Your key message is useless to me. Your brand values and campaign video add up to nothing when I call to say I need you and your reply is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Your message is very important to us, but all our operators are busy at the time\u2019. Please listen to some free crappy music we downloaded online while you wait for an outsourced operator who has no idea of how to solve your problem.<\/p>
\u2018We are a very innovative company, we are thought leaders in our market. Digital is our middle name.\u2019 But it takes us 4 days to answer a request and our Facebook chatbot is actually an automated response to say our customer support is only available during office hours.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
I think you got the idea. In B2C brand is useless without customer support backing all the claims creative geniuses and marketing execs flaunt in flashy decks or even wonderfully colored ads on TV or YouTube, on Instagram or Snap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a me-too market, customer relationships are more important than ever. Trust was, is and will be gold.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Start by caring about our problems (us, your customers). One fuck-up over the *800 number and you can lose rapport you built over years and years and billed monthly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You relationship with your client might become the only thing that sets you apart from the herd of existing competitors or up-and-coming wannabes of the industry. Technology? Most likely they got it, too. Design? Please, don\u2019t tell me you\u2019re aiming just for the trendsetters, your shareholders will most likely not want to hear that. Good deals? In this market almost anyone can find cheaper ways to produce, transport or distribute your product. Approachable tone of voice? Might catch our eye, but unless you deliver on your word everything becomes pointless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, digitization made us, customers, picky. We won\u2019t take lies and we won\u2019t give you (more) time. With so many alternatives, why should we?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Why would we be loyal to you if that is not rewarded? Get back to trust and building relationships\/rapport with us, it\u2019s a two-way street. If you lost our trust, you may never get us back. With dozens of other choices at a click away, why should we?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only thing we really care about is OUR PROBLEM. Can you fix it? Great! Can you do it fast? Awesome, we might renew my subscription. No? We\u2019re already clicking alt-tab and asking friends who they recommend in chat conversations you cannot even track\/react to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stop counting reach of your branded communication every minute of the day and maybe also think about the reach of negative reviews\/comments online.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
If you subtract the latter from the first, what\u2019s left? Look at sentiment scores when you assess impact of your brand\u2019s marketing\/communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because your campaigns, messages are not the only source of information consumers are influenced by, they do not live in a bubble full of colorful branded promises. Omnichannel. It\u2019s now a marketing buzz word and for good reason. Your customer support should be a cornerstone in your marketing strategy, not just a separate department on another floor\/in another city\/continent you never talk to. Or talk about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Omnichannel. Say it again and think about how many channels one dissatisfied customer can use to complain about your services: friends and family (the marketing word you\u2019re looking for is buzz marketing), reviews on retailers sites, social media, blogs, comments, in-store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, in store, too, they will get back at\/to you! Just yesterday one very calm lady was proudly telling us with how much resentment and spite she went back to return a pair of shoes just because they arrived too late (only 3 days later than promised!) and customer support was awful. And with how much determination she made sure every person in that store found out about her story so that they themselves would not trust the brand. She concluded: I wanted them all to know that they did not take care of MY problem!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nThis article also comes from a place of resentment. I, too, just concluded a 12 year old relationship with a brand over very poor customer support. And I will one day write once more on this issue with what I learned, on how digital can improve the entire process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For now, I will end with a call-out to all marketers out there: go back to your call center teams, your social care experts, to your product owners and even you board of directors and speak about this. Demand, lobby for the best customer support out there before it kills your brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because it most probably will. A slow, but painful death however engaging\/amazing\/supercalifragillistic your next GIF campaign might be.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Go back to your call center teams, your social care experts, to your product owners and even your board of directors. Lobby for the best customer support team ever. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[34,33],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-strategy","tag-brand","tag-customer-support"],"yoast_head":"\n
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