Written by Lorrie Bryan
Solo Printing’s Own John Carr Highlighted
Customer-facing [kuhs-tuh-mer] [fey-sing] -adj. Interacting or communicating directly with customers: good customer-facing skills.
If you astutely recognized that all of these things are customer-facing tools, then congratulations! Contrary to what many business managers and owners think, customer facing is not confined to specific personnel at designated times, and it transcends the limits of physical proximity. It doesn’t have to be a face-to-face event to be a meaningful and successful customer-facing function. You should, in fact, consider any point of contact that you or an employee has with a current or potential customer a customer-facing opportunity, an opportunity to engage your customer and enrich your relationship with them.
“Customer facing happens everywhere—distilled to its simplest form, it’s anything you do that anyone else sees,” affirms Scott Dubois, president of pidalia, an agency providing clients with solutions to advertising, software design and business process management. And Dubois also thinks it’s not just what customers see, but also what they hear. “We took a critical look at our customer experience and decided that we should hire professional voice talent to record all of the components for our phone system. This enhances the experience for our customer,” he explains
Billy Mitchell, president of MLT Creative, an innovative B2B marketing company, concurs. “Customer facing also relates to everything from phone reception to printed and electronic correspondence. Even your invoices are examples of customer-facing interaction.”
In essence, customer centricity lies at the heart of successful customer facing interactions. “Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and walk through your entire process with their best interests in mind,” suggests Mitchell. “Do this as often as you can to keep your program dynamic and constantly improving.”
So while you are walking through your operations and processes wearing your customer’s shoes, and looking for areas to improve your customer facing, here are a few CUSTOMER-based factors to consider:
Consistency
After they reviewed their customer facing interactions, pidalia’s president felt that it was important for his customers and potential customers to be greeted by a pleasant professional voice when they called. It was equally important that the message be consistent with the company’s brand, that the quality of the phone service be consistently high and that calls are consistently handled with efficiency and care.
“Consistency is one of the hardest things to achieve,” says Dubois. “But it’s one of the most important. It’s imperative that you are consistent with your brand, and that you nurture a company culture that lives and breathes your brand, and that your customer facing reflects your brand consistently.”
John Carr, president at Solo Printing Inc., emphasizes that the most effective and consistent customer facing isn’t about utilizing particular tools or strategies. “It’s the result of a company having a shared culture of customer centricity. It’s the shared voice of all customer facing representatives that best deliver any brand’s promise.
To maintain consistency, it’s important that your company culture is reflected beyond the frontline and throughout your company. “Define your company’s culture, develop your story and build your program on individual buy-in from everyone in the company – not just your frontline,” urges Mitchell. “Instilling a customer-first culture is especially important as part of a company’s on-boarding with new employees. Many people need to up their social skills related to business, and having an established program and shared commitment can encourage employees to be positive when dealing with customers.”
Unhappy Customers
Although nobody endeavors to make customers unhappy, it happens, usually as a consequence of inconsistent customer facing or poor judgment. But rather than dismissing unhappy customers, look at them as a unique opportunity to showcase your company’s commitment to exceptional customer service , particularly in this age of instant widespread outrage.
Following a national Facebook and Twitter outcry regarding Delta’s exorbitant baggage charges for military personnel returning from deployment in Afghanistan, Delta Air Lines (and other airlines) changed their policy for military travelers to allow for four free bags. But the real winner in this scenario was AirTran. They one-upped Delta and everyone else by changing their policy for military travelers and becoming the most military friendly airlines. AirTran declared that they would begin handling ALL baggage for military personnel travelling on orders for free.
Likewise, Dubois urges that all customer complaints be handled as if they are front-page news. “One bad tweet appropriately placed can hurt you.”
Successful Strategy
There is a major difference between a “solid” customer facing strategy and a “successful” strategy that connects to and engages the marketplace, Carr explains. “Anyone can have a web presence, participate in email blasts, drip campaigns and have Facebook and Tweeter accounts. These can constitute a “solid” strategy but if they are not interactive—if they don’t convey a message, meet a need or compel one to take action—it is worthless. It is not merely about how many people can be reached, but about the quality of the experience and the ability to create a human moment. It can be easy to have a strategy, but is very hard to make a connection that leads to or enhances a relationship.
Top of Mind Awareness
As Mitchell has noted, it is important to walk in your customer’s shoes and see things from their perspectives. For Susan Ishmael, vice president at Master Print Group, making the customer a priority has ensured successful customer facing and helped her company make the transition to marketing services provider.
“To be successful, you must make it a priority to keep top of mind awareness of your customers—know their pain and their joy, their challenges and their triumphs. This becomes a constant state of mind as you build your personal relationships with your customers. The success of your customer becomes your priority, and you want to provide them the marketing options they need to succeed. We are genuinely committed to our customers, so we are training up, exploring all avenues and helping them develop strategy on a deeper level.”
Organization
With so much customer interfacing on so many fronts, it is more important than ever to have a customer relationship management program in place.
“Every touch point with a customer, even prior to any transactions, is an opportunity to make a positive impression and an entry in a customer data base, so customer relationship management is increasingly important,” Mitchell asserts. “There are several software programs that help support and organize customer engagement—Salesforce.com is a leading example. Some companies we work with have created customized programs for this purpose.”
Multiple Mediums
These days, a touch, a customer interaction, can take many forms. “It can be as literal as a handshake or take the form of a tweet, blog, or interactive experience utilizing QR codes. The means to reach ones prospects and customers is only limited by your imagination. Regardless of the form, the function is to engage potential customer or strengthen existing relationships. The key to success is that the touch must be reciprocal. Building relationships is never a one-way street,” Carr says.
“Besides traditional networking and advertising opportunities, which are still very viable, there are countless ways to use the Internet and electronic media. The most successful approach incorporates all mediums. The goal is to communicate to your prospects in a manner, time and place of their choosing. Regardless of the medium, it must be interactive and one should never lose sight of the human element,” Carr affirms.
Ishmael reminds that there is no substitute for personal contact. “Regardless of the tool, you need to back up the encounter with personal contact. We utilize multiple tools to touch—our approach is changing frequently— and following up with a personal conversation really sets us apart.”
Engagement
So what’s essential to turn a customer interaction into a successful engagement? Ishmael says she looks at each customer interaction as an opportunity to bring value to the relationship. “Your presence needs to be relevant and exciting so that you are bringing value to the relationship and thereby engaging your customer. One way you can do that is by offering them relevant and useful information through e-blasts, blogs or custom publications. It goes back to that personal relationship—knowing what their problems are and offering them solutions.”
Real Customer Centricity
Mitchell stresses that a good honest culture that is real is easier to sustain than one that is based on platitudes and policies. “Your policies and guidelines for customer engagement need to be based on honesty and a sincere interest in meeting your customers’ needs. Just as importantly, your day-to-day culture needs to be true to your brand promise.”
He cites the example of Zappos shoes as told by Zappos’ CEO Tony Hseih in his book “Delivering Happiness.” “Although Zappos is a B2C business, their culture is built on great customer service and a shared passion for making each customer’s experience positive beyond their expectations. Their approach carries over to their vendor relationships and strategic partnerships too, so they set a great example for B2B also. Tony Hseih reinvented the lowly job of selling shoes and made it a job where a young person working all day on the phone with Zappos’ customers believes they’re making the world a better place.”
Every touch point with a customer is an opportunity for a positive impression, an opportunity to share and engage with the customer. If a company nurtures a customer- centric culture, then there is a natural wellspring of customer service, and that positive impression will be authentic, organic and inherently more powerful.
