Technological advances have influenced customers, changing their shopping experience. The coexistence of different options explains why there are still many users who are reluctant to carry out online transactions. Especially in sectors such as tourism, which has customers who are used to face-to-face dealings and who do not trust booking their holidays or trips over the Internet.
How can this be solved?
Firstly, by working on the brand image and making it safe, attractive and relevant for the target audience.
Branding: the beginning of the journey
Many companies believe that having a website and social media profiles is enough. Digitalisation is much more than that, and it must involve all departments of the company. For a digital strategy to work, it is necessary to be very clear:
What are the brand values ?
What objectives do you seek to achieve?
The tone and style you will use in your communications.
How all channels (physical and digital) will be integrated to achieve the best customer experience.
For this process to work, two key factors must be taken into account: Customer Journey and Customer Experience . Neither of them is relevant on its own, nor does it provide an improvement in conversions if you don't start with the most basic thing: knowing your target audience.
The Customer Journey
To clearly establish what your customer is looking for, you will have to start getting to know them. In B2B marketing, these customers are companies, but within them, there are people in charge of purchasing decisions who, depending on the sector you are targeting, will have a certain profile.
How can you know him?
Knowing the business sector : researching how it works, outstanding professional profiles, interests related to their profession, etc.
Staying up to date : reading news, attending events, creating alerts on terms relevant to the company. These are some of the simple actions that allow you to better understand the field in which the company operates.
Analyze the competition : What are they doing? Is there anything they do that is applicable to the company? What kind of improvements could be implemented to stand out from the competition?
Improve customer relationship
The evolution of digital marketing puts the focus on people or on what is currently called “Humanity”. Interacting with the customer is today more necessary than ever and may even be more complicated since there are various channels through which the brand has to be in contact with its followers.
The Customer Journey refers to the journey that a person who is not familiar with the brand takes until they become interested in it , visit its website and decide to purchase its products or services. But the journey should not end there; the customer experience (Customer Experience) should be satisfactory at all stages and accompany the customer even when the final conversion has been made.
This is where the loyalty process comes in, which is one of the processes that allows the brand to distinguish itself from its competitors through actions that reward trust and encourage repeating the experience. For this whole process to work, it is important that the customer feels comfortable and has the feeling that the company listens to their needs and that there is support to resolve their doubts and possible incidents.
In this way, not only is the number of sales and income increased, but a community of satisfied customers is created, who are committed to the values that the brand communicates and defends.
Customer Service is responsible for handling questions, complaints, claims, technical problems and anything else that may occur during the Customer Journey and that could cause the buyer to abandon the transaction without completing it.
It is a department that is subjected to a lot of pressure and stress, so it is important that it is made up of professionals with attitudes for active listening, assertiveness and empathy .
In these cases, training is essential to be able to carry out comprehensive management of the quality of the service offered to the customer . At Femxa you can find courses that adapt to your learning needs and that will help you to learn both the different types of sales techniques that exist, as well as the best way to deal with incidents arising from customer service. In addition to this personal work, a commitment to the integration of the entire team in the process and the use of an integrated management CRM will help to optimize work, reducing response time and improving productivity.
When all these steps work, the customer perceives quality service, shows greater receptivity and ends up making the purchase . All of which together contributes to improving the Customer Experience. But before reaching this point, it is necessary to know to whom the company directs its products and services.
Girl serving a customer online
Who is the Buyer Persona and what is it for?
This is the fictional representation of the company's ideal client . We could see it as the result of a process of analysis and review of consumer habits, together with the company's sales objectives and the image they want to convey. When all this has been worked out, all that remains is to ask a "simple" question: who will be interested in this product or service?
If it is a project that has a long history in the sector, it will already have a sufficient customer database to begin to analyse how they interact with its social media posts and what aspects they value most when choosing that brand over another. What happens when a company has just started and wants to know its target audience? Where does it start?
Simplify . Explaining what the company does in no more than 3 or 4 sentences is the perfect starting point.
Define an Attractive Value Proposition : What makes this product different? What makes it stand out? What can it offer that other companies in the sector cannot?
Identify needs : every product or service must offer a series of competitive advantages that allow it to respond to what the customer is looking for.
Start defining the Buyer Persona : all the points mentioned above contribute to building the mental image of the ideal client that will have to be brought to life and verified with reality. This can be done using a free template kuwait number example like this one , which guides the user through completing demographic data, needs, interests, purchasing power, etc.
It is important to understand that this entire process of business relations with the outside world begins at an internal level. Companies that take care of their employees, offering them good conditions, both financial and in terms of work-life balance, achieve better results. Employees are the company's connection with its customers and turning them into brand ambassadors must be a business commitment that involves all departments equally.
How to improve relationships within the company
Having an Internal Communication Plan is a fundamental step to ensure that all the agents that make up the company can be in contact and work towards common objectives. What information do new employees receive? We must avoid a feeling of uncertainty due to not having a clear idea of their functions or the company's organizational chart.
There are different types of communication that are established in the personal sphere and that can influence interpersonal relationships. Leaders must have knowledge on how to improve these aspects:
Interpersonal communication .
Verbal communication .
Nonverbal communication .
Promote active listening .
It is also important to know how to manage blockages, conflicts, complaints and claims. Choosing a course that has resources and tools to develop and train in these skills is an opportunity to improve business communication.
The customer journey is made up of several elements or phases
A good corporate handbook can include this information along with the brand's values and commitments, as well as tips for getting to know and integrating into the team, answers to common questions, and contacts to contact for information and support. Internal social networks or the use of an integrated CRM will also facilitate the exchange of information and interpersonal relationships.
If you choose management software, it is important to consult with an expert in cybersecurity and data processing to ensure that everything collected is in a secure environment. Maintaining security and privacy within the company is a key factor that will influence the perception and recognition of the brand and will help increase the trust that both employees and external agents with whom it interacts have in it: clients, suppliers, partners, etc.