I have had numerous conversations recently regarding customer service; both professionally and personally. Companies tend to think of customer service as a call center operation and a necessary evil in doing business. It should be far more than that. B2C companies get all the attention when it comes to this but it’s also a problem with many B2B companies as well. In both cases, it’s an opportunity if your industry is weak or even average in this area.
Nordstrom usually comes to mind when you think of companies that stand out. Fast Company’s latest edition calls out Sir Richard Branson at the top of their list of companies that put the customer first. John Strande has a great suggestion for Levi based on his recent experience with them and David Armano discusses some of the changes the Chicago DMV has implemented that made a profoundly positive impact on an experience he was dreading based on historical encounters.
Strande and Armano’s posts highlight what a profound impact you can have on an overlooked touchpoint with your customer. Take a step back, put yourself in the customer’s shoes, and think about what would turn this into an opportunity to develop a loyal customer, or even learn something that you can leverage for a better future experience. It’s really not that complicated. Just make it an important area of focus, enlist the help of your frontline employees and your customers, and investigate what leaders in other industries have done to develop great customer service. There are numerous ways that technology can help in ways that didn’t exist even five years ago. Once you go down this path, stick with it and continue to look for improvements. Don’t just pay it lip service for 18 months and then forget about it. The dividends this pays over time are huge. A customer that contacted you out of frustration could become one of your biggest evangalists and teach you something about your business.
Quick, someone tell the cable and phone companies.
Everything is changing. As it turns out, brands don't "own" market segments. They are simply nodes in complicated human networks. And they're either influential in their networks, or they're not. To have influence, brands must become knowledge brokers. And they need to learn how from the ultimate brokers: humans. Your brand needs to learn to be more human.
I just discovered John Hagel’s Edge Perspectives and promptly subscribed to his feed. He’s seems like an utterly brilliant frood. Reading the first post I am giddy because I have been unfortunately orotund with all who will listen (or at least feign) on the subject of where I think marketing is inevitably headed. Dr. Hagel’s post (to the likely vexation of my compatriots, no doubt) has me more overwrought than ever. This post by the vampishly astute Strumpette has me additionally lathered (about the content).
So this is a blog. And a rather new one at that. Acting under the assumption that a blog is the proper venue for tempest-in-a-teapot grandiloquence, I intend now to unwind my narrative on new marketing. It will shake out into a number of parts, but I must to warn you now, fair reader: I have a penchant for a kind of looping, lateral storytelling which some (the lawyers want me to warn people with epilepsy) might find, well, obnoxious. So you’ve been warned and all that.