Delight your way to success | July 25, 2008
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I have been spending much time lately reading and thinking about customer engagement and experience and the importance of it in all businesses. Having a truly passionate customer base is not just for intimate startup companies, as Apple and the recent lines we all witnessed clearly illustrate. Having your customers so delighted with their experience that they will tell their friends and Twitter about their experience and proudly show/tell everyone they know is the most powerful (and inexpensive...sorry Finance guy in me coming out) marketing program any company can achieve. For a startup company positive word of mouth, press and chat is even more important as it can be the difference between success and failure. There are two sides of this experience that I'd like to cover, the product experience and the human experience that in my opinion are equally important.
HUMAN EXPERIENCE EVERY interaction you have with a customer is an opportunity to delight a customer and build your brand. Really folks, this is not hard. Every person in the organization, whether there are 3 or 3,000 is in marketing and sales. I posted earlier on a simple experience at Dairy Queen (sadly no freeby's have arrived at my door) which demonstrates the difference every person in your company can make. Everytime someone calls in for support on your product - delight them Everytime someone calls to complain - delight them Everytime someone asks you where you work - delight them Attitude is everything, be excited and passionate about what you do. If you aren't how do you expect them to be so moved they will tell their friends and wear your shirt. Always ask them for feedback and suggestions, engage them in making things better. Hiring, retaining and maintaining engaged employees is a seperate post I'll cover later. RECOMMENDATION My call to action that I think goes a long way to help at a startup: When people download things (product, trials, etc) from your site make it mandatory to enter an email address AND a phone number (don't worry if they have come to your site and are interested enough to download a trial, they will). Now, don't just email your customers call them. Have everyone in your company call at least one person a day to interact and ask some set questions to collect data. This is your chance to delight them on the phone and make a personal connection that will solidify your relationship. At the end of every day, huddle as a group for 5-10 minutes NO more and run through what you found out. Several major accomplishments occur with this process:
Paul Marshall Finance and Business Execution in Tech Small Companies Posted July 25, 2008 Categories: General Comments Add Your Comment |
