Technology has a few common life cycles, one of those cycles is the Trough of Disillusionment. It’s when early adopter interest can fade out through some type of disappointment or waning interest — your customers will inevitably experience a phenomenon like this at some point in their journey with you. It’s the moments when the reality sets in about how much work it will take to launch, when they have their first technical issue, the system is down or there’s an unmet expectation.
The key here will be in how you navigate your customer through not just the good times, but also the more challenging times. The good news is that a lot is within your control. Only 15% of people will forgive a bad experience when they have rated customer service as “very poor.” About 82% will forgive a bad experience if they rate customer service as “very good.” This is excellent news and demonstrates how much is within your control.
Here are a few tips to stoke the fire with your customers.
Be Trustworthy
The beginning of your customer relationship is critical and will lay the foundation that can set you up for success or churn. This is an opportunity to build trust right away and it’s equally important to keep that trust going throughout the customer journey.
According to the Edelman Trust Barometer, the likelihood of trust increases when several items are present, including a reliable source of information (continuity), successfully executed plans, accountability, effective change management, and communication and transparency. To secure ongoing trust, it’s important that these are all part of the customer experience — and they often happen simultaneously.
Trust is also built through simple relationship-building skills such as active listening (listening to truly understand the other person) and building rapport. Get to know your customers personally — the person behind the business objectives. Ask them how their kids, pets, and partners are or how their recent vacation went. Ask and be genuinely interested in hearing their response — people will feel the authenticity of your question.
Be Consistent
Do what you say you will. Not following through is one of the fastest ways to lose trust. Don’t leave a customer hanging at a critical time. One common mistake is leaving the customer in the dark without updates while someone is fighting a fire to solve their issue. You may be working hard on a resolution but may not be communicating enough with regular updates. When a customer doesn’t hear feedback or updates, they are likely to fill in the gaps with assumptions that their needs don’t matter or that they aren’t a valued customer.
When customers experience consistency both in product and service, they will be more likely to weather the occasional challenges that inevitably arise much better knowing that they are valued and their success matters.
Build in Mutual Accountability
It can be easy to shoulder a majority of the responsibility with your customers to make sure they launch successfully and continue adopting your products. However, what makes a customer successful is when they are also accountable and included in the path to success — this means ensuring your customers commit to doing what they need to do as well. A Mutual Action Plan is a great way to approach this by getting your customer’s buy-in and ownership of action items and milestones, including what needs to happen and when.
In his book, “Winning With Accountability,” Henry Evans discusses how adding in accountability fosters stronger relationships. When we know that we can count on each other and collaborate to get important projects done, there’s a mutual sense of accomplishment and empowerment.
Keeping the customer as the central point of business not just after the deal closes but also throughout their journey is what can carry both you and the customer into a sustainable and fruitful relationship. This is how customer champions are created — those who will proudly sing your praises and purchase again and again
