COMMUNICATING WITH CUSTOMERS

Thursday June 16, 2011

Advertising through paid media has been the dominant form of marketing for most large companies for over a century. The logic has been simple. Communicate the benefits of the product to Customers and count on the resulting increase in awareness, knowledge, and evaluation to lead to higher sales. Today, however, in a world of intense competition, similar products and consumer over-exposure to advertising messages, marketers need to go beyond the conventional formula to connect with their Customers.

Advertising alone, by whatever means, and no matter how sophisticated, may not be sufficient to ensure that consumers are highly engaged with a brand. We believe the companies need to expand their view of communications beyond advertising to Customers. A company needs to give equal weight to communicating with Customers. By communicating with Customers we mean listening to Customers about their concerns and talking to them about these concerns. In fact, having the kind of conversation with Customers that they want to have.

This applies not only to companies like retailers who by their nature already have extensive contact with Customers but also to companies that may now have contact limited to call centres and the like. Customers may want to have conversations even more in the latter case.

It will always be important to get the product’s message out to Customers. The effectiveness of even the best advertising will be limited however, if Customers feel cut off from the company, talked to but not listened to, unable to interact with the Company. Consumers may be receptive to what the advertising message promises but they will increasingly want specific commitments as to what they can expect in dealing with the company, and, surprisingly, what the company expects from them. Even the clearest of advertising promises (such as "always the lowest price") needs to be coupled with two-way communication in which the company commits to listening to Customer issues and responding to them.

The challenge is not just one of handling Customers questions and complaints, it is about truly connecting the organisation as a whole to the Customer. Companies like Apple and Nike are already showing the Customers find the experience of really interacting with the company highly engaging. Having a company communicate with you is becoming an essential part of a positive Customer experience.

The essential pre-requisite to making this commitment happen lies with the way the company communicates with its front line people. A commitment strategy turns an advertising promise into a commitment conversation that Customers can experience in their interactions with the company’s front line people. A commitment strategy not only makes the brand promise more concrete it also can help to create a relationship experience with the brand.

Ensure that your Customer contact people are committed to listening to and meeting the Customer’s needs for information and value reassurance.

Key Point:

When you spend large budgets on promoting your brand should you not be budgeting to ensure your front line people are committed to engaging your Customers?

 

This article was written by

COLIN DAWSON

Email: colin@bbap.co.nz

Colin Dawson is the founding member of Business Brains and Technology Led Training who are innovative training and development companies that pride themselves in their approach to changing performance in orgainsations. Technology Led Training Ltd uses the latest in hardware and software standards to deliver unique blended learning experiences.