Developing your lead generation strategy
Since the onset of COVID-19, businesses have had to find new and clever ways to connect with their customers to generate sales and maintain relationships – this has led to the acceleration of digitisation as more customers shifted to online.
Since the onset of COVID-19, businesses have had to find new and clever ways to connect with their customers to generate sales and maintain relationships – this has led to the acceleration of digitisation as more customers shifted to online.
Customers now have the power to dictate when and where companies can interact with them. Organisations that are customer experience-minded and leverage communication technology to engage with today’s customer in the way they prefer – in the right channel, at the right moment, with the right information, will be most successful in converting leads.
Have you analysed the change in your customers’ behaviours to help better manage them and improve your customer experience?
The question on everyone’s mind - how will customers behave post the pandemic?
The question on everyone’s mind - how will customers behave post the pandemic?
A pandemic is temporary but it will influence temporary behaviours into fundamental shifts - some things will revert to pre-covid, some things will look very different, and other things will be gone for good. Covid-19 propelled a whole new generation of digital adopters online with about 70% planning to keep using the new channels permanently. It is critical for companies to improve their online offerings to provide a competitive experience for digital adopters. The quality of the customer experience remains an influential buying factor. To improve the customer experience overall, organisations need to understand the changing wants, needs and expectations of their target customer in terms of product/service offerings, the channels they use to interact/engage and when they use these channels.
Resetting Your Customer Experience For Post Covid
For vulnerable consumers and the customer teams that serve them, Covid-19 has forced companies to rethink what customer care means to ensure they are addressing their customer needs. A customer’s interaction with a company can have an immediate and lasting effect on their sense of trust and loyalty.
We are nearing the end of 2020… the year that changed the world with months in lockdown, travel bans, restrictions on gatherings, working from home enforcements and rising unemployment. No one saw these things coming.
For vulnerable consumers and the customer teams that serve them, Covid-19 has forced companies to rethink what customer care means to ensure they are addressing their customer needs.
A customer’s interaction with a company can have an immediate and lasting effect on their sense of trust and loyalty. During a time of crisis, it is essential that businesses deliver service and experiences that meet customers new needs with empathy, care, and concern. It is important to use real-time data to understand shifts in consumer behaviour so businesses can quickly pivot innovating redesign journeys to align with constantly changing customer preferences.
Below are customer experience practices that build resilience and prepare companies for success in the days after Covid-19.
Care
People need extra information and support to navigate during these unprecedented times.
To show that you care, REACH OUT and offer genuine support, not through marketing or blatant attempts to gain competitive advantage. These experiences are important for customers in the short term, and the impact will build positive, lasting relationships.
Meet your customers where they are
Your customers’ normal patterns of life have been put on hold, and as a result there has been a shift in demand patterns - customers need digital, at-home, and low-touch options. Digitisation has accelerated because of the coronavirus pandemic and digital-led experiences will continue to grow in popularity as we recover from the crisis. Businesses that act fast and innovate in their delivery model to help consumers navigate during the pandemic safely and effectively will establish a strong advantage.
Redesign operations to support the new world
It is to be expected that consumer preferences and business models will last longer than the crisis. Once covid-19 subsides, economic challenges will remain, so it is key for companies to deliver on customer experiences that are emerging as most important, whilst realising productivity efficiencies, to remain competitive.
A keyway to simultaneously improve your customer experience and business efficiencies is to increase digital self-service and to make smarter operational trade-offs, driven by what matters most to customers. Migrating customers to digital channels is often a successful way to boost savings and satisfaction.
Agility
Sustaining a strong customer experience during a crisis requires prompt research to interpret the changing dynamics and new pain points as well as agile innovation to address them. Businesses that can master that tactic will generate value for customers in high-priority areas in an environment of intensified competition.
Customer experience has taken on a new definition and dimension in the uncertain times of Covid-19. Companies who show care towards their customers, reinvent their customer journey and anticipate how customers will change their habits, will build deeper relationships that will continue beyond the crisis.
Looking to redesign your own customer experience? Reach out.
Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people and customers just as much as financial outcomes.
We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au
What's your story?
Stories make your business relatable and more importantly make you stand out from the crowd. Data alone can be overwhelming for some people being walked through presentations, reading articles, and listening to interviews. Stories instead, engage hearts and minds and allow watchers, readers and listeners to relax into the moment. Every great sale starts with a great story.
Stories make your business relatable and more importantly make you stand out from the crowd.
Data alone can be overwhelming for some people being walked through presentations, reading articles, and listening to interviews. Stories instead, engage hearts and minds and allow watchers, readers and listeners to relax into the moment.
Every great sale starts with a great story
In today’s competitive market offering a standout product or service isn’t enough. Every one of your competitors are trying to make more noise than you. But it’s not always noise that cuts through. It’s your story. Stories teach us about life and help us appreciate others and their different perspectives. A great story humanises a brand, allowing customers to feel some kind of connection and understanding. But crafting that story can be hard, especially when you’re so immersed in the detail.
Here are some tangible actions and questions to help clarify what you do and why, and to ultimately tell your business’s story in a genuine and engaging way.
Why do you exist?
When you decided to start your business there was story that went with it. This could have been related to a commercial problem you wanted to solve or for some personal reason. Revisit ‘why’ you exist and remind every member of your team, your customers and whoever will listen. This will deliver a holistic view of the background to your passion and why your purpose matters so much.
Stories make your business relatable and more importantly articulate the problem your product or service is trying to solve for them. To be authentic the story must have context for the audience otherwise it becomes a sermon and you’re back to old school selling by telling.
Action: Write down why you started doing what you do and why it matters?
How does your story silence your competitors?
Your customers, like you, are exposed to many narratives and messages, so having a story that will elevate your company from the rest is so important. It gives you an edge and more importantly ensures your customers’ choice becomes an emotional one.
Action: Check that your marketing messages reinforce the story of why you do what you do. Create consistency across your social media, website and employee sales collateral. Your story should be everywhere!
Your staff are your story tellers
Ensuring your staff understand the reason why you exist is important. They also need to be clear on their role and importance in the story. Put simply, if they believe and connect your story’s meaning for themselves, their motivation will naturally resonate when they share that with customers.
Action: Ask your staff to share their pitch of your story? Is it compelling?
Customers that care are the best ones
Your story is a chance to create an emotional connection and perhaps even make customers feel good about a particular problem or opportunity they may have. If you want someone to trust you with their hard earned dollars you need to engage in a way that entices understanding and meaning.
Action: How does my story help customers feel good or solve a problem?
Stories drive choices
There’s a gap in the market when it comes to businesses sharing their own unique, organic, human stories to drive a connection with customers on an emotional level. This is one of the key reasons we started Whiteark.
Stories give us life and your brand deserves the most awesome story ever.
I hope you have some fun creating your story, there’s no time like now…
