Find out why you need to actively seek customer feedback

With immediate access to the public at large through social media, customer feedback can be prevalent. In fact, news of bad customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as praise for good service experience.(1) Oftentimes, those who have had the most extreme experience - positive and negative, are the ones most often sharing.

How do you tap into this information and why would you want to?

Given that 85% of customers learning about small businesses through word of mouth, it is imperative that you are actively reviewing input about your company online. One approach to minimize negative feedback is to seek out that information directly from your customers.

There are a myriad of ways companies can obtain feedback. Depending on your type of business and how active you are on social you may choose to go the traditional route of customer comment cards, or through focus groups. However, with all age groups active on social, an online presence is a great way to connect with customers and build a community. Don’t limit yourself to the feedback you receive from dissatisfied customers. According to “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner, a typical business hears from only 4% of its dissatisfied customers. That means 96% are choosing not to voice their complaints.

“It’s crucial to not only listen to customers but also to understand the motivation for their feedback.” – Josh Pigford

Reaching out to your online community can help you sort through the critical feedback to help determine what is something that can be changed – such as prices, and what cannot – delivery companies. A small, yet very vocal group that is focused on one part that may not be relevant and therefore doesn’t help you move forward is less important. However, feedback from your most trusted and loyal customers are particularly valuable and hold more weight – they often can provide greater insights.

“I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better.” – Elon Musk

Receiving comments and criticism – helping you to understand the customer’s perspective can be eye-opening. But once you have that information, what are you supposed to do with it?

1.     Organize your feedback. How much is falling into the same bucket. If there is one issue that is frequently mentioned, it likely needs to be evaluated to determine the level of importance.

2.     Some feedback will be labeled as high stakes. This may require immediate attention in terms of a product fix, or include required new features in upcoming products to allow you to remain competitive.

3.     For easy wins, fix the issue and move on.

4.     Prioritize the rest of the feedback. Determine what requires action and what does not.

5.     Take advantage of customer testimonials. Use customer stories to help get others on board to make necessary adjustments. Share with your community, use this as a way to build rapport with your customers – allow them to become part of your solutions rather than a continual source of problems.

6.     With regard to social, when receiving positive comments – thank the poster. For negative comments, publicly direct them to an offline conversation to let the world at large know you are dealing with the problem, but the details are limited to you and the individual who made the original post.

Investing in understanding your customers through their feedback will prove beneficial as ‘Customers overwhelmingly show appreciation for great service with their wallets.’2

1 White House Office of Consumer Affairs
2 HelpScout

The Benefits Of Writing Evergreen Content

Writing new content every week can be challenging. Using an editorial calendar helps as it give direction – themes or topics to write. Depending on your industry, some content can be very time-specific such as topics related to the latest industry news or events. Due to the nature of news-related topics, this type of content dates itself easily. However, content that is educational – How to’s, or answers from FAQ’s – information that does not change much over time can have a longer shelf life. This is known as Evergreen Content.

 “Evergreen content is that which is still interesting and relevant weeks, months or even years after its initial publish date. It doesn’t date like news, and the value is that it can deliver traffic, leads, social shares and can occupy valuable search positions for a prolonged period of time.” -- Graham Charlton @ Econsultancy

The benefits of writing Evergreen Content include:

1.     Good for SEO: The nature of an Evergreen article is that it is timeless; it will continue to be accessible within search and will be easy to understand. In addition, your article will appear in search over a longer period of time, increasing its ranking and the authority of your website.  

2.     Easily sharable: An article that is focused on the basics becomes easily sharable among your buyers; thereby helping others to get the answers they are searching for in their quest for information.

3.     Continually drives new visitors to your website: As buyers continue to conduct much of their research on the web prior to contacting a company for information, your high-ranking article will get noticed and result in driving new visitors to your website. Using search-friendly keywords makes it easier for buyers to find. Make your content educational for your industry, emphasize the basics, increases the relevance of your article to potential new buyers.

4.     Gives you a break from writing: Sometimes you just need a break from writing. Re-running an Evergreen article occasionally can give you that break, or free up time to write about something unique, or more time to research an in-depth article... 

“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.” – Leo Burnett

Here is an example of the basics to include in an Evergreen Content piece related to lawn mowers – “What to consider when buying a lawn mower”:

-       The size and shape of your lawn. This will help determine what type of lawn mower (push model vs. riding lawn mower) will be most appropriate given the size and shape of your lawn.

-       Type of acceptable yard waste. The method of yard waste disposal will determine the best type of system to use for your grass clippings (bagging, mulching, etc.)

-       Ability to provide maintenance. Different types of mowers require a varying degree of maintenance (electric vs. gas).

Using visuals each step of the way and using a story-telling manner with humor can make even an article about the basics of lawn mowing interesting, engaging and increase the likelihood of being shared.

When is it good to take advantage of Evergreen Content?

1.     When you need to have content ready to go at any point in time.

2.     This type of content can, and should experience reruns. An article about the basics makes a great introduction to your website. Use this as a way to drive new visitors to other articles of interest within your site.  

3.     Establish or grow credibility your company credibility. You are sharing information that is important to your visitor without promoting your company. This will strengthen your website SEO.

4.     Extend this introduction into additional content. Leverage this information to create new pieces of content such as an Infographic, tip sheet, or expand to create new blogs addressing each bullet point more in-depth.

“Just. Be. Useful.” – Jay Baer

As the Jay Baer quote states – just make your content useful. And that certainly applies to Evergreen Content. This is not the time to be promotional, this is time to establish your credibility, and increase your authority within search. Simply provide information that is educational. Longevity and usefulness is the goal. 

Do you have a content marketing strategy? If not, find out why you should!

Everyday, 4.75 billion pieces of content are shared. With so much content being promoted, shared and liked, how to you compete? The challenge of continuously producing content, the kind that can compete and get attention, requires one thing – a content marketing strategy.

“Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience — with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”– CMI

Simply documenting a content marketing strategy will make your efforts more effective. According to CMI – those with a documented content marketing strategy:

• Are far more likely to consider themselves effective at content marketing
• Fee significantly less challenged with every aspect of content marketing
• Generally consider themselves more effective in their use of all content marketing tactics and social media channels
• Were able to justify spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing

The purpose of creating content is to attract your audience by providing them with something of interest. By documenting your strategy, you will increase the effectiveness of your efforts by delivering content that is relevant to the audience that is most interested – helping you to breakthrough the content clutter. Having your goals in writing also helps to direct your efforts to achievement. And as an added benefit, by providing quality content, content that is considered to have value to your customers, you will contribute to boosting your SEO.

Michael Brenner defines 3 Steps to Building a Content Strategy:

1. Why? What is the Business Case? What are your mission and business goals?
2. How? Team, actions, and budgets needed.
3. What? Show results tied to your business objectives.

According to SAP, content strategy is “the mindset, culture and approach to delivering your customer’s information needs in all the places they are searching for it.”

The benefits of having a content marketing strategy include:

1. Consistency in your brand voice, and style of content.
2. Planning which results in greater efficiency in content production. Using an Editorial Calendar helps to map each piece of content to a goal, the who, what, and where – who creates the content, what type is developed and how is it leveraged, and when and where is it distributed.
3. Having set goals will help with monitoring your metrics, tracking to your KPI’s which helps to make you more effective.

Rather than disrupting your audience with facts and figures they are not interested in, share information that is helpful. Listen to what they are saying and use that to develop content that will be valuable. Therefore, prior to planning the types of content to create, consider the following:

• Buyer Personas - Who is your audience? What are their needs? Understanding your customers and their needs will help you focus your content and marketing efforts.

• Buying Stage - Where are they in the buying process? Knowing your audience is in the process of buying will not only help to determine what the content should be but also the type to create and where to deliver.

“Take your brand out of the story. Make your customers the hero.” – Ann Handley

Define your types of content that will best meet the needs of your customers. Break out your content types by buyer stages. A few types of content to consider:

1. Blogs
2. Infographics
3. Photos/Images
4. Video
5. Presentations
6. Ebooks
7. Worksheets and Templates
8. Whitepapers
9.  Case Studies

Putting structure behind your strategy will ensure you stay focused with your content subject matter, the types of content you provide, who and when your content will be created, where it will be distributed, and metrics to define success.

Why Personalization Is The New Marketing Norm

Ten years ago, marketers would send out a direct mail piece or advertise to the masses in a variety of ways with the hope of capturing a buyer’s attention. Their efforts were expensive and not targeted. Five years ago, with the proliferation of the Internet, the focus was providing information. Marketers spent their time educating and informing prospects about their products or services through content. Helpful, but not enticing. Today, with 65-90% of users conducting research prior to making an initial contact with a company, they are no longer interested in educational content. They want a personalized experience.

Definition:

Personalized marketing (also called personalization, and sometimes called one-to-one marketing) is an extreme form of database marketing. Whereas product differentiation tries to differentiate a product from competing ones, personalization tries to make a unique product offering for each customer.

“The goal of personalization isn’t to engage with one audience of many, but to engage with infinite audiences of one.” -- HubSpot

Market automation software allows you to personalize your content, even when you don’t have an email or contact listing in your database. You can personalize based on

1. Location
2. Device
3. Referral Source

Personalization by location is particularly helpful if you are marketing globally. You can present your content based on how your product is presented in a specific language, or list your pricing in the local currency. For more location-specific businesses, you can analyze data you may already have – loyalty rewards customers – determine where they reside based on zip code, then target new customers within that area.

With over 80% of users searching the web with mobile device it is critical your website be responsive. From ClickZ, mobile users spent on average only one minute and 43 seconds on the site, compared to more than 17 minutes when visiting via desktop. This is evidence that most likely mobile users are only scanning headlines, as opposed to consuming content. Therefore it is imperative to make it easy for users, no matter the device, to view your content.

Using your data, you can personalize your content based on referral source. If a visitor landed on your site via Facebook, you can give that visitor the ability to share your content on Facebook. This is particularly useful if you are customizing your content based on location; giving a visitor the ability to share it with others who may reside within your territory.

And let’s not forget personalization with emails. According to Experian, personalized emails are shown to have a 29% higher open rate and 41% higher click rate. And 70% of companies currently do not personalize their marketing emails. Just as YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon each present you with an array of suggestions based on your viewing history, track your contacts as they proceed through the buyer’s journey. That allows you to send targeted emails with a focused message based on where they are in the buying process. No need to provide educational and informative content when they are looking at comparisons, getting ready to buy.

“The key is to present the right content to the users at the time they need it in an engaging manner, across all channels they visit.”– Jim Yu, CEO, BrightEdge

Personalization recognizes your prospects, makes it easy for them to see what you have to offer by providing what they need, when they need it.

Keep your customers and keep them happy – with great customer service

How often have you experienced lousy service when flying? Perhaps you were one of the last to board an airplane and had to check your tiny carryon bag due to lack of overhead space. You don’t blame everyone else on the plane for bringing their luggage on the plane with them when the alternative is costs money to check a tiny bag. Greedy airlines. Doesn’t matter. The end of the day, you will have to go to the baggage claim to wait patiently (time wasted) crossing your fingers that your bag actually shows up. Ugh.

Is that how you want your customers to feel about you?

With the amount of effort and money that is required to gain the attention of a potential buyer, and then converting them into a customer, the last thing you want is any interaction to be negative. You want to every step from awareness to purchase to customer service to be satisfying, delightful. Your goal is to get them, then keep them. Customer retention.

How do you keep customers?

“Delight your customers on a personal level.” – Emma Siemasko

Interact with them. Engage with them on social media. Have a conversation. Build a community; encourage them to share their experiences and ideas. Make their experiences with you so easy for them they will become advocates.

And make your customer service experience exceptional.

“Saying Hello doesn’t have an ROI. It’s about building relationships.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

According a survey conducted by the Customer Contact Council, the single most important factor in increasing customer loyalty is reducing the amount of work the customer has to do to get their problem solved. Including additional incentives, such as a discount or free product, only has a marginal impact – so focus your efforts on solving the problem promptly while making it as easy as possible for your customer.

For some, resolving a problem may involve a single point of contact, for others, it may require escalation, speaking to someone more technical or knowledgeable about your product or service offerings. 26% of consumers have experienced being transferred from agent to agent without any resolution. Companies who utilize the many-points-of-contact method may find great benefit to evaluating the entire process of helping a customer - such as making their front line as knowledgeable as possible to minimize the steps to resolution. Consider automating steps if possible, such as filling out contact forms. The fewer administrative steps the quicker you can focus on the problem and gain resolution.

From the 2010 Customer Experience Report by RightNow, the biggest reason people stop doing business with a company is due to a poor customer service experience. However, research shows that a great experience not only influences where they chose to buy but also how much they chose to spend! 85% of consumers said they would be willing to pay more over the standard price in order to ensure a superior customer experience.

In addition, 79% of consumers that had a negative experience with a company told others about it, whereas 55% of consumers recommend a company because of its customer service.

Positive customer service not only helps with customer retention, but those customers would also PAY MORE for your product to ensure they obtain exceptional customer service when needed.

Providing your customers with information, and responding to their questions and resolving a problem quickly helps you to achieve a positive experience. Oftentimes you can use your experience with customers within customer service to add information to your FAQ’s and tips you can share with your community. By sharing that information and making it easy to find, you are allowing customers to obtain a resolution quickly without requiring any direct contact with your customer service team. Yes, that is helpful. And you have made it easy, which results in a happy and loyal customer.