Follow the Yellow Brick Road to Customer Loyalty
Over the years, I've taken many significant lessons from the Wizard of Oz - management paradigms (the "Oz Principles"), ways of living, the metaphor of flying monkeys, the man behind the curtain. A post at the Marketo blog presents an elegant infographic which reminds us of how easy it is to be distracted in a customer journey, and insight that should be gained/efforts undertaken to keep customers close. No surprise here - listening is pretty important.
Blended Channels Making Sense for Marketing Impact
Yes, customers are easily distracted. It was inevitable, as web technology deepens its addictive hold on us. This article reminds us, at a high level, that blended channel marketing and customer service might be just what is needed in our attention-lacking times. Customer journey mapping and validation can be quite useful in driving forward the insight needed to determine which channels are relevant, and what the appropriate ping and pong truly might be.
Customer Service - The Need for Speed and Aversion to Repetition
This article in Forbes points out the results of a recent survey, conducted for Zendesk by Dimension Research, evaluating the long-term impacts of customer service on business results. Not surprisingly, key findings note that we all crave speed in our customer service encounters, and that we apparently aren't too fond of repetition - like sharing our data or phone numbers over and over again during a telephone interaction. In summary, we crave effortless experiences, and a majority of those contributing to the survey noted their willingness to reward effortless experiences with customer loyalty. The survey reinforced a prevailing notion - that bad service will be mentioned to others, squashing highly desired word of mouth marketing.