The Ultimate Way To Satisfy Your Customers and Improve Your Brand

There’s hardly a day you wouldn’t come across someone asking for patronage on their business page. The most popular ones are from small business owners who even try to sound funny to get attention.

You have most likely seen an advert, “Please buy what I’m selling, so I can afford today’s meals.” Or something along that line.

People who own businesses are steadily looking to be patronized; which is why many adverts are littered on different platforms. It simply shows that customers or consumers are important to the survival of any business.

Entrepreneurs are daily seeking ways to provide amazing products and services to their customers and even reach a wider audience. For this reason, the adoption of technology and e-commerce has undoubtedly made it easier to reach out to more customers at their comfort. And with the pandemic, e-commerce has gained even more ground.

It’s no news that some of the structural changes and transformations that have occurred in many companies have come from e-commerce. It has also helped in reorganizing the manufacturing, marketing, and purchase of products. And with the impressive growth rates impacted by e-commerce even amidst the current economic downturn, one can only augur a rapid expansion in future years.

But does it quite end with establishing an online transaction profile for your products?

As stated earlier, COVID-19 has created an economic crisis that has made it clear to most B2B, B2C, and e-commerce businesses, the importance, and needs for digital space. Not only would your customers view your goods from the comfort of their homes, but you also get to reach a wider audience from different parts of the world.

 Along with having a digital space, there’s also a need for a “Digital-First Strategy” which goes beyond just establishing an online profile or creating a website for your business.

This Digital-First Strategy: What is it?

Often when people (business owners or digital marketers) create online profiles for their businesses, boost a few of their posts, they sit back, “hoping” that they attract some attention from the general audience. What’s more? They attract a few or more customers and get overwhelmed by many orders and it’s down the hill from there.

There have even been cases where service providers try to tell customers off because they feel insulted. For instance, most cosmetic vendors offer promo sales almost on a monthly basis, and during these times, they are flooded with orders, because, who doesn’t like a discount sale? But what happens next? These vendors start complaining about customers not exercising patience. Sometimes, it gets so bad that they begin blocking said customers without any discussion about refunds.

An interesting result from a survey conducted by PwC on 15,000 consumers revealed that after one bad experience, 1 in 3 customers can leave a favorite brand. It also showed that a huge percentage of 92 will abandon a brand based on 2-3 negative interactions. Then there’s the issue of customers who actually care enough to complain – 1 in 26; this means that the remaining 25 simply leave.

Your products may be excellent, but your customer service does more than half of the job. When you’re unable to satisfy your customers simply because you feel overwhelmed, it won’t tell well for your brand and you as an individual. That is one of the reasons why a digital-first strategy is a great option for businesses in 2021 and beyond.

While the digital-first strategy is no doubt an advantage of adopting technology in businesses, it is also more about the customers. The strategy focuses on the pain points, hopes, and experiences of customers, instead of only prioritizing the products that are being marketed. All these it does, while still maintaining a very digital solution.

In other words, the digital-first strategy helps you understand your customers, their interactions with your brand, the digital presence of your competitors, and their weak points while providing digital solutions.

To use the digital-first strategy, you’d be introduced to self-service apps, marketing messages (e.g in-app messaging) - which are often two-way conversations, and being discovered by relevant searchers; this would lead to less “ad fatigue.” It means you not only reach a wider audience, but also the right audience.

Companies like the New York Times, Alibaba, and Netflix have reaped the fruits that accompany employing the digital-first strategy in their businesses. One of those fruits is, of course, reaching a wider audience.

You’d notice that these brands offer different services to their customers; this means that there are important notes to take from their experience and successes thus:

With Alibaba, it was mainly three things – defining their strategy, thinking big; which involved investing in seven research labs for securing network, AI, machine learning, etc. They also aimed at improving their customer experience through the use of segmentation and chatbots.

The New York Times was able to predict the trends, which helped them recognize the online migration of their readership. They also followed the people through many of their competitors in 1996, and adapting to the disruption at the time, they were able to leverage in on what worked and the ones that didn’t work. They also employed diverse digital technologies to improve their customer experience.

For Netflix, two core reasons played important roles in their success – the acceleration of advancements in screening capabilities and the use of smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. However, Netflix was able to work in hand with the available technology. What does this mean?

Timing is an essential tool for success. The early 2000s had Blockbuster exploring the possibility to create a content library for its online customers. Yet, at the time, most people were faced with the issue of dialing up internet connections which, in turn, jeopardized streaming efforts.

But with the improvement of technology and the right timing for Netflix, customers are now able to watch a collection of movies without the lag.

What’s Left?

It is important to note that your ability to adapt and be resilient will be tested by market forces, and while “no battle plan survives the first enemy fire,” there is a need to know the trends in up-and-coming techs. Find out what your competitors are doing (or missing); this way, you could figure out how best to solve your customers' problems while offering great services as you survive and change the rules of digital interruption.

Again, with Love and all good things...

TEG!