Nurturing customer relationships:
How to empower your customers, leads, and clients
It’s not enough anymore to sell your product to customers and deliver good customer service. Aiming for customer satisfaction is a primary goal with a lot of businesses, but the truth is, that alone is not going to cut it. Of course you want your customers to be satisfied, but what happens after that? What are you doing to ensure that your customer isn’t just satisfied once, but that they continue to be satisfied throughout their journey? How do you make an experience so good that your customers turn into your brand advocates?
This is where customer empowerment comes in. Empowering your customers, leads, and clients is not a popular topic, but it’s important because it is a concept that you or your business cannot directly control. You can’t make your customers love you, and you can’t make your customers love your product; but what you can do is influence your customers so they feel confident in their choices and have a meaningful experience. Impactful customers journeys, before and after the sale, are the key to keeping your customers around for good.
Here are five ways BombBomb empowers customers to make and keep them happy:
Surprise and delight
You know the feeling of excitement you get after seeing a package on your doorstep when you weren’t expecting anything? That’s how we want our customers to feel. We ensure that every new high-profile client receives BombBomb gear so they can feel a sense of pride in using our product to carry out their business objectives. We don’t just do company swag, though; handwritten letters, care packages, and other small gifts are also options we use to tell our customers we’re thinking of them, we care, and we’re around if they need us. Surprising your customers lets them know that you’re not just their vendor because you have to be — you’re also involved in their life because you want to be.
Listen to feedback
This one is obvious, but it’s surprising how many companies rarely do it or don’t do it at all. Your customers are the source of a lot of things your business needs: money, referrals, support, loyalty. So why wouldn’t you take the time to listen to what they want or need from your product? BombBomb employs several different channels for customers to leave their opinions of how we’re doing. NPS surveys, webinar and cancellation feedback, CSAT scores — all of these avenues provide space for our customers to tell us their thoughts. To ensure that all employees are kept in the loop, we feed these responses into customized Slack channels that are viewable by everyone. Employing active listening by responding to this feedback instead of just listening is also an important step we include in our strategy.
Referral program
Most businesses rely heavily on referrals, so it would behoove you to reward those who praise your product to others. Some people may really enjoy your product, but have no incentives to share their happiness with others. At BombBomb, we like expressing gratitude to our customers who refer others to us, so we came up with a unique referral program. If one of our customers shares their referral link with someone who signs up for an annual subscription, the customer AND their referral get a $50 gift card. Yes, it’s a pretty simple method, but it’s a way we show our appreciation to those who believe in our product. Empower your customers to share their successes and strategies with others who could use it.
Work where they do
If you want your customers to feel comfortable and powerful using your product, it’s not going to happen if they’re chained to your application. Pushing your customers to use your product but confining them to your application inhibits their potential at being successful, and that’s not what you (or they) want at all. At BombBomb, we built integrations with over 45 different platforms so our customers, no matter what they use on the side, can still have BombBomb functionality in their daily workflow. Consider developing new platform logins or integrations that sync with your customers’ most used programs so you have a presence in their day-to-day lives.
“Insider” program
Having an “insider” program could be mistaken for having a referral program, but the two are actually quite different. If you have power users, these people have the potential to be more helpful than you’ll ever know. Give them a chance to give critical, honest, and productive feedback by allowing them early access to your new releases or products. BombBomb Insiders get near-release features added to their accounts first, and are opted in to receive communication and participate in refining upcoming features and products. This way, our power users give us imperative advice and opinions on our newest ideas, while we give them the opportunity to experience the next best thing on our product roadmap.
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When you put forth effort to nurture your customers in ways that show them you care about their experiences, the payoff is inevitable. You not only become involved in their lives, but they also become involved in yours — this is what building relationships is all about. Doing the bare minimum to keep your customers satisfied is fine, but your customers will never feel empowered or confident enough in your product and may churn later on as a result. But if you give your customers the best journey possible and spend time to build the relationship, you’ll see that it sets up both of you for long-term success.
What do you do in your business to empower your customers, leads, or clients? What positive (or negative) results have you seen from it? Offer your advice to other businesses looking to build their customer empowerment below!
