Enhanced Customer Satisfaction Rates Due to Marketing Automation

It is almost impossible to compare the customer satisfaction rates of today to those levels that may have been measured 5 or 10 years ago. This is due to the fact that advancing technology has changed how we interact with customers, thus changing what customer satisfaction looks like.

Previously, satisfaction rates could be guaranteed by making sure that an in-store experience followed a predictable checklist. A smiling, helpful associate behind the counter, beautiful displays of merchandise in the store, and quality follow-up calls to ensure that the customer’s needs were met.

Today, the brick and mortar experience is no longer the only way to calculate how pleased customers are. Instead, the equation has become a complex calculation of the effectiveness of online interactions, social media experiences and the seamless integration across all channels.

It seems that the only thing that has remained the same, with reference to customer satisfaction rates, is the fact that high rates continue to mean loyal return customers.

How to Enhance Customer Experience

Realising that high customer satisfaction numbers are important is critical for every business today. Learning how to work all the parts of the new customer satisfaction equation is a different story entirely. According to a group of marketing advisors located in the UK, only 4% of marketers have gotten it right, while 90% admit to knowing how important it is. Customer satisfaction today can no longer be left up to only one or two departments. Instead, it is the responsibility of your marketing department, as it now requires a longer start-to-finish strategy involving multiple contact points with the customer. This strategy often includes a calendar used to track your content stream, carefully selected topics that will be relevant to your customers, and taking advantage of your best content by using it across multiple channels.

The two most important factors that will influence your customer satisfaction rates today are marketing automation and integration. An effective strategy will include the combination of both of these as you work to provide the best possible experience for each customer.

Integration is Key

Seamless integration today of technologies and information is a must in order to attain satisfied customers. In essence, this integration allows for customer education, order processing, and enhanced interaction. This integration is made possible as organisations make use of data storage and analyzation systems. The information will then be used to anticipate customer needs and responses ending in a pattern of interactions that is beneficial to both the business and the customer. One example of an effective integrated customer experience would be when a link from a social media website directs a customer to a web page that has high-quality content meant to educate the consumer. A simple link is then built into that content which will lead the customer to an easy purchasing opportunity. Each step of the process from the first social media interaction to the final sale of product heightens the customer satisfaction levels due to the ease and simplicity of the process.

How Can Marketing Automation Help?

Marketing automation is the machine that runs behind the scenes of each customer interaction, searching for information that will be stored and used to further enhance customer interactions. In essence, this automation is built into a continuous cycle of evaluating, analysing data and offering suggestions about what will enhance each and every interaction. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learnings enable you to identify and replicate the top sales performer and behaviours that directly impacts sales results and unearth insights to improve marketing effectiveness. Advanced AI that listens to your calls and learns from them.

The types of information that marketing automation can provide may seem inconsequential to some. But to those looking for insights into an increasingly satisfied customer base, the following information is critical:

• Make Communication Personal – By picking up on keywords such as wedding, birthday, back to school or vacation, marketing technology can provide a personalised way for a business to reach out to a customer. Some of us are also measuring customer sentiments for each interaction, but the transformation that is needed is to drive insights, recommendations that ultimately support your business goals and can be done with the help of communication intelligence technology.

• Trackable Interactions – This type of automation can produce clear and concise reports about how customers are interacting with your business. These insights can then be used by a marketing team to ensure that timely messages are offered that fit with your customer’s habits and patterns. AI transcribes your customer interactions into to searchable text and leverages machine learning for insights and patterns that matter most to your business. These are Insights that map to business KPIs and drive top line revenue, customer loyalty.

• Identify Sales Resistance – You may not be able to get inside the head of each customer, but a reliable marketing automation system can pinpoint items such as sales resistance. For instance, if the program identifies that customers often exit the website with items remaining in the shopping cart, your marketing team may be able to simplify the check-out process and gain future sales.

• Track Leads – Data compiled by this type of system can help to identify potential leads and ensure that they are not lost among all of the interactions that happen day-to-day.

• Enhance Your Brand – Customers want to know that they are interacting with your company, no matter how they are interacting. Making sure that your brand stays consistent on every channel is one way of reassuring the customer that they are, indeed, in the right spot. Marketing automation is able to ensure that all of your efforts to reach the customer are unified in this effort.

Learning as much as you can about your customers and leads can only help your company to grow in this highly competitive technological era. With the right marketing automation tools, you can ensure that each and every customer will receive personalised interactions that are tailored to their specific needs, habits and preferred purchasing styles. The resulting lifetime satisfied customers prove that automation and integration truly are key for any business today.

Jim Iyoob
Executive VP Customer Experience & Operational Excellence,
Etech Global Services