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How’s Your Customer Experience?

Customer Experience – Does it really matter?

Think about your own experiences shopping whether in person or online. I think you care about your experience, and so do your customers care about the experience they have with your company.

Here’s a famous quote from Sam Walton of Walmart – “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” Sobering, but true. So how do you get and retain a customer? On the topic of even getting the customers, we’ll have to unpack that later, but retaining a customer? It’s got to be a good Customer Experience. There are several things that go into this, and it depends on what the customer is looking for and who they are. It might just be low price but could be in stock inventory. It could be the knowledge and expertise of the people they are working with, or it could be not having to talk to a single person to get the product they want.

Customers do indeed have different personas. Some may want to order a part by talking to a counter person or parts professional that they’ve known for years. Some may want to order online at 3 am and not have to chat or talk to anyone and just have the part show up the next day.

To set a good foundation of Customer Experience, you need to start by assessing who the customers are, and what their wants are. If it’s in stock inventory, then clearly communicate on your digital properties or via phone what the status is. If it’s out, when will it be back in? If they order it now, when will they receive it? Nothing is more frustrating than to place an order online, only to have a note back that says something like “out of stock item – may take 8 weeks to fulfill…” If the customer knew that up front, they probably would have gone somewhere else at that time, but might come back to you. In that situation, they may be unlikely to ever return.

After you match up what the customer types are, and what their wants and needs are, then you can look to address plans of how to deliver on those promises. Remind all team members that they are all “in sales” and that delivering a winning customer experience at every touchpoint is paramount for everyone’s success.

We help craft Customer Experience plans all the time, especially when it comes to increasing Conversion Rates or doing Conversion Rate Optimization, so if you need any help, we’re here for you. And hopefully, you’ll have a great Customer Experience working with us.

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What Manufacturers are doing right

Customer Experience

One of the business improvements we are seeing Manufacturers work on is Customer Experience. Many of our manufacturing clients have hired Customer Experience Managers (CEM or CXM) in the last 3 years. This new role has a lot of hats that can be worn, but here are the top job responsibilities we are seeing; Sales Support, Service and Support, Post Sale Experience.

The first is Sales Support. Working alongside the sales executives, we see the CXM facilitating sales introductions, prospect client support, helping with presentation design, making introductions to the right decision makers for sales executives, and working on the metrics of the company to deliver Proof of delivering on the brand promises of the company and products.

The second role of a Customer Experience Manager we are seeing is in the realm of Service and Support. One of the biggest pains is getting customers to Register for Warranty, or Register their products, period. This can depend on the type of business/products we’re talking about of course, but with complex machinery – there are technical integrations for support that are necessary. Sometimes finding the right person at a customer to actually register is a bit of a hunt. And often needs to be incentivized. A gift card $ can go a long way in getting traction there.

The third role of a CX Manager we are seeing is post sale experience. Often this involves customer satisfaction surveys, customer follow up, even being a liaison to technical support – someone that’s VERY ACCESSIBLE at the company to receive inbound communication. CXM are even opening up to Direct Messages on social platforms, text messaging, and of course phone and email. Be accessible, and go the extra mile. This will certainly pay of in the desire for long term partnerships for manufacturing companies and their customers.


ChatGPT – doing AI business?


This NEWS highlight is on AI – and even a hilarious AI business experiment, worth a read.

Here’s the intro ask of the AI platform – and may be worth reading to see where AI might take us.

“You are HustleGPT, an entrepreneurial AI. I am your human counterpart. I can act as a liaison between you and the physical world. You have $100, and your only goal is to turn that into as much money as possible in the shortest time possible, without doing anything illegal. I will do everything you say and keep you updated on our current cash total. No manual labor.”

Read Full Article

Dynamat


The Dynamat brand is recognized by consumers around the world as quality products for solutions to unwanted noise and vibration. The Dynamat brand maintains the dominant market share in Car Audio and Automotive Restoration acoustic solutions. Dynamat, Inc. also provides a broad range of unique product solutions for home acoustics, computers, appliances, and Original Equipment Manufacturers.

Dynamat came to Sound Press for assistance in enhancing their online presence to better connect with future generations of customers, building on their existing brand equity. In the world of car audio, “Dynamatting” is a verb indicative of THE industry standard for car audio noise-dampening, used much like “Googling” is for web search. Sound Press was called upon to build a cutting-edge site to match their cutting-edge products and allow better interactions with their customers while driving traffic toward their partner distributors to increase product sales.

Read the case study

Did you know?

Josh Chapell – Senior Account Director

Josh has worked in the web world for over 17 years, beginning in Higher Education and Non-Profits managing and building websites, online learning platforms, and digital marketing efforts for both large & small as well as public & private organizations. 2023 will be his 11th year with Sound Press, and during that time Josh has worked extensively with clients across a range of industries including automotive, industrial, professional services, and financial sectors. Josh is lead project manager for many of the website builds at Sound Press, but also specializes in data and systems integrations – building connections between internal and 3rd-party software systems and databases with the front-end web presence of our clients.

Josh manages our team of web designers and developers, providing strategy consulting and often serving as a “translator” between the technical and marketing sides of projects to ensure all systems are working well together to serve the greater marketing strategy of each unique client. Key clients Josh has worked with include Partsource, Uniselect, ACDelco, Tedia, Desma, Centennial, and City Gospel Mission. Josh lives in Fort Worth, TX with his wife Sarah and 2 daughters, and when not chasing his kids around, he enjoys chasing his own shadow on runs both on pavement and on trails near his home.

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