Preparing for the new customer!

Today we are living in the world of engagement. CMOs need to throw away their MBA text books and concepts and adopt new marketing techniques to suit the “new age customer”. The other up CMOs sleeve is – they required to establish a brand that’s resilient to the changing times and create customer experience that gets better with every interaction in today’s digital economy.

This new customer has greater expectations, requires higher control and engages more actively with brands. These customers have new social channels to express their opinions and can easily do so through their smart phones. Peer, review/validation and communication is high on the agenda and they expect more ways to communicate and shop anytime, anywhere.

So what does this mean to the marketing mix? Over 60% of the marketing spend is going to be spent on the non-traditional digital content like social networks, blogs, mobile, etc. This signals the demise of the traditional CMO. What this means, it requires CMOs to educate themselves on the latest emerging tools and techniques of measuring the customer’s voice, satisfaction and also to understand in detail the disruptive influence of online platforms and channels on a customer’s purchase behaviour. That is by no means the be-all and end-all of the CMO’s role. This requires a radical shift in mindset. The CMO’s responsibility is to initiate and implement that change.

With this rise in customer-centric organizations, CMO and their teams are now the key enabler for organizations to work cohesively and to have an accurate read of customer behaviour. Customer support becomes an integral element in customer engagement and creating great customer satisfaction.

So successful enterprises who have crossed this chasm and become truly customer-oriented, have aligned customer experience and support to the CMOs. These are organizations of the future catering to the new age of the customer.

Building successful brands through ‘Customer-centricity’

Probably the most talked about topic in the world of business today is ‘Customer-centricity’. While many organizations build their vision and mission statements around this subject, it’s more often merely lip-service, not to sound cynical. So, what is ‘Customer-centricity’ or what does it mean for brands to be ‘Customer-centric’?

The fundamentals of marketing was always built around the idea of providing a product or a service that fulfilled the needs of a customer. Today, most companies, be it a brick and mortar business or an online commerce portal is in a hurry to acquire customers. Growing a customer base through loyalty programs and points has become the order of the day. With the belief that these are the triggers that create stickiness. But do these mechanisms really work?

Let’s play out a real life scenario. You walk into a multi-brand electronic store to buy a microwave, of a specific brand or model, and it’s not available. The spirited salesperson instead shows you a range of other brands and models that they have in stock without even wanting to know why you wanted to purchase that specific brand or model in the first place. You thank him and excuse yourself to leave. Meanwhile he pulls out a form and suggests you join the loyalty program for a host of benefits including a lucky draw. Interesting, isn’t it? Sell everything else besides what the customer wants!! Can this be categorized as a ‘Customer-centric’ response?

Well here are a few positive actions that can be put to use and be seen as a customer friendly brand.

Understanding the needs of your customer – Organizations and brands need to painstakingly understand the needs of the customer. In this case, the salesperson could have spent some time to know what the customer was looking for.

Creating and offering the best solution – Going the extra mile to offer the best or optimal solution to the needs of your customer will go a long way in creating a positive impression of your brand. Remember, customers will always remember you for both the right and wrong reasons. Always better if it is for the right one.

Honoring your commitments – Going back to the scenario in the multi-brand outlet, if the salesperson had offered to help you by sourcing the same product and delivering it in a few days, you probably would have taken up on that offer. And signed up for the loyalty program. It is always reassuring to work with a brand that is willing to serve and honor their commitments.

Building relationships with your customers – By getting to know your customers better, there are plenty of opportunities to do more business with them. When brands are seen as trusted partners, customers are likely to stay with them for long.

It’s all about giving the customer what he wants and not what you want to sell. Until and unless businesses and brands are driven by these fundamentals, their survival will continue to hinge on these two words.

Long live ‘Customer-centricity’!!

All hail the connected customer!

Technology has altered the way we communicate, interact and do business. Large scale adoption of main stream technology has given rise to a number of vendors who make digital devices that fill up our homes and which connect up with the other devices at our homes and offices. The end result is an elevated experience and an always-on connection. Though this has had a positive effect on lifestyles, a growing concern among all vendors is providing pain free support, as this is one major piece that customers look for in any deal. The consumer electronic market is crowded with millions of devices and it will only increase as technological changes rule the day.

The consumer’s journey with a brand starts much before the product is bought. It all starts with the experience of that product or brand and that has to captivate him. The invisible, intangible component here is the support experience that the product or brand wields – and that translates to whether he becomes a prospect, lead, customer or a statistic! It is imperative for all support providers to ‘wow’ customers with every interaction. This is possible only when support providers know all about their customers well, interact with them, understand their trends and pain points etc. Customers are also very learned today as they don’t need to go out looking for information, information is available at their fingertips. This is what gives them the power to make instantaneous decisions. It all lies in the first very experience of a customer with a brand. That interaction forever alters his approach (whether positive or negative) to the brand. This is where support providers need to innovate and innovate constantly.

The Internet has boomed and changed the way we work and function. Social media has turned out to be the biggest and most cost effective platform for connections, opinions, reviews. Where are the vendors homing in? If they are still looking at traditional models, then they’ve lost focus. There needs to be a concerted effort to tie in all the communication channels, listen and pick out from the digital trail consumers are leaving to understand where their brand presence is going. There needs to be a singular view of the customer to find out where he started from, trace his journey with the brand, run the data gathered through an analytical engines and plot trends to further gauge what customers are thinking about your brand, what are they tweeting, what experiences their products are creating and most importantly whether your customers are still sticking to your brand or, are they running away.

An able support vendor with a rich analytical experience should be the ideal go-to partner to bring out hidden meanings in customer conversations that would propel customer stickiness and loyalty.