Etsy engineers and customer service at work (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Today’s guest blog is written by Mindy Jeffries of Stealth Marketing. She will be writing a series of blogs that will appear here occasionally. If you want to contact Mindy you can call her at 314 880-5570. Tell her you saw her here!
I watch a lot of old movies and sometimes I find myself thinking back to the 1940’s and 1950’s. The world was not only pretty straight forward; it was also black and white. Have you ever thought that? Be honest! Think of where we are now. How different our marketing world has become in the past few years.
Marketing has become so multi-dimensional!
This marketing evolution is good for everyone. Good for businesses, good for marketers and very, very good for customers.
So my question is: how is your business looking in this multi-dimensional world? Let’s start by listing a few of the places you are seen and then I will explain the importance of each one:
- Your office or headquarters
- Online
- Website
- Social media outlets
- Your customer service efforts
- Your employees – on and off the job
- Public Relations
These are the questions I ask myself as I walk into an office for the first time:
- How would this office look to a customer? Is it exciting or cluttered?
- How does it match or build on my advertising? Is it an extension? It should be. Are we saying we are a high-tech company? The office should reflect that.
- Is the office clean?
- Is there adequate parking?
- Is it efficient at handling lines?
- Are the marketing/promotional materials current?
Does/Is the Website:
- Reflect the brand well?
- Organized?
- Optimized?
- User-friendly, with obvious access to information?
- Allow a user to find the pricing for the services offered?
- Modern? An archaic web presence is a poor reflection on your business.
On Social Media, are you:
- Transparent? Are you answering critical posts quickly and resolving the problem publicly? Do people trust the information you’re providing? Are you resolving problems publicly and respectfully?
- Using it for customer service? If yes: are you answering customers’ questions and concerns quickly?
- Creating a useful environment for the entertainment industry?
Customer Service, do you:
- Train and empower customer service representatives?
- Offer transparency in customer service?
- Be sure the customer service reps have all information about offers and promotions before the customer does?
- Remember customer service employees are an extension of your company?
Other (company branded vehicles, employees, community efforts or in the customer’s home):
- What happens when an employee is at the grocery store and a question comes up? Do they respond in a positive manner? What do they do when no one is looking?
- How do the trucks look? Banged up? Well branded and identified? The cable companies whom you compete against never seem to get this right. The trucks have stickers on the side or are branded from the last acquisition. This is an opportunity to look clean, neat and high-tech.
- What is the process as employees enter customer’s homes? Do they track mud or wear clean booties over their work boots? Do they leave each area a little bit better than they found it?
For Public Relations, you should:
- Find places to speak and then get out on the circuit! Tell your story. What is new in your business? Your story is anything from hiring a new person to launching a new platform.
- Join business clubs such as: Rotary or Kiwanis and tell your story and meet other business people, figure out if they need your service.
- Send the stories of significance to the local paper. Many papers love the extra content.
- Identify key employees to help you in community ambassador roles.
The items discussed above go to branding. Branding helps your company build loyalty and confidence with customers and potential customers. Remember, each time a customer comes in contact with your company it is either a positive contact or a negative one. Therefore, examine each touch point carefully.