Customer Connection Guide: Nurturing Relationships to Drive Growth

In manufacturing, retail and e-commerce, there are multiple opportunities to build long-term relationships even after a customer has placed an order. We typically focus on attracting customers to view and purchase our products. However, the ordering and fulfilment process can make or break the customer connection. Adopting a customer-centric lens during order management helps you exceed customer expectations, cut costs, and build a robust customer connection.

Customer connection’ signifies the emotional and psychological link between a brand and its customers. When brands understand the unique needs, preferences, and emotions of customers, they create a bond that extends beyond a single purchase. This customer connection is the foundation for customer loyalty, satisfaction, and long-term relationships.

Builds trust and loyalty: Establishing a strong customer connection helps build trust and foster loyalty, even in the face of competition. 

Ensures advocacy: A robust customer connection strategy drives repeat business and turns loyal customers into powerful brand advocates. Satisfied customers are more likely to recommend a brand to friends, family, and colleagues, contributing to business growth through word-of-mouth marketing.

Creates emotional engagement: Brands evoking positive emotions create an emotional engagement that leads to deeper relationships, making the brand a part of the loyal customer base's lifestyle.

Enhances adaptability to change: Brands with strong customer connections can better navigate changes such as evolving consumer preferences and concerns, market trends, or unforeseen challenges. The loyalty forged through customer connections acts as a stabilising force in times of uncertainty.

Provides competitive advantage: A strong customer connection acts as a critical differentiator in today's competitive business landscape.

To ensure growth and resilience, businesses must stay connected with customers and meet and exceed their expectations.

Here are some ways you can accomplish this:

Influenced by inflation and technological advancements, people are reevaluating their spending habits and priorities. The sixth edition of the State of the Connected Customer report reveals that 62% of consumers have recently reassessed their priorities. Financial considerations, particularly cost of living, are crucial, making securing better deals the primary reason for brand switches.

However, customers are not fixated on pricing, enabling brands to compete on factors beyond cost, including product quality and customer experience.

80% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services.

Additionally, customers today expect swift, consistent, and personalised interactions. Modern customer engagement is heavily focused on personalisation, with more customers expecting companies to adapt experiences to align with their evolving needs.

81% of customers expect faster service as technology advances and 73% expect better personalisation.

Being customer-centric involves placing the customer at the centre of all business activities, whether it is marketing, sales, or customer service. To ensure that everyone, from leadership to front-line teams, is prioritising customer satisfaction, organisations must: 

• Provide everyone with a unified view of the customer. 

• Enable them to understand their role in enhancing overall customer experience.

• Encourage employees to think from the customer's perspective ("Did we help them solve their problem?") rather than a purely business-oriented view ("Did we make the sale?").

Empathy maps are invaluable tools in enhancing customer connections by visually representing customers' thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. This lets you analyse customer sentiments at all engagement points and make minimal but relevant changes for maximum impact.

For example, consider an empathy map for a fictional customer, Radhika.

• Says: "It is challenging to navigate through various features on websites."

• Thinks: "I wish there was a simpler way to find what I'm looking for quickly."

• Feels: Frustrated when encountering complex interfaces; appreciates simplicity and ease of use.

• Does: Typically browses online during her lunch break.

• Pain Points: Difficulty navigating websites, wasting time searching for information.

• Gains: Values platforms with user-friendly interfaces, quick access to desired information.

This empathy map helps visualise Radhika’s emotions, needs, and pain points, enabling you to tailor your strategies and create a more user-friendly experience.

As the tide of ‘revenge shopping’ ebbs, we are settling into a more balanced approach with customer engagement evenly divided between online and offline channels. However, even as the shift to digital channels continues, customers want companies to consistently meet their needs in both the digital and physical realms.

74% of customers expect to be able to do anything online that they can do in person or by phone.

Some ways in which organisations, especially retailers, can bridge the online-offline gap are:

• Ensure your social media personality aligns seamlessly with your in-store experience. Consistency builds trust and provides a recognisable brand image.

• Keep your store employees informed about your online representation. A cohesive message across all channels ensures everyone is on the same page, presenting a united front to customers.

• Put up interactive displays and screens in stores to highlight user-generated content, like reviews. This aids in real-time purchasing decisions and reinforces your brand's online presence.

• Drive traffic between your physical storefront and social media pages. Promote exclusive in-store specials on social media platforms, encouraging followers to visit your store.

• Grant customers access to your entire inventory, whether in the stockroom, online exclusives, or other store locations. This facilitates immediate purchases in-store, minimising the chances of customers leaving with the intention to buy online later. This helps reduce potential lost sales.

• Extend seamless experiences to online customers. Avoid frustrating them with an out-of-stock notification after adding an item to the cart and clearly indicate product availability on the online product page.

Use automation and AI/ML models to promptly acknowledge and resolve issues and show your commitment to customer satisfaction. For instance, as more brands use AI to increase efficiency and meet customer demands, most customers worry about its unethical use.

Business buyers' openness to AI has declined from 82% to 73%, while consumers' openness has dropped from 65% to 51% since 2022.

Reassure that customers feel connected by implementing ethical guidelines and providing better visibility into how the technology is applied. Collect data openly and with consent, refine algorithms through diverse data sets, and ensure secure storage of customer information.

68% of customers say advances in AI make it more important for companies to be trustworthy.

53% of customers expect companies to anticipate their needs.

Picture an ecommerce platform that, using advanced data insights, predicts a wholesale buyer's future needs. As the buyer logs in, the platform displays customised product recommendations based on past orders and offers exclusive deals aligned with their purchasing history.

Similarly, organisations can apply AI and customer data to anticipate needs and provide an individualised experience. To do so, leverage data by centralising it in a CRM and analysing it deeply to identify customer connections, areas for improvement, and new opportunities. Engage with customers through post-purchase surveys and social media interactions to gather valuable insights. Additionally, consider cost-effective methods like analysing search trends and learning from competitors to identify your customers’ needs.

Prioritising convenience elevates the overall customer experience, and one way to do this is by enabling self-service. Enabling self-service is effective, as customers often prefer the ease of tools such as account portals, FAQs, and chatbots. This preference is particularly pronounced among digital natives, such as millennials and Gen Z.

61% of customers agree they would rather use self-service for simple issues.

72% of customers have used self-service portals, and 55% have used self-service chatbots.

For example, you can let customers modify shipping details at their convenience. Additionally, offer a self-service option that includes printable return labels and the flexibility to choose how and where to return an item.

Focus on simplifying processes, eliminating hurdles, and deploying easy-to-use interfaces. Make information easy to find and ensure thoughtful implementation of the self-service tools. 

68% of customers will not use a company's chatbot after a negative experience.

Customer appreciation efforts can sometimes come across as another marketing campaign, lacking the sincerity of a genuine thank-you. Many customers feel like companies treat them as numbers rather than individuals, particularly in the case of smaller transactions that often miss the personalised attention given to larger, more gradual business deals.

61% of customers say most companies treat them as a number.

Here is how you can ensure your gestures of appreciation go a long way:

• Ensure customer appreciation is an ongoing effort, not a one-time occurrence. Consider separate giveaways for different segments or staggered promotions, rather than a single event.

• Connect with your customers on their terms, be it in person, on social platforms, or through digital content. 

• Offer meaningful gestures such as a free product, complimentary service, or exclusive access to an event. Make them feel special and valued.

• Utilise metrics to gauge the success of your customer appreciation initiatives. Track and analyse data to continually refine and enhance your strategies.

Remember, customer interactions extend beyond the transaction. Following up demonstrates a commitment beyond the sale, emphasising relationship-building and fostering trust in your brand. This not only ensures satisfaction but also strengthens the customer connection. Phone calls, texts and personalised emails are all effective follow-up methods to create brand loyalty. When engaging customers, opt for open-ended questions rather than ‘yes/no’ questions to gather valuable insights for future transactions.

Constructive criticism offers improvement opportunities, while positive feedback serves as valuable testimonials and social proof. Engage with all personas - the ones least satisfied with your product or service, the ones driving revenue, enthusiastic brand advocates and so on. Embrace feedback openly, consolidate insights across marketing, sales, commerce, service, and IT teams and ensure accountability. And while you may not act on every piece of feedback, ensure you respond to customers with actions taken, limitations, and what else you need from them for a successful collaboration.

A customer promise is a straightforward commitment to meet every customer's expectations. For example, an organisation promises to deliver pizza in 20 minutes. By surpassing this promise, say by delivering pizza in 10 minutes, the brand can not only exceed expectations but also create lasting customer connections.

In the retail and ecommerce landscape, exceeding customer expectations can include providing high-touch service and additional experiences like personal shopping or access to exclusive events.

94% of retailers offer or plan to offer augmented reality as a value-added service while 88% are focusing on virtual stylists.

Like a tailor customises a garment for each customer, companies today must redefine the selling experience to cater to individual preferences at scale. Acknowledge the diversity within your customer base and tailor your communication and offerings to their demographics, preferences, and behaviours.

64% of customers use social media to engage with businesses.

Social media provides a direct and interactive channel for connecting with your audience. Responding to comments, actively interacting with your audience, and sharing content around relevant topics or latest trends help you strengthen customer connections on social media. Directing sales and service-related queries on social media to the right teams for resolution can also help improve the customer experience. By making platforms accessible to differently-abled individuals, you can show empathy and enhance trust.

Create dedicated spaces such as forums or social media groups where your customers can connect. For customers, this fosters a sense of community and belonging. For organisations, it translates into improved customer loyalty and valuable insights into buyer perspectives. However, keep in mind that you might need to put in extra effort to enhance engagement at first. Encourage sign-ups with incentives and stimulate engagement by involving your team, asking them to initiate discussions around industry topics, create polls or share interesting resources.

To foster authentic customer connections, organisations must maintain authenticity, quality, and consistency across all interactions—whether it's a marketing campaign, a call to a contact centre, or a supply chain-dependent delivery. Each department must contribute in a coordinated manner. For this, it is essential to integrate marketing, sales, service, and commerce systems to establish a real-time 360-degree view of the customer. 

Salesforce Customer 360 uses AI + Data + CRM capabilities to combine real-time data across systems, deploy relevant automation, and deliver AI-driven customised experiences. This enables organisations to create seamless, connected, and hyper-personalised interactions at scale that enhance customer loyalty and help build solid customer connections.

With Salesforce’s CRM, you can: 

• Consolidate customer data to get a comprehensive view of each customer, including behaviour, preferences, and interactions across channels.

• Tailor messages, offers, and content based on individual customer insights.

• Access customer history, preferences, and past interactions to provide personalised and efficient customer assistance.

• Engage customers at key touchpoints without manual intervention, ensuring consistent and timely interactions that build lasting customer connections.

• Leverage analytics to identify trends, preferences, and areas for improvement to continuously refine your approach and align with changing expectations.

• Run targeted campaigns that resonate with specific segments, enhancing the effectiveness of marketing efforts.

• Design loyalty programs aligned with individual customer preferences, providing measurable results for your business.

• Anticipate customer needs, address potential issues, and stay ahead of evolving preferences.