Guest Blogger Melinda Parks: Invest in Creating the Best Customer First Impressions
As marketers, it really seems like a "no brainer" that we should focus on building relationships with new customers as they enter our business or service. Even beyond our profession, I expect that as a customer myself. The phrase that was always engrained in me as a child is, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression."
Yet, when you think about marketing investment dollars, the allocations can sometimes go like this in those tedious budget meetings:
"Let's spend our money trying to get new customers--we need more sales!" versus focusing on retaining to acquire and leveraging the positive word of mouth from our existing customers. To me, there seems to be a gap in a more distributed allocation of where we spend our marketing dollars. At Sprint, we have woken up and realized that if you create that best-in-class on-boarding experience, you not only really get to know your customers right off the bat, but because of that relationship-building, you reap the benefits later down the lifecycle by retaining your customers and driving satisfaction because they trust and can depend on you.
Let's take a purchase example like your wireless phone. As consumers, we spend countless hours determining what type of phone we should get. What are the bells and whistles? Who has the best coverage so I can use it? When I need service, will I get it? Will they value me as a customer and reward me? Lots of questions to think about and countless hours of time trying to figure out whom you should choose and for what reason. Customers do their homework and make that trip to the store for the big purchase. So far, seems pretty painless. After all, that little device, the size of a candy bar, is in your hand and you are ready to conquer the world!
For some of us non-technical folks, this is where the relationship begins to go south. You walk out the door and become frustrated from day one. "How do I get the weather in one click like I saw on that cool commercial?" "No one ever told me what my first bill would look like." "Overage charges, what are those?" Think of how great the relationship could be if you took the time to educate the customer and start the relationship before the customer even walks out the door? In an ideal world, we would make sure every customer walked out the door understanding the power at their finger tips.
If you allocate marketing dollars toward customers' on-boarding experience, you would see the ROI from that investment in less new customers leaving, the honeymoon period extended, and higher word of mouth that attracts new customers. Don't neglect having a clear treatment protocol from day one from a marketing perspective for those new customers that are so precious to get. A well-thought-out strategy and plan across the customer's lifecycle can really help a business cultivate their relationships with their customers.
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Melinda Parks is director of marketing for Sprint
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Gianfranco,
I am not as familiar with wireless providers in Peru but with most US carriers you walk out of the store with your phone activated. No waiting involved. I can see how that could be frustrating and understand how you would want an apology. Getting off on the wrong foot with any service provider impacts their ability to retain you as a customer. As far as customers wanting more technology, I believe that is true. I do believe that as we roll out advanced technology, we need the appropriate service and support model to compliment the total experience. They go hand and hand with each other.
Andy,
You are right, it is a battle to show results right away from retention efforts. In today’s economic situation, most companies do live in quarters and not years while at the same time accountable for growing the business. When you make an investment in retention you have to be willing to hold true to that investment over a longer period of time to begin to see a return. Retention efforts and building that positive customer experience and perceptions from your customer do not change overnight. Building a positive relationship with your customer should be genuine and come across to the customer in that fashion. If customers see it as promotional in nature and not something they value, your spend is better off allocated somewhere else. Sprint is committed to the customer experience and building that relationship with our customers. We cannot turn a customer impression overnight but hopefully through each interaction, our customers are seeing the difference.
Sprint takes on retention... They talk about the lifecycle and lots of relationships that good experiences could bring over the long-term. But, if that's for real and not another promotion gimmick, I'd like to be part of such a provider for years.
The key for them now is whether they will be able to get balanced retention and acquisition budgets. I bet that this might be a battle, just because acquisition is more sexy and it shows up on the table right away, while retention may take time before showing payback. What holds is that any CMO still counts in quarters, not in future years. Is that different now?
Here in Peru we have just two kinds of mobile providers. Since my first cell phone until now I've used Claro's phones. My first experience with their phones was about 7 years ago, but right now I am really dissapointed with them. Why? I bought a nice iPhone, of course I like it a lot and searched how to use it and everything, but Claro made me wait about a day to activate my phone. It was very dissapointing and they didn't even apologize.
The first impression was the best; now their service is not as good as it was before. Or maybe we - as customers - are asking for more technology, which implies that we need better service. Do you think so?