Imagine for a minute that someone is attempting to make a tough decision of choosing between your brand and the brand of your competitor. Just when they were getting ready to make a purchase from you, they found something that was not exactly flattering about your brand. Do you think that you are still going to get the sale? Chances are the customer is going to move on to the next company on the list. The reason for this is because people do not like to associate themselves with companies that have a bad name. This can be seen if you simply take a look at the Volkswagen fiasco a few years ago. Not only did their sales drop, but their stocks took a massive hit. This is because people were angry that they had falsified documents on how well their product performed. Throughout this blog, we are going to come back to this scenario a couple of times. So, for brevity, we will assume the names of the customers are John and Jane. That way we are not constantly having to set up the scenario each time. So, let’s take a look at how the customer journey can be affected by the reputation that you or your company has.
Customer Experience
Each time that you have an interaction with a customer, you will have a chance to affect their experience. There is not a single company that is in the business of losing customers. That is why you have to make sure that you are doing everything that you possibly can to make sure that your customers are having the best possible experience. The way that we do this is to optimize the customer journey. This will ultimately more business not only from that customer but other customers. The reason is that positive customer experiences have a way of multiplying. What we mean by that is, if one customer has a great experience with you, they are likely to tell their friends. Additionally, they are likely to visit a review site and tell people about it there as well. Remember, there are rarely reviews that are not glowing or detrimental. There seem to be two types of customers that write the most reviews. Those who have had a great experience and want to tell everyone about it and those that had a terrible experience and likewise want to tell everyone about it. Which camp do you want your customers in?
Steps in the Customer Journey
There are three distinct steps in the customer journey. At each of these stages, you are going to want to develop a strategy on just how you are going to make a positive impression on them. For those of you that don’t know, the three steps in the customer journey are awareness, consideration, and decision. However, in the reputation business, we see this journey in a little bit different way. The way that we see it is a broad search, search refinement, brand discovery, brand comparison, branded search, and then the decision. We feel this more accurately describes how potential customers will take the journey. As we described in the beginning, there are several steps along the way that the customer can jump off the tracks. All it takes is one little piece of information about your company that is unflattering, and you will find that customers will start to dwindle. Now that we have a clear understanding of what a customer experience is and what steps they can take to get to your door, we have to decide on a strategy. This strategy will be the plan that we are going to have in order to make sure that everything goes off without a hitch.
Customer Experience Strategy
Whether or not you are there to see it, your reputation is going to exist. There is no reason to leave something this important to chance. The question really becomes, what you can do with your time, energy, and budget to make certain that you have a positive reputation.
The first thing that you are going to want to do is to perform a market analysis. That is, you need to know how your customers are finding your brand. What are they looking for in terms of product? In terms of services? Once you understand this, you will be in a better position to make the decisions that will improve your reputation. The hands-down best way to do this is by using web analytics. There are many third-party programs that you can utilize. Some of them are free and others you are going to have to pay for. Just remember, you will get what you pay for. That is not to say that the free versions are not worth it, you will just get a better understanding with the ones you pay for.
Second, you are going to need to be human. We know that you are scientifically a human, but that is not what we are talking about. You need to make a real connection with your customers. They are not just transaction numbers or faceless beings on the internet. They are real people with real concerns. So, make sure you are treating them as such. This can be done proactively by making social media posts and writing great content for your website. It can also be done retroactively by making sure that you respond to any of their concerns both in person an on the internet.
Conclusion The customer experience is something that is often overlooked by a company. That will lead to them not wanting to take that journey with your company. When you are dealing with your customers, it is imperative that you know what they are looking for and how they are looking for it. If you are not in possession of this information, you are essentially shadowboxing with your reputation. That means that you know it is there, but you are unable to connect with it. Speaking of connection, the number one way that you will be able to drive more business to your door is by connecting with your customers. We outlined a number of ways that you can do this. Hopefully, this article has been useful to you in some way. Understand that your reputation is going to precede you and that you do have control over what your customers’ opinion of you is.