11 principles for successful customer relationships

The customer relationship is a concept that designates all the interactions of a company with an individual, based on factual elements and emotions. The goal of the customer relationship is to create a bond over the longest possible period: from acquisition to loyalty, through engagement and satisfaction…

If brands are increasingly seeking to build a strong and personalized customer relationship, it is because consumer expectations have evolved. To differentiate themselves, brands must now provide their customers with experiences that arouse positive emotions in their interlocutors. According to Gartner, 64% of consumers choose a brand based on the quality of the customer relationship offered and the experience lived. The customer relationship must therefore be simple, fluid and personalized in order to meet customer expectations.

The customer relationship to exist

In the style of a famous line, one could say "No customers, no company!" (you got it?). You may have the most beautiful product(s), but if you don't have customers, you can't exist. Therefore, maintaining a good relationship with your customers is of "existential" importance for any company. This relationship must be well thought out and worked on from the beginning because you will never have a second chance to make a good first impression.

The customer relationship to stand out

Competition is tough, and even more so today. It is therefore very important to pamper your customers throughout their journey to increase your retention rates, but also so that they can recommend you to new buyers and thus become ambassadors of your brand.

The customer relationship to last

A satisfied customer is a loyal customer! And as we often repeat, a loyal customer costs 5 to 10 times less than a new customer and their average basket is higher and more regular. Therefore, maintaining a good customer relationship with your existing customers is a profitable strategy that allows the brand and the business to last over time.

Having a good level of customer knowledge is the basis of any successful customer relationship! To know your customers, the first challenge is above all to collect information on their profiles, their needs, their centers of interest and their expectations, in a transparent way, while respecting the legislative framework. The second challenge, more technological, will be to centralize them, structure/consolidate them, make them accessible and exploit them effectively.

What information do I need to know my customers well:

• Profile: First name, age, gender, address, profession, interests, etc.

• Behaviors: Purchase history, time of purchase, visits to the website, interactions in communications, with customer service…

• Preferred means of communication: Email, social networks, SMS…

• Consent and opt-in by channel

We live today in a society where we are increasingly invited to give our opinion - on a product, a restaurant, or even on the company we work for. Moreover, consulting reviews beforehand has become a habit for a majority of consumers, throughout their purchasing journey. According to an IFOP survey, 9 out of 10 consumers consult the opinions of other consumers before deciding to buy a product or service. In order to better know your customers, it is therefore important to listen to them. You will thus be able to identify their needs, their expectations, their "pain-points" but also detect the obstacles that block them in order to better satisfy them.

Customer listening can be implemented with technical means but above all human means. It is important to make spaces available to your customers so that they can express an opinion, leave a comment and even share their dissatisfaction. Your customer service must also be available, responsive and seek above all to encourage dialogue.

Despite all the efforts made, you will not be able to satisfy everyone. So be sure to pay special attention to criticism. They will be an opportunity for you to evolve your product/service and to show that you know how to question yourself.

Here comes the step of data segmentation, personalization and the implementation of scenarios. Your action plans and your messages must be personalized to the maximum, according to the customer life cycle, their product appetite, their preferred channel, their level of engagement or even according to interactions or life moments.

The key to a personalized relational strategy lies partly in the finesse of the segmentations and targeting carried out. The abundance of data available, whether behavioral, transactional, offline and online data, allows marketers to have a better customer knowledge and therefore to broadcast highly personalized messages, corresponding to consumer expectations.

Segmenting your data will allow you to :

• Categorize your profiles into homogeneous groups according to their purchasing habits (RFM segmentation), their behaviors (segmentation on email activity or their browsing habits for example), their preferences (product appetites, promophilia…)

• Trigger scenarios when a profile moves from one segment to another. For example when your customers go from a "bronze" to a "premium" status: triggering an informative communication on the new member advantages.

• Detect or anticipate behaviors and react with the right offer

• Create campaigns with dynamic and personalized content

• Refine your campaign reporting

Scripting your communications means ensuring that you keep in touch with your profiles at each stage of their customer journey, at the right time, with the right message. This allows you to maintain a presence and develop your profile's interest in your brand. All this, as always, to take care of your relationships with your customers and allow your brand to last!

Good customer knowledge involves knowing your customers' preferred channels to be able to communicate with them at the right time via the appropriate channel. It is then necessary to apprehend the customer relationship through all the available channels for several reasons:

• To not miss any marketing and commercial opportunity

• To show your customer that you know them, that you listen to them

• To show them that they are important and that you want to satisfy them more than anything else

In a multichannel strategy, you must allow the customer to choose their contact preferences by type of message and associated channels (email, SMS, telephone, print, push notifications…). Thus, your customer is able to shape their own customer experience.

If you use several solutions to activate the different channels, you will have to make sure to reconcile the customer data to avoid malfunctions (duplicates, inconsistent answers…). If, on the other hand, you use a solution that embeds several channels, the latter will be connected and all the data synchronized.

Don't worry. The multichannel approach is easy to adopt. You just have to follow the following steps to establish a successful multichannel strategy:

1. Start by identifying your "buyer" persona. Well determined, it helps you better understand your clientele.

2. Then, choose the target channels. Being present everywhere is expensive. It is better to choose the best channels to target your audience.

3. Prepare a coherent message to use on all channels.

4. Take advantage of the specificities of each channel.

5. Use a multichannel activation platform, such as Actito.

6. Follow and measure the performance of each channel.

Want to know more about activating the multichannel customer journey? Discover our article on the subject.

The number of customer experience managers over the past 5 years in B2B and B2C companies has increased exponentially by 1000% (Accenture Study, Comarketing, L'ADN February 2020). This increase reflects the desire of companies to invest in higher quality customer experiences, and illustrates the growing weight of customer engagement marketing strategies.

Indeed, creating value for your company depends on the satisfaction of your customers, their loyalty and therefore the quality of the relationship you create with them. To this end, adopting a marketing strategy of engagement makes perfect sense: it directly links customer knowledge and consumer satisfaction. To better know your customers and always satisfy them, you must encourage them to give their opinions, their suggestions for service improvement and encourage them to communicate with you. Your satisfied customers are all ambassadors of your brand… who will encourage new prospects to convert.

The different levers of customer engagement

To engage your customers you need to build a strong and lasting relationship with them. Different levers are at your disposal:

Content as a knowledge lever

The blog is typically a channel that is often underused, which however brings together different articles/success stories/ videos/tips likely to help your customers get to know you better while learning interesting things. The particularity of this lever is that it constitutes an entry point that belongs to you. Therefore, you remain the owner of the content you publish. We thus recommend that you identify your readers first and foremost, detect their preferences in order to best meet their expectations.

Community as an engagement lever

Presence on social networks is nowadays essential. Especially when considering the average time spent by Internet users on these platforms (consult our article on micro-moments to learn more). Thus, community marketing is the engaging marketing par excellence: it allows to create and animate a community of consumers which brings them a feeling of belonging.

Events as an exchange lever

Events have the advantage of making you known to your target through physical proximity and seamless exchanges, which is very favorable to the establishment of a privileged contact. You can of course participate in trade shows for example, but even better, you can organize events especially for your customers/prospects.

To learn more about customer engagement, feel free to read our ebook on the subject!

Customer engagement is important but customer satisfaction is even more so because it plays a crucial role in loyalty. It is therefore essential to measure it and put in place actions to improve it.

The different indicators of customer satisfaction

Historically, the CSAT is the benchmark satisfaction indicator, which still remains the most popular today.

"Are you satisfied with…?"

The answer can take different forms: yes/no, rating on a semantic scale or rating on a numerical scale. This indicator, very easy to set up, allows to measure the customer satisfaction "in the heat of the moment" or in "real time", just after an interaction between your customer and your company. It is expressed most of the time in the form of a percentage. As a general rule, a very good CSAT is higher than 80%.

Beyond being a good feedback collection lever, the NPS is also a recommendation indicator that will allow you to identify promoters and detractors of your brand.

"On a scale of 0 to 10, would you recommend our brand / our products / our services to those around you?"

• From 0 to 6, these are the Detractors. These are dissatisfied or very moderately satisfied customers. This category is potentially dangerous for your brand because detractors will not fail to share their dissatisfaction.

• From 7 to 8, these are the Passives. These are customers who are generally satisfied but not enough to promote your brand. They are even more inclined to go to the competition.

• From 9 to 10, these are the Promoters. These are the most loyal and satisfied customers. They are the company's ambassadors who will recommend your brand to other potential buyers like their friends or family.

This is the latest addition to the family of customer satisfaction indicators.

"What level of effort did you have to put in to…?"

The answer to this question takes the form of a score ranging from 1 (minimal effort) to 5 (maximum effort). It is calculated very simply by taking an average of all the scores collected. It is mainly used to measure the level of customer effort at specific touch points in their journey.

The consistency of your brand is important to stand out from the competition. Moreover, it is the best way for you to communicate with your customers and offer them a unique experience.

Therefore, it is essential to clearly define the identity of your company. The colors, associated graphics and the wording of the messages used must clearly reflect your identity. For example, if you sell a luxury car rental service, the words "luxury cars" and "exclusive brands" should appear in your speech, accompanied by an elegant design and graphics that reflect the upscale identity of your brand in this case.

Ensuring consistency is an essential principle of relationship marketing. It is essential to establish an image associated with your identity in the minds of customers to make you easily recognizable and memorable.

Finding a balance in the customer relationship is necessary to maintain a mutually beneficial exchange. High customer satisfaction can lead to unfavorable cost increases and thus lead to significant financial losses, or even decisive ones for the retention of your customer. The same consequences can occur in the opposite case, when the customer relationship is not strong enough or poorly maintained.

Thus, as in any relationship, finding a balance is necessary in your relationship with your customers.

Your internal collaborators are the true vectors of your brand value. As a general rule, the customer is the most valued in terms of commercial value brought by the customer relationship. However, the emphasis must also be placed on the values conveyed by your employees, who remain the concrete expression of what you have announced as your strategic vision. Hence the importance of ensuring that your vision is consistent with what is conveyed by your employees.

Good customer relationship management allows your company to maintain control over each interaction. Thus, the use of a good CRM becomes a necessity.

However, choosing a good CRM is not easy. Here are some criteria to take into account:

• Identify your needs: a good CRM must solve your problems and facilitate your work. Start by identifying the problems you are facing and the type of solution you need.

• Check the features of the available software: There are several software on the market. However, if you know your needs well, identifying the right CRM will be easier.

Ask for a demo: before starting, ask for a demo. During this session, a member of the company will answer your questions and present the features of the CRM.

Communication is at the heart of customer relationships. The more fluid the communication, the closer the relationship and the more your customers will trust you.

Each point of contact with customers must therefore be clearly identified. .

For example, when a potential customer creates an account on your site. An email should be sent to them to welcome them and explain how your service works. Then, when they perform an action on your website, a chatbot will offer to help them, and so on. The goal is to always guarantee a constant flow of communication with the lead or customer without falling into the vicious circle of commercial pressure.

A good customer relationship strategy is the key to success for any business. Whether you are looking to gain new customers or retain old ones, you need a well-developed strategy.

Here are some examples of customer relationship strategies you can implement:

Have an omnichannel presence

Being present on several social networks is equivalent to having several communication channels. It has become important to have an omnichannel presence to satisfy customers. Whether you choose an after-sales service by email or a messaging application, the essential thing is to be present for your customers and to guarantee the possibility of interacting through several communication channels for a better customer experience.

Personalize your targeted marketing

One of the principles of customer relationship not to forget is to set up a personalized relationship strategy. If it is necessary to know your customers, it is also important to apply your knowledge. Here are some steps to personalize your marketing.

• Personalize your emails

Recent studies have shown that the open rate of emails with a personalized subject is 50 to 58% higher. There aretherefore many elements of your communication which, if personalized, can give each of your customers the impression that they are unique.

• Segment your customers

To succeed in personalizing your communications, it is essential to segment your customers in order to target them more effectively. Whether it is targeting by behavior, by preference or by profile, the essential thing is to clearly define the segmentation criteria so that they are functional and useful for your various targeted actions.

There are several software that you can use, such as Actito. You can choose the segmentation method and start your campaigns on the right foot for ever more impactful marketing!

• Be Specific

Get straight to the point! No one wants to read a long message or an endless email. Two or three short paragraphs are more than enough to catch your customer's attention.

Create valuable content

One of the active principles of customer engagement is the creation of valuable content. Everyone wants to read an article to learn something new. And your content must be able to meet this need for information.

Whether it's a blog (take a look at Actito's), content for social networks, a white paper or a downloadable document, you must offer unique content and, above all, with added value. This is the key to success in moving your prospects and customers through the marketing funnel.

In order to know if your publications have an effect on the customer journey, check your Actito dashboard. You will have access to several indicators such as:

• The customer engagement score

• The number of scenario executions

• Conversion rates

• Etc.

To properly manage your customer relationship, it is advisable to have a good technology stack. Here are some examples of tools that we recommend:

CRM/CDP

The CRM - Customer Relationship Management, is a tool that allows you to store all offline data (profiles, transactions, surveys, customer service, etc.) and unify them around an identifier: initially the name, then the email address from the 2000s. There are 2 families of CRM: sales CRMs and marketing CRMs.

The CDP - Customer Data Platform, is a tool that allows you to centralize data from all collection sources, all channels, reconcile them and associate them with each other to offer a 360° view of the profile and its journey. The CDP has superior data processing capabilities to the CRM since it allows to normalize, deduplicate, clean the data, create segments, aggregates, scorings…

A marketing activation solution allows you to activate your data to put the customer back at the heart of your strategy. Providing your customers with a personalized experience promotes their engagement and therefore their loyalty.

Among the key features in a marketing activation solution, first and foremost is the data model. You will have the choice between a single-table data model or a multi-table data model. To fully understand the differences, we have an article on the subject! We can only advise choosing a solution with a multi-table data model because the range of possibilities in terms of segmentation, targeting and personalization is wider.

Another important feature: marketing automation scenarios that will allow you to build or supervise and, if necessary, adapt the customer relationship in order to get maximum value from it. Scenarios will allow you to automate campaigns that will arrive at the right time by reaching the right audience with the right content, through the right channel. And speaking of the right channel, it goes without saying that the solution must have a wide range of channels, such as email, SMS, print, wallet… that you can combine to ensure that each message has maximum impact.

Last but not least… Choose a solution that allows you to easily create satisfaction questionnaires. A form integrated into your email campaign or on your site will allow you to feed the responses back into your data model and therefore be able to act to improve customer satisfaction if necessary.

Today's consumers expect a brand to offer a responsive and quality customer service. Indeed, not everything always goes well in a customer's journey and the latter expects to be reassured, to be considered when this is not the case.

One of the tools that can be set up by companies is a ticketing tool. This tool will allow you to assign a request/complaint to a ticket, which itself will be assigned to an advisor who will be responsible for processing it. The must is to connect this tool to your other tools mentioned above to obtain the famous 360° view so sought after.

Also set up a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), dynamic is even better! A real mine of information to inform your customers/prospects in the blink of an eye, a FAQ allows your audience to find the answers and all the useful information about your products and/or services. The advantage of the FAQ is that it will allow to decongest your customer service, by giving access to the most frequent questions 24/7.

Finally, if you do not wish to provide a telephone number (it happens even if let's face it, it's annoying), at least set up a chatbot. You just have to pre-record in your chatbot the most frequently asked questions and your virtual assistant will send an automatic answer. And if you have the necessary resources internally, you can also have a real person behind it.