One of the core principles of inbound marketing is that you build brand loyalty by developing a relationship with your customer. Everyone knows the feeling of relief and happiness you have when you finally find a good dentist, a good hair stylist, a good plumber… when you are doing business with someone you like and trust, who does what you need them to do the right time every time, you carry those relationships for years, and recommend them to everyone you know, and wouldn’t dream of taking your business elsewhere.
Of course brands can command that same kind of passion and loyalty. People fall in love with their favorite shampoo, their favorite brand of mustard, their favorite pair of shoes. It’s part of how the brain works. The brain is lazy, and we live in a world that requires millions of small decisions every day. Once we find something that we like, that works, that we can afford, we don’t have to make that decision any more; we can auto-pilot that part of our lives, and welcome the freedom to think about something else.
Because of the overwhelming success of brands that do build great customer relationships, a lot of brands are trying to emulate that success by simulating those methods. It’s a new world of fake authenticity.
You know how, when someone has genuine integrity, they never have to TELL you about it? Why are brands so desperate to TELL customers how much they care about them?
Example: Facebook doesn’t care about their customer.
Facebook doesn’t care about their customer. It’s apparent in their frequent algorithm changes that favor paid content over organic content again. and again. and again. to the detriment of user experience. The latest Facebook algorithm changes rank your news feed updates by:
- Time spent on the content?
- Was the link shared by someone on Messenger?
- Overall post engagement, including replies, comments, and likes
- Branded content shared by a friend
- Type of posting
- How informative the posting is
As we have seen, what this means in practice is that the news feed is dominated by branded content that has been shared by someone else, and that content will stay at the top of your feed for hours or days, even if many engagements reflect disagreement or dislike.
That’s not a user-centered news feed, and doesn’t respond to the kinds of changes that users have been requesting for years, like dislike buttons and chronological news feed. Specifically, every time I visit Facebook, I sort my news feed chronologically. I do this probably 4-6 times a day, every single day. A platform that cared about my user experience wouldn’t make me do this; it would learn my preference and adapt. But my preferences aren’t what drives the content in my news feed.
And let’s not even get into Facebook’s deliberately oblique and byzantine privacy preferences, which you have to check every few months because updates do and will invisibly change your settings.
And, in one sense, that’s fine. That’s Facebook, and we know what it is, and we deal with it anyway. The annoying part is the sheer stupid hypocrisy of it: of Zuckerberg testifying before Congress about how much they care about users; of popups that repeatedly insist that you provide ever more personal information in order to “protect your account”; of forcing mobile users to install Messenger… The company tells you over and over again how much it cares about you, and then demonstrates, every single time you log in, how much it does not.
Do Chatbots Care About You?
Another solution to providing always on, always personalized customer care, without investing in human beings who actually DO care, is to use chatbots. The truth is, most people don’t mind chatbots at all; they want fast, accurate information about a company, using their own preferred communication method, and on their own schedule. In fact, Salesforce says that 69% of people prefer chatbots for quick brand interactions, which totally makes sense. However, automation isn’t personalization. In fact, as Inc points out so succinctly, customer service is not a repetitive task. Automating your customer interactions is built on the assumption that your staff have something better to do. And it’s not enough to say “customers want personalization, so we’ll train our chatbots to use their name”. That’s not personalization, and it’s a fake authenticity, an attempt to show people you care in a way that involves no care at all.
You can outsource quick information, repetitive questions, and fast responses to chatbots. You can use AI to customize and personalize your email and social media marketing. But you cannot outsource or automate customer relationships.
How to Build Authentic Customer Relationships at Scale
Avoid siloing. One of the things people love about doing business with a small company is the lack of siloing. You can get all the answers you need right now, from the person you are talking to, and don’t have to be transferred to someone else, sent to a different department, or get different answers from different people. While a large company can’t expect every employee to be cross-trained on every issue, you can strive to make the customer experience as seamless and consistent as possible. Why not dismantle the idea of different “sales” and “support” departments, and instead offer concierge service where your customer has a single point of contact for everything they need? This one-on-one structure would allow a much deeper, more important relationship between your company and your customer, and pave the way for substantially greater same-customer sales. In fact, Joe Hyland at Martech calls this “P2P” marketing, and it’s a tremendous opportunity for brands of all sizes.
Respect your staff. Front-line, phone answering staff are abused and taken for granted far too often. Pay them well, respect their work, don’t use stupid metrics about how long they are supposed to be on the phone, and empower them to make decisions that serve the customer and serve the company. When Amex dropped call scripts and call timing, letting representatives manage the customer in the best way they saw fit, they improved retention by 400%.
Respect your customer. Ask your customer questions, and then listen to their answers. For example, when a customer completes a transaction and gives you their email address, that’s a great time to elicit information and then use it to build a relationship. Instead of just “do you want to receive our newsletter?” try something like:
“We will use your email address only to communicate with you regarding this transaction, including shipping and delivery information. But if you would like to hear from us, let us know”. Then let them choose:
- by email
- by phone call
- by text message
- every 1-2 weeks
- every 2-4 weeks
- every 2-4 months
- I want to hear about special offers and discounts
- I want to hear about new products and services
- I want to hear about everything
Collecting these 3 data points and then abiding by them would a) give you some powerful data b) increase engagement with your customer and c) avoid annoying your customer and triggering notification numbness. Let them change their preferences any time. A system like that could be easily automated, but automated in a way that cares for and about the customer, and doesn’t just impose your marketing messages on them.
In business as in life, you can only build genuine relationships on a foundation of authenticity. Authenticity can’t be grafted onto the outside of an organization just because it’s the trendy term right now. Your brand’s actual agenda, priorities, and personality are apparent in every single customer interaction, regardless of what your mission statement says.
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