Don’t let good old 'Edna' get in the way of your customers’ glee
When considering any form of marketing activity, it can be easy to fall into the same old trap of thinking: 'what's the quickest and easiest way to reach our customers'.
At a glance, that may seem good enough - but I’m a firm believer that companies should stop thinking about how they can access their customer base, and instead start thinking about how their customers can access them.
It’s a minor difference, but such an important one.
Too often this is approached in a short-sighted way - Where are my customers? How can I reach them? How can I sell and up-sell products to them?
It’s too much of a one-way street.
In contrast, what if this was looked at from the reverse angle - Where and how can customers find out about us? What is their preferred platform/s to do so? Where and how will they want to access our products and services?
The latter of these approaches is much closer to being truly customer orientated. Whereas, the former is too internally focused, and will often (un-intentionally) result in the customer having to fit into whatever works best for the company.
I can think of countless times in previous roles where what’s best and simplest for the customer, somehow gets superseded by what’s easiest for good old Edna in admin, or worse, Neville in finance. And as any marketer worth their weight will tell you, it can be a difficult (and sometimes lonely) place, fighting against the ‘Ednas’ of this world.
“Interacting with human beings can occasionally be a pleasant experience”
A really basic example of this ‘company-first’ approach, is the rising trend of online enquiry forms replacing good old fashioned contact details.
As a customer, often all you want to do is pick up the phone and have a chat, or at least have an email convo with a real person. Yes, online enquiry forms are useful and some people will prefer them – so why not just add a number and email alongside the form and let the customer choose? After all, interacting with human beings can occasionally be a pleasant experience.
My fear however, is that by omitting contact details some companies (not all) want to be able to choose how and when they deal with, and respond to, enquiries on their own terms - not when and how the customer would like them to.
How frustrating is it, when you have an issue with any kind of product or service and you’re presented with countless FAQs and help forums, when all you want to do is actually speak to someone? It goes without saying that cost has a huge influence on this approach - but a high customer churn rate certainly won’t help that bottom line either.
“The closer you are, the less you see”
I’m sure we’ve all had these types of experiences before. Yet when it comes to making our own business and marketing decisions (particularly those that directly impact the customer), how many of us are guilty of letting a degree of complacency set in?
Many companies simply don’t have the time and resources to take a step back, and view the customer experience with total objectivity. Meaning that improvements to any customer touch-point can be difficult to identify, let alone implement.
It’s just like the old Chinese proverb states “the closer you are, the less you see”.
And while I may have just plucked that little pearl of wisdom out of thin air – it actually couldn’t be more accurate. Having been part of in-house marketing teams for 10+ years, I know how easy it can be to lose sight of something that's right in front of you on a daily basis.
The reality is that business owners and marketing teams can be under so much pressure to deliver, that it’s often the small, but vital, details that are overlooked.... or reluctantly pushed down the priority list. But as I’ve hopefully already highlighted in one way or another; it’s usually the simplest things that make the biggest difference to the customer.
So please don’t let good old ‘Edna’ get in the way of your customers’ glee.
P.s just to practice what I preach, I've included my details below. Feel free to get in touch anytime for a chat.
Author Matt Smith: Connect on LinkedIn