Customer Experience

By adaptive - August 6th, 2013

Imagine a journey without any end and where every stop sees faces and pictures screaming for your attention. Which one catches your eye?

In the second part of our series examining the role of brand voice in engaging deeply with customers we asked the experts how to co-ordinate interdepartmental communications to ensure one consistent brand voice across marketing campaigns. In this, the final part of the series, we look at how important it is to ensure that customers are lead through a journey, which remains consistent to their needs, regardless of channel or platform.

How does a customer come to you? What road will they travel? Have they walked in through the front door of your retail store, clicked onto a Facebook page, read a tweet, glanced at an email newsletter? The variety of inbound marketing channels for the modern business is astonishing. The level of potential customer interaction is unprecedented. These touch points are offer wonderful opportunities to build brand awareness, draw customers and inspire brand loyalty.

They are also tricky beasts that can distort the messaging you have carefully constructed for your business. It is therefore, vital that you ensure all messaging, marketing, brand voice – whatever you wish to label it – remains consistent and coherent across every platform that a customer could potentially use.

Nick Peart, EMEA Marketing Director at Zendesk says, “If your voice is direct, educational and friendly, then the tone and style of all your posts should fit those attributes regardless of platform, country or language. You must clearly define your voice, create guidelines and make them available to all of the employees involved in posting in social media and responding to customers.”

Blasted noise

The primary issue facing the business is the noise. You are not the only brand competing for attention and you never will be. Everyone may not hear your business’ voice, but you can ensure market listens to what your company has to say. The key to doing this is to be consistent. Steady messaging, reliable service and a solid strategy – these will pay off, regardless of geography or channel.

“Maintain consistency across your segmentation,” says Jonathan Marin, Director Sales and Customer Experience for TAFE NSW’s Northern Sydney Institute: “The world of social media has evolved to be more than just a platform for blasting messages. People demand engagement, insights and marketing that are on-demand.”

Develop key messages that remain in line with your market segments. For example Facebook will say, for example: “Our cheesy chips are made with real potatoes and no sodium. Click Like to find out more and get a free sample!” Twitter will reiterate: “No sodium cheesy chips and free samples for all who click here.” While an email could go into detail about the manufacturing process while still staying well away from being too technical and sticking with the tone.

Another aspect to consider is how to personalise the experience. There have been more than a houseful of stories about how technology and social media have crushed the social spirit and people are no longer talking face-to-face. However dramatized that may be, there is a kernel of truth in there – today’s consumer would rather send you an email, a tweet or a message than phone you or walk into your offices.

So how can you keep the customer journey satisfactory and give them that sense of being listened to by a human being? How can you talk to them when you may not even know that they are there? Consumers make the decisions about using your product by reading reviews and accessing online opinion.

There is a great quote by Forrester Research that reads: “We’ve entered the age of the customer – an era where a focus on customers matters more than any other strategic imperative. For firms to succeed, customer experience professionals need to understand the business case for redefining, implementing and orchestrating the customer experience ecosystem.”

Happiness is a state of mind

Happy consumers spend more and are inclined to brand loyalty. It’s a fact. You are a consumer and you likely have at least one brand that you favour, that holds your attention more than the others. Why?

They most likely meet your expectations, put on a human face, maintain consistent communication and, of course, deliver a decent product or service. In an article in the Harvard Busines Review David Edelman outlines the Customer Decision Journey and how important it is that marketers, “drop the funnel metaphor to describe consumer touch points and instead study the evolving and increasingly digital consumer decision journey.”

The same article also suggested that brands remember that this journey is not limited to digital, that it needs to be updated and revisited, that a team must pay attention to trends or shifts, and that the messaging remains clear.

Ludwina Dautovic of In Focus Productions says, “Use multiple platforms to connect with, and relate to, various people. Those who don’t listen to the podcasts will read the newsletters, read social media or the blog. It’s vital that you offer a range of ways to get your brand voice heard, however, keep your style the same across all mediums.”

As you take these ideas and issues under your belt and step into creating a unique and powerful brand message throughout your marketing channels, it is worth remembering that your customers will be relying on you for content that conveys the same message; the same voice and the same ideology.

“Create a social media plan, define your brand message, create epic content, engage with your audience, listen to their feedback and measure and adjust along the journey,” says Krystal Kovacs, founder of Sketch Marketing, “Social media is a platform that allows individuals to build a relationship with a brand from the comfort and security of their own personal space.”

Learn about your customer and understand what kind of communication they need to stay content and loyal. Use knowledge gleaned from marketing campaigns and social media to give them the experiences they want and keep it personal. And once they are loyal, you have the opportunity to transform customers into ambassadors who can take your brand even further.