How to Connect Better with Customers?
How to stay connected?
Talking to your customers is important, and currently, it’s a baseline for any successful business. Without any sort of dialogue in this day and age, your company might get less traffic and recognition that equals less revenue. Excluding communication from your marketing strategy is losing opportunities to grow and improve.
Since we already covered the most important rules of correct communication etiquette and reasons why reaching out to the customer is necessary, the only thing left to figure out is how. There are countless ways to create a connection with consumers, but which ones are the most efficient for your business in the long run?
We’ve brought together 11 proven tips that will elevate your communication with customers and bring more dedicated, loyal and happy users to your brand.
Use email
Email is the biggest e-marketing platform on the market and has a lot of advantages that can be used in day to day communication. Firstly, unlike any other e-marketing channel, it is more personal and you can truly cater the content to an individual. Secondly, it has a higher conversion rate than social media. According to Monetates’ Ecommerce Quarterly report, it drove more conversions than search and social.
And lastly, I believe, most importantly – you own your list. Unlike any other social media, you alone control your contacts base. There is no algorithm that decides who, where and when sees your content. So, if you want to better connect with your customer, make email a primary channel.
Treat the customer as individuals
The best way to make your customers feel appreciated and important is to treat them as individuals. Personalization is the key to maintaining a good connection and it really doesn’t require much effort. A fool-proof way to start is by including a person’s name at the beginning of an email. If you want to go further, start collecting more data on the customer to further personalize their experience – of course, with their permission.
If you want to inspire yourself, we also made 9 email personalization examples that show the potential of customizing content to your recipients.
Be visible
Nowadays companies run various channels to promote their brand and build their personality. But did you know that posting pictures and spending your budget money on ads is not the only way to bring some attention to your company?
By simply responding to the comments people leave on social media, answering their questions and talking about things that are not related to your brand can showcase you as a responsive, active business that takes interest in customers. More and more companies are starting to realize that creating a firm is not enough to connect with customers and use the potential of social media to make themselves known. The important part is to find your voice to stand out among other companies that run their own socials. Wendy’s is a great example of being visible outside of email and advertisements. They consistently run clapbacks at Twitter users, show appreciation, and are generally laid back business, that the younger generation really enjoys.
Below is a great example of two brands exchanging compliments on Twitter, which resulted in overwhelmingly positive reactions from their audience.
Get them backstage
There was a time, where brands could just advertise the product and keep the anonymity of what happened behind the scenes, but that is no more. Now in order to advance as a company, they need to show themselves, not as inanimate entities but as humanely as possible, so customers will grow emotionally attached to them. That emotional connection is exactly what you need to induce customers’ loyalty to the brand.
This is why it’s important to invest in building trust by humanizing the brand. And now, living in privileged times, where digital channels reign supreme, it has never been easier to do so on such a big scale.
While sending emails to recipients you can include a picture, information or detail about what currently happens among your employees. If you’re a family company, show it by including a family photo in the holiday email. If you have a dog, cat or any other animal that your colleagues love, include it in company photo and dedicate a short paragraph about them. You can go even further than email, and use social media to humanize your company even more. Show your followers around the office. Introduce each member of your business and include some details about them that make them unique.
The best way to gain consumers’ trust is by showing that you are not only a business. You are also a community. Celebrating birthdays or special occasions with employees will not only improve your brand reputation among recipients but boost morale in the office. So it’s a win-win situation.
Tidio created a great example- a live chat and chatbots software creators. They made a separate Facebook page called Tidio Backstage where they share photos from celebrations, meetings, and achievements. They’re doing a great job of humanizing their brand by showing real employees. That results in more trusting and loyal customers.
Write a newsletter
This one might seem like an obvious tip, but companies can forget about newsletters. They’re already busy with hundreds of transactional emails, onboarding messages, and special offers. But sending weekly, bi-weekly or monthly newsletters can be very beneficial for business if done smartly.
The current format of newsletters might not be enough to grab customers’ attention. The challenge is to create a message that will offer personalized content based on the customer lifecycle stage. You can start by implementing a few email trends to your emails and test the performance. Then just build upon it creating segments depending on people’s preferences, needs, and interests to create a newsletter 2.0. An improved, more engaging version of the original.
Birthdays and special dates
Stores often offer special discounts for people who shared their birthdate with them, as a gift. Why not use it to build a better connection with the customer as well? Creating a special email with best wishes on recipients’ birthday can be a great way to show that they are valuable to the brand.
In the email you can include a promo code, free gift, anything you feel will be appropriate. By monitoring the join date of each customer, you can even create a loyalty program that will offer tiered rewards for continuous support.
Offer sneak peeks
With building loyalty, you can establish various ways to show appreciation. One of the options is offering exclusive content that only some will be able to view.
You need to specifically cater content towards your most-valued customers to make them feel special. Therefore, using personalization is again an important factor. If you sell different types of products, research which ones are the most popular among your “VIP” customers. Cater special sneak peeks of new content based on this data to not only make them feel special that they get to see it first, but also because they are actually interested in the products.
If you’d rather go with a simpler option, just send behind the scenes emails to your whole special segment, but try to include an optional survey asking about their opinion. Through this, you will be able to work with new information that your users shared with you to improve their experience.
Meet in person
Humanizing the company might happen literally by showing yourself in person. Various brands offer meetups or announce their presence at job fairs, so people can check them out. Although it can be usually directed towards new hires, it doesn’t mean that existing or potential customers won’t visit.
Organizing a local event can attract customers that you have locally, and build awareness of the brand. For example, we hosted Inbox Szczecin meetup a while ago to demonstrate our brand to the neighborhood, and show the potential of email marketing to attendees. It’s also a great way to build connections with other businesses you have in your city.
Meaningful investment
As I mentioned before, consumers want to support a brand that they can trust to do things right. That means you should have an opinion regarding current issues happening around the world and react to them accordingly. It’s called cause-related marketing, a concept created in the 1980s, and it’s really effective.
There have been many studies related to this topic that proves it works, and it’s worth implementing in your marketing tactic. If you support a noble cause, like donating to animal shelters or a pro-environmental charity, consumers have a more positive attitude towards a brand and are more likely to make multiple purchases because of it.
There are many other beneficial aspects of donating besides connecting with your customers. In most countries you can deduct tax, it boosts employee morale and it’s good for the community. If you can, search locally as there are plenty of organizations that need help. If you want to take a more technical approach, you can also pinpoint the country where your biggest number of subscribers is from and find a charity there.
Ask for feedback
This needs no introduction. Ask for feedback in regard to everything and seriously take into consideration what the majority of your users say. Customers always like to be listened to, and see that their suggestions helped improve a product in a certain way. They could even give you an idea of a new feature or merchandise
EA games recently created a The Sims 4 survey after noticing growing frustration with some elements in the game. There, they included many options that were already talked about by the community. So far, the reactions were mostly positive. That’s a great example of a simple act of asking for feedback can influence people’s opinions.
A good way to maintain connections with customers is to turn the tables around and place them in the position of expert. Ask them how they would change your product, invite them for beta testing, and even ask them questions about services unrelated to your brand. Asking customers about which software you can use, or a location for a new office is a great way to connect and make recipients feel that you truly value their opinions.
Transparency, honesty
I’m sure you’re familiar with the saying, “Honesty is the best policy”. In the case of running a company, it is quite literally, the best policy you can take to connect better with your customers. Trying to do something quietly or not admitting a mistake publicly can have tremendous repercussions. Especially in this era, where everybody’s actions are visible and commented upon online. The best thing a business can do is show transparency in their processes and if they mess up, apologize.
A great apology needs to have three elements. Specificity, remorse, and next steps. You need to know what you’re apologizing for, be sincere, and promise to do better from now on.
In 2011, Netflix transitioned from DVD delivery to a streaming device, but not without a hiccup. First, they decided to treat those options as separate entities. Then, they changed the pricing, from $9.99 for the all-in-one package to $7.99 for each product. Understandingly, people who wanted both were upset with over 60% price increase and spoke up. As a response, CEO Reed Hastings issued an open letter. He admitted the mistake, apologized and promised to fix the problem he created. With a well-done apology and immediate action, Netflix is still very much relevant and poses as an example for other companies who made a mistake.
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