I’m off to New York then Chatham, Mass to speak at customer client events for Avenue A Razorfish, one of the largest interactive firms, and Compete an analytics firm with a new take on measurement. Both of these companies have invited their top decision makers at their companies to network among each other, learn from each other, and take in knowledge from speakers (such as hiring Forrester analysts) from the industry.
By investing in your own customers, making them smarter, exposing them to best practices, and to let them form real relationships amongst each other, the benefits go beyond the pure relationship stated in the service level agreement, but bring an intangible human value that often can’t be measured.
There’s many other ways you can invest in your customers beyond throwing customer events for them, you can: offer a series of education webinars, provide an online community platform to let them self-support, help arrange user groups in different cities, and even sponsor, and tell them what other customers have been doing successfully.
So, how do you invest in your customers?
free iPod!
😉
Jeremiah – I believe that the whole concept of investing in your customers this way needs to become a way of thinking, a way of life for many more companies. Without this kind of engagement, business stays at a simple, transactional level, which is not a great way to distinguish your company in today’s market environment – or to win loyal customers.
When I think about it, this invest-in-customers approach allows different parts of the organization to follow the lead of modern practices of “consultative” sales. The good sellers who use this approach are the furthest thing from the used-car salesmen of the old stereotype; instead, they *really* try to figure out the prospect’s needs and then help the prospect meet those needs – even when that may mean selling less today. The result: a customer who trusts your judgment more, and who has a better relationship with you going forward.
Product management, customer service, marketing, operations, and so on can be enlisted to perform similar functions, IF the whole organization takes on the commitment of investing in the customer.
We collaborate with our customers to inform the evolution of our SaaS platform and our process, so that our customers can more effectively collaborate with their customers to design better customer experiences – a true ecosystem
It’s interesting to see the many folks who consider their customers ‘partners’. A great way to go.
I use to have a tag line on my email that read
“if you say that your best new customer comes from a referral…then why are you spending so much $ trying to get brand new ones?”
Jen
Good point, shouldn’t customer retention programs have more resources than customer acquisition programs by that measure?
Customers respect businesses online that focus on providing content that is valuable to them. My philosophy is that if a website focuses on providing resources & great customer service then customers will respond & consider the products there. (It’s quite a change from the traditional irrelevant corporate site that’s focused on marketing).
It’s definitely a new way of providing for your community & treating them as if they’re important & worthy of investing in!
I just recently began a current customer program at ReachForce. We created a ReachForce book club to send our customers relevant marketing books (I am very lucky that our customers are marketers too!). We also post about the current book twice a week on our blog, http://www.theb2blead.com, to make the book club more interactive. The feedback has been extremely positive so far.
This program is a lot less expensive than a user group conference (which a start-up like ours can’t afford just yet) but still allows us to share best practices and enhance the relationship with our customers.