THIS! Right here.
When I consult for companies on establishing their customer-facing 'voice', I always refer to the top two most inspiring Customer Service Kings: Chick-fil-A Corporate and Nordstrom.
After working in the nonprofit sector for over a decade, one of many valuable lessons I learned was that in order to be efficient, maintain expenses at a minimum, but continue to improve and expand relationships, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
Instead, look at existing companies and organizations that have it down. Whether that ‘it’ be customer service skills, efficient internal processes, physically designing a product or exhibit, and even growing a strong brand, others have already invested months if not years of time, money, resources- essentially their blood, sweat and tears – into creating a method that works. And works well. Look to these industry leaders to start with a tried and tested blueprint, then make adjustments for your particular needs and goals to carve out your unique recipe for success.
The results are immediate and have a stickiness that rarely happens when you go about it like a mad scientist trying to invent your own frantic method from scratch.
I’ve been working with a small but amazing – and fast-growing – Italian mineral paints company out of Atlanta for over a year.
When I started they had painstakingly acquired around 900 followers on Instagram. By presenting this concept to the Director and then crafting a custom-fit strategy for voice, customer support, response and social engagement to fit their brand, we’ve managed to grow the account to almost 24,000 followers in just over 1 years’ time! In fact, in the last 4 months we saw an over 40% increase in followers with $0 invested in acquisition.
How did this occur? By sticking to a winning strategy which was ultimately inspired by Chick-fil-A, and starting with the most basic task of answering “my pleasure” when a customer said ‘thank you’ for painting or product advice given over social media.
Obviously the strategy is not as simple as saying ‘my pleasure’, but ultimately being a Southern company, it is as simple as reflecting the core values of Southern hospitality –even as a manufacturer of paint.
So when I saw this post on LinkedIn, I had to screenshot it and blog about it, because my emotional response was so intense. Set your ego aside. We’re not all born to create excellence from scratch. But we are all capable of taking inspiration from an excellent example, and turning it into our own personal or business’ winning strategy.