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Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
â Thomas Edison
In today's world of increasingly-higher transparency and communication standards expected of companies, both customer service and marketing is tough. We're swimming across a vast ocean where the minimum work required is no longer an option and those of us practicing human-focused business principles are the only ones who will reach the other shore. Along the voyage, we're faced with online public-facing customer reviews, social media rampant with oftentimes more complaints than praises, and the ever-present Net Promoter Score. More than ever before, our customers' happiness is our only key to success. Satisfying customers is the only way to build a business.
Thankfully, in this same timeframe, marketers can team up with the data customers share with them to provide incredibly satisfying experiences. With the rise of content marketing and search engines, more people can actually find answers to the problems they face in seemingly every situation. They can be reminded of their favorite products they are thinking about buying via retargeting. They can even be made aware of specific products and offers they are interested in at the time they are interested in them thanks to your marketing automation software provider of choice. The marketing industry as a whole has made tremendous improvements towards a world of a less spammy, more helpful web.
Because of these improvements, marketers today have more at their disposal to generate new business in scalable ways. In addition to these changes, though, there is one time-tested part of our businesses that needs to be reiterated over and over and over again: treating customers right is the only way to sustainably grow a business. This opportunity dressed in overalls is often viewed as unscalable at a high cost with low efficiency, but I'd like to share three stories of recent one-to-one customer service creativity that have led to vastly scaled promotions.
Story #1: Morton's Steakhouse
For our first tale, we focus on a social media interaction. Peter Shankman, a PR, marketing, social media, customer service, more buzz words, etc. superstar, tweeted at Morton's Steakhouse as a joke:
Can you guess what happened?
Yep, they did it. They met him at the airport with a steak, shrimp, bread, and silverware. Can you believe that? Can you believe the amount of effort required to do so? Shankman points out the speed in which approval and implementation had to happen for this to work. It really is mind-boggling and incredibly inspiring.
We're supposed to be data-driven though, right? Well, the tangible result that I can tell is that Shankman's original post was shared over 17,000 times. Not only that, but it was voted as one of the top 10 tweets of 2011 by Twitter. Obviously, I don't know how much revenue this drove for Morton's, and I'm not sure if they would even be able to pinpoint how much lift it drove, but I have to believe it drove something. If nothing else, it has made more than 17,000 people more positively engaged with the brand.
Story #2: TD Canada
Next up, we're talking about a more company-originated approach. The Canadian division of TD Ameritrade (at least that's how I understand the connection), called TD Canada, decided to thank individual customers in an exceptionally amazing way.
If you don't have time to watch the video, the company showed their appreciation to a number of individual customers at branches all across Canada in ways that were specifically tailored to the individual. This looked like sending a Jay's fan to throw the first pitch, sending a mom and her children to Disney, and even sending another mother to her daughter in Trinidad.
Like many great ads of our time, you're left feeling pretty warm and fuzzy, right? What about the numbers, though? The video has been shared across the web in about every outlet you can imagine, resulting in over 11,000,000 views. Again, views on YouTube should never be the end all, be all of marketing metrics, but I can't help but wonder what percentage of those viewers now have a more positive view of TD Canada and TD Ameritrade. I have to believe it's pretty high.
Story #3: Lego
Last, but not least, we're talking about blog comments. The largest tire manufacturer in the world is quickly showing us all how to handle customer communication. They are consistently using letters and emails from their customers to change their products and to go above and beyond the call of duty (Example 1, Example 2). For the sake of this article, though, I'll focus on a third example where Lego treated a 7-year-old boy better than most companies would.
Like any 7-year-old boy, Luka wants to bring his Legos with him everywhere. Unfortunately, that strategy often leads to pieces being left behind. In this particular case, Luka lost a minifigure that was extra special to him.
In desperation, Luka sent a note to Lego, asking for a new one because it was an honest mistake.
Check out Lego's response:
My favorite parts of their response are that they 1. responded at all, 2. communicated in Luka's language, on his level, and 3. they didn't just replace the missing guy, but also gave him an enemy to fight. This is the definition of going above and beyond.
Again, let's talk numbers. This story has been told in a number of places, but on Yahoo!, it has over 3,100 comments. I don't know about you, but whenever I read comments on almost any blog, they are rampant with negativity. Not in this case. This story is so inspiring that the vast majority of the comments are extremely positive. Go through and read them for yourself. Although 3,100 comments is not going to drive business alone, again, I am convinced that those people who commented are much more likely to buy.
How can Customer Service and Marketing Teams Work Together?
Obviously, the above stories may be out of reach for your business. Not everyone has the brand power and reach of Lego, but everyone passionate about customer service can provide one-to-one experiences and leverage them for marketing. The key here is communication. Time and time again, I see corporate environments where this crucial interdepartmental connection has been severed for a long time.
To start working towards better marketing with customer service, create at least one regularly occurring connection point for these two teams to learn from each other:
Once the regular, disciplined communication is underway, the rest is in your hands. Like the sentiment Thomas Edison conveys, you have the opportunity to make this happen; don't be one of the many who misses it, be a part of the few who put on the overalls and get to work.
Take your company's stories and make them public. Encourage customers who have been involved in the experience to share it on their own web properties or social media if applicable. Reuse and recycle these experiences in different media around the web to find out what works for your industry.
If you don't take advantage of your customer service team's effort, what will you be missing out on?
