Customer bombardment should be a no-brainer non-strategy. Especially when it comes to how not to create a positive customer experience.
Yet what should be common sense often flies in the face of customer experience reality.
Do you really know how many times customers receive notifications from your organization? First, blasts about upcoming webinars and seminars. Then, notifications about pricing strategy. And, let’s not forget invitations to participate in customer experience (CX) surveys.
Plus, sales reps, as well as IT and engineering professionals, request appointments. Wisdom has it that an average of 10 customer touches are involved before a potentially new customer schedules a meeting. Then again, what about the scheduled, cancelled and re-scheduled meetings with existing customers?
You get the picture. Customers hear from your organization a lot, in addition to hearing from every other organization they do business with.
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Your organization’s best customer-focused intentions become customer bombardment projectiles.
One organization I spoke with experienced a series of mergers and acquisitions, as they expanded their market reach. As a result, customers eventually received multiple emails (and CX surveys) on the same subject from multiple divisions in the newly merged corporate entity.
Guess what those customers did next? They hit the “Delete” button, rather than respond to messaging and survey redundancy. In your clients’ minds, it is the responsibility of the vendor to be accountable for the quantity and quality of messages thrown in the client’s direction.
Also, from your customers’ perspectives, you and your company take up a lot of real estate in their Inboxes. What starts out as a sincere, and important, email becomes diluted and commoditized by every other message they receive from various initiatives within your organization.
Are you aware of customer bombardment or not?
The majority of pre- and post-sales professionals, as well as leaders, I speak with are sincere in their efforts to “stick close to the customer.” However, these professionals make a flawed assumption: that their department’s outreach to customers is the only communication that customer receives.
Especially around end of quarter, when those customer experience surveys are sent to clients. Consider that every other vendor that customer deals with also sends them a version of that CX survey. Or, when contracts are up for renewal and professional urgency conflicts with client priorities.
How cognizant are you of the net effect of communications gridlock to customers?
Does your customer experience strategy result in customer bombardment or customer satisfaction?
Chances are, you figure: “Oh, I’ll ask someone about that, next week.” Nice to know, Babette, but no big impact on my KPIs. Or, is there?
When do you take action? Proactively or reactively?
There are so many factors directly and indirectly contributing to customer experience. Ultimately, customer experience is your responsibility, not someone else’s. When Professionals of Worth discover customers are being bombarded when the customer tells them about the situation, it is too late to be proactive. By that time, that customer potentially becomes dissatisfied.
Do you create your own customer experience strategy, independent of your organization’s? How might it be improved to prevent customer bombardment? What can we accomplish, working together?
Start moving one millimeter beyond your current customer experience strategy comfort level, today.
Planning your next team, corporate or association meeting? Searching for a one-on-one catalyst to get you unstuck? Engage me to present a One Millimeter Mindset ™ program! Delivered virtually or in-person. Contact me here.
Babette Ten Haken | Change Catalyst | Purpose-Driven Professional Innovation | Cross-Functional Team Leadership | Trust-Based Client Retention | In Person & Virtual Speaker, Consultant, Coach, Author |
Babette Ten Haken, Founder & President of One Millimeter Mindset™ Speaking & Consulting, catalyzes trust-based, purpose-driven, cross-functional leadership. She leverages Voice of the Customer and storytelling to translate across communication and collaboration disconnects impacting successful business outcomes across people and professional disciplines. Babette is a cross-functional business-oriented STEM professional, qualitative Voice of the Customer facilitator, and Six Sigma Green Belt (Quality). She is a member of the ASQ, SHRM, PMI, the National Speakers Association. Her playbook of cross-functional collaboration, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Contact Babette here. Image source: Adobe Stock.
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