Author: David Dinh

For over 10 years David has helped drive hundreds of thousands of customers to businesses and understands what it takes to manage the chaos and headache of customers across different departments, systems and platforms. From roles in product development, product management, working in enterprises and advising for businesses going to sale and exit, David’s DNA is understanding the customer. David currently serves as Chief Operating Officer and Growth at Woveon, ensuring teams can scale and respond back to all their customers.

9 Superb Ways to Delight Customers Without Putting in Too Much Time

Posted on April 20, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

As the saying goes, it is 5 times more expensive to sign up new customers than to keep existing customers. This simple economic idea should encourage businesses to focus most of their energy on keeping their existing customers extremely happy. But what are some simple and cost-effective ways to improve customer loyalty and satisfaction? There is no single step to instant gratification, but follow these simple steps and you will be well on your way.

Learn the importance of customer conversation management. Get a FREE Conversational Technology demo today!

Want some structure to providing excellent customer service? Start with this free Customer Service Charter template. Not only will this help you clarify customer service standards to your employees, but also communicate them to your customers! Incoporate the following steps in your customer service strategy!

Customer Satisfaction in 9 Simple Steps

1. Send Personalized Messages

Sending welcome messages, greeting cards, postcards and more are a great way to get in contact with your customers. When you personalize a card, it makes the customer feel appreciated and valued by your company.

Bonjoro, a Sydney startup, specializes in personalized welcome messages. You send short welcome videos to people who have recently signed up for your company and show them what their addition means to you. Thousands of BJ’s, as they like to call them, have been sent around the world, and each time you receive one, you instantly feel valued and happy.

2. Provide Superior Customer Service

Be certain that your passion for customer service runs rampant throughout your company. Employees should see how good service relates to your profits and to their futures with the company. Be genuinely committed to providing more customer service excellence than anyone else in your industry. This commitment must be so powerful that every one of your customers can sense it.

Set your goals for customer service and how you’re going to achieve them with this Customer Service Goals Guide.

Woveon, a software customer service startup, provides a one-of-a-kind customer service software platform that implements AI and Ml programs, customer conversation history, and a single platform to manage all customer channels. Simplifying the customer service a company handles is crucial to providing quick and meaningful feedback.

3. Start with a Lagniappe–a “Little Gift”

Come on, who doesn’t love receiving gifts?

“It’s amazing what a little gift can do to bring a smile. It doesn’t have to be much. This can even be a small coupon or freebie with a value of $10 or less, which they can use on any of your products or services. It is an easy, cost-effective way of inviting the customer to get to know you better. Whatever it is, just make sure it’s desirable, entertaining, and tasteful.”

4. Keep Your Promises

“I will deliver on time.” A due date that has been agreed upon is a promise that must be kept. “Close” doesn’t count. Monday means Monday. The first week in July means the first week in July, even though it contains a national holiday. Your clients are waiting to hear you say, “I deliver on time.” The supplier who consistently does so is a rarity and will be remembered.

“It’ll be just what you ordered.” It will not be “similar to,” and it will not be “better than” what was ordered. It will be exactly what was ordered. Even if you believe a substitute would be in the client’s best interests, that’s a topic for discussion, not something you decide on your own. Your customer may not know (or be at liberty to explain) all the ramifications of the purchase.

5. Interact With Your Customers

Interacting with your customers via multiple channels is a great way to keep them interested in your products, listen to their feedback, and shows that you are valued.

“We follow many of our clients as they come in the door, and then every once in awhile, we retweet their tweets. They get a notification that we’ve done this, and it shows we are paying attention to them and that we’re on the same page. It establishes a bond that goes beyond client service. It shows that we respect what they are saying.” –Dave Nevogt, Hubstaff.com

6. Provide More Than A Product

As I said in 5 Innovative Ways Companies Have Used VR for Marketing, many companies are now focusing on customer experience. These experiences can include, virtual reality sleigh ride tours like what Coca-Cola did, driver experience days at BMW, and even Lockheed Martin’s field trip to Mars campaign to educate today’s youth on the future of space travel.

These top companies are giving their customers and even future customers opportunities to enjoy more than just their products. They prove their brand’s loyalty and excellence through the experiences they provide. And who isn’t smiling when they are racing through the adrenaline-filled course at BMW’s Track Day with over 500 ponies pushing you over 150 mph!

7. Get Into Their Culture

Don’t just make assumptions about who your customers are and how they respond. Get to know the neighborhood/city/state/region where you are based and express an interest in their culture. Play local music, sponsor local artists, and decorate with local products. Find the common ground that helps you relate as people. The less you make it about commerce, the more people will connect and remain as customers.

8. Reward Loyalty

On average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first purchase. Focus on your loyal customers by providing reward programs. These could include an anniversary gifts such as giving them coupons for your product a year after their first purchase. Another option a lot of airlines provide is gaining miles. The United Airlines MileagePlus account offers a wide variety of rewards such as flights, upgraded seats, United Club passes, and points you can redeem for gear. With rewards programs, customers are more loyal and happy to continue business with your company.

9. Listen to Your Customers

If your customers take the time to give you feedback about your product or an experience they had with your company, take it as a great learning opportunity. Sometimes you have to listen to the signals, not just the direct comments. 7 Core Customer Service Skills Your Support Team Needs to Have mentions the subtle clues that you should listen to in order to improve customer experience.

“Believe it or not, a customer service rep can learn more from what a customer doesn’t say than what they do say. Being attentive to the customers can help provide the company valuable feedback.”

“For example, if a customer says, ‘I always get confused during the Bluetooth pairing process,’ or ‘I can never seem to find the_____,’ this is a clear indication that your company has room for improvement, and these more subtle feedback methods can really improve your product overall.”

Satisfied?

The goal of marketing is to build a mutually beneficial relationship between brands and customers. This opens the door for special offers that extend far beyond a coupon. Keeping your customers happy is more than continuing to receive their money; it also helps you improve your company to make them even happier, and in turn, they’re happy to spend more money. It’s a win-win.

7 Customer Service Skills Your Customer Support Team Needs to Have

Posted on April 20, 2018March 21, 2019 by David Dinh

Looking for a job in customer service? Looking to hire new customer service representatives? When it comes to service, there are certain customer service skills every representative must master. They make customer interactions quicker, uplifting, and successful. So stick around and let’s find out what makes these customer service representatives so successful.

Learn how Conversational Technology works, Request a FREE demo today!

The Skills That Matter When it Comes to Providing Excellent Customer Service

1. Patience

Patience is important to have when it comes to customer service. Representatives have to handle lots of customers who are usually in a big rush, not willing to work with them, or simply can’t describe the problem very well. Plus, when it comes to customer interactions, great service outweighs speed every time.

2. Self-Control

We get it, dealing with customers can be difficult. But in customer service skills, self-control is a must. No matter how much you want to end the call with your client, it is important to remain cool, calm, and collected. If the customer is angry and impatient, just take your time and solve the problem at hand.

3. Attentiveness

Believe it or not, a customer service rep can learn more from what a customer doesn’t say than what they do say. Being attentive to the customers can help provide the company valuable feedback.

For example, if a customer says, “I always get confused during the Bluetooth pairing process,” or “I can never seem to find the_____,” this is a clear indication that your company has room for improvement, and these more subtle feedback methods can really improve your product overall.

On the other hand, it is also very important to listen carefully to what the customer is saying. Chances are they don’t know exactly what is wrong and are just making their best guess. This is where you as a customer service representative have to use the clues they give you to try and fix their problems.

4. Positivity

Positivity is key in customer service skills. When dealing with impatient and unhappy customers, always remain positive to make the process as easy as possible. However, when helping unhappy customers, do not seem overly happy. This may upset them more, but being proactive and optimistic is your best bet for success. Make sure to apologize for the inconvenience and then add a positive statement such as telling them how your products can help them.

5. Empathy

An important soft skill to have when working in customer service is empathy. When a customer is in need of help and has a problem with your product, it is important to show them that you understand the situation they are going through. If you find this difficult, just think of yourself as the one experiencing the problem. What questions would you be asking? Would you be patient? Chances are, you and the customer are similar, so be personable. You can try to make small talk but don’t get too off track because he/she is looking for efficiency.

Set customer service goals that align with your business goals with this free template! If your customer support has the greater picture in mind from the outset, it will only make it easier to reach your business goals.

6. Humor

Sounds funny, but among customer service skills, humor is a must have. Another appropriate way you can approach customer service is with humor. Having a sense of humor and being able to judge a situation correctly can turn a stressful customer into a happy customer. Also if a customer cracks a joke, make sure to laugh a little bit to show that you have interest in what they are saying. Just make sure that you are laughing with the customer and not at the customer.

7. Problem Solving

Lastly, and most importantly, a customer service representative should be a good problem solver. Being a good problem solver includes having lots of knowledge on the products you offer. Sometimes customers will not be good at explaining the problems they are having with your product, but if you are knowledgeable, you can offer some tips on how to fix common problems they might be trying to communicate to you. Being a problem solver will also help you when it comes to dealing with difficult customers. If you possess this trait, you can work through problems that aren’t ordinary. This speeds up the process and allows the representative to go more off script.

7 Lies About Customer Experience

Posted on April 19, 2018December 18, 2018 by David Dinh

Customer experience includes everything the customer goes through when dealing with the company. However, it is still a poorly understood concept for most people, and a number of lies are frequently heard about it.

Some of the Biggest Lies About Customer Experience

1. Customer experience doesn’t matter

There are still many people who think that customer experience doesn’t matter. They think that people are only interested in the product or service they get, and the experience itself holds no importance. They couldn’t be more wrong. It’s not just about getting the product but how easy it is to get it that counts.

2. Pricing beats customer experience

There are many people who say that as long as you have the lowest prices in the market, you do not have to worry about the customer’s experience. However, remember that people will happily pay a bit more if it means getting a much better experience.

For instance, if there was a burger place that sold a burger for 3 dollars, but the employees were rude, and there was another burger place that sold burgers for 4 dollars, but gave you great service, which one would you choose? There are numerous examples of companies that charge a bit higher than others and still succeed due to great customer experience.

3. Customer experience is an expense

Many companies skip out on customer experience because they think they cannot afford to spend time and money on it. The reality is that customer experience isn’t an expense; it is an investment. If you make the customer’s experience great, you are making sure that you will get more customers in the future. Investing in customer experience is one of the best ways to make sure that your profits go up.

4. Customer experience eats into your profits

This lie exists because people have a poor understanding of how businesses work. When people have to spend money to make customer experience better, they think that their profits will decrease. What these people do not realize is that great customer experience allows them to increase their prices without losing customers.

If your customer service is fantastic, then people will be happy paying more than the competition. People want to be able to get what they want without feeling frustrated – which is exactly what good customer experience offers.

5. Customer experience doesn’t affect sales

Customer experience results in increased sales – this isn’t just something that we feel, this is something that has been proven through metrics again and again. The reality is that there are customer experience strategies which are known to directly increase sales.

6. People were going to buy from you anyway, so why bother with the experience?

This is the biggest myth about customer experience. People look at stats which show that your customers are now happier than they were before and they ask you the question – If they were buying from you anyway, then why are you worried about the experience?

There are several reasons why you should worry about the experience. One is that happy customers cannot be poached. If you make sure that the customer experience that you deliver is amazing, then your customers will not go to the competitions, even if their prices are lower.

Second is that customer experience can literally drive someone to buy something even if they had no intention of buying it. You just send them through the right sales funnel, give them all the encouraging nods, and you will have generated a sale.

7. Customer experience matters in brick and mortar shops, not online

This one couldn’t be farther from the truth. People think that customer experience matters only when it happens offline. It is easy to see why people think this way; when you go to a shop offline, you have to drive to it, enter their physical store, interact with their employees face to face, and pay them.

When you do it online, you simply click on a few buttons. It is easy to see why people will think that customer experience happens only offline. The reality is that customer experience matters much more online than it does offline.

When you go to a shop and you don’t like it, you don’t have much of a choice. You can look around for similar shops, but that’s about it. On the other hand, when you are online, you can go to another store selling the exact same things in a matter of seconds.

These are just some of the lies you will hear about customer experience. Remember that they are all lies though, and that customer experience is one of the most important things when it comes to sales generation.

5 World Class Customer Support Teams

Posted on April 19, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

When it comes to the customer support of a business, it is surprising that not a lot of businesses have it covered. It is possible that after painstakingly building a business over the years, just a few bad customer experiences can lead to the downfall of the product. If you’re in such a scenario, you don’t have to start worrying, just take a page out the books of the industry giants. They’ve been providing their services for years and if there is one thing they know how to do well, it is to provide customer support.

Learn What Conversational Technology is, Sign Up for a FREE demo today!

By studying their customer support strategy, you can focus on incorporating these in your business as well. The following are some of the best companies and their world class customer support teams.

Customer Support Teams to Look Up To

Zappos – The Customer Comes First

Zappos is a retail and e-commerce site and it stands out due to its amazing customer support. The support team is considered to be the golden standard which has gone out of its way to cater to the needs of the customer. Their team has consistently delivered on their promise and each client is treated as a priority. See more about their culture here https://blog.kissmetrics.com/zappos-art-of-culture/Customers also have happy stories to recount with one of them telling how they got their shoes delivered overnight for a wedding, without having to pay any extra cost, or how one of the Zappos team members went to another store to get shoes for someone once they were sold out. By considering no request as impossible, Zappos has elevated its customer support to heights that are other companies aspire to reach. Read more about the customer service strategies behind Zappos https://sharpencx.com/blog/zappos-customer-service/

Publix – By the People, For the People

A market chain, much like Walmart, Publix is a company that provides exceptional customer services due to the fact that it is by the people, for the people. The company focuses on the needs and wants of their employees. This in turn allows it to focus better on the needs and wants of the customers as well.By investing in the wellbeing of their people, the company has managed to consistently deliver a positive shopping experience to the customers. Moreover, it is the largest employee owned store and has a great record of ensuring that their store can cater to the shopping requests of others around them. Learn from their customer service http://www.happyfox.com/blog/how-to-create-killer-customer-service-models-learn-from-publix/

Amazon – the Customer is at the Centre

Amazon.com is the world’s largest, online platform for sales and ensures that they can provide stellar customer services to their clientele. Apart from their 24/7 availability, Amazon.com also offers full refunds immediately, provides self-service and runs checks on the retailers they feature to ensure they are up to par with their standards.

Even when they are developing new product offerings, Amazon.com makes sure to keep the customer in the middle of it all. All services are tested and tweaked according to the customer in order to enhance the experience before they are launched and they have a proven track record, even winning multiple awards for their customer support.

Apple – Reinventing the Customer Experience

With Apple, innovation is the name of the game. Apple’s customer support is prompt and exceedingly helpful with many of their outlets functioning as customer support centres too. The staff of their customer support is well-versed regarding Apple products and from simple recommendations to helping with troubleshooting equipment, they can easily address a wide range of technical problems.

Moreover, Apple’s staff consists of people who are passionate about the company and the products it creates. Going to the Apple Genius bar is an experience in which many people find out more about the company, the products and walk away with a smile on their face. Apple has also continuously strived to train its staff regarding the products and how to address queries. By investing in its workforce, Apple effectively helps to ensure that there are no unnecessary problems faced by anyone.

Nordstorm – Maintaining a Healthy and Strong Relationship

Another retail company that focuses on the wellbeing of their clientele, Nordstorm has worked its way up and during that process; they have done their best to build a working relationship which is healthy, reliable and stable. By adding a personal touch to their services, Nordstorm ensures that they are able to effectively appeal to their clientele.

Their shopping experience revolves around removing the painful checkout lines, helping clients with their purchases as well as offering to find the clothing items that a client needs, even when they are out-of-stock in certain cases. Moreover, the team isn’t shy about interacting personally with the clients as well, even commending their fashion choices and recommending more clothing which goes hand in hand with their tastes.

At the end of the day, building a successful customer support team can rely on a lot of factors but these businesses have narrowed them down to 5. By using their example, you can push your business to newer, better heights. Learn more how they went the extra mile with customer service https://www.shopify.com/retail/119531651-how-nordstrom-made-its-brand-synonymous-with-customer-service-and-how-you-can-too

5 Trialed and Tested Customer Service Strategies That Work

Posted on April 19, 2018March 21, 2019 by David Dinh

Customer service is often thought of as a not so important part of the business. They simply talk to angry customers, right? Today, the importance of customer service is at an all time high. Customers are so easily connected over the internet, and your competitors are a mere click away. Your company must offer superb products, and a staff to back up your brand. Here are a few tips and tricks to boost your customer service!

For a better customer service, use conversational technology to easily manage customer conversations. Request a demo now!

Start with having a Customer Service charter, which outlines the standards of customer service your employees should deliver, and your customers can expect. Don’t worry, I’ll help you get started with a Customer Service Charter Template!

5 Tips to Excellent Customer Service

1.Listen to Your Customers!

If your customers take the time to give you feedback about your product or an experience they had with your company, take it as a great learning opportunity. Sometimes you have to listen to the signals, not just the direct comments. 7 Core Customer Service Skills Your Support Team Needs to have mentions the subtle clues that you should listen to in order to improve customer experience.

2. Hire Employees That Are Knowledgeable and Believe in Your Products

Nothing is more frustrating than calling customer service and feeling more apt than the “resourceful” representative. This is why it is so important to have knowledgeable staff who don’t just stick to a script and set of instructions. Your employees should be able to problem solve on their own. In order to do this, one should hire people who show interest in their business and understand its products. However, having knowledge on more than just the product is important. For smaller businesses, getting to know your customers and being able to talk with them more on a personal level can be very important. With Woveon’s technology, this is a walk in the park. Woveon’s recorded conversations not only help with consistency, but it can also help a customer service rep get to know the client more by reviewing past conversations. Although this may not apply to all businesses, small to mid-sized companies can really benefit from having personable customer service reps who are extremely knowledgeable about their product and clients. So before hiring any applicant, make sure he/she is enthusiastic about the product or service the company provides.

3. Recognize Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty is a big factor that is often looked over in companies. Existing customers cost 6x’s less than gaining new customers. When a customer is loyal, they will keep buying products, turning into more and more revenue. But how does a company identify and keep these customers happy? At Woveon, identifying important customers and helping with their every need is easy! Woveon has created AI (Artificial Intelligence) programs that identify businesses-valued customers in multiple ways. Say someone has shopped at an e-commerce website multiple times and has a great buying history but has now run into some trouble. If they contact the store via multiple channels such as social media or email, a representative from the business can pull up their information and understand they are a valued customer. They can focus on their problems more quickly, and this keeps up customer satisfaction.

4. Keep Staff Happy

Staff retention is crucial to your company for improving customer service excellence. Research shows clearly that staff stay when they are happy and respect the company in which they work. Their happiness translates into excellent work when dealing with important customers.

Happy Staff = Happy Customers

5. Be Accessible

Make sure that there’s a clear and accessible way for customers to communicate with you, whether it’s in person, by phone, or by email, and that you have someone assigned to customer service on an ongoing basis. Using Woveon, it is quick and easy to look up customer requests and track the history of the conversations they have had. Also the sheer number of channels that you can add to Woveon makes it easy for larger companies to communicate over social media or other more basic channels. Woveon, having simplified the way companies keep track of multi-channel communication, makes it easy for companies to set up lots of communication channels.

Companies that view service through a single lens, that of customer complaints, are missing the larger, longer-term picture. Service isn’t just a game plan to satisfy unhappy customers. it’s an ongoing strategy that makes every interaction between every employee and every customer at every contact point a positive one. Customer service is also ongoing and always changing. Keep up with the times and the needs of your customers and stay a step ahead of the competition.

Get started with knowing what customer service means for your company, and how you will use it to your advantage. Try this Customer Service Goals Template!

Digital Transformation Audit

Posted on April 8, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

When it comes to digital transformation, every intelligent business in the world wants to adopt it (if they haven’t already done so) because it allows them an easy way to measure their success. If you want to learn where you stand in your digital transformation journey, you need to take advantage of digital transformation audits. It will help you understand how far you have come, and how much further you need to go before you finally manage to achieve digital transformation success.

Learn more efficient ways to help your team handle more customers everyday. Request for a FREE customer conversation software demo today!

Before we get to identifying digital transformation, let’s first look at what digital transformation means to businesses. Whenever we talk about digital transformation, we are looking at new business models, user or customer experiences, along with operational processes. When you combine all of them, you not only engage people, but also connect with them through different technologies. This way you can create deeper and more meaningful relationships with your customers.

Why Audit?

digital-transformation-how-to

When we talk about a digital transformation audit, we are discussing how far along your business has come in terms of technology and what type of digital trends you have adopted. It is basically your digital footprint, and if you are looking to compete in your industry, it is imperative you get a digital transformation audit.

Most businesses don’t understand the value in audits, but that is only because they fail to understand that knowing your weaknesses before they are exposed is a strength. It is designed to help identify key areas where a business can improve, and what they need to do to create lasting transformative changes. The entire process is complex, but you will need to adopt it if you want to survive in the economy today. A digital audit helps create a roadmap for your organisation, since it outlines where you stand, and helps you measure yourself as a digitally transformed company.

Achieving Digital Value The business world is highly competitive and therefore, you must adopt digital transformation if you want to stand apart from your competition. Once you have achieved digital superiority over your competition, you will become the leader in your industry. However, all of this requires that you achieve digital value as a brand. How do you achieve that? By conducting a digital transformation audit.

It will not only help you respond to digital disruption, but will also help you figure out effective, innovative, and transformational solutions. The digital world is always changing and the only way you will ever be able to stay ahead of the curve is through digital transformation audits.

It looks at the strengths of your organisation and any vulnerabilities that have crept into the organisation. This way you can separate the good from the bad, and achieve digital transformation easily.

Expand your Revenue Generation

When it comes to digital transformation, you will need to adopt complex IT solutions, because that is one way that you are going to bring about change in your organisation. Studies have revealed that businesses that want to dominate the IT industry needed the help of digital transformation audits, so that they have a better idea of where they stand. It helps them come out with a timeline for eradicating processes that are hampering their chances of true digital transformation.

Helping your organisation adopt digital transformation trends is going to be hard, because change is hard and not everyone is equipped to deal with wholesale changes. To ensure that you’re on the right path, you will need to adopt digital transformation strategies that are designed according to the strengths and weaknesses of your organisation. Once your organisation has adopted the latest digital trends in the industry, you will be able to expand your revenue generation.

Dealing with Digital Performance

The one key area that a digital audit is such a huge success is in determining what kind of problems are persisting in the digital setup of an organisation. Once you go through the audit, you will have a clearer picture of where you stand, and what you need to do to achieve digital transformation independence. Once you start monitoring your own digital performance and the environment it is creating in your organisation you will be able to make changes.

Dealing with digital performance is crucial to achieving digital transformation, and this is what an audit will help identify. Most businesses are hesitant towards audits, because they don’t want an outside party going through their processes. This is understandable because no business wants their secrets and important data to fall into the wrong hands.

However, conducting a digital transformation audit has a lot of benefits for the organisation, and when it is done by professionals, you will be able to achieve exceptional performance levels. Investing in the IT of your organisation includes investing in digital transformation audits, because it is linked to the future of your business and your legacy.

How to Drive More Customers to Your Business

Posted on March 26, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

Every entrepreneur wants their business to succeed, and the only way to do that is by driving customers to your business. It doesn’t matter what type of business you are running, all of them are dependent on the same thing: traffic. If you want success for your business, only your clients can provide you with that, and that is why you need to do everything in your power to drive customers to your business quickly. There are no short cuts. The only way you can launch your business successfully is by getting as much traffic as you can early on. That is what we are going to be discussing here, because it is going to affect your sales and campaigns as well.

If you really want to establish a legitimate business, then you need to get involved with getting more traffic. There is no shortage of tips that will help drive customers to your business, but we are going to be focusing on 6 of the best tips, to help you give you that edge.

Here’s how to find more Customers to your Business and Increase Sales

1. Send free samples to Instagram Influencers

Everyone loves a sample. If you really want to make a statement, then you need to get your business on the right track, and you can use the power of social media to do that. Instagram is one of the biggest and most popular social media platform around today, and you can easily drive traffic to your business through it. A study found that Instagram offers brands 25% more engagement, and is better for driving traffic than Facebook and Twitter! You can use it to your advantage by giving free samples to the top influencers on Instagram.This will help spread awareness about your brand and will drive customers to your business. The only thing you will need to worry about Instagram influencers is that you must target influencers that resonate with your brand and what it represents.

2. Promote through the Press or Bloggers

There are lots of different ways you can use to promote and drive customers to your business, but using promotional content through bloggers, vloggers, or the press is one of the most effective ways to go about it. This allows you to quickly build a large following, by leveraging from the size of the follower that most bloggers have. You can easily search for the best bloggers on the internet, and then have them promote your brand, products or services in their blogs. We use a MOZ tool https://moz.com/followerwonk/ and there is also their tool bar you can use to check the blog’s domain authority https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar

This will quickly spread awareness among the masses about your business, and when you have the press and bloggers promoting your business, it will help drive traffic your way.

3. Promote on Reddit

Another great way to drive customers to your business is to start promoting it on Reddit. A huge part of the internet hangs out on Reddit, and anything that goes viral or trending on Reddit is immediately spread like wildfire on all the major social media platforms. The exposure your business will gain by being promoted on Reddit is unparalleled, which is why it is a smart idea to promote it there.

Once your business starts trending on Reddit, you will not have any problem in attracting people towards your business, because the traffic numbers you get will be insane.

4. Ask family and friends to share

You can also get your family members and friends involved to help drive customers to your business. It can be done easily by asking them to share pictures or post comments about the products and services that your business offers. You can also get your inner friends circle to go check out your business, and then recommend it to people that they know.

Word of mouth is a great way to drive traffic for any customer, and you can get your family involved to help spread awareness about it.

5. Be pro-active on Twitter

You should start engaging with people on Twitter to promote your brand, which is a solid strategy to use if you have been trying to drive customers to your business. Once you have a decent following, the next step would be to quickly engage more customers and then notice as your business starts getting more traffic.

6. Come Out with Viral Content

If you want to grab attention and drive customers to your business, one of the easiest and most effective ways to do that is by creating and spreading viral content everywhere. This will get people to start noticing your brand, and you will immediately see an increase in traffic for your business. Now you are probably rolling your eyes wondering I’ve tried and tried again but the viral thing is not happening. Buzzsumo has a great lessons learnt article about this.

Convert Demand Generation into Customers – 5 Tips for Busy Marketers

Posted on March 23, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

If you’re looking for tips to convert your demand generation campaigns into paying customers, you came to the right place. All businesses must use different marketing and demand generation strategies to help build leads online, but generating leads should not be the only goal. If you’re unable to convert your leads into customers, then you are losing out and will not be able to complete sales. The business therefore, relies on marketers to come up with effective demand generation strategies that provide them with high quality leads. The leads a business acquires are only valuable if they turn into sales for the brand. That is why it is imperative that the business pays importance to the marketing aspect, and gets the sales process properly done. This will help them accomplish greater sales after generating valuable leads.

Here are the top 5 Demand Lead Generation Tips

1. Use Data to Understand Customers

It is important that you take advantage of data to understand the entire process of converting online leads and getting customers for your brand. This is why so many businesses spend on customer management, customer channel and data collection tools, because it allows them to easily funnel all the customers from multiple campaigns and convert leads into sales. By having accurate data available you can easily focus your attention on reaching out to people with the highest chances of becoming long-term customers of the business.

This is where most marketing and sales campaigns fail, because they don’t give the data great importance to separating customer channels and fail to assess how it will help them out. Don’t fall into the same trap, and make channel management and data a crucial part of all sales meetings, so that everyone understands and can interpret what is converting, where the customers are coming from and how long it is taking to onboard them.

2. Act Fast to Convert Leads

Once you have attracted the customers to your campaign, you need to move fast, because the longer you wait, the greater the chances that you will lose out – managing the customer response times. Faster response times will generate more demand to your campaign. There is no point in delaying a good lead, because if you don’t reach out to them in time, someone else from your industry will. That is why it is important that any decision you take must be fast, so that you can easily convert leads.

Reaching out to leads quickly also convinces customers that they are working with a business that is reliable and serious about working with them. This builds customer relationships and greatly increases the chances of the leads converting into sales.

3. Make Sure to Follow-up

Identify and open up multiple channels for leads to come back and reach out. Also find out where they are talking to manage the conversations effectively. When you’re reaching out to a new lead, and don’t get a good response, you shouldn’t give up on them. This is critical if you want to learn advanced demand generation strategies. Here’s a 3 step formula for writing brilliant email marketing subject lines that gets you through the door.

Make sure that you reach out to them again, by sending them an email or calling them some other time so that you get the chance to talk with them. This will help increase your chances of communicating with as many high-quality leads as possible and help you convert the maximum number of customers for your business. Demand generation relies on being able to reach out to customers on what ever platform the customer is familiar with.

4. Convert Leads by Qualifying Them

Another great demand generation strategy is by qualifying your leads separately, and setting them apart in different categories. This will allow you to have a detailed breakdown of leads from different communication channels that you can work with and the ones that you need to let go. Mark them as high quality leads and leads that you can move past, because this is how you will advance.

This helps you save time and ensure that you only work on sales-quality leads and have the right conversations with the right customers. It drastically improves your demand generation chances, and ensures that you can build strong customer relationships. Qualifying leads is a strong tactic, and one that will allow you to properly funnel leads to convert them into sales. There is also a reduced risk of losing out on valuable clients, because you already have the information needed to convert them into sales.

5. Have a Proper Sales Team

There will be no point in adopting any demand generation strategy if you don’t have a structured sales team. You need to ensure that your sales team not only manages relationships with existing clients, but is also able to convert new leads. This will help make things easier for you, because you will now be able to balance out the requirements and target customers effectively.

You should divide your sales teams so that one is focused on dealing with existing clients, while the other team handles the conversion of new leads. Having this kind of structure in your sales team will ensure that you don’t lose out on customers, and bring in new business as well. This can be achieved through a multi-channel conversation framework.

Conclusion

If you plan your work properly, and structure your sales team, while using data carefully, then you will be able to greatly improve your chances of converting online leads from multiple channels. Remember that you need to stay in touch on various social, sms, phone, emails and chat platforms with your customers, and follow up with the right conversations, resulting in a successful sales funnel.

Want Your Customer Service To Be Sustainable? Be Dynamic

Posted on February 9, 2018June 23, 2021 by David Dinh

Guest blog by Jemma Martin

Customer service is subjective. It’s no longer about responding in the ‘right’ way. There is no such thing.

It’s about having the ability to be agile enough to facilitate the right answer in the right moment. Because every customer will want something different, depending on the product, the medium, the day, their mood… it’s all up for negotiation. And without this kind of flexibility, you’re losing out.

The right way is dynamic. The right way is the fastest, easiest way possible; no matter where your customer is.

Here’s an example. Last week on social media I saw an advertisement for fashion prescription glasses. I have been wanting to freshen up my physical appearance and I was due for some new glasses on my health plan, so I clicked on the link. I recognised some trendy brands and the website suggested I try them on in store. I left the page and forgot all about it.

The next day I was meeting a friend in town. She was running late so I walked through the mall and saw a sign with glasses of the brand I saw online. I walked into the optometrist, tried on a bunch of options and was given great customer service by the staff. I was still in store when my friend met me, and she ended up trying on some glasses too.

The staff then contacted my healthcare provider and gave me a follow-up call the next day. I wrote to the company via their social media page, and they responded to me within a few hours. The next day I went back in store to finalise my purchase of two new pairs of prescription glasses. After the weekend, I received an SMS advising me that my new frames were ready for collection and to follow the URL link in the message to book in a time to have them fitted. The web link directed me to my local store’s online booking system. I had a question about this appointment, so I called the store and they booked in my timeslot for the next day.

It was all very smooth, easy and convenient. And I told A LOT of family and friends about this shopping experience. I now think that I’ll buy some prescription sunglasses from the same company because it was so easy to deal with them.

So, who is responsible for my loyalty? The initial marketer? The in-store salesperson? The follow-up caller? The social media assistant? Or the individual who decided that the process should be seamless?

Or was it all artificial intelligence? Some data and algorithms that resulted in a positive customer service experience?

Honestly, I don’t care. I can tell you that before this experience, I’ve spent many hours shopping for new glasses and had gotten part way through the buying process and not completed the purchase due to frustration.

Why is that? What made this company different? It’s simple; they anticipated that my needs are dynamic, and created customer centric solutions before I, the every-day consumer, realised I needed them.

Over the course of a week, I used multiple mediums to communicate with this retailer; including face to face, text messaging, their website (through the SMS link), social media and phone calls.

I communicated with them when I was in my kitchen, my home office, in their city store, in a store at another location, through my mobile device and through my laptop. Sometimes I was alone, sometimes I was with my husband or a friend. It just worked.

This retailer recognised that I was living my life and that it looks different every day. They made everything easy. Their customer service process was dynamic, just like me.

This is now a non-negotiable for companies. Do you want to be sustainable? Yes. Well, how much? At the cost of upskilling your staff? At the cost of creating new processes and implementing in new systems? Can you anticipate your customers’ needs before they do?

The right way to provide customer service, is to do so dynamically. Because your customers themselves are now agents of change.

Expecting customers to follow old breadcrumbs all the way to the checkout isn’t smart business. It’s those very breadcrumbs that will keep you from attracting the customers you need to keep that checkout open.

Are you agile enough, to facilitate the right answers for your customers today?

Jemma is Sales Team Manager at the RAA Group and is studying her MBA at Torrens University. She loves to inspire people to think differently, create innovative solutions and take action. With a strong history in frontline sales, in both face to face and contact centre environments, Jemma believes that questioning the status quo is integral to sustainable success.

The Art and Science of Customer Engagement

Posted on February 1, 2018March 15, 2023 by David Dinh

It’s a no-brainer that we no longer interact with customers the same way we did face-to-face in brick and mortar. With customers increasingly using social media, apps and websites to shop and browse, they are being empowered with more information and more choice. With so much choice available to the customer, it really boils down to the quality of their customer experience with the company that ultimately wins a customer and gains their loyalty. For any company that wants to increase their conversion rates and retain their customers (which company doesn’t, really), you need to excel at customer engagement.

Learn how to manage your Customer Engagement. Sign Up for FREE Conversation Technology demo today!

What is Customer Engagement?

Customer engagement is, in its simplest form, the interaction between a company and their customers. But it should not be mixed up with Customer Service. Customer Service is an interaction with a customer as a result of the customer reaching out to the company. Customer engagement on the other hand, is an interaction between the company and customer where both parties are actively reaching out to each other. On social media, this takes form of companies posting engaging content such as quotes and discounts to delight their followers, as well as responding and reacting to customers who reach out to them.

I’ll break this down with an example:

A customer has a problem with a company’s product. He takes a picture and posts this on the company’s Facebook.

Scenario 1: The company sees this issue and replies with a solution to the customer. End of interaction. This is customer service.

Scenario 2: The company replies to this customer publicly with a solution; and privately messages him asking for his email address in order to send him a small token of appreciation for letting them know. This time, the customer posts up his satisfaction with how the company has handled the issue. In response, the company reply favourably to his post and reshares it to encourage other customers to also contact them about issues, because they are actively listening to their customers. This, is customer engagement.

How to do Customer Engagement right?

So, customer engagement is a little more work than your traditional customer service. It might be a real pain, but with such widespread use of the internet, that is the level of customer experience you need to provide to attract, retain and engage customers to develop them into promoters. Whilst there are countless ways to engage with your customers, there are three crucial points you need to address in every customer engagement strategy.

1. Be Omnipresent

Being omnipresent means that you’re everywhere at the same time. Meaning, you should be on social media, email, phone, chatbot and whatever other communication channel your company uses, all at the same time, around the clock. Customers expect a company to have presence on at least 3 to 4 social channels, as well as fast response times across all these channels. 32% of people who contact a company for customer support on social media expects a reply within 30 minutes. 42% expect a response within 60 minutes. Crazy right! If you’re anything like me, you’re a bit of a sloth replying to your friends on social media. Just imagine if you had hundreds messaging you every day expecting instant replies.

Some ways companies are overcoming this hurdle is by outsourcing customer service, using social media management platforms, or just start slow by using social listening tools. Customers want to have their voice heard on a channel they use, and very importantly, want to know that you value their time.

2. Provide seamless omnichannel experiences

Omnichannel experiences mean blending the touchpoints a company has with its customers to provide a wholesome, integrated experience. Not only will this improve customer satisfaction, but the reduction of customer effort has been proven to be a huge contributor to customer loyalty.

Disney and Tomorrowland are amongst the top in providing an omnichannel experience to their customers. Customers start from mobile optimised websites, to online itinerary planning, to a mobile app that can be used to find locations at the venue. They have made it easier for customers to transition from platform to platform and from online to offline, making these entertainment giants some of the most successful in the world.

3. Be Personal

Nothing better than having human touch, really. In a Genesys Global Survey, 40% of 9000 consumers say better human service mattered to them the most in customer support, much more than other options such as integration of more channels and enriched content.

Being personal goes beyond using their name when interacting with them or showing a picture of your face on the chatbot screen; it also encompasses being responsive to their emotions and knowing their history with the company. The end goal is for the customer to develop feelings of personal connection to a company or brand. Once they are in this comfortable stage, it’s much more likely they will end up becoming evangelists of the company.

A fantastic example of online personalization is Hubspot’s smart content. Smart content intelligently personalizes content to the user’s need. Using information such as their job title, average page views or stage in the buying process, smart content changes the content the user sees on the website. A regular visitor would for example, see different call-to-actions or forms compared to a new user. The result? Personalized content did 42% better.

Whilst there is no one right way to do customer engagement, being omnipresent, omnichannel and personalized (even to some degree) has reaped many benefits for all companies that have implemented it. What are you doing in your business to engage with your customers? Share with us in the comments below!