Delivering an exceptional customer experience (CX). That’s the holy grail every business chases: 87% of business leaders agree that exceptional CX is a must for their organization. Why? Because a good customer experience helps to close deals, drive customer loyalty, and boost a brand’s reputation, leading to more business and revenue.
But who’s responsible for CX? Where does the CX begin and end? What teams within an organization are the key drivers for great CX?
The answer is complicated, primarily because the lines between the marketing, sales, and customer success teams are not as clear as they used to be. Whereas in the past, when the customer journey was thought to begin after the deal closed, we know now that it begins much earlier and lasts a lot longer — from the first point of contact an individual has with your organization, all the way through to the end of the relationship and beyond.
And because the customer journey begins before an individual or company becomes a customer, good CX hinges on the ability of the marketing team to drive it. Not only can marketing influence public opinion about the brand and encourage prospects to consider purchasing a product or service, but they are also directly responsible for managing customer expectations following conversion. And, they are instrumental in helping to upsell customers to new products and services, and ensure customers leave good reviews and advocate for the brand over the long term.
Let’s take a look at four ways marketing leads the charge for CX:
1. Knowing the audience.
Understanding your target audience is a basic tenet of marketing — Marketing 101, if you will. But the importance of careful market research in getting CX right can’t be overstated. Before you can delight your customers, you need to understand your target customers’ needs, wants, behavior, values, and motivation. You also need to understand how competitors are marketing their products, including what’s working and what’s not. Standing out from other offerings requires an in-depth understanding of the marketplace, well-defined buyer personas, and smart audience segmentation. Marketing data is the foundation for determining all of these nuances, and insights from marketing data are often used to shape and refine the product roadmap to meet customer expectations.
2. Getting the message right.
Forrester research from 2020 on the CX shows that consumers today don’t differentiate between the brand experience and the customer experience — and that it’s critical that marketing and customer success teams work collaboratively to connect the brand promise with the experience delivered. In other words, what marketing tells prospects about the company and its offerings will have a significant impact on how they think and feel about the company and its products once they become customers. It’s about setting expectations that closely align with the reality of what a company can deliver. Vaporware never warrants good reviews.
3. Nurturing with care.
Once you engage a prospect, the experience you deliver to that prospect throughout the nurturing process will make the difference between a sale and a lost lead. Here’s an analogy: Say you’re walking through a shopping mall. You see an exciting window display, and the store looks inviting. Perhaps you’ve seen a commercial for this store on TV, so you’re already familiar with the brand. So far, so good, right? You decide to enter the store — you’ve now become a “lead” with a high propensity to buy. Once inside, you have a heightened sense of observation about the store’s contents and how you’re treated. Will the salesperson be helpful or pushy? Will the cashier be polite and suggest other products you may like? If the experience prior to the purchase is poor, you’re likely to leave without buying anything.
Similarly, when it comes to nurturing a prospect, it’s up to the marketing team to ensure a positive and consistent experience through the nurturing process — taking care to send follow-up emails that are informative instead of salesy, and ensuring that the process of learning about a product or service is enjoyable and seamless. According to a PwC report, approximately 85 percent of customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience, and that experience doesn’t end once a prospect becomes a customer.
4. Continuing the conversation.
Once the lead converts to a customer, marketing is responsible for continuing to engage the customer through upsell offers, newsletters, and other information that helps them get the most value from the product or service. Some of these activities may fall under the domain of customer success professionals, as well, so the best result will come from close collaboration between the customer success and marketing teams.
Marketing is also responsible for two other aspects of ongoing engagement: social media and reviews. Actively engaging customers on social channels not only helps to raise awareness for the brand and its products, but it’s also a great way to collect customer feedback that can be used by customer success professionals and the product team to enhance CX further — and right any wrongs. Marketing is often tasked with sending out customer surveys and asking for reviews, as well as managing the brand’s reputation by monitoring and responding to customers across all of those channels.
Good CX is in your hands
Over the past decade, marketing has taken on more responsibility within organizations, and is largely responsible for driving exceptional CX throughout the customer journey. To that end, BDO Digital developed the D3 Methodology, a framework for enabling Demand Creation, Demand Management, and Demand Expansion in any organization.
Find out how to optimize not only the customer’s experience with your brand and product offerings, but also to drive brand awareness, value, and revenue. Download our eBook on the D3 Methodology to learn more.
The post How Marketing Leads the Charge for Good CX appeared first on DemandGen.
