CHAPTER 11

THE IN-TOUCHPOINT MOMENT

Whether you provide a product or service, you have an advantage because you know what your customer is interested in. Therefore, you have the opportunity to leverage your content creation and marketing efforts to become a thought leader and value provider, even if the recipient is no longer a customer. This is the spirit of the in-touchpoint.

The concept behind the movement around content marketing is to nurture existing and past customers by sending them a constant stream of value. If you’re selling skateboards, for example, then push out the latest or most complex technology. Customers are served by the content, and you’re the content expert now. You’re the thought leader and value provider.

I bought a 3D printer from MakerBot. Since then, the company continues to push out valuable information to help me stay on top of changes in the 3D printer industry. The content provided isn’t promotional but informational; MakerBot delivers packets of relevant information and therefore value. The company provides exceptional in-touch moments.

The key is to resist the temptation to interrupt customers by trying to sell them more stuff. We need to be more relevant to our customers by delivering thoughtfully designed packets of value to prove we’re not trying to sell them anything. In that way, they have a positive feeling about us, and in the future, they will come to us first should they need something we sell.

It’s the same concept as in the pre-touch moment: giving value without asking for anything in return. The cycle is complete. In a connected economy, we must be willing to identify areas of value for our customers, and then leverage that value through digital and non-digital channels. At the same time, our approach should be nonintrusive, non-“sales-y,” and authentically helpful. Companies that do the in-touch well make their customers’ lives better.

THE VALUE PROPOSITION:
RESIST TEMPTATION NOW AND LOOK TO THE FUTURE

Unfortunately, most organizations take a “kiss-on-the-first-date” approach and immediately attempt to leverage the information they have on customers to further sales. Typically, the result is pushback. Customers are not interested in doing business with an organization that leverages their contact information expressly for the purpose of selling more products and services. If this method ever worked, it won’t work today. You must stand out by providing value and asking for nothing in return.

For some reason, marketers can’t resist the temptation of trying to sell existing customers something new. They view existing customers as low-hanging fruit and market them to death.

But in our hyper-connected economy, the customer is now king (or queen). They need to be courted before they’re kissed. Today’s customer continually expects free value. If we’re smart, we recognize that customers have unlimited options and are going to use them to connect with companies that constantly deliver value. In many cases, that value is absolutely free.

THE POWER OF A VALUE BANK

Many of my clients have adopted a program we call the value bank. The concept is pretty simple: It’s a reverse con game. Con artists always tell you they’re going to give you more than they’re actually going to provide. In other words, they sell you value you never receive.

The value bank does the opposite: Give something of value to the customer for free. My clients even include a post-sale giveaway in our budget. I know of a large asphalt company that develops sports courts. Within its bid is a $700 value bank, and just before its workers are ready to finish a job, they show up with basketball nets and hoops, trash cans, and a treasure trove of cool accessories that their customers didn’t expect. In another example, a Jacuzzi company I know of delivers its Jacuzzis with an enormous basket of spa goodies.

Most organizations just deliver what people expect. What we want to do is deliver experiences so exceptional that we receive 5-star ratings on social networks. Value banking is knowing in advance that you will give your customer something unexpected and exceptional. In this way, you always under-promise and over-deliver. If you follow this simple practice, your customers will remember you and treat you well.

The Rewards of the Unexpected

The value bank concept goes beyond the free prize inside the Cracker Jack^® box. In that case, the prize inside is expected and therefore part of the customers’ baseline expectation. Value banking, on the other hand, shocks customers by giving them something they did not expect.

One of my clients operates high-end lodges and resort hotels that are often rustic as befits their mountain locations. They are expensive to operate, and because of their locations, there is a great deal of seasonal downtime; in fact, my client makes 90 percent of their annual revenue during just six months of the year. Providing exceptional customer experience is vital to their ability to stay in business.

Some time ago, he started having his team members take pictures of the guests throughout their stay (with their permission, of course). A few weeks after guests returned home, they would receive a complimentary and beautifully bound photo album. The cost of each photo album for my client was only $40, and the albums were voluntarily put together by staff members during their downtime. What made it seem even more special was that each album was delivered via FedEx (at a cost to my client of less than $20). This simple in-touch moment had an amazing financial impact on my client’s business. In fact, as a result of what seemed to be a simple idea, annual rebookings increased by 78 percent.

The story gets even better. Hundreds of customers posted the pictures from their albums on their social media. By asking new guests how they heard of the property, my client was able to track a 20 percent uptick in new bookings to this practice. Today, in addition to the hard copy photo album, guests are also sent a digital photo album that makes it easier for them to share their photos on influential social networks. Was my customer guaranteed this idea would result in increased business? Was there anything about the gift that looked like a sales promotion? No and no, and that’s what makes it a perfect in-touch moment.

CONTENT MARKETING:
THE POWER OF FREE

Content marketing is the biggest marketing buzzword on the planet today. Unfortunately, the phrase is an inadequate description of what content marketing really is: providing information at no charge to customers that they would otherwise be willing to pay for, with no strings attached. Notice I said no strings attached. Many old-fashioned marketers use content marketing as a way to get customer information so they can hammer them with offers.

Here’s another way to describe and understand content marketing: giving free but meaningful content for the sole purpose of providing value to customers and potential customers.

This definition is a bit harder to get onto a bumper sticker, but it’s certainly an accurate description of how to use content marketing effectively. The massive popularity of content marketing and its hundreds of thousands of success stories prove that staying in touch with your customer in a way that delivers value at no cost to them is essential to maintaining meaningful customer relationships. This is the importance of being in touch.

HOW TIFFANY & CO. STAYS IN TOUCH

Tiffany & Co. famously manufactures beautifully designed high-quality jewelry. The company loves its customers and is an expert when it comes to delivering exceptional experiences across all customer touchpoints.

Tiffany’s last touchpoint, for example, has the professional and engaging sales representative hand-wrapping your purchase in the signature Tiffany blue box and wrapping paper. The box is then handed to you in a beautiful Tiffany blue bag. When you buy something from Tiffany, you purchase something special that instantly becomes a personal treasure or family heirloom.

Tiffany’s in-touch moments include providing free product ideas that have meaningful and actionable relevance to the customer. As a result, they induce the clients to make additional purchases in the future. But it doesn’t end there. Customers often receive a handwritten thank-you note from the salesperson who sold them the product—not from the company through some giant mailroom operation, but from the salesperson her- or himself. It isn’t exactly high-tech and it’s not a new invention; it’s simply something people stopped doing. It doesn’t cost much and yet makes an incredibly powerful impression.

Just in Case:
What a Gentle Reminder Can Do

I have a friend who told me how he and his wife had been transitioning through a rough patch in their twenty-year marriage. Years ago, he had purchased a bracelet for her at Tiffany’s. Now, a few days before Valentine’s Day, Tiffany sent him a gentle reminder (not thirty reminders, just one) that Valentine’s Day was coming. He’d totally forgotten.

The reminder contained a handful of thoughtful recommendations. He selected one, went online and made his purchase, and the gift arrived in just two days. Needless to say, his wife was delighted.

This meaningful moment was brought to the couple by Tiffany. Yes, Tiffany wants to sell more products, but the company is extremely thoughtful and judicious in the way it delivers information that matters to its customers.

In case you’re wondering, this took place three years ago, and my friend and his wife have never been happier.

IN-TOUCH MOMENTS:
PERSONAL, RELEVANT, AND VALUABLE

The bottom line for most consumers is that they don’t want companies contacting them unless they come bearing gifts. The best organizations stay in touch with their customers by offering real, valuable benefits that are not designed for the specific purpose of selling more products and services.

It’s okay to make money as a result of staying in touch with your customer, but if your principal goal is to make money, you’re going to fail miserably. Your in-touch offers should be exclusive and meaningful. For this reason, you must carefully manage the frequency of these offers. The purpose of staying in touch with customers is to maintain personal, relevant, and valuable contact.

My kids have braces and our dentist sends them texts to remind them to brush their teeth or tell them which foods to avoid and so on in the name of healthy teeth and undamaged braces. It’s a way to stay in touch frequently and isn’t an attempt to sell us anything. The dentist is just helping my kids have a better experience. In this way, the dentist is using connectivity to add value.

HOW TO DESIGN THE RIGHT IN-TOUCH MOMENTS

Personal, relevant, and valuable are the three essential design characteristics of exceptional and lasting in-touch experiences across all your customer types. They are what is important to your customers, and if you meet those needs, you create not just outstanding in-touch moments but, more important, lifelong clients.

No matter the size of your company, exquisite in-touch moments are within your reach. This is where CRM software comes into play for smaller companies that might not have the resources of Office Depot or Tiffany. Inexpensive CRM applications can search by the kinds of products and services individuals have purchased. This information allows you to push out pertinent information that will be of value to that customer type.

Here are some ways to design perfect in-touch moments for your customers.

Make It Personal

It’s important to identify ways to customize your communication with customers at all connection points so as to engage them in ways that mechanized approaches simply don’t. As I have said throughout this book, exceptional customer experiences are about inventing connections that deliver meaningful and real value.

Creating and perpetuating these personal connections requires innovation; in some cases, it requires a new business model. The good news is that individualizing your communications to your customers will make you a hero. You will build relationships far more significant than the sterile ones most companies have.

The Personal Checklist

Ask yourself:

Have you taken the time to know your customers well?

Do you know their customer types?

Do you communicate with the express purpose of providing customers with free and meaningful value?

Do you provide them with incredibly relevant offers they immediately recognize as valuable?

Do you choose carefully when and how you stay in touch?

Do you resist the knee-jerk reaction to reach out to your customers just to sell them products and services?

Make It Relevant

Many organizations cast a wide net when they push out offers to their customers in the hope that they can sell them something. Their mistake is that they’re not making the offers relevant to the customers. You certainly aren’t relevant if you send a special offer on women’s shoes to men who want suits. Yet this kind of irrelevant output happens all the time as companies desperately and irresponsibly push out broad-based offers. Don’t fall into this trap.

Once you understand your customers through their customer types and purchasing habits, you can tailor your offers to what’s relevant to them—just as Office Depot does to sell me HP printer cartridges.

The Relevant Checklist

Ask yourself:

Do you provide offers based on a past purchase that makes them relevant to this customer?

Have technologies, styles, or other elements changed the environment that would make the offer irrelevant?

Have you identified the customer type so well that you can make this customer an extremely granular offer?

Have you done enough heavy lifting to know the categories of goods and services this customer might actually like to know about?

Is the offer overly general (for example, announcing a sale)? Or are you providing a special offer that’s unique and targeted to that customer?

Will your customer acknowledge this offer as having relevant meaning and benefit?

Make It Valuable

If you’re like me, your in-box is full of offers that have absolutely no value to you whatsoever. In fact, the offers have so little value that it’s an insult they were even sent to you. All they do is demonstrate how little the sender cares about you or understands what’s relevant to you. Examine your offers closely to see if you’re really delivering value or if you’re just looking after your bottom line.

The Value Checklist

Ask yourself:

Does the offer look like you’re trying to sell the recipient something, or does it look like you’re providing the customer with something they really care about?

Do you push out offers to customers more than once a month?

Have you circulated the offer with your customer advisory group or other customer-facing stakeholders to see if you are really offering value?

Have you developed a method to measure how frequently your customers want to be contacted and the kind of value they’re looking for?

THE IN-TOUCH BIG PICTURE

Your customers will stay engaged if you deliver great products and services via beautiful experiences across all customer touchpoints and throughout digital and non-digital channels.

Unfortunately, almost all in-touch experiences from companies have nothing to do with customer experience and everything to do with cross-selling or upselling a customer a new product or service. Having your customer’s contact information is a privilege. You should handle this honor with great respect. You should use it in a way that constantly delivers more engagement and value to your customer.

The best companies are in touch with you in a gentle and appropriate way, and your life gets better as a result of their being in touch with you. This is what the in-touchpoint is all about.

In the exciting sandbox I get to play in, I have the honor of watching great companies invent incredibly clever in-touch moments, from cardiology practices that provide free heart monitoring applications, to swimming pool companies that deliver a New Year’s “Splash Kit” to help customers get their pool swim-ready for spring.

You can simply copy other people’s ideas when necessary, but if you want to be a superstar, invent your own incredible ways to deliver ongoing and meaningful value to current and past customers. Don’t worry that you are wasting money on customers who may never come back. Worry about becoming irrelevant to your customers by not continuing to work the relationship.

I know many people from high school who continue to be my friends today. The only reason we’re still friends is that we decided to continually reach out to one another and add value to our respective relationships. So is the case with your customers. It’s a conscious choice to make yourself amazing at each and every one of the five touch moments. Most organizations never do this, and they take a financial hit from organizations willing to do the heavy lifting of understanding their customers’ loves and hates and transmuting those insights into perfect human moments across each and every touchpoint.