Agencies Can Lead Client Growth by Focusing on the End User
Agencies have long touted their abilities to help clients “get to know their customers,” to “get inside the customers’ heads,” and to “reach out to the biggest numbers of customers with effective brand campaigns.” Years ago, those agency claims were largely true. But to quote an old song, time waits for no one … and in the digital world, time moves more quickly every day.
Agencies once had time to build client campaigns in a linear fashion: you did the creative work, then sold the project or program, and ran the ads or promotions. Then client prospects and customers responded in varying degrees; your agency helped clients track leads, develop responses, send product literature, etc. You may even have participated in client customer service, running telephone or online surveys.
Normally, these activities occurred along a certain “marketing campaign service program” timeline. Today this traditional marketing SOP has been turned on its head. Instead of a linear process, advertising is more akin to throwing a pebble in the water, watching for the waves to radiate outward—and praying that a larger wave doesn’t come along and wash away your impact.
Does this vast sea change in how businesses operate negate the client’s need for advertising agency services? That all depends on what your agency offers to your clients. If you offer old-style linear processes, if you do things “the way we’ve always done things,” and if you are resistant to change, you are treading a treacherous path. But if you are open to, and ready to lead your clients into new methods and tactics to help them build relationships and experiences that keep customers returning for more, your agency may well be building a business that will last through good times and those inevitable future downturns.
How many points of contact can you put on the head of a pin?
(Yes, it’s a goofy question, but bear with me for a minute.) The new world of marketing is all about how you reach the prospect or customer… your client’s points of customer contact. How many points of contact do your clients have with their customers? Enough? Too many? How effective are those points of contact? Do they act in unison? Do they complement one another? Are they saying different things to different people? Or are they just confusing and difficult to navigate?
Points of contact are the portals that will make or break a business. Whether they are “in person” (such as service at a grocery store or restaurant), in traditional media, or online (a business website, Facebook page, emails, banner ads or paid search), the importance of customer impressions at each level of contact cannot be overstated. These are the beginning (and sometimes the end) of the customer experience. Not to overstate the obvious, we all know first impressions are very important. So how are you “pinning down” your client’s customers?
Points of contact interventions
Agencies can provide a real boost to their clients’ sales and brand awareness through “points of contact” interventions. How many indifferent or downright ugly areas can be improved… quickly, easily and at little expense to the client? Many client/customer issues are as simple as washing a dirty restaurant window. (And yes, people do look at those and judge whether or not the kitchen surfaces follow suit…) Your agency can step in and provide that next level of guidance to clients. With the agency “outsider” point of view and frame of reference, you can “be” the client’s customer, review the experience with them, and move on to make adjustments… together.
Agencies can also intervene in helping clients to determine the best ways to gain and maintain contact with customers and prospects. It’s no small feat to help clients limit their efforts to the ones that work best in the right situations. If your clients are smaller B2B or B2C firms, they’re probably well aware that mass marketing strategies are largely ineffective for their marketing efforts. But how good are they at driving traffic to their website or Facebook page? How good is their website? Is the information clear and well presented? Does it look like it belongs in this century? Does it represent the company and its brands well? And finally—does it draw customers in and make them want to come back for more?
Whatever the client’s business may be, the company website remains the hub and portal of that business. If someone is looking to do business with you, you have to have a good website, or they are (much) less likely to begin that relationship. And with the proliferation of devices used for Web access, your clients need to consider how each customer may reach and view their sites; are they on a large screen PC, a laptop, a tablet, or a smart phone? Are they able to access and use the site regardless of their choice of device? To the customer or prospect, having to deal with a poorly designed, non-interactive, or hard-to-navigate website is like going on a blind date to an undisclosed location; and (with tablets and smart phones in the mix) the blind date is wearing a mask and can only manage to grunt one-syllable responses. In other words, “run!” This is not a great way to make, or maintain a relationship.
Seeking simplicity in a complicated world
The Harvard Business Review ran a wonderful article entitled Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers. Their premise: businesses work very hard to provide the ultimate in customer service. They compete to go above and beyond what the customer asks for. But, the authors ask, is this what customers really want? Don’t they just want what they ask for? Are businesses even checking with their customers to make sure that they’re not overdoing it?
This is yet another great area for agencies to intervene and work with their clients (and as a minimalist at heart, I really like this concept). As agencies, we rarely explore the idea of doing less in the name of building better relationships. In fact, we have collectively spent decades bending over backwards and jumping through hoops trying to do MORE! BETTER! ANYTHING THE CUSTOMER WANTS! Often, we find ourselves putting forward an all-you-can-eat banquet when a soup and salad will do quite nicely.
If less fuss and bother will get the job done, I’m all for it. To qualify, doing less doesn’t mean descending into laziness and torpor. It doesn’t mean not returning calls and fulfilling requests. It means doing what you do, and doing what the customer asks you to do, more effectively and efficiently. It also means providing great service, appropriately and in keeping with the situation… but minus the frills that add unnecessary layers of complexity (i.e., “and would you like to upsize your order? Would you like to add fries to your order? How about some dessert?). These days, getting the right thing, and getting it with little fuss or hassle, IS a delight. There is nothing that makes a busy client or customer happier than finding what they are looking for, finding it quickly, and having an easy time throughout the purchase process.
Take some time to help your clients explore this issue from the other side. There are few things that annoy customers more than businesses trying too hard. There are so many ways to do this, and they’re all just… so… wrong. We’ve all done it, it never feels good, and it feels even worse when you’re on the receiving end.
There are endless examples of this, ranging from being chased by atomizer-wielding perfume salespeople in department stores… to being forced to listen to chipper chants from chain restaurant employees: “Hi I’m Peggy Sue and I’ll be your server! How’s everybody doin’ tonight?! Welcome to the Rusty Supper! We have some super special entrees available tonight…”
But nothing spells “aura of desperation” more than a salesperson trying too hard. Every time I encounter a new employee at my bank, they try to sell me new “service packages.” Seriously, would I be at the drive-thru window if I had time to come in and chat about their new checking with interest package including special savings bonuses? Just count my money accurately, deposit the check, cheerfully give me my receipt, and send me on my way. Hard-sell tactics wrapped in a fake mantle of “service” are great for driving customers away.
Know the client’s customer segments. Which groups or individuals want “whole earth” service? Who enjoys a do-it-yourself user interface? Who wants personal interaction with a live customer service or sales rep? Agencies can make themselves invaluable to clients by helping them parse their customers or audiences and make their customer interactions customizable and positive, no matter the customer’s preferences. Customer experience is the key to your client’s (and your agency’s) success in this new world.
Think, and Act, for the Long Term
As you guide your clients into a new realm of customer retention through relationship building, regularly remind them that they are in this for the long term. They shouldn’t be stalking and beating customers over the head to make some arbitrary quarterly or bi-annual quota. They need to carefully consider every sales effort, at every point of contact, in terms of how it will be perceived in relationship terms. Look for ways to “sell without selling”—to build customer interest and bond them—without getting into what you want from the relationship every time. Relationships are long-term endeavors that need to be nurtured, fed and watered. Don’t tromp all over the garden and expect lots of green to sprout.
