I love a movie sequel. Toy Story 2, Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Oceans 12. They’re marvellous movies because you are able to immerse yourself immediately into the new plot because you already know the characters, the director’s brand and the scenes.
And here’s the best sequel you’ll ever come across. Customer Care 2. We’ve all seen Customer Care 1, where we totally look after the customer following the sale, ensuring they come back for more when they have a need. If they like us, feel value and cared for, they’ll talk about us to their friends both off line in the pub but also online on Facebook.
Wow customer care gives us a competitive advantage, well it used to, until everyone else started to do it well.
Now we need to roll out the sequel, Customer Care 2. No, it’s not even better customer care than the first but a whole new plot and new characters.
Have you thought about giving equally good customer care before they buy? There’s a thought. The new competitive advantage is to engage with the customer before they’ve ever bought from you, actually before they’ve even visited your store, your website or your call centre.
Maybe before they’ve ever heard of you.
Customer engagement must happen much earlier now. Know what problems your products or services solve, what goals you help people to achieve, what value you provide and then feed this information onto the web to act as bait to hook them into your net. Don’t sell, just push out your value, your service, freely onto the web, everywhere where you think your customers might hang out.
I’m not talking about advertising, although you might. No, I’m suggesting you put your value, your solutions online for everyone to see. Demonstrate your expertise, how you help people and give them information, insights, whatever it takes to demonstrate your value to their problems.
Then they’ll come
They’ll come to you when they’re good and ready; after all they’re in control of their buying process. When they’re in the market for a solution, they know where to find you.
The message? Give these potential customers as much care as you would give existing customers.
That’s total customer engagement.
