Customer success can be so exciting when you are getting everything right. Those wins must surely fill you with excitement!
Putting on a pair of new socks invokes a similar emotion. You get a fresh feeling as you slip them onto your feet; comfort, check! The looks, straight on! That, of course, will fill you with a refreshing sense of well-being.
Let’s look at the six ways in which customer success is more refreshing than those new socks.
1. Marketing and sales are working together seamlessly
When these two departments are operating on different wavelengths, customer success suffers. Leads aren’t well qualified, which frustrates the sales team. Those in sales aren’t sharing information with marketing regarding whether the customers’ pain points have been addressed.
How refreshing it is when marketing and sales complement one another. They see each other as vital and show mutual respect. That happy relationship results in greater in-house productivity. However, the best outcome is that your customers are satisfied!
2. Your campaigns are attracting fresh leads
The marketing team is always busy thinking of new ways to get leads. Content is being churned out at a fantastic rate of knots. Everything adheres to best SEO practices.
Yet, like old socks, sometimes you have to let campaigns come to an end. They have served their purpose, and maybe the message is getting tiresome. Look at those campaigns that need to be binned. Some “socks” can be darned to plug the holes. That is, you can tweak those campaigns that still have a bit of life in them. But there is nothing more exciting than launching a fresh campaign.
3. Your CRM is pushing you toward success
Customer success isn’t about blind luck. No. It is focused on the data that your CRM is highlighting. However, you don’t want to spend countless hours weeding out the good information from the irrelevant stuff. Your software should be filtered so that you can tweak your campaigns faster. Everything should be updated in real-time by both the marketing and sales teams. If you can’t extract the data you need in a reasonable time frame (you can add your interpretation of that here), then it’s a lot of downtime for you. Also, it can mean your customers aren’t being satisfied fast enough.
CRM software can help you identify problem areas in your customer experience. Then you can work your magic and eliminate the issues. But don’t think you can’t constantly look at improving your CRM data. Sure there are the standard metrics you want to look at. But what new information can you extract that gives you the leading edge on your competition?
That kind of thinking is up there with wearing new socks every week.
4. Update your customer experience
Your customers may be happy with the experience that you offer. But why rest on your laurels? Maybe, good enough is okay, but how can you move to exceptional?
Anticipate unforeseen pain points and then provide information and support around these. That’s proactiveness (like buying new socks before you need them).
You can uncover new pain points by jumping onto forums.
- What is your audience complaining about?
- What is your audience complaining about?
- What advice are they offering one another?
- How is your competition meeting these issues?
- Are your competitors even aware of these pain points?
Another way you can anticipate potential problems your target market has is through social media. Look at what people are complaining about within your niche through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or wherever your audience hangs out. Keep your finger on the pulse of the market’s dissatisfaction. That way, you start to feel what issues might crop up next. It’s like you have become highly intuitive to your customers’ needs.
Now you can respond before your customers realize they have a problem. That will knock your audiences’ socks right off.
5. Give your audience ownership
Sure the product or service is your “baby”. You could be protecting it from “harm” like a mother does with her child. Ensuring nothing untoward happens to it. You want to oversee all aspects of the “upbringing”. However, there are some societies in which the entire village brings up a child. Everyone has input into the welfare of the child. Why not use that same concept?
You could argue that you already get that “protective” feedback via your CRM. Also, the marketing and sales team provides you with their input around customer wants and needs. But let’s empower your audience. Allow them to have direct input into the future growth of your “baby”. For example, you could run a “brainstorming” competition with your customer base around new features they would like to see.
Additionally, let your customers become “peer advisors” who are your pseudo-support team. Ways you could do this are:
- Allow them to update certain aspects of your online FAQs around product knowledge.
- Invitations to become moderators on your social media sites
- Allow them to host or speak in a future webinar.
When people have a sense of ownership around something, they become more loyal to that object. Tell yourself you aren’t building a customer base. You’re establishing a tribe.
6. Raving fans
When you constantly deliver amazing customer service, people can’t help but talk about you. That is a huge win in the customer success stakes.
We have already touched on the finer points of what outstanding customer success encompasses:
- Appropriate CRM software delivers you the necessary metrics to enhance the customer experience.
- Marketing and sales working as a unified whole
- Proactively identify your audiences’ future pain points.
- Building a community around your product or service.
When your customers have an incredible experience with you, they will brag about it. That boasting may be to their friends, family, online groups, or with 5-star reviews about you. Word-of-mouth advertising like that is the best. It reflects how well you are achieving your customer success goal. Also, that is free advertising.
Thank your marketing and sales departments for doing such an outstanding job. Bask in the glory, but don’t stop. Customer success is a dynamic beast that demands constant attention. Just think of when you slipped on that new pair of socks. It felt great and exciting. Yet, you just don’t wear them and not pay them any heed.
If you want the socks to last, you need to treat them with TLC; wash them, iron them, fold them neatly and place them into your drawer. Customer success needs that same amount of loving care.
Why customer success is more refreshing than new socks
Customer success is the lifeblood of your business. Without customers, well, the result is obvious, isn’t it? You need to deliver exceptional service and experiences so that your clients are crying out for more. When you provide that, the results are stunning, not only for your customers but also for you.
When you succeed in this aspect of your business, the excitement is palpable. It’s refreshing when your hard work is delivering results beyond your expectations. New socks can offer you a fresh level of warmth and comfort. However, customer success is much more refreshing on a completely different level. That’s because it takes into consideration not only yourself but others also.
Socks only take care of you and ignore others. You might be a satisfied customer because of your new footwear. However, comfort and happiness don’t extend to those around you. Sure, people can hear about how amazing the socks are, but experiencing them is entirely different. That’s why customer success is way better than new socks. Everyone gets to have a taste of it. Then they will tell you how refreshing it is that they finally have someone who understands them.
