Engage with your customer: Experience On-Hold!

Increasingly commoditized industries and market oversaturation oftentimes do not leave much room for new market entries such as small businesses.

In order to overcome the barriers that these traditionally small businesses face, it is important to first identify brand strengths, weaknesses, and a unique point of difference.

The customers that you want to attract currently shop elsewhere for a multitude of reasons; convenience, familiarity, consistent service, stock availability. But, as a smaller business competing against conglomerates, you have many unique strengths- independence and the right to shape the business into whatever you want, personalized service that allows customers to feel a deeper emotional connection with you and in turn your products, and even your very own influencer marketing through your personal brand.

The other side of running a business ensures that you are solely responsible for the happiness of your customers. Budget, time, and resources can easily hold you back, so it is important to rise above others with superior customer service and community.

Within a small business, oftentimes customers feel more loyalty to the outward presentation of your brand (your personality, assets, marketing materials and energy) than to the product or service itself. As a small business, it sets you apart from others to cultivate this community around your brand. Highlighting your key point of difference is imperative in driving loyalty and customer lifetime value. Should customers feel as though they are receiving a comprehensive and personalized service, they are more likely to view you as a thought leader to respect, rather than a salesperson.

So, how to champion your point of difference?

First, identify what makes your business different to others in the industry- for example, as a hair salon you might differentiate your brand by showing off your expertise in bright and unusual fashion color. This point of difference is to be highlighted in all outbound marketing material, branding, and advertisement. The goal is for people to connect the concept of your brand, to immediately think of your business when they think of hair color services. While service diversity is important, championing that immediate point of difference will create a deeper sense of community within your potential client base.

Community breeds loyalty and an audience is far more likely to trust a word-of-mouth referral over the uncontextualized advertisement from non-trusted sources.

How can you position your brand as a service or product that cannot be found elsewhere? Create an exclusive community that people long to be a part of? By fully engaging with the customer at every touchpoint, reminding your customer that this is what you do best, and prioritizing their overall customer experience above all.

Remember! Engage with your customer: Experience On-Hold!  

Your most effective marketing tool? Your Auto Attendant should be the first On-Hold Message your customer hears! Your phone message system or VOIP message system are the most effective, most direct and least expensive phone marketing tools available – if you are using “on-hold” messaging.  It’s pretty safe to say that targeting your company information to pre-qualified callers that are contacting you directly to do business will produce the best results for your marketing dollars.  The first thing they will hear when they call is what?  A live person or an Auto Attendant?   The phone systems Auto Attendant will always give the most consistent voice messaging