Recently we talked about Dr. Scott Downey’s observation that trust is inversely proportionate to self-interest. We mentioned the importance of listening more than you talk when you want to build that trust with the customer.
This is important not just in the sales arena, but in the marketing space as well. After all, marketing is typically the first form of communication that gets to the prospect, before a sales visit. How is your marketing plan including experience sharing and actively listening to your customer?
Let me expand on what that might look like.
These are all situations that could be easily turned around – if you were letting the customer have a vote along the way. Here’s Dr. Scott Downey’s take on this kind of scenario:
“A lot of times what happens is when a customer has a complaint, they feel it’s a betrayal, so because of that, they’re not interested in helping a supplier figure out how to solve it. They see it as very personal, and so because of that, they’re often not as willing to talk to a supplier or at least a supplier organization. If they’ve got somebody else in an organization that they trust, they might share with them. I think the idea of sharing a negative experience or sharing about a betrayal often comes better through an intermediary, through a third party. Beck Ag helps their clients listen. So I think the opportunity is to listen to all kinds of things – some of those being negative experiences – hopefully positive experiences too. And I think that’s part of what Beck Ag is built on is helping farmers share some of those positive experiences as well and we hope that outweighs the negative of course.”
So how are you making it easy for your customers and prospects to vote, to complain, to compliment? How are you involving them in the evolution of the product? Are those trusted, experiential conversations a deliberate part of your marketing plan? How are you collecting the customer’s vote?