generic reactive customer service: simply fulfilling a request when asked, and it’s the key to creating unforgettable experiences—and memories of your business—for your customers.

    Customers often don’t ask for what they need because they don’t realize they could benefit from something your product or service offers. (Or even know that you offer it.) Or, sometimes, they’re too shy to speak up or “don’t want to be a bother.” (I promise: this last phenomenon isn’t as rare as you think!)

    That’s why anticipatory customer service is so powerful. You’re actively seeking out unexpressed needs and going above and beyond to meet them, as well as unasked questions and answering them. When you uncover and take care of those unspoken needs and wishes, you create a whole new reality for your company. In this reality, delighted customers become loyal advocates, spreading the word about your exceptional service.

    This level of mind-reading service, where customer needs are met before they can even utter a request, is the ultimate secret to winning customer loyalty. And guess what? You can train and inspire your employees to get there—and transform your relationship with customers (and your business results!)

    You may have some doubts

    Now, I get it: you have some doubts. You’re probably wondering if your employees could become Jedi masters of customer anticipation. Hold onto your hats because I assure you they can and will. This will, however, require you to:

    1. Embrace the anticipatory mindset
    2. Promote this mindset throughout your company
    3. Support the anticipatory customer service approach with targeted, meaningful customer service training.
    4. Build, over time, a culture of anticipation through the power of “positive peer pressure,” an environment where employees know that the way things are done around here is to do more than the minimum in a way that is meaningful to our customers, rather than merely complying when asked to do so.

    You also might be doubtful for another reason. You’re wondering if you can afford to provide such an extravagant standard of service. And yes, it doesn’t come for free. But creating mind-blowing service systems is a brilliant investment for any business. The rewards in terms of customer loyalty are worth every penny of your investment and then some. Once you commit to elevating your game and embracing the power of anticipatory customer service, get ready to score big and watch your business grow and prosper like never before.

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    Micah Solomon

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  • 6 Proven Ways of Building Customer Loyalty | Entrepreneur

    6 Proven Ways of Building Customer Loyalty | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    A loyal, longtime customer is akin to fine wine: Producing it requires a considerable amount of work, and the aging process is where it truly pays off. Strong, lasting customer relationships help create a stable growth foundation. However, developing and nurturing them is no easy feat in a crowded marketplace. It requires, among other things, a laser focus on making them feel valued.

    Here are seven strategies you can use to build yours.

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    John Boitnott

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  • Don’t Mess Up These 2 Crucial Customer Service Moments | Entrepreneur

    Don’t Mess Up These 2 Crucial Customer Service Moments | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Everything is not equal in the customer journey; customers don’t remember their time with you in an even-handed, equitable way. Rather, there are moments in their customer journey that are disproportionately likely to define how they remember the customer service you’ve provided them. How you treat customers in these moments will disproportionately lead them to have a negative, neutral or — if you nail these moments — supremely positive impression of their time with you.

    As a customer service consultant and turnaround expert, I prefer that you get every single moment in the customer journey right! But if I have to choose, here are the two specific moments I want you to focus on right now because getting these right will give you an enormous advantage over your less-attentive competitors.

    What the Ritz-Carlton knows (and you need to learn)

    Did you ever notice how, when you stay at a Ritz-Carlton hotel (if you haven’t yet, I suggest you head off on a junket!), they have everything supremely polished and choreographed for the moment you arrive at the beginning of your stay? The valet greets you when they take your car, the bell staff already know your name, and everyone you encounter goes out of their way to make you immediately feel welcome.

    Also, when you’re leaving the hotel, they send you off warmly, perhaps even with the GM or hotel manager coming down to thank you and wish you a good journey.

    These two points, the beginning of the customer interaction and the ending, are emphasized at Ritz-Carlton’s and at other customer-focused companies because they’re the two moments in the customer journey that are nearly guaranteed to remain in the memories of your guests more than any others, perhaps for life.

    Related: How to Turn an Upset Customer Into Your Company’s Best Advocate

    Two scientific effects you need to learn

    The primacy effect — The fact that first impressions are lasting impressions is called the primacy effect.

    The recency effect —The fact that final impressions are also disproportionately influential is called “the recency effect.” another well-demonstrated psychological effect. (Together, these are known as “the serial position effect,” which is a scientifically verified, well-proven psychological phenomenon.)

    Thus, these are two critical moments in the customer’s journey to be sure you get right because of how prominently they are likely to figure out how your customers remember their time interacting with your company.

    How to nail step one: the warm welcome

    Use a welcoming tone of voice. Put down anything distracting you, whether from a prior customer or something else you’ve been working on. (The worst impression you can give a customer is that they’re interrupting the work. Truly, they are the reason for your work!)

    Make eye contact in person or what you could call “voice contact” on the phone: displaying a similar focus that can truly be picked up on audio. And smile as you greet the customer, whether in person or on the phone.

    Can customers tell if you’re smiling over a phone line?

    Of course, they can! Smiling unlocks all that beautiful treble in your voice.

    When you smile, it changes your vocal tone in a very easy way to pick up, even within the limited audio range of a phone line. Some veteran call center professionals even use tape or Velcro® to affix a compact mirror at eye level in their workspace to remind them to smile every time they pick up the phone. (I know this is dorky, but it works.)

    Now there is an exception to always smiling. If you’re talking with a guest telling you disappointing news, please don’t smile!

    Related: How to Use the Least Sexy Customer Service Channel to Get Your Cash Registers Ringing

    The exact words you should use when answering every customer call

    Since the telephone is often where the customer makes the first contact with your company — or at least the first contact with a human — let me tell you what I recommend as far as the actual specific words you should use when you pick up the phone.

    The best way to answer a ringing phone is with a greeting that includes all four of the following elements. (This is easier than it sounds, as you’ll see when we get to the examples.)

    1. A greeting
    2. A business identification
    3. A self-identification
    4. An offer of assistance

    Example 1:

    Good morning, (The greeting)

    Business [X]. (The business identification)

    This is [Jerry]. (Identifying yourself.)

    How may I help you? (Your offer of assistance.)

    Example 2:

    Thank you for calling (The greeting.)

    Business [X]. (The business identification.)

    This is [Jerry]. (Identifying yourself.)

    How may I help you? (The offer of assistance.)

    Related: 4 Simple Ways to Communicate Better With Your Customers

    How to bid goodbye to your customer at the end

    The other scientifically proven moment to matter disproportionately is the closing of service, the fond farewell. Ask if anything else is needed, if there’s anything else you can help them with. Offer a personal farewell. “It’s been great working with you, Jim; I will see you back here on Thursday. I’ll call you if anything changes.” Invite them to call on you for assistance in the future if that’s appropriate to the situation.

    Also, try not to rush the caller as they approach the end of their time with you. It’s easy to be so relieved that you have resolved things on this call, or to get distracted by what you have coming up next, that you speed things up unattractively.

    But don’t miss out on an opportunity to turn an ending into another scientifically proven “unfair advantage.” Refrain from rushing off to the next task on your list. Instead, take an extra moment (really! It’s only a difference of 5-10 seconds) to bid each customer a genuine and personalized farewell. Spending that additional minute, or even a handful of seconds, can have a significant payoff for you in terms of how your company is remembered by customers who have interacted with you.

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    Micah Solomon

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  • The Secret Sauce to a Successful Company? Delighting Customers | Entrepreneur

    The Secret Sauce to a Successful Company? Delighting Customers | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    In today’s competitive business landscape, customer satisfaction is paramount — it’s the difference between a thriving business and one that’s struggling. But what if you could take customer satisfaction a step further? What if you could actually delight your customers? This concept, often termed ‘Delighting Customers’, refers to exceeding customer expectations so that they’re not just satisfied — they’re delighted.

    Understanding the “Delight” factor

    Before we delve further, it’s essential to understand what separates customer delight from customer satisfaction. While the latter refers to meeting customers’ needs and expectations, delighting customers means exceeding these expectations to create memorable, positive experiences that foster loyalty and promote brand advocacy. It’s about going above and beyond to surprise your customers and make them feel special.

    This could involve anything from delivering products or services faster than promised to provide unexpected perks or exceptional customer service. The psychology behind customer delight is simple – when customers are delighted, they feel a deeper emotional connection to the brand, which often leads to repeat business and positive word-of-mouth referrals.

    Related: 5 Shocking Customer Service Mistakes You’re Making Every Day (And How to Fix Them Right Now)

    Strategies for delighting customers

    Managers looking to instill a culture of customer delight in their organizations should consider a few key strategies. Firstly, they must lead by example and demonstrate their commitment to prioritizing the customer in every decision. This can range from advocating for customer-centric design principles in product development to personally ensuring customer issues are resolved quickly and effectively.

    Secondly, they must empower their teams to go the extra mile for customers. This might mean giving employees the authority to make decisions that benefit the customer or encouraging them to suggest improvements to existing processes. Starbucks, for example, empowers its baristas to remake a drink or offer a complimentary one if a customer is not satisfied, contributing significantly to their high customer loyalty.

    Lastly, they must use customer feedback as an essential tool for improvement. This includes actively seeking out feedback, responding to it and incorporating it into future strategies. Tools like surveys, focus groups and social media listening can provide valuable insights into what delights your customers.

    Measuring customer delight

    Delighting customers should not just be an abstract concept; it should be a measurable goal. There are several metrics managers can use to gauge their success in this area, including customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), Net Promoter Scores (NPS) and Customer Effort Score (CES). Each provides a different perspective on how effectively an organization is delighting its customers. A high NPS, for instance, indicates that customers are satisfied and likely to recommend your brand to others. However, managers should remember that these metrics only provide part of the picture. They should also pay close attention to customer feedback and anecdotal evidence.

    The challenges in achieving customer delight

    In a customer-centric business world, achieving customer delight is an ambition that many companies strive for. However, the path to delivering delightful experiences is fraught with challenges.

    • Raising Expectations: One of the paradoxes of customer delight is that successful moments of delight can raise customer expectations, making it increasingly difficult to sustain that level of service. If customers come to expect exceptional experiences as the norm, then merely meeting these expectations may no longer result in delight but instead be viewed as standard service.
    • Understanding Customer’s True Needs: Understanding what customers value and desire is critical for achieving customer delight.
    • Scaling Personalization: While personalization is a key factor in delivering delightful experiences, scaling personalized services can be incredibly difficult, particularly for larger organizations with vast customer bases.
    • Balancing Costs and Benefits: Exceeding customer expectations often involves additional costs in terms of resources, time and effort. Not every attempt to delight customers leads to increased loyalty or profitability, making it essential to identify when and where efforts to delight customers are most likely to provide a return on investment.
    • Consistency Across Touchpoints: Achieving this level of consistency requires significant coordination and integration of processes across different parts of the business, which can be challenging.

    Despite these challenges, striving for customer delight is essential in today’s competitive business environment. Understanding and mitigating these obstacles is crucial to a successful customer delight strategy.

    Related: 5 Ways to Build Killer Relationships With Customers

    The role of innovation in customer delight

    Innovation plays a crucial role in achieving customer delight. In today’s fast-paced world, customers expect businesses to adapt and evolve constantly. Innovative products, services and processes can offer value that exceeds expectations and surprises customers, leading to delight.

    Innovation can also manifest in company culture. An innovative, customer-centric culture encourages employees to seek new ways to delight customers, creating a virtuous cycle of delight and loyalty.

    In conclusion

    The paradigm shift in business management is clear: companies prioritizing customer delight increasingly outperform those that don’t. As we’ve explored in this article, customer delight goes beyond mere satisfaction and involves exceeding customer expectations meaningfully. This pursuit of customer delight fundamentally reshapes how we approach management, emphasizing the value of empowered employees, technological innovation and attentive service.

    Delighted customers can become your brand’s ambassadors, driving organic growth through word-of-mouth marketing and repeat business. Therefore, investing in strategies to delight your customers isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s an integral element of successful modern management.

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    Dionne Van Zyl

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  • Why Customer Service is the Easiest Path to Business Success | Entrepreneur

    Why Customer Service is the Easiest Path to Business Success | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    I spend all my working days as a customer service consultant and transformation expert, helping companies large and small improve and transform the level of customer service they provide.

    But a fair question is: In cold hard business terms, why is delivering exceptional customer service so valuable? And is it worth the investment (in time and attention) when you have other business challenges and opportunities calling out for attention?

    Related: This Overlooked Leadership Trait Makes All the Difference in Your Ability to Captivate an Audience

    Beware of the deadly commoditization zone

    Well, not to go all Eeyore on you, but your company or brand offering is highly unlikely to be entirely unique. Most companies hover much closer to the deadly commodity zone than anyone at those companies realizes. Odds are, and sorry to say, this probably includes you.

    What is the commoditization zone? It’s one of the scariest places for a company to find itself. It’s when your business is viewed as more or less interchangeable with the competition. It’s when your current customers are happy to jump ship to one of your competitors for a myriad of minor reasons:

    • A slightly lower price
    • A marginally faster website
    • A shinier app
    • A slightly more convenient location

    Or, sometimes, for no discernible reason at all!

    Related: 10 Ways Competition Can Improve Your Business

    Escape the deadly commoditization zone!

    Happily, there is a way you can keep your brand from becoming a commodity — replaceable, interchangeable — in the eyes of the marketplace. That solution is exceptional customer service.

    Build such a reputation for customer service excellence and such a strong connection with every customer you touch that your service becomes a point of distinction, a survival lifeline and, ultimately, a powerful engine for growth.

    And you’ll never have to worry about being viewed as a commodity again.

    The long-term, lasting payoffs from exceptional customer service

    An excellent customer experience will create multiple positive results for your business and, most centrally, the creation of passionately loyal customers. Passionately loyal customers are less price sensitive, more likely to be interested in any new products, services or brand extensions you may roll out in the future and more understanding when things go sideways. This is true. I promise! Once you’ve done so much, so well for your customers, you achieve a state where the little mistakes — and even the occasional massive blunder — are looked upon in a better, more forgiving light.

    A loyal customer is your best form of marketing

    There is nothing more powerful in growing a business than the ambassadorship of customers who are so engaged, so activated, that they take on the mission of spreading the good word about your company: crusaders for your brand, who share their passion for your company with their online connections and real-life contacts as well.

    Related: 3 Essentials for Building a Loyal Customer Base

    The customer service excellence advantage is nearly knockoff-proof

    Unlike other business attributes — low cost, faster speed, location — exceptional customer service is almost entirely knockoff-proof. Why? It takes time and focus to become legendary in customer service and the customer experience. And if you get there, trust me: the odds of your competition emulating this are very low.

    There’s one more benefit you’ll experience immediately as you dig into the work we’ll do together. Even before you achieve the state of customer activation, loyalty, and ambassadorship that I’ve just promised, the benefits of your new approach will make themselves known to you personally. You’ll find yourself shoring up relationships within your company and discover that your work becomes more pleasant and rewarding.

    How to get on the road to delivering an iconic level of customer service

    Getting on the road to delivering exceptional, iconic, loyalty-building customer service starts with a single step: Make the decision. Decide to put the customer in the center.

    Once you decide to put the customer at the center of how you look at every:

    • business decision
    • customer interaction (including what you may consider “trivial” things, like your choice of words and phrasing to use with them)
    • every hiring decision (are you hiring employees leaning toward empathy? Or are you only hiring based on existing skills and experience?)
    • every staffing/coverage decision, and so forth, you’re well on your way.

    Add to that:

    • proper customer service training, whether delivered in person or via eLearning (this needs to start from onboarding and continue through the entire life of an employee at your company)
    • creation and dissemination of customer service standards (best practices), and
    • a program and plan to sustain your new momentum — and you’re going to move mountains.

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    Micah Solomon

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  • Podcast: Moving to a modern, seamless tech stack | Bank Automation News

    Podcast: Moving to a modern, seamless tech stack | Bank Automation News

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    Clients are used to having fragmented experiences across their banking relationships, whether it’s their credit card, debit card, auto loan or mortgage, but with a modern tech stack in place, clients can have all of their products on one platform, which will increase loyalty. For example, in the past, credit cards offered the only loyalty […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • Why Spending the Most Really Does Win the Most Customers | Entrepreneur

    Why Spending the Most Really Does Win the Most Customers | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    “Whoever can spend the most, wins.” This is an adage in marketing that happens to be 100% true. If your business is prepared to meet the ever-increasing customer acquisition cost in today’s hyper-competitive digital and traditional media landscape, you are well on your way to dominating the market.

    However, this does not mean that you can simply throw money around willy-nilly and hope to get the results you want. Being willing to spend big to win big is great, but it’s only half of the battle. You also need to be strategic about how you spend your money to win over the competition.

    Related: Why the Best Days of Digital Media Are Ahead of Us — and Other Trends for 2023

    Companies with deep pockets that can spend more to acquire a customer will get more customers. If this sounds like you, keep reading to learn the most effective ways to put “whoever can spend the most, wins” into practice.

    1. Invest in the right digital media channels

    Spending on digital advertising is expected to exceed $600 billion in 2023. Your business needs to be heavily invested in this space if you want to maximize your market share.

    Of course, where you spend your advertising budget is an important consideration. Google Ads provides multiple robust pay-per-click campaign options (e.g., text and display ads). With Google Local Services Ads, businesses in select industries can dominate local search results for professional services. You will likely need to invest in social media ads on one or more platforms, too.

    All of these channels are highly competitive and, therefore, expensive. However, once you determine how customers find your business (i.e., via organic and paid search, social, etc.), you can start spending on digital ads that will maximize your visibility and drive customers to you over the competition.

    2. Don’t ignore traditional media

    Investing in traditional advertising (such as television, billboards, etc.) is still well worth your time and money if it means reaching your target customers on a massive scale. Mass media is a tried-and-true strategy for bombarding the market with your message. Not everyone will convert, but spending the money to make your name inescapable will drive far more customers than a limited investment in traditional channels.

    We see this with legal advertising. The law firms you see all the time on TV, on bus benches, on billboards, etc., are counting on the millions of dollars they spend to drive multi-million-dollar cases.

    It might seem strange to invest in traditional media when digital has taken over the space previously occupied by television and other strategies. However, considering that you are likely thinking of a local law firm’s slogan or phone number, there is no disputing the effectiveness of a major investment in TV and other traditional advertising venues.

    3. Invest in your employees

    Relationships are a cornerstone of marketing. While much of the discussion centers on engaging customers digitally, you should never underestimate the importance of hiring customer-facing employees, training them to be the “face” of your business, and empowering them to bring you new customers.

    Related: 4 Ways to Provide Excellent Customer Service

    This goes beyond fully staffing your office to handle phone calls and emails. Depending on your industry, it might mean hosting community events, wining and dining business prospects, and more.

    Customers are the lifeblood of your business. You don’t want to cheap out when it comes to hiring customer success managers, event planners, and other employees who can take your business to the next level.

    4. Define your brand

    Inconsistency is one of the greatest dangers when making a massive investment in marketing. Although you can distribute your message across seemingly endless advertising channels, your return on investment (not to mention your market dominance) will suffer if the message is unfocused and inconsistent.

    Before making a big splash and getting more customers than your competitors, you need to nail down your brand identity and key messaging. The brands people love have a clear identity and a consistent message. They also know their customers and tailor their marketing and advertising to maximize sales.

    You don’t have to be a multinational corporation to dominate your market. However, you have to understand your unique offering and consistently communicate to customers why they should buy from you over anyone else.

    Related: Define Your Brand Identity in 3 Steps

    5. Follow the money

    As the saying goes, “Fortune favors the bold.” The businesses with the money and the mindset to shoot for the moon and take the biggest piece of the pie are the ones that typically find the greatest success.

    However, your dollars must be tempered with sense. You must carefully identify your target audience by age, demographic, income, buying habits and other key characteristics. In addition, you need to understand what your competitors offer and how you can stand out. Finally, you must drill down on the geographic area you want to target.

    Related: 5 Ways Small Business Owners Can Embrace Rapid Digital Change to Get Closer to Their Customers

    With all these components in place, you can develop an intelligent strategy for maximizing the business you gain from a substantial marketing and advertising spend. Both digital platforms and third-party vendors should provide detailed reporting on how your money is being spent, the results of each campaign, and your return on investment.

    You won’t achieve dramatic growth if you are overly concerned about being cost-effective. However, a strategic approach that relies on data and tracking only ensures that you spend money wisely. This reduces the customer acquisition cost and results in higher profits.

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    Sean Allen

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  • Want Loyal Customers? You Have to Teach Them Something New. | Entrepreneur

    Want Loyal Customers? You Have to Teach Them Something New. | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    It blows my mind when companies question whether they can afford to launch robust customer education programs. With the demonstrated returns in customer loyalty and satisfaction, how can they afford not to?

    Consider this: Research indicates consumers are 131% more likely to buy from a brand after they engage with early-stage educational content. Meanwhile, 70% of customers in this study say understanding how to use products and services is important to winning their business.

    The fact is, customer education programs are important differentiators for nearly any business. And this holds especially true in a tight economy when customer retention should be one of every company’s top priorities.

    I’ve helped launch customer education programs at multiple companies and seen firsthand the explosive impact these programs can have on customer retention, referrals and satisfaction. The best part is that most companies have many (if not most) of the resources and tools they need to get started.

    Related: The Power of Educating Your Customer Base

    Customer education 101: More than a user’s guide

    Customer education goes far beyond teaching how to use a product or service: It’s about creating a space for true learning that helps your customers become successful.

    Look at companies like HubSpot and Hootsuite — both are excellent examples of organizations that have leveraged customer education to their advantage. HubSpot offers hundreds of short courses and over two dozen certifications in marketing, sales and web design through Hubspot Academy. Similarly, Hootsuite offers a range of social media courses, training and certification programs. Not only are they teaching customers how to use their platform more effectively, but they’re also helping them upskill when it comes to social media management more broadly.

    It should be said customer education doesn’t have to mean online certifications or courses. In fact, we’ve recently implemented a customer accelerator program for creators that relies heavily on a mentorship-based approach. It’s also not just software companies recognizing customer education’s benefits. I work with an avid “Cricutter” (the digital cutting machines for crafting) and can attest to how inspired she is by their robust customer education portal. The program has harnessed the power of community and peer-to-peer learning, helping propel full-blown Cricut influencers who share their own best practices and tips with users.

    While distinct, all of these approaches share something in common: They help make customers smarter and more knowledgeable, leading to numerous benefits and long-term value for both customers and companies alike.

    Related: Your Startup’s Most Important Investment Is Customer Education

    The perks of educated customers

    Customer education offers clear value to customers, but it also yields significant bottom-line benefits that are especially attractive in a down economy.

    First and foremost, customer education increases customer satisfaction. In a recent wyzowl survey, 55% of respondents said they’d returned a product because they didn’t fully understand how to use it. Imagine if my Cricutter colleague had no community to turn to for inspiration — learning the machine’s capabilities or coming up with projects would be a tougher, lonelier experience. Instead, she is engaged in a community of like-minded, crafty peers.

    That improved onboarding experience leads to increased customer loyalty, which translates to lower churn and higher lifetime customer value. In that same survey, nearly 9 in 10 respondents said they’d be likelier to stay loyal to a business that welcomes and educates them after buying their product or service. When customers feel valued and understood, they are more likely to become repeat customers and recommend your products or services to others. That’s a big deal, as research shows acquiring a new customer can cost 5-25% more than retaining an existing customer.

    Internally, customer education helps companies better understand customer journeys and identify new opportunities for products and services. They can gain real-time insights into what customers need by paying attention to common questions and popular educational content.

    Related: 3 Essentials for Building a Loyal Customer Base

    How to get started? Use what you already have.

    One of the biggest misperceptions about creating a successful customer education program is that it has to involve high costs or allocating new resources. The reality? Most companies should have nearly everything they need to start.

    1. First, identify gaps in your customer journey so you can address them with education. Talk with your customer success teams to discover the pain points and bottlenecks in your onboarding strategy. Where are customers dropping out or getting frustrated?

    2. Once you identify your gaps, target the specific points along the customer journey where educational programming can help.

    3. To build customer education materials, you want to understand why your customers buy your products or services. I like the “Jobs To Be Done” framework, which assumes that people don’t buy products or services, they “hire” them to solve a problem or reach a goal.

    4. Leverage existing content such as help articles, webinars, blogs and other onboarding materials, filling in gaps and repurposing the information in bite-sized lessons in different formats. Create content that’s accessible and suitable for a variety of learning styles.

    5. Create a program that is easy to follow and is mapped directly to the customer success journey. Use gamification to encourage them along the way. I came across this recently when designing a series of tutorials for course creators. We were inclined to start with the basics but quickly learned that our customers gravitated toward more advanced lessons and themes. This insight into our users also allowed us to tailor educational content offering real value.

    6. Foster a learning community where customers can interact, teach and learn from each other. Thriving learning communities can also be a great resource to help companies understand their customers and needs.

    But most importantly, any customer education effort must be grounded in your own listening and learning. An educational program is only useful if it’s responsive to real customer feedback. Don’t waste time and effort creating content you feel customers should want instead of discovering what they do want.

    The overarching motivation for launching educational content should be to help customers succeed. Educated customers are savvy consumers. They understand what they want and will reward companies that help them achieve their goals.

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    Christie Horsman

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  • If You Aren’t Hitting These Metrics, You’re Losing Customers | Entrepreneur

    If You Aren’t Hitting These Metrics, You’re Losing Customers | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The word “engagement” has generated quite a buzz over the past several years. It seems everyone is worried about their customers’ level of engagement and what it takes to keep those levels high, but what exactly is it and how do you best measure it?

    Put simply, customer engagement is the relationship you create that fosters brand loyalty and it happens by delivering connected, aligned experiences to your customers instead of one-off transactions. It is also usually a strong indicator of how happy your customers are with your product or services and ultimately how likely they are to stick with you. Disengaged customers on the other hand are likely not going to stick around for the long haul. As such, you must be able to keep a pulse on customer engagement across a number of factors quickly and easily.

    So what metrics can you put into place to accurately assess engagement? Based on my nearly 25-year career in B2B software sales and marketing, these are the five most important factors metrics and why they matter most.

    Related: 6 Marketing Metrics Every Business Should Track

    First-week engagement

    A customer’s engagement with your company and brand is rarely going to be higher than at the beginning of their tenure with you. Your product or service benefits are fresh in the customer’s mind, and it’s up to you to make the most of that enthusiasm the best that you can. This is especially true if your product or service offering is lesser known; larger brands with established reputations enjoy the benefit of legacy marketing efforts that make customers less likely to abandon them when frustrated. If you’re not a well-known brand, that first week is even more important.

    Something that can help with first-week engagement is literally showing your customers their onboarding process — guiding, tracking and displaying the progress they’re making to get them up and running. If they can visualize where they are in their own journey, they’re more likely to stay engaged and thus, more likely to stick with you.

    While there may be bumps in the road during onboarding, the key is to be ready to help with reliable customer support when they reach out. Things like chatbots, onboarding “how-to” videos and FAQs can be helpful here, but nothing is going to replace one-to-one interaction with a dedicated onboarding specialist or support team member. Show your customer they’re valuable right off the bat by providing dedicated support.

    Net Promoter Score (NPS)

    Are your customers happy enough to recommend you to their friends? If your customers aren’t likely to recommend you, you have a big problem. That’s why measuring NPS is critical.

    When your customers are surveyed, they’re almost certainly being asked on a scale of 1 to 10 how likely they are to recommend your company/product — and the hope is that your most engaged, happiest customers will help spread the word about you. Those who score 0 to 6 are called “detractors,” 7-8 are called “passives” and 9-10 are engaged, happy customers — your “promoters.”

    Your NPS = promoter percentage – detractor percentage. Generally speaking, a great way to track your brand health (and predict revenue) is from NPS.

    Related: Redefining Customer Engagement in a World Where Data Privacy Reigns

    Customer satisfaction (CSAT)

    One step simpler than the NPS is a CSAT score, which is often measured in a quick 1 to 5 star or emoji rating, and it’s something all companies can benefit from. These fast check-ins are easy for customers to execute quickly (they’re literally just one question) and help brands measure engagement. It might help to think of NPS as tracking customer loyalty, while CSAT tracks customer satisfaction — and both are important.

    Smaller businesses and startups must measure CSAT as they keep a pulse on how well their new-to-market solutions are working, while bigger brands need the metrics when rolling out upgrades to their platforms.

    User activity metrics

    One of the most important metrics you can keep tabs on is user activity metrics — daily and monthly active users (DAUs and MAUs) — because they show you how engaging your product is and how often customers are using different aspects of your product. If customers don’t use your product or its key features that drive value, it isn’t “sticky,” and that’s a bad sign. The last thing you want is a surge of sign-ons followed by your product sitting idly unused; your customers won’t be your customers for long.

    These metrics are important for all companies, from tiny startups to tech behemoths. Small to medium-sized companies can benefit from this metric by acknowledging marketing strategy milestones, and MAUs are important for large companies to maximize their market share for ever-important bottom-line profitability. But it doesn’t stop there — DAUs and MAUs don’t just indicate market share. MAUs are your benchmarks, DAUs are your indicators, and if you see a big difference between the two, something could be going wrong.

    Related: Customer Experience Is Gaining Traction. But Are We Measuring It The Right Way?

    “Stickiness”

    We mentioned above that DAUs and MAUs can show how “sticky” your offering is — but what does this mean? This very important metric shows how engaged and happy your customers are with your product/service based on how often they come back to it. It’s an easy and effective way to see how likely they are to “stick” with you and all you need is a simple formula: DAU/ MAU = Stickiness.

    You may see businesses use churn rate as an alternative measure for stickiness, but once a customer is gone, they’re gone; using DAU and MAU allows for a more proactive approach in combating issues while your customers are still your customers.

    Engagement isn’t just an industry buzzword that you can ignore. If you care about retaining your customers, you care about engagement and you should care about measuring it. With the right metrics and tools, you can be sure your customers will stick with you for the long haul.

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    Chip House

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  • How Do I Know I’m Getting the Best ROI? Use First-Party Data. | Entrepreneur

    How Do I Know I’m Getting the Best ROI? Use First-Party Data. | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Today’s digital world has opened up many opportunities for small businesses to leverage data and maximize their marketing ROI. First-party data allows businesses to develop customer insights, optimize campaigns, track performance metrics and create targeted strategies.

    With first-party data in hand, small business owners have access to valuable consumer preferences, which they can utilize when planning engagement activities or launching new products/services. Additionally, using this form of data helps build a clear view of customers’ journeys while creating personalized experiences at every touchpoint along the way — without spending huge amounts of money on expensive market research tools.

    Related: In the Fight for Privacy, Web Cookies Are Disappearing. Here’s What That Means for Your Company’s Advertising Strategy.

    Get your hands on Google Analytics 4

    Small businesses have to be smart in their marketing efforts. Leveraging first-party data can help you get the most out of your marketing budget, ensuring that every dollar spent drives value and a higher return on investment (ROI). Small business owners can adjust their strategies accordingly by processing website data such as customer behavior and engagement metrics.

    Leveraging Google Analytics 4 for your first-party data can help you rank higher in Google search results. There are numerous advanced features of GA4 that allow businesses to collect valuable insights about their customers, allowing them to create targeted campaigns with more accuracy and efficiency than ever before. This new platform also offers powerful tools that enable you to measure the success of your digital marketing efforts and make quick adjustments as necessary.

    Understanding user journeys across different pages provide a further understanding of what works well for an organization’s digital presence, allowing them to focus time and effort more effectively on areas that drive conversions or revenue opportunities. Research shows investing in targeted campaigns using first-party data generates up to 20% higher return on investment than non-targeted approaches like social media ads.

    Place your customers in the right buckets

    Customer segmentation is a powerful way to leverage first-party data and boost marketing ROI. By gaining deeper insights into customer behavior, businesses can target their most valuable customers with specific content that resonates more effectively than ever before.

    Email segmentation, for instance, can help businesses leverage first-party data to create personalized, targeted messages. By grouping customers into segments based on similar profiles and behaviors, companies can tailor their communications and promotions accordingly. With this strategy in place, organizations have greater control over the messaging they deliver to specific cohorts of customers, helping them develop stronger relationships with the people who matter most.

    Behavioral segmentation helps small businesses create a tailored experience that resonates with each audience, rather than simply creating general messaging campaigns without any context or personalization attached. This personalized approach has the potential to drive higher engagement from customers by providing them with experiences catered just for them — resulting in greater brand loyalty and increased revenue opportunities further down the line.

    Related: Forget Third-Party Data. You’re Already Missing Out on Most of Your First-Party Data

    A personal touch for your customers

    First-party data can also help in strengthening relationships with customers. This is done by improving customer communications, creating personalized conversations and experiences, enabling segmentation of audiences for better targeting and providing relevant content to the right customers at the right time. Also, by leveraging this data, businesses can gain insights into buyer behavior, allowing them to become more responsive while helping build trust among their customers.

    For instance, personalized text messages can help create a closer connection between the business and its customers. This strengthens the relationship over time, creating a better understanding of what each customer wants and needs — further increasing customer loyalty and creating greater opportunities for revenue growth.

    First-party data helps with this by allowing you to understand shoppers’ habits by collecting behavioral information such as email open rates or click-through links. By doing so, companies can give customers a tailored and targeted experience that increases engagement and loyalty.

    Facebook pixel and other tags

    The Facebook pixel is a powerful tool for businesses to gain access to rich first-party data. This allows them to better understand customer behavior and build tailored campaigns that match their customers’ interests. With a Facebook pixel, you can track website visitors across devices, create custom audiences, measure conversions from ads and optimize ad spend for improved results. Utilizing this valuable first-party data enables businesses to make targeted decisions quickly, increase ROI and maximize performance.

    Utilizing first-party data to track and optimize marketing ROI requires dedication but can be immensely rewarding. Tracking customer behavior across various platforms is essential for efficient optimization and successful campaigns.

    With appropriate investments into understanding first-party data and employing ways to analyze its effectiveness efficiently, small businesses can equip themselves with what they need to increase their profits through increased ROI.

    Related: Data in 4 Flavors, and the Demise of the Cookie

    Ensuring accurate, reliable data collection

    Having accurate data is an essential part of any successful marketing campaign. With the right first-party data, businesses can ensure they’re targeting their audience in the most relevant and effective way possible. To ensure reliable data collection, small business owners should strive to use multiple sources that are consistent with each other, such as social media platforms and customer databases.

    Additionally, tracking analytics on a regular basis will allow for ongoing insights about trends or changes in consumer behavior over time to adjust strategies accordingly. Finally, investing in sophisticated tools like GA4 can enable companies to go beyond basic demographics and build better profiles around customer needs or preferences. This will help them create meaningful interactions with potential customers, leading to higher ROI from campaigns.

    Small businesses often have limited resources and need to be smart about how they spend them. Fortunately, first-party data is an inexpensive way to reach potential customers and understand consumer behavior. By collecting the right user information, small businesses can use this data to better understand individual buyer behaviors and create data-driven customer journeys and targeted campaigns tailored specifically toward them.

    This allows the business to maximize its return on investment by sending out highly personalized communication that instantly connects with potential buyers in a powerful way.

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    Sonu Yadav

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  • Do You Know Why Your Customers Really Buy From You? | Entrepreneur

    Do You Know Why Your Customers Really Buy From You? | Entrepreneur

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The following is a simple question for business owners. Why do your customers buy from you?

    I told you the question was simple, but an accurate answer, on the other hand, can be far more complex and perhaps even elusive. To achieve long-term, sustainable success, your understanding of why your customers choose to do business with your company needs to be both correct and substantial.

    Many business owners develop a customer value proposition (CVP) alongside their company mission and vision statements. The brief declaration is supposed to document why a customer would opt to buy your product or service over the competition.

    While developing a CVP is commendable in its customer-centric approach, it often falls short of its intended purpose due to ambiguity, a lack of self-reflection and sometimes even outright insincerity. Dollars to doughnuts, there is not a single CVP out there that reads, “Our customers turn to us because we deliver lackluster service and a marginally good product.”

    Related: Who Is More Important — Your Customers or Your Employees?

    I would also assume that there are many businesses whose CVPs portray an exaggerated sense of the company’s true customer value. CVPs should never be created based on hype or manufactured mantras; instead built from sincere, astute insight.

    Bravado and disingenuousness are not the only ways business owners are misguided in their understanding of customer engagement and loyalty. The following are common misconceptions related to the question of why customers buy from you.

    “We are the cheapest”

    Sure, this value statement might be dressed up as “We deliver the best value,” “We are the low-price leaders,” or some other cost-based differentiator. But when I hear any form of “My customers buy from us because we are the cheapest,” I cringe. Competing on price alone is simply not a good model and is often unsustainable. There is always some other business owner who is willing to run out of cash faster than you are.

    Most customers – both B2B and B2C – understand the balance between cost and value. They walk that tightrope in every purchase they make. Contending that cheapest is the key attribute that keeps them coming back shortchanges both your business and your customers.

    “We have the best employees”

    Forgive me for being a bit skeptical about this assertion as well. Sure, your business may have good employees; but are they really the best? You may provide excellent service, but your competitors probably do as well. Is it truly your employees that keep your customers coming back? With the rare exception of that ultra-charismatic salesperson who charms the socks of buyers, the answer in all likeliness is a resounding no.

    That is not to say that hiring for personality and alignment with company values is unimportant. It most definitely is. But to put the onus of success and customer loyalty squarely on the shoulders of your employees is shortsighted.

    Related: 3 Reasons Why I Gladly Welcome Competition

    “We’ve got the best product on the market”

    While possessing a corner on the market is a great position to be in, it does not account for innovations in the marketplace and often fickle changes in consumer preferences. Evolving customer motivations and expectations, coupled with aging business models, have been the downfall of even some of the most successful industry titans.

    Consider Blockbuster, that for more than 20 years, was the largest and most successful video rental company in the U.S. Then industry innovators like Netflix and Redbox entered the arena with new and improved ways to provide the same service and completely changed the playing field. While the business’s products and services may have been “the best” in their heyday, innovators with more modern and sustainable business models came along and essentially put the video rental titan out of business.

    Suffice it to say even the best products and services on the market have competitors nipping at their heels.

    So why do your customers really keep coming back?

    What you are selling vs. what they are buying

    In considering why your customers continue to purchase from you, it is important to understand the difference between what you are selling and what they are buying. This is such a crucial distinction. As Harvard Business School professor and economist Theodore Levitt famously said, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole!”

    An accounting firm may see itself as selling tax preparation services, but its customers are seeking peace of mind. Apple offers not just its technology but a modern retail experience. A mechanic sells an engine tune-up, but the customer is purchasing a quieter and safer ride.

    As a customer-conscious business, it is essential to sell the hole, not the drill.

    Related: Do You Actually Understand Why Your Customers Are Buying?

    Understanding customer loyalty

    How do you identify the true reasons why customers buy from you? Get ready for a shocker. You ask them.

    While this may sound flippant, you might be amazed by how many business owners never ask the right questions or truly listen to what their customers have to say. HubSpot recently reported that 42% of businesses do not survey their customers or collect any sort of customer feedback. Those that do elicit feedback often do not ask the right questions. And even fewer business owners take any action based on the responses they receive.

    Performing a customer survey can be a real competitive advantage for you. You can communicate by phone, on your website, in an email campaign or in person. The platform matters less than posing smart questions that evoke insightful answers. How important do they consider price? How would they rate your customer service? Why do they prefer you over the competition? Create a system for recording the answers you receive, which might be as basic as a spreadsheet or as comprehensive as entering responses into your CRM or other sales and marketing tools. Feedback should not be a one-and-done; make it a habit to speak to your customers regularly.

    Then the next time somebody like me enquires about why your customers buy from you, your answer will accurately reflect the true value your business brings to the marketplace.

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    Jason Zickerman

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  • How to Build Trust in an Untrustworthy Industry

    How to Build Trust in an Untrustworthy Industry

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Trust is crucial if you want to build a loyal customer base and a positive reputation for your business. Establishing trust not only helps you keep your current customers but attracts new customers to your business, making it essential for any entrepreneur looking to go the distance.

    Building trust isn’t as easy as it used to be, and customer satisfaction has been declining for years. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), 80% of companies have failed to increase customer satisfaction since 2010.

    The ACSI found that most customers naturally dislike certain industries. For instance, cable companies, airlines and health insurance providers are automatically seen as less trustworthy by many consumers.

    If your industry puts you at a disadvantage, you’re going to have to work even harder to build trust and customer loyalty. Here are six strategies you can use to build trust in an untrustworthy industry:

    Related: 5 Strategies for How to Make Customers Trust Your Brand

    1. Embrace transparency

    Embracing transparency is one of the best ways to build trust and customer loyalty. If you want to build trust, you’ll need to always be upfront in your interactions with customers and avoid making false or misleading claims.

    You should also communicate openly with your customers and share information about your company’s policies and pricing. Talk about any potential risks that come with your product at the beginning of the sales process, and disclose any relevant information about your company’s sourcing or manufacturing processes if it’s the subject of debate.

    Transparency also means being upfront about any issues that arise in your business. Most customers are willing to forgive you for a mistake, assuming your company takes responsibility and does what it can to fix the situation.

    2. Follow through on your promises

    If you want to build customer loyalty, you have to do what you say you’re going to do. Following through on your promises can look like maintaining a consistent brand image, providing a reliable service and being consistent in how you deliver products.

    Always honor any warranties your business offers, and provide customers with any additional help they need. You should also strive to operate with integrity and engage in socially responsible business practices.

    Lastly, take ownership of any issues that arise, and be willing to do what it takes to solve the problem. This may mean offering customers refunds, allowing them to exchange items or making significant changes to products or services.

    3. Encourage customer engagement

    Communicating regularly with your customers is another way to build trust and establish a sense of loyalty. For example, you can send out a regular newsletter where you share information about your company. You can also make customers feel valued by creating a loyalty program, hosting events or building a social media community.

    But communication is a two-way street, so you always want to respond to your customers’ complaints and concerns. If you’re in a notoriously untrustworthy industry, your company should consider a dedicated customer service team that’s available to resolve issues quickly.

    Your business needs to be open to customer feedback and willing to make changes based on that feedback, too. Sending out surveys and asking your customers to leave you online reviews is a great place to start.

    If you receive negative feedback, be sure to respond in a timely and professional manner. Customers know that occasionally things will go wrong — it’s how your business deals with it that makes the difference.

    Related: 7 Ways to Build Consumer Trust Naturally

    4. Utilize customer testimonials

    Customer testimonials are a great way to build trust with potential customers. They provide social proof that your product or service is trustworthy and can be a valuable marketing tool for businesses of all sizes. Customers will always believe in an unbiased review more than any influencer or corporate messaging strategy.

    You can also ask customers to provide a video testimonial. Offering incentives, like a discount or gift card, can help encourage current customers to participate.

    5. Invest in security

    One of the quickest ways to lose customer trust is by putting their personal or financial information at risk. Equifax, Target and Marriott were all involved in major data breaches that exposed millions of customers’ information.

    Data breaches don’t just happen to big businesses — attacks against small businesses have been rising in recent years. Small businesses tend to be less prepared for a data breach and usually don’t have cyber insurance to deal with it, making them a prime target for cyber actors.

    You can invest in security by installing firewalls, antivirus software and other security tools to protect your network. You should also train employees on security best practices and how to identify and avoid potential threats.

    Conduct regular security assessments and audits to identify vulnerabilities and assess the effectiveness of your current security measures. You can also collaborate with security experts and consultants to look for ways to improve security in your business.

    Related: 3 Tips to Build Trust and Drive Business Transformation

    6. Be easy to contact

    There are tons of benefits to utilizing automation in your business. For instance, chatbots allow you to respond to customers after hours and can aid your overall customer service strategy.

    But, as you know, nothing is more frustrating than attempting to contact a business and being unable to get a real person on the phone or contacting customer service and having to wait on hold for an hour first.

    If a customer has a problem with your product or service and they’re unable to reach anyone, it sends a clear message that they don’t matter to your business. And, once customers feel like they don’t matter, it’s almost impossible to repair the relationship.

    That’s why you must have an easily accessible customer support team. When you’re easy to contact and provide customers with the help they need, it shows that you care about them beyond the initial purchase.

    Again, building trust is not easy, but by embracing transparency, keeping your promises, encouraging customer engagement, utilizing customer testimonials and investing in security, you can stand out as a trustworthy business even in an untrustworthy industry.

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    Joseph Camberato

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  • 3 Marketing Fails That Demonstrate The Importance of Fundamentals

    3 Marketing Fails That Demonstrate The Importance of Fundamentals

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    The temptation to find a simple solution to the ever-more-complex initiative of marketing growth is strong. Explore an effective website for just about any technology software you can apply to marketing, and soon enough, you’ll be convinced that this is the solution for your growth challenges.

    Consider the explosion of interest in AI (artificial intelligence) with the recent release of Chat GPT. (Click this Google Trends search, and you’ll see the buzz quantified.)

    ChatGPT is an impressive example of the power of AI (try a few queries and see what it generates). But AI’s influence can be misapplied or under-applied, and the precision of its algorithms can be debated ad nauseam. The same is true for most marketing technology (Martech) solutions I’ve encountered.

    Now, this article is not taking aim at the Martech industry in general or ChatGPT specifically. Martech has helped the industry take massive strides forward, even with the headwinds of the macroeconomy and privacy regulations curtailing data access. But technology, for all of its power, has huge adoption challenges. It is simply not a magic bullet for growth.

    While I’m at it, neither is any single initiative, no matter how often you hear buzzphrases like “customer-centric marketing” and “content is king.”

    Yes, it’s incumbent on good marketers to look for solutions to their challenges, whether they’re measurement, creative or audience-based. And yes, the industry changes so rapidly that it’s a big part of a marketer’s job to stay up to date with trends and releases that can improve performance, efficiency, or both.

    That said, none of this is a substitute for marketing fundamentals.

    Whether your fundamentals version traces back to David Ogilvy or the 5 Ps (people, product, price, placement, and promotion, an evolution of McCarthy’s 4 Ps), they must serve as your bedrock.

    Let’s look at three examples of fundamental marketing fails:

    1. Uber’s Jump Bikes and Scooters

    Another fundamental that’s been drilled into me in my marketing career is that things have to start with a market need for a product. How many products are created to fit a fad or a founder’s vision without an at-scale, long-term need to match?

    The echo chamber of Silicon Valley provided a great example of this in Uber’s “Jump” line of bikes and scooters — a market created out of the shaky idea that people “needed” these vehicles all over the streets of San Francisco to get where they needed to go. In a famously compact, walkable city, and without a mobility component that would have accommodated differently-abled people from whom walking wasn’t an option, the scooter project fell on its face and choked scrap yards in the process.

    Related: 5 Crypto Marketing Fails and How to Avoid Them

    2. Made.com

    This one’s a failure of placement — where the customer finds a product.

    With notable exceptions (Wayfair, Overstock), the furniture industry presents many challenges. Beyond the expensive logistics of shipping large items, buying furniture online requires the user to take a big leap of faith and trust that customer reviews (many of which are proving fake) will provide reasonable assurance that, yes, the product will look and feel good in your home even if you’ve never seen it or touched it in person.

    Beyond that, furniture etailers importing overseas goods often incur huge warehousing costs. Made.com was building a healthy business by turning that model on its head and purchasing goods only after taking orders for them, thereby reducing warehousing risks, until they overreacted to the online purchasing shift wrought by COVID.

    Just as the first vaccines were hitting the public in the spring of 2021, Made.com doubled down on its warehouse space, jacking up operating costs without considering that furniture customers who could return to shopping in person would be more likely to do so than customers in other, less sensory-dependent verticals. This failure to predict customer behavior was also a failure of people, and largely because of it, Made.com collapsed last November.

    Related: Ask These 5 Questions Before You Blame Your Company’s Failures on the Marketing

    3. A shoe company

    Since this company was a former client of my agency, I’m not going to name-shame them. But we had some tussles over promotions, another of the 5 Ps.

    This company had a CPA (cost per acquisition) target of $60 for new customers, but they were only willing to pay $20 per customer referral of new customers. Instead of optimizing referrals and lowering overall CPA, they pumped money into paid marketing campaigns with their $60 CPA target. My agency runs paid campaigns on all channels, but I could see the failure in this logic.

    Related: More Is Not Better: How to Effectively Target Retail Promotions

    While this is only an example, it’s part of a more significant marketing issue. In my experience, people tend to think about promotions as sales or discounts, but they can and should expand their options to include BOGOs, giveaways and rebates. Back in a college marketing class, I learned that rebates are a phantom cost — 80% of them go unclaimed, and as soon as they expire, all those “costs” go back to your bottom line.

    Whether it’s customer referrals, BOGOs, or giveaways of slow-moving clearance products, use promotions to lower your overall acquisition costs — but only if you have a solid plan to maximize customer lifetime value after the first purchase. Otherwise, you risk acquiring customers at a loss with no hope of profit.

    There’s a common thread here: neither Martech, content, mobile, nor any other shiny object would have prevented these. And there’s a lesson as well: marketing and growth leaders charged with keeping their eyes on the big picture must ensure their fundamentals are in order before leaping to take advantage of the next big thing.

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    Bryan Karas

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  • Listen: Using data to drive customer loyalty | Bank Automation News

    Listen: Using data to drive customer loyalty | Bank Automation News

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    Financial institutions are collecting, organizing and using client data and automation to help consumers navigate today’s rising interest rates. Banks can use that data to better understand clients and help them make “good financial decisions,” James White, industry principal for banking at fintech Total Expert, tells Bank Automation News in this episode of “The Buzz” […]

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    Whitney McDonald

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  • 8 Ways to Retain Customers During an Economic Downturn

    8 Ways to Retain Customers During an Economic Downturn

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Recessions typically mean reduced consumer spending. And by many accounts, we’re heading into a recession this year. So, companies need to start gearing up.

    The first reaction many companies have is to start cutting back on costs. While in many cases that makes sense, it can backfire if you cut investments in areas crucial to your bottom line. One area worth investing more in during an economic downturn is customer loyalty.

    As we all know, customer retention costs far less than customer acquisition. When it comes to cutting costs, you can only save so much. But there’s no limit to how much you can earn. So, if past recessions are any indication, the smartest strategy is to focus on your most loyal customers and super-serve them with personalized offers, experiences and rewards.

    Done right, existing loyal customers will deliver the consistent sales needed to weather the storm. The question isn’t so much should you have a loyalty program, but rather how to implement the best one. Here are a few tips:

    Related: Steal These 4 Proven Customer-Retention Strategies

    1. Be rewarding

    Brands that reward loyal customers are the brands that customers will return to first. It’s the brand they’ll refer friends and family to. So, focus your efforts on the experience of rewarding, listening and recognizing every action your customers take. Create an emotional bond that transcends price, before price becomes the deciding factor.

    2. Be flexible

    Give customers a choice in how they redeem loyalty rewards. Let them decide whether to convert rewards into cash, account credits or redeem them at the point of purchase. If you have multiple brands under your umbrella, allow customers to transfer rewards between them as they prefer. And don’t forget to check in and ask for feedback along the way — as well as look for trends across your database — then respond. Ultimately, it’s about rewarding customers first and making them feel heard.

    3. Be inventive

    Don’t be restrained by convention. Explore new ways to reward and incentivize customers and build loyalty. Perhaps focus on product returns, and offer an incentive for customers to exchange items rather than ask for a refund. Or focus on the cart abandonment problem by offering incentives to return to the sale. Look for the frictions that exist in the customer experience, and develop loyalty systems in response. It’s not just about points-for-purchase.

    4. Be unique

    Try personalizing loyalty program benefits to the customer based on their history with your products and their responses to the questions you’ve asked them. Remember, loyalty programs shouldn’t focus only on monetary exchanges. It can include gamification for referrals, reviews, sweepstakes and more. Using these tactics to make loyalty programs more individually relevant will not only make each customer feel seen and valued, but it will increase the effectiveness of the loyalty campaign.

    Related: 5 Types of Customer Loyalty Programs that Pay Off

    5. Be coordinated

    Loyalty programs, like any marketing program, shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. Sales and marketing must work together to be in lockstep when reviewing the markets, industries and opportunities with the highest success rate. Discipline, speed and experience are all key to reaching agreement on the ideal customer experience and advancing opportunities together.

    6. Be responsive

    If you’re going to ask a customer for information, react to it immediately. Don’t just store it in a database for some unknown future use. Provide a discount or a product recommendation. Demonstrate that you’re not just building a profile of data on them, but that you’re actually listening and actively looking for ways to provide value.

    7. Be strategic

    It’s not enough to just throw more money at a loyalty program. It’s important to know where to aim, and that means constantly monitoring the effectiveness of your efforts and adjusting as needed. Not all customers are the same. While some may respond well to receiving more emails, others may be put off. Determine which is which, and make sure to use a system capable of accommodating both at scale.

    Related: 3 Secret Reasons Why Your Brand Needs a Rewards Program

    8. Be self-aware

    The worst mistake you can make is failing to deliver the goods once customers engage with your site. So, be sure your house is in order before you start inviting people in. Eliminate any bottleneck in your website to ensure every customer who visits has their needs met. Make sure your recommendation engine can recognize previous visitors so you’re not offering them products they’ve already bought. For those not ready to buy, offer wishlists that you can offer promotions on in the future. Getting people in the door is only the first step.

    What do these tips have in common? They’re all focused on the customer’s needs and their unique interactions with your company. After all, loyalty works both ways. The best loyalty programs don’t just provide customers a way to stay loyal to your brand. It gives you a way to demonstrate your loyalty to your customers.

    Remember, the goal of a loyalty program isn’t about generating more sales. It’s about building trust. It’s showing your most valuable customers that you value them in return. When you do so, you’ll create an emotional connection with your customers that will last far longer than any period of economic unrest or uncertainty. It’ll last a lifetime.

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    Michelena Howl

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  • 5 Types of Customer Loyalty Programs that Pay Off

    5 Types of Customer Loyalty Programs that Pay Off

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    According to ProfitWell, 80% of future profits come from just 20% of existing customers. So clearly, any effort to keep yours engaged is a worthy investment, and loyalty programs are one of the oldest and most popular ways to do that.

    Put simply, such programs retain existing customers by rewarding them for interacting with your brand — typically via points, discounts, perks or free products. Research from Yotpo in 2019 found that 67.8% of buyers equate brand loyalty with repeat purchasing. It’s not surprising, then, that brands have created associated programs to encourage repeat purchases.

    Here are some proven program categories:

    1. Points

    If you have a credit card, you’re likely familiar with points programs, in which you spend a certain amount to get a number of points. These are usually convertible to cash, or store credit in the case of retail brands. Starbucks has one of the most popular in the world: You use an app or card to pay for orders and earn points. In the U.S., customers can start redeeming rewards once they hit 25 points (or “Stars,” as the company terms them). The brand also runs yearly sticker-based points programs during the holidays in select countries, which encourage customers to collect a number of stickers to get a limited-edition Starbucks planner.

    Related: How Brands Can Turn Short-Term Rewards Into Long-Term Loyalty

    2. Premium

    Paid or premium programs encourage customers to pay a membership or subscription fee in exchange for benefits. Perhaps the most recognizable example in this category is the Amazon Prime subscription, which rewards members with a free membership in its streaming app, free shipping within the U.S. and other added value.

    Some retail brands like Barnes & Noble have membership programs that grant members discounts on items and early access during sales. To get customers to sign up for a paid loyalty program, the key is to offer something that’s perceived as valuable and useful, and among the highest-performing examples of associated apps were recently listed by AVADA.

    3. Tiered

    Tiered loyalty programs follow the same concept as points-based examples — the difference being members are given different rewards as they reach each tier, rather than everyone getting the same. Such programs present members with a specific status name each time they climb up a level.

    For example, most airlines have tiered loyalty programs measured by miles. Qatar Airways, the flag carrier of Qatar, has a Privilege Club for its frequent fliers. New members start on the lowest tier, called “Burgundy,” followed by “Silver,” “Gold” and “Platinum.” As members progress, they earn more privileges and perks. For example, once members hit the Silver level, they get lounge access, while one benefit of the Platinum tier is a no-charge allowance of 55 pounds of baggage every time they fly.

    Member programs in other industries might offer good student, safe driver or good credit discounts, along with referral rewards, VIP status and other perks.

    Related: 7 Ways Leading Companies Boost Repeat Sales

    4. Action-driven

    Action-driven loyalty programs encourage customers to interact with your brand beyond purchasing. For example, they might receive specific points on a first purchase, but to progress as a member they need to like and share your social media pages. To drive members to action, it’s best to also include tiers in these examples.

    A winning example in this category is Adidas’s action-based loyalty program called the adiClub, wherein members are encouraged to shop and post reviews, complete a profile on the website and sign up for a run. Members climb tiers and unlock more privileges and rewards as they earn points. In time, they become brand ambassadors — supporting the company on a more holistic scale.

    5. Cash-back

    Cash-back programs are similar to points programs but with more instant gratification. Many credit card companies offer them and typically reward members between .25% and 5% per eligible transaction. Most companies have partner merchants and a minimum-spend amount before cash-back is granted.

    Related: 3 Ways to Build the Rewards Program Customers Want

    The key takeaway is that instead of competing for attention in a crowded marketplace, it might be better to focus efforts on the audience you already have. For hundreds of brands spanning dozens of industries, customer loyalty programs have proven to be an effective strategy for retaining customers, boosting relations with them and increasing brand affinity.

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    Nick Brogden

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  • Customer Loyalty Is Your Holy Grail for Success. Here’s Why.

    Customer Loyalty Is Your Holy Grail for Success. Here’s Why.

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Customer loyalty is the holy grail of a high return on your investment. However, many people tend to think and invest more in customer acquisition and marketing than they do in cultivating loyalty. The evidence is clear; customer loyalty translates to steady revenue, lower marketing costs and more effective word-of-mouth advertising.

    Implementing many customer loyalty programs offers a marketing advantage that can improve customer acquisition. Customer loyalty and engagement can be the tiny edge that propels you over the competition, even in the face of an inferior product or service.

    To successfully implement an efficient customer loyalty program, I’ve outlined four important considerations.

    Related: A Checklist to Get Your Customer-Loyalty Program Off the Ground

    Understand what motivates your customers

    Incentives are a powerful force that motivates individual economic decision-making. Tapping into the personal motivations of customers and why they purchase your products is essential in understanding how to reward them and encourage them to take that action again.

    Depending on the nature of your business, there may be several underlying incentivizes driving customers to your brand, including:

    • Financial incentives: Your brand offers the best financial advantage.
    • Psychological incentivizes: Your products offer joy important to your customers’ happiness.
    • Exclusivity incentives: Your products offer a level of exclusivity that makes customers feel unique, special or elite.

    In some ways, understanding what motivates people to your brand is knowing what your brand offers that your competitors don’t.

    However, to understand more about customers and their thinking, consider the following strategies:

    • Invest in a CRM program to collect more granular data
    • Use social listening tools to understand how your brand is perceived by customers online
    • Dig into keyword research to see which terms people use to look for products, such as discounted or best
    • Use market research for low-level demographic data
    • Undergo competitor research to see how competitors in your field cultivate customer loyalty
    • Solicit customer feedback for direct insights

    Make rewards truly unique

    Once you understand what motivates your customers, you can create a loyalty program that rewards them. For example, customers motivated by financial incentives will benefit from BOGO deals and discounts, while customers motivated by exclusivity will be motivated by exclusive branded gifts and merchandise.

    One tip to really keep in mind is to make rewards unique and exceptional. Don’t just settle on branded stickers and pens; go the extra mile with branded tote bags, t-shirts, hats and anything else that people will see in public. I particularly love branded merchandise because it provides ancillary marketing benefits that can be more impactful than traditional advertising.

    I would also suggest going above and beyond regarding financial rewards, whether it’s giving away free monthly trials or purchases. You can even work with other companies like Amazon or retailers to help transfer rewards points or incentives for a discount on purchases they already make.

    Once you have a set of rewards, you can even tier your program to encourage additional engagement. Ideally, the greater the engagement by the customer, the higher the reward. Those customers that reach the top tier will feel special as you give them the best financial rewards.

    Related: How Brands Can Turn Rewards Programs Into Long-Term Loyalty

    Create consistent customer experiences

    Customer satisfaction is when expectations meet reality. A core component of your customer loyalty program must focus on creating positive and consistent customer interaction via your products, marketing and customer service. Ensure all brick-and-mortar locations and online assets follow a consistent branding pattern and a set of branding guidelines.

    To create a consistent digital experience, you need to invest in multi-channel customer service. This strategy could include utilizing chatbots on your website, responding to users over social media and email or even implementing a digital HR help desk for people to communicate with customer representatives directly.

    I also recommend creating a consistent experience across your sales funnel to build a positive first impression of your brand through the following strategies:

    • Offering promotions or discounts for first-time purchases
    • Delivering thank you emails and/or texts at purchase
    • Emailing follow-up for surveys and additional thanks
    • Offering online and telephone support for any questions
    • Providing additional online resources for tutorials, guidance or sending feedback directly

    Finally, create above-and-beyond customer service by offering omnichannel support and investing in AI that allows for personalized and automated responses.

    Great customer service also starts with hiring the right staff and implementing the right procedures. Train staff to practice active listening and empathy to achieve better customer interactions and offer solutions that resolve customer problems meaningfully.

    In fact, bad customer experiences offer brands the opportunity to fix their mistakes, which often leads to higher positivity than if the customer just had a fairly normal experience.

    Related: 15 Tips for Improving Customer Loyalty

    Go above traditional interactions to create a community

    Today’s younger generations are often motivated to shop with brands that conform to their social values.

    A survey from Sprout Social found that 70% of customers felt it was necessary for brands to take a stand on social and political issues. The key here is to use your community values and inclusivity as an asset to cultivate greater loyalty.

    For example, there are several strategies for cultivating greater community loyalty among your customers, including:

    • Incorporating political/social messaging in your advertising
    • Donating to a charity
    • Hosting fundraisers for important causes
    • Hosting brand-exclusive events and parties that reward loyalty
    • Encouraging users to submit UGC for promotions

    Sometimes your products and actions can also speak for themselves. For example, my digital marketing company became the first to purchase NFL tickets with Bitcoin, helping to build strong relationships with sports fans and tech enthusiasts among our customer base.

    In many ways, inspiring brand loyalty involves following many of the best practices I recommend for any new business.

    Once you understand what motivates your customers and put the proper infrastructure in place, cultivating brand loyalty is all about executing your promises and being there when they need you most.

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    Matt Bertram

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  • How Brands Can Turn Rewards Programs Into Long-Term Loyalty

    How Brands Can Turn Rewards Programs Into Long-Term Loyalty

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    There are about 4 billion loyalty program memberships in the U.S., and they’re all fueled by some type of reward. Yes, even Starbucks‘ recently-announced metaverse loyalty program is expected to deal in NFTs (a fancy way of saying a digital asset as a reward).

    Entrepreneurs, take note: There will be significant changes over the next decade in the expectations consumers have for brands and banks. Between stocks, NFTs and advancements in blockchain and crypto, “loyalty” is a category that will undergo significant advancement to keep an enticed consumer. What’s driving this change, and what will move the needle for the consumer while bringing a solid return on investment to the brand?

    A reward alone doesn’t necessarily create loyalty. In fact, a reward often brings a customer in for just one more transaction at a time. Brands are learning that there is a difference between loyalty and rewards: one creates lasting, long-term company success rooted in a relationship with aligned incentives, and the other merely extends a brand’s lifeline to the next quarter’s earnings.

    Loyalty means an attachment to the institution one spends with. It means awareness of the decision being made to shop at one brand or another. It’s going out of the way to arrive at the store, gas station or restaurant the customer cares most about. When a customer is merely incentivized to return one more time via a disposable reward, this generally doesn’t speak to loyalty as much as it does to the “deal” they will get by doing so at that moment.

    My team talks with brands every day about rewards currencies and the merits or drawbacks associated with the most common incentives. There are so many different kinds of programs; these include points, cash back, rebates and miles. Brands have spent the last two decades building different combinations of the same rewards currency — many of them to great success by tying their rewards to brand values and their most popular and beloved products. So how does a brand ensure rewards turn into loyalty, rather than just a second transaction?

    Related: 3 Secret Reasons Why Your Brand Needs a Rewards Program

    Keep it simple, keep it connected

    Consumers have been burnt by complexity — frustration in managing multiple loyalty platforms with various web-based logins has led to a wave of brands building and launching their own self-contained loyalty programs. Recent additions to this “self-contained loyalty” approach include the McDonald’s MyMcDonald’s Rewards or Taco Bell‘s mobile app. These brands realized that asking customers to do the work of tracking, managing, and redeeming their rewards could be more of a burden than a relationship-building experience. So, they threaded ordering, rewards and other user engagement all into the same space.

    The beauty of this approach? Rewards don’t disappear. They are reimagined in ways that spark creativity, engagement and camaraderie with the customer. They become personalized and presented with choices that the customer can make along the way.

    The quickest way for a loyalty program to feel out of touch or antiquated is if it’s a disjointed experience — a program that assigns arbitrary points that deliver inconsistent rewards or a program that only rewards on a transaction, but doesn’t open the opportunity for additional customer behaviors and engagement. Instead of focusing on that reward, a bond must be built between the customer and the brand.

    Related: Why Small Businesses Should Be Utilizing Customer-Loyalty Programs

    How we can evolve rewards programs

    Classic rewards currencies incentivize transactions. They create fleeting, one-off moments that don’t serve the connection to the customer. In some cases, they can even tarnish the brand. Those are the rewards we want to move modern loyalty away from.

    Let’s use coupons as an example: The customer may come into the store to use a coupon they earned for a recent purchase. That coupon (while serving the transactional purpose) sets the expectation that what is being sold has a lower value than it’s listed for, and it tells the customer to make their choice based on the price tag alone. The traditional rewards equation prioritizes low cost over quality, convenience and value alignment — the transaction over the relationship.

    That’s not to say that coupons (or miles, points or a free frozen yogurt at the end of a 10-visit punch card) don’t have their place in a loyalty program. They simply need to be connected to more than a transaction. What other ways can customers earn those rewards? Is there an option to redeem vs build for a larger reward? Does the reward currency provide tangible value? Maybe that coupon is offered because a customer has exhibited loyalty and earned the coupon through loyalty, rather than as a way to achieve such loyalty.

    Related: How Loyalty Programs Are Emerging as Effective Marketing Tools

    Matching rewards currencies to loyalty programs

    Brands don’t need to build and launch full-scale interactive apps to connect with their customers (it doesn’t hurt, of course, but it all comes down to intention). In many cases, they can reassess or add reward currency options that can grow with their customer relationship. There are so many more ways that brands can reward their customers than when the loyalty and incentives space was created. They can give ownership of digital assets via NFTs, unlock access to exclusive events or offerings and can even give shares of stock as a reward.

    Using the example I know best, let’s look at how some of these new reward mechanisms change the customer experience. When a brand rewards its customers in stock rewards, also known as ownership, they can:

    • Deliver immediate validation for the consumer, which can power more immediate behavior change
    • Reinforce long-term brand/consumer relationships instead of cherry-picking, couponing or continuously discounting
    • Create meaningful access points to financial markets that half of Americans don’t currently have

    Related: Customer Loyalty Brings Long-Term Sales

    With standard points programs, customers usually need to rack up a significant number of points, miles or whatever the chosen type of currency is to start seeing any benefits. But the opportunity to reward in stock or ETFs, even in small amounts can create immediate gratification — which then can serve as an entry point to other aspects of a loyalty program. Stock-related rewards can potentially grow over time, along with the consumer’s confidence, loyalty and brand love.

    Most importantly, this is a program that speaks to long-term vitality for a brand and consumer. According to user surveys through our company, Bumped, 65% of users have told friends about a company they own after becoming a shareholder. The customer now has a new thread of relationships that coupons can’t create. A total of 31% of users who become shareholders are willing to pay more for a product from a brand they own, versus expecting to pay less the next time they’re in the store. Most importantly, the consumer may even feel awkward shopping with a competitor once becoming an owner — now that’s loyalty.

    Let’s work to build a world of incentivized, aligned and motivated consumers, one where everybody wins and is a part of what they care most about. That is the future of alignment that extends beyond a single transaction, whether in the form of crypto, NFT, points or stock.

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    David Nelsen

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  • 6 Pitfalls of Common Customer Communication Tactics

    6 Pitfalls of Common Customer Communication Tactics

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Most people running a business are well aware that customer communication is critical to success, but that’s only partially correct: It’s only successful when executed in a way that not only engages customers but builds meaningful relationships. In fact, 54% of customers think companies need to do a better job with their approach to relationship-building, according to global research findings from Salesforce.

    Today, there are a multitude of ways to communicate with customers, and within this digital age, it’s an ever-changing field with a diverse array of means to reach out and communicate directly. It can become overwhelming for businesses trying to pinpoint which channel is best to not only reach customers but to generate loyalty — since it goes back to the Pareto Principle (or 80/20 rule): That loyal 20% of customers drives 80% of your revenue.

    While this process can be difficult, it’s something each business needs to embark on when looking to grow and be successful. Especially when considering that two-thirds of the difference between brand profits were based on consumer engagement, with businesses at the higher end of customer engagement receiving higher percentages of profits, according to a report from Hall and Partners.

    Each communications channel has value and is well suited for a specific purpose, but each also has weaknesses. It’s helpful to look at the best use of the various channels to enhance customer communications but to also understand the pitfalls of these individual channels and how to mitigate the risk through best practices, as well as supporting technologies.

    Let’s break down the six most popular and effective ways to keep in constant contact with your customers and what the limitations are:

    Related: Why Customer Communication Makes a Difference During Inflation

    1. Intense competition on social media

    Ninety percent of customers are more loyal to brands they follow on social media, according to a recent report by Sprout Social. Why? Because customers want relationships with brands, and social media platforms provide a means for customers to know what a brand is doing any day of the week at any time, and most importantly, based on the consumer’s schedule. While social media platforms are constantly evolving, the one challenge is the competition for placement. Consumers are inundated with a deluge of content, and the fact that the platforms have algorithms to pick what content they can display means that, organically, only 2% of your followers will see what you post on their timeline. Thus, social media platforms are very powerful, but only if the customer either “goes” to your page or is somehow driven to your site.

    2. Difficulty driving traffic to your website

    Websites have long been the common method for publishing content, business hours, company information and much more. Providers like Google constantly scour the web, building huge indices of the information they find on a website. However, much like social media, websites are great if the customer comes “looking” for your information — but websites have no way of actively getting information into your customer’s hands. The challenge is navigating search engine optimization and an array of tactics to drive traffic to your site. The second challenge with a website is that the information is often stale for multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that the individual operator is not a website developer. And there is cost and the time spent to keep the site current — especially for very time-sensitive information, like a band schedule or this week’s happy hour specials.

    Related: 19 Experts Explain Why Your Website Isn’t Bringing in Customers

    3. The many challenges of email marketing

    Email is an age-old communications method. One of the benefits of email is that it creates a reference that people can revisit (for example, a coupon delivered via email that can be pulled up on a phone). The challenges are the sheer volume of emails, the timeliness of “seeing” the emails, and spam filtering. Also, inbox space is limited, messages need to be brief, and delivery and compliance are very non-deterministic. Even with a successful email model, the question is how do you acquire the email addresses of your valuable customers? These aren’t always easy or inexpensive to procure and often require depending on a third-party resource.

    4. Character limits with SMS marketing

    The primary benefits of SMS marketing are that it’s delivered quickly and promotes interaction. It also has a much higher open rate than email. In fact, 98% of text messages are opened within 5 minutes. However, the messages are very short, at only 160 characters, which limits the robustness of communication. This can leave a customer feeling detached from your business and impacts the personalization of your communications. And the phone numbers for SMS must be procured — so building a customer database takes time.

    Related: 5 Ways to Use Texting to Grow Your Sales and Marketing

    5. Digital signage lacks personalization

    Digital signage provides a means to inform customers in brick-and-mortar establishments. It can communicate specials, upsell items, provide QR codes to follow, share social posts, and it can even serve as a digital menu board. While digital signage is certainly beneficial, it’s not advantageous as a stand-alone tactic. Customer loyalty requires personalized, ongoing relationship building, so digital signage works better as an enhancement as opposed to a tactic of its own.

    6. Cost and time of podcasts

    A podcast provides the opportunity for robust, personalized content and no time or length restrictions. The biggest challenge with a podcast is growing an audience in addition to the time spent planning, recording, producing and marketing the podcast. Although a podcast does boost brand loyalty, due to the amount of money and labor it requires, it’s not always the best fit.

    With these six different methods of communicating with customers, each has unique benefits. But generating customer loyalty, and ultimately more revenue, can best be achieved by not just one of these methods, but multiple integrated tactics, to achieve the best results.

    Related: Why You Should Use Blogs and Podcasts to Market Your Business

    How integrated marketing technology works

    Here’s an example: Charlie & Jake’s Brewhouse needed to fill their dining room and boost sales on Sunday afternoons. By capturing customer information via a free WiFi hotspot, they collected phone numbers and sent a text message out at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday offering a free brewhouse pretzel with beer mustard that day. Customers merely had to text the reply “PRETZEL” to redeem it. The result was a busy dining room within hours of opening. It was real-time marketing, with real-time results by integrating WiFi with SMS.

    However, this can be taken a step further. Once owned customer data is collected, it can also be integrated with social media, email marketing and digital signage. SMS can be used to send a message with a one-click link to follow your business on social media, or it can provide a link to your event on Facebook. By integrating WiFi technology with different forms of communication, businesses can not only provide hyper-targeted and more personalized messaging, but communication that is provided to the right people at the right time and in the right place.

    In short, there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong form of communication when building customer relationships — it’s about utilizing multiple forms of communication that all work together for a purpose.

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    Stephen Gould

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  • Want to Build Trust in Your Business? It All Starts Online

    Want to Build Trust in Your Business? It All Starts Online

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    Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

    Successful entrepreneurs know that consumer trust in a brand is critical to standing out from the competition. Trust is what keeps customers returning to your business time and again. It is also instrumental in generating new and repeated sales. But “trust” can seem hard to quantify. What exactly is it, and how do you build it?

    Regarding commerce, trust is the customer’s feeling that your brand fulfills its promises. Does your product live up to expectations? And if something goes wrong, will your brand respond quickly to put things right?

    These days, a quick Google search is often all that’s needed to score a brand’s trustworthiness. From customer service ratings to cohesive social media and good PR, a solid online reputation is vital in earning the trust of existing and new customers.

    Related: Is Trust or Innovation More Important for a Brand in 2021?

    Focus on your website and social media

    When building trust online, one of the first places to focus on is each area in your immediate control. These include primary platforms like your website or social media channels. Such platforms are powerful tools for your brand, allowing you to shape your messaging to be cohesive and positive. It’s crucial to keep your brand’s aesthetic and core mission statement the same across all owned platforms, as these are often the first sites consumers seek out information on your product or services.

    Be sure to post regularly on social media channels. Also, consider adding a blog section to your website and share detailed brand updates on that page whenever possible. This allows you to humanize your brand by sharing important brand insights and providing customers with a glimpse into company culture, fun behind-the-scenes developments, and other events that help strengthen bonds with your business.

    Related: How to Create Authentic Relationships and Build Customer Trust

    Build up good press

    Outside of the resources under your control, consider investing in secondary sources to reinforce your reputation. From photography to press releases, interviews with local journalists and thought-leadership articles, any online media showcasing your brand helps populate search results while putting your product in a positive light. And the more recent these pieces are, the higher they will likely show on search results pages, providing higher visibility and better opportunities to engage customers.

    Beyond traditional “press,” like interviews and photoshoots, consider partnering with influencers on social media. Such partnerships can provide an authentic seal of approval from another trusted online and highlight your brand value to new customers. Whether on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, influencer campaigns offer an excellent opportunity to leverage audiences in any market.

    Related: 4 Things to Know About Online Reviews (and Why You Can’t Afford to Ignore Them)

    Provide excellent customer service

    As mentioned earlier, an essential aspect of building customer trust is being responsive to questions and concerns. Be sure to give customers various options for reaching your business, such as phone numbers, emails, a website portal, social channels and more. List accurate contact info everywhere, from your website to your social media.

    It may also help to have social media moderators to answer direct messages and public comments, as so many online consumers now interact solely with brands through social media.

    And while you can’t hide potential negative reviews, you can still demonstrate that you care about customers by responding to issues on various review sites politely and quickly. Even a simple response shows you’re listening to concerns and can go a long way toward easing customer stress and worry!

    You can also create a customer review section on your website to highlight positive online feedback. Many sites offer this capability, making showcasing and promoting glowing reviews easy.

    Related: How to Build Rapport With Customers Online

    Invest in SEO management

    When you’ve done the above work, you want to ensure your existing and prospective customers see it. Unfortunately, it’s easy for a brand’s online footprint to get buried in a sea of search results. This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in.

    An experienced SEO team will often supplement SEO and put paid spend campaigns behind your marketing efforts, helping move your brand messaging to the top of search pages. SEO can be a technical, even highly challenging field and is often something SMBs and smaller brands don’t have the expertise or time to tackle most effectively. Though hiring an outside firm to assist with SEO comes with extra costs, the payoff in trust and online authority can often be significant.

    Investment in SEO marketing not only showcases the right brand messaging but also helps your business stand apart from local competitors. After all, your target audience needs to know if you’re doing the work on your website and social media, generating positive press, and investing in excellent customer service.

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    Adam Petrilli

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