Are You Doing Enough to Wow Customers? - Part 6

How One Director of Marketing and Communications Raises the Bar

Emmanuel Trenche is Director of Marketing and Communications at Rex Three. Before joining Rex Three, he worked in the banking industry where the customer’s experience was treated as a brand differentiator. When attempting to entice Fortune 500 brands to tour their South Florida facility, their marketing department mails eye-catching, personalized invitations to prospects offering a ride to the plant in a Hummer during their lunchtime. They’ve even incorporated PURL campaigns to allow visitors to select their lunch preferences prior to an important lunch meeting on-site.

“You can’t make a wow experience all the time,” Emmanuel said. “However, you can create a company culture where everyone feels a duty to create a wow experience.”

One way Rex Three does it is by focusing on customer relationship management. They invested in a CRM system as part of their strategy to touch customers frequently and in meaningful ways, and took the extra step of tying it into their MIS system. “You spend a lot of money and time to acquire a new account. Once you have a customer, it’s important to manage the relationship to maintain and grow it. To do that, you have to continuously improve the customer’s experience,” Emmanuel said.

Improving the customer’s experience is often easier than we think if we focus on every day interactions. For example, a customer calls and is in the mood to chat. When you’re having a crazy-busy day it’s easy to adopt a brisk tone of voice to encourage the customer to tell you what they want and get off the phone.

Wowing the customer could be as simple giving customers the gift of your full attention because we all love it when people are interested in what we have to say. When customers want to spend time talking, be grateful they’re talking to you instead of your biggest competitor. Recognize the way you conduct on the phone is an opportunity to build stronger relationships and different yourself.

There is no better time than today to start creating more wow experience for a customer. Find a way to surprise and delight them. Deliver more than expected sets you apart from your competitors, creates a competitive advantage and stops you from losing business. Roger Staubach put it well when he said, “There are no traffic jams along the extra mile.”

Are You Doing Enough to Wow Customers? - Part 5

The Bar Keeps Getting Raised

Once upon a time, we were thrilled to own a cell phone, even if the coverage was limited and the reception was poor. Nowadays, we would fire a phone company if they delivered that level of service.

The bar is raised on expectations time and again. Sometimes, the best way to impress a customer with a product or service that has been around for awhile is by rethinking the entire experience. Starbucks accomplished that. Whether you love their coffee or consider it over-rated and over-priced, you can learn from the company who reinvented coffee shops.

In the book The Starbucks Experience, author Joseph A. Michelli talks how Starbucks strives to "surprise and delight” customers. He points out customers like predictable experiences because they’re safe, but doing the same thing day in, day out won’t make you stand out. Small pleasant surprises ensure customers don’t get bored and seek new options.

Tomorrow thoughts from Rex Three Director of Marketing and Communications, Emmanuel Trenche, on raising the bar.

Are You Doing Enough to Wow Customers? - Part 4

Handling Problems

I buy many books on Amazon.com. I buy from them because it's convenient, but I am not a loyal customer. In the past couple of months, a problem arose on a shipment relating to a book I ordered as a gift. For an unknown reason, the book got hung up in a post office in North Carolina. I received an e-mail from Amazon.com alerting me to the problem. They told me to contact the post office. The short and impersonal email contained no information as to which post office was holding the book and no person at Amazon.com I could call for additional information. The problem resolved itself but how the situation was handled left a sour taste in my mouth and impacted my perception of the brand.

Research has shown time and again that how problems are handled either builds customer loyalty or erodes it. When you have a problem—and it will happen—have a plan to handle it so you wow the customer.

• During the resolution of the problem, treat the client as a partner, not an adversary.
• If you are to blame, accept responsibility and offer apologies.
• On major problems, fixing the problem may not be enough to satisfy the customer. You may need to offer atonement for the customer’s time and trouble.
• Look at the problem from the customer's point of view. Even if they’re at fault, be sensitive to how the problem makes them look to their boss.

Tomorrow and Friday - how the bar keeps getting raised.

Are You Doing Enough to Wow Customers? - Part 3

We all want to be the valued supplier in scenario three. To gain that coveted position, we must wow our customers.

Eight hour workdays contain 480 minutes. Stand-out moments are significantly better or significantly worse than the rest of the day. To wow customers, we must create positive stand-out moments.

• Wow customers by anticipating needs and meeting them before you’re asked. Doing that saves customers time, demonstrates you in tune and proactively searching for new ways to make their life easier.
• Show genuine appreciation for the business you get. A personal note or a phone call to thank customers for an individual order does more to wow than generic emails that could have been sent by auto-responders. Phone calls out of the blue to thank people for past business also stand out.
• Make it your priority to make customers look brilliant to their bosses. Educate them.
• Give them new ideas to save money or generate additional revenues. Take actions to buyers earn a raise.
• Stop customers from making mistakes—particularly when mistakes would be highly visible inside the buyer’s organization or expensive to fix.

Tomorrow - how to handle problems when it comes to wowing customers.

Are You Doing Enough to Wow Customers? - Part 2

Last week, I proposed the hypothetical the purchasing director at your largest client has set up a meeting with the marketing director and you’re not invited. Here are the different scenarios.

Scenario 1:
The marketing director replies, "Who would be allowed to bid?"
The purchasing director taps a file. "I have twenty names of potential vendors. Right now, we get three bids. Reverse auctions automate the bidding process. We post specs and suppliers submit quotes, making it easy to shop for lower prices without investing additional time.”
The marketing director says, "It works for me. Our current vendors do a good job, but I can’t say any of them has wowed me and I’d love to save money on print.”

Scenario 2:
The marketing director hears the purchasing director’s plan and says, “I would like to save money, but I’m happy with our current vendors.”
“When you look at the product in the box, does one printer stand out?” the purchasing director asks.
“Not really. All our printers meet our delivery schedules. Now we provide print-ready PDFs, so we’re making their job easier. Even so, the idea of adding new vendors makes me nervous. No matter what a printer promises, you won’t know how they’ll perform until they do a job."
The purchasing director strokes his chin, thinking. "Not every job is critical, right?" The marketing director nods to answer. "Why not try reverse auctions on jobs where quality is average and the delivery schedule is flexible? We can bring new vendors on board without risk.”
"That works for me," the marketing director says. "Let’s give it a try."

Scenario 3:
The marketing director hears the proposal. She held up her hand and says, "I don't even want to consider that. Currently we have several vendors, but one stands out. They get the bulk of our work and they’re worth every penny we pay them. Quality is fantastic. They always come through on tight turn-arounds and service is exceptional. They give me new ideas to grow our business and save money, and I can’t risk losing their services.”

We all want to be the valued supplier in scenario three. To gain that coveted position, we must wow our customers. More on the WOW tomorrow.

Are You Doing Enough to Wow Customers?

Imagine this. The purchasing director at your largest client has set up a meeting with the marketing director. You’re not invited. The purchasing director says, "We spend a significant portion of the marketing budget on printing. I’ve been looking into ways to cut costs and suggest we start using reverse auctions.”

More on this subject next week!

Abracadabra!

Ask the Magic Question

Is there a sure-fire way to generate interest from each and every B2B lead you contact? There sure is, says Neil Baron, writing at the Fast Company blog: Just ask the Magic Question.

"The Magic Question is that one question you need to ask to get the prospect to say 'please tell me more,'" Baron explains. "The trick is to generate curiosity quickly.

"A typical Magic Question, Baron says, starts with a story that takes this form:

• "My company has developed (a new product [or service]) that has helped (a leading company in the customer's industry) achieve (the following important business benefits

It then "goes in for the (sales) kill" by asking:

• "Would you like to learn how we did it?"

"If [the question is] phrased properly, the prospect can't help but say yes," Baron says. And that's always good news: "You have now grabbed their attention and gained their implicit permission to continue to ask more exploratory questions.

"So, how do you fill in the blanks in the MQ format to fit your business? "Developing effective Magic Questions requires close cooperation between Sales and Marketing," Baron advises. He says Marketing must provide:

• A clear description of what you want Sales to sell


• References that are respected by your prospect


• Concisely stated business benefits delivered by your solution that you know will resonate with your prospects

Finally, Baron notes, Marketing must ensure that sales reps are properly educated to "drive the conversation further and accelerate the sales cycle" once the prospect is hooked by the Magic Question.

The Po!nt: Formulate it and pose it. "Over the years, I've learned that initiating the sales process by asking a single attention-grabbing, curiosity-raising question is the most effective way to accelerate revenues," Baron concludes.

Source: Fast Company. Read the full post.