What are the “customer touchpoints” for your business? For many, it could be the customer service line, website, brick and mortar locations, packaging, catalogs, advertisements, and/or social media. In a multi-channel world, chances are it’s ALL of these and more.
According to Forbes, the “cumulative impact of multiple touchpoints” over the course of a customer’s interaction with a brand forms the customer experience. It’s this measure that’s become especially challenging for businesses in highly commoditized industries which simply must win on customer service to remain competitive.
Perhaps your product or service is not a commodity and you have a unique, needed and loved product. Great! However, if your touchpoints don’t deliver a good experience for today’s increasingly restless customers, you’re at risk of losing them.
No doubt, there is a virtual “honor roll” of businesses that have a reputation for mastering customer experience. You’re familiar with Amazon.com, Disney and Zappos. You may even be familiar with The Container Store, Discount Tire, Wegman’s and other smaller, but much loved brands’ customer experience. Their customers tend to be more loyal and willing to shout from the rooftops their love for a consistently delightful customer experience at every point of the buying (and post-purchase) journey. While not perfect, they embrace customer experience at every turn and their reputations are almost larger than life as a result.
What if you’re a small or new business and you don’t have customers “shouting from the rooftops” – yet? Then online influencers are an even more powerful force for you.
Ten years ago, the “rooftop” was largely offline and face-to-face -- a recommendation by someone you know and trust. While this is still important, the widest reaching “rooftop” today is a virtual one: social media. Thanks to networks like Facebook and Twitter…
- our circle of “friends” is larger than ever before,
- comments, knowledge and insights spread across networks about brands are a powerful form of currency,
- those considered to be a credible voice within online networks, have changed the definition of influencer,
- everyday online influencers who are informed and credible look more like your neighbor than Kim Kardashian.
A credible online influencer’s mention about a positive customer experience can mean everything for a business, especially one without the budget for typical “push” methods like advertising, publicity or even a sales force.
Think I’m making this up?
Just last week, I had first-hand experience in the power of online influencers for telling your customer experience story in a highly commoditized industry – the heating and air conditioning repair industry.
On the 2nd 100-degree day in Dallas this year, my home air conditioner decided it had been stress tested enough. Unfortunately, this was at 11:30 pm the night before a weekend and after most A/C repair providers had hung up their tool belts for the day. I’m also new to the area so I had no idea who to call. Fortunately, I had made a mental note of a local A/C service provider that I saw mentioned the most in my social media feeds for various aspects of their customer experience. Most of the online comments were from a segment of people in my network that I’ve never met face-to-face but who have something in common with me: home ownership in my area of the vast D/FW Metroplex. Also, these people appeared to often provide well researched comments and recommendations. As a result, I considered them to be credible influencers on this topic.
In the process, I made note of how this service provider engaged these influencers and acknowledged their online feedback, even when it wasn’t stellar. By the tone of it, one could assume that the feedback was taken to-heart in the spirit of improving customer service in the future.
Within minutes, I was on the phone with the provider booking an appointment.
Now I’ll spare you the details as to how the customer experience blew me away at every touchpoint (even my midnight phone call, which was answered by a certified technician who calmly walked me through what to do with my A/C system until he got there the next day). But what I will tell you is that, like 86% of consumers, I chose to spend MORE money to use this company because of their great customer experience than the one with more name recognition and provided under my home warranty. (Source: Customer Experience Impact (CEI) Survey: 86% of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience)
No doubt I took to social media to shout from the rooftops how happy I was about how they delivered on my wants and needs – from first contact to after-the-sale. Now I may not be an online influencer worthy of engagement by a brand, but it’s likely that my comment would be supporting evidence, even its own touchpoint, for the next homeowner who finds himself in my situation.
Now I don’t know how much of their great customer experience was informed by the conversations they saw about their company on social media but what I can tell you is the first thing I was asked when I called to book a service call was whether I had heard about them on social media. Clearly, they have been listening to, leveraging and benefitting from social media conversation and they understand that customers who encounter positive social customer care experiences are nearly three times more likely to recommend a brand.
Great examples like this are happening everyday and smart businesses of all sizes understand the symbiotic relationship between customer experience and online influencers. Engaging credible influencers gives you an opportunity to not just learn from influencers and improve, but to reinforce and promote a commitment to your growing base of loyal customers who are shouting from virtual rooftops everywhere.
Do you want to have more customers shouting their love for your brand from virutal rooftops all over the web? To get started leveraging the power of influencer engagement to improve CX, contact us and download our free eBook, Influencer Engagement for Brand Leaders: A Customer Experience Requirement.
