Bienvenido al futuro, donde cada día es una revolución y la experiencia del cliente se mueve a la velocidad del rayo.
Desde noches de trivia en Zoom hasta experiencias de compra digitales, la increíble velocidad de cambio en todas las industrias ha hecho que Las nuevas tecnologías son esenciales y Estrategias de marketing ágiles indispensable. As audiences adapt, new expectations have been created y solidified. Evolving brands, no matter the industry, must figure out how to offer the enhanced, empathetic experiences that are expected. Understanding what customers need in the moment is more key to customer experience than ever before, y that requires seeing y thinking about the world from the audience’s point of view.
Incorporando la empatía
This approach takes us beyond personalized content; it even takes us beyond the current, y relatively simple, understanding of the basic needs that bring personas to brands. Incorporating empathy means creating a shared journey for the bry y the audience to take together.
To better understy y engage with personas, we must be truly interested y invested in where they are coming from – this requires recognizing emotions y taking the time to validate experiences. When we understy our prospects y customers, we can communicate with empathy every time we reach out. This is vital, as empathy should shine through every piece of content that we put together y every campaign that we send out into the world.
All brands have the foundation to do this moving forward because it’s been such a critical part of the process for the last two years. We’ve seen major brands expanding their messaging in innovative y brand-relevant ways that showed a unique understanding of their customers y audiences: Oreo has taken its Instagram to the next level with charming y creative cookie content, while Lush brings their ingredients, process, y employees to the fore in their ‘How It’s Made’ video series.
These specific messages are spectacularly impactful because they understy the experience their audience is looking for y invite them to either contribute or buy into the experience that the bry is creating. Built on an understanding of their audience, these campaigns reveal the impact that listening to our customers and finding a helpful y authentic way to meet their needs can have. The mix of tactics emphasizes that there is no “Derecha” way to build empathy y emotional intelligence into a marketing strategy; there’s only what is authentic y meaningful for the bry in question.
What is truly required is honesty y transparency; almost everyone can recall an attempt at bry empathy that fell flat or became a cringe-worthy meme. Nearly all these mishaps can be traced back to a fundamental lack of sincerity; clearly defining your bry values y shaping your message empathetically around them is more genuine y impactful.
La importancia de la escucha activa digital
Building a great customer experience means listening, learning, y responding quickly to changing needs. We can start by placing more emphasis on listening y creating opportunities for the audience to connect. Encouraging them to reach out is one thing - asking for a review or asking what they think is standard operating procedure for most brands. It’s what happens after they take the time to reach out that can be a critical differentiator.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that two factors are likely to make personas reach out to brands – they’re either extremely happy, or extremely unhappy. The trouble with that accepted wisdom is that it ignores a great many factors that are directly within the control of the brands in question. Are we, as marketers, sitting back y waiting for personas to fill out a contact form or post a review? Or are we engaging with personas on their preferred channels, encouraging our audience to reach out to us to share their thoughts, impressions, y feedback in the ways that are best for them?
The latter means a commitment to the community, investing in the time y resources required to listen to y understy the audience that we’re trying to reach.
This is active listening adapted to a digital framework, y it’s critical in building trust.
Active listening can not only help identify y solve problems, it’s also essential for building long-lasting relationships. Digital active listening means going beyond our comfort zone y thinking more broadly about how the customer is interacting with a brand, product, or website from the first touchpoint to the last. Things like net promoter scores (NPSs) which ask customers to choose between a smiley or sad face after the transaction is completed have great value, but they only offer insight into a single customer moment or, at best, a single customer journey out of the many that we hope they will take.
In contrast, digital active listening means paying careful attention throughout the customer lifecycle, establishing goals that track progress y measure success across the customer funnel, y using a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, y Timely) goals approach to your events tracking. The key is listening to y learning from the results. If your customers aren’t engaging, ask yourself why. People want to know that they’re being heard y understood, that the critical information they are trying to convey is being received. Digital active listening is a great way to be both attentive y responsive as we strive to understy y incorporate the insights the audience shares with us.
Tuft & Needle (T&N) has elevated digital active listening to an art form. T&N has a commitment to the customer experience that shines through the entire business model. From the very beginning, they've understood y leveraged social proof to remarkable effect, driving consumer trust by directing their customers to review on a third-party website. They encourage reviews from ALL customers...even (y perhaps especially) those who didn’t love the product. They’re so good at learning from y listening to their customers that some of their best reviews are from personas que devolvieron el colchón, lo cual es un logro de servicio al cliente en sí mismo.
Reviews form the backbone of their strategy y culture, y are their strongest source for leads y for improving the product. Each review is used to improve the experience, which has lowered their return rate y increased their NPS to a world-class 85. Tuft & Needle considers each review to contain a blueprint for the continued success y evolution of their business, y they treat each review as if it is exactly that by using a specific y repeatable process for internalizing y acting on the feedback that their customers provide. There are as many ways to practice active digital listening y empathy as there are brands. Again, there’s not a Derecha way to do this, there’s just a Derecha way para tu marca.
If inspiration is what you’re looking for, look no farther than your favorite local small businesses. Customer experience requires building relationships, y small businesses are incredibly good at both listening y inspiring loyalty. They’re also wildly creative y pivoted agilely to provide the excellence y fun their customers have come to expect.
Poner a las personas primero
We can distill all of this to one very simple core principle – listen to y communicate with with your audience as personas. Audiences y customer bases are comprised of personas. Our audiences y customer bases are human beings, no segmentos o estadísticas, y they’re looking to be understood y listened to as such.
The last few years taught us the importance of community building y communication. The next few will provide even more unique opportunities for marketers to practice listening, deepen relationships y build incredible experiences that benefit both their audience y bry for years to come.