When I first started my career, I would hear people say things such as “business is business,” which they would use as a justification for treating people badly. Nowadays, more people are recognizing that business is really. Your approach should shift with this.
Marketing has been segmented into two groups — business to business and business to consumer — also known as B2C and B2B.
These titles imply an impartial approach to customer connections — and that’s precisely what we saw. Fortunately, company thinking is growing and there is a better strategy — human to human (H2H).
H2H starts to state:
“I am not a business and you are not a business or a customer. We are both human and we are going to have a dialogue about something which will benefit both of us.”
Think as talking to someone, communicating exactly the same manner. In a conversation, information that needs sharing is shared by you and you may expect some feedback. And while technology frequently feels less personal — think robo-calls and junk emails — it’s now giving us the chance be human and to turn that round.
Human conversation
Imagine I go to a restaurant and get support that is poor. I might complete a comment card and, according to my experience, I hope that remark card just to go into a void. I never really expect the company.
Each and Every email those customers receive is an attempt to sell to them
We have online review webpages today, and several restaurants have Facebook pages or Twitter accounts. I am much more inclined to find a response, when I leave a message there for a company. They can supply a private response, considering that the restaurant can see who I am on media. And that answer should not be pro forma marketing-speak. It’s similar to a conversation with a friend who you let down. Offer to make this up somehow. Sorry you had a bad experience. What can I do to make it up for you? Can we offer a discount on the next trip, or a refund for a portion of your meal to you? That is treating the customer as a human.
Too many businesses still haven’t figured out this, and it is worse among businesses. They have all the very same stations as consumer marketers — email, social networking, phone, together with data about their customers, but a lot of the language they use remains purely transactional.
There is little or no effort to comprehend the person they are speaking to, or where they fit it in the procedure. They treat every individual as if they were the decision maker, therefore most of what they’re sending falls on deaf ears. They’re in the organization’s customer database, but they are the men and women that are wrong. They’ve moved to a new job or even to a company. And in addition to all that, every email those customers get is an attempt to market to them.
This outcomes with the wrong message, being delivered to the wrong person, through the station, in the tone that is inappropriate and at the wrong moment. Hardly a great H2H experience!
Rather than sending sales pitches, just about attempting to set up a relationship with your prospective client? Begin by understanding the person’s role at the company. Once you know what she or he does, you might opt to send relevant content in their field of expertise about industry trends and best practices.
Remember. And you say: You’ve got to get this item, here’s what it costs and would walk up to an individual on the street. You need to build trust with this person.
Human comprehension
Trust and familiarity could be created quickly using information and data that’s easily accessible today. As people we research clients using tools that help us comprehend them as people — at FullContact.
We need to Believe differently about each interaction we have
Let’s say we discover a potential is a fan of the Green Bay Packers as did Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers — which in addition they graduated from UC Berkeley. As a means to introduce ourselves, we might send her a care package. We are a company with great insights on humans.
We want to get to know our potential customers as people as well. We believe this gift shows both of these things.
As you might imagine, we get some interesting responses. Some folks are somewhat surprised that we are able to get that data. People believe that it’s fantastic that people took the time to comprehend who they are, and they would like to talk about that approach might help their business.
Forward thinking companies are getting better at relating as a person . And as people become more conscious of how companies can use their data to provide better service, they will come to expect more out of their connections.
But we are still in a really early stage on the trip to H2H client communications that are meaningful.
We need to think about every interaction we have with a customer, to get there. Every internet comment, every email, every Tweet about a merchandise is a chance to engage with a customer on a one‑to-one degree. It is time adopt H2H and to retire B2B and B2C.
Your clients will be happy you did.
