B2B brands can build retention and loyalty by offering a customer support program. A customer care program does not need to be difficult to implement, but the best programs offer a mix of one-way and two-way communications that inform, inspire, educate and listen.
Ingredients to a B2B customer care program:
Make a good first impression: Marketers only get one first impression. So when offering a free trial, it’s important for marketers to assist and educate leads about how their products will benefit them personally. Not only will having a better understanding boost customers’ satisfaction, but it will also make them more inclined to discover new product features and continue to use the product over time.
Education is key to all phases of the customer lifecycle: Provide content that helps customers understand your offering. Build a program that educates customers over time and delivers happiness. Don’t forget to listen to customers. Listen to both their compliments and frustrations.
Engage in a conversation: When asking customers for information, it’s important to offer them value first. It’s more of a dialogue. You’re getting information that then helps you communicate with them. Listen and learn, sometimes what customers say they want isn’t what they really need. So, marketers should listen to customers’ problems and dig deep to better understand how they can help their customers.
Understand that everyone learns differently: Some customers learn best through audio while others consume knowledge better through visuals. Although video can an effective way to appeal to customers’ varying learning styles. It’s important to cater to each one, such as through documents or webinars.
Have a long-term vision: All marketers want their customers to be customers for life. So it’s important for companies to focus on the long-term customer retention, rather than how many customers they gained in a particular.
Show your customers that you value them: Customers are businesses’ most valued assets. So when companies work with vendors, they invest a lot of trust in those vendors to take care of their treasures. Companies should be encouraged to acknowledge this trust and convey its importance through their communications.
Pay attention to what customers implicitly and explicitly tell you: Customer service feedback is always important, but companies should also pay attention to what customers implicitly say, such as through product adoption or log-in frequency. A combination of qualitative and quantitative data is also important to validate the other.
View your customers as consumers: B2B customers and B2C customers want the same things: a simple product that’s easy to use, and this is especially true for small businesses. As a result, B2Bs should view their customers as consumers to keep their marketing simple and to the point.
A good example is ERM Business Energy. Consistent growth and unrivalled customer service has allowed them to capture more than 16 per cent of the Australian business electricity market and become the fourth largest electricity retailer, measured by load, in Australia since commencing retailing electricity seven years ago.
Despite significant growth ERM has not lost its personal touch. They continue to excel with industry leading customer service and as a result have been independently rated as having the most satisfied customers in the power for business retail market* for the past three years.
Consider unsatisfied moments feedback opportunities: No customer is happy all of the time. However, it’s important for marketers to learn from those sour moments by soliciting feedback to win back customers or learn for the future. When a company does make a change based on customer feedback, it needs to let the customer know that they were heard.
People want to be asked and they want to be heard. Taking the time to listen to them and make that phone back goes a long way.
