We spend this episode chatting with Nicole Warshauer, former lead at Yelp and Dribbble, about how creating a sense of community and putting out a whole bunch of content are key to creating a quality customer experience and long-term loyalty.
Operating at an Intersection
Nicole likes to describe her varied professional background as “playing at the fun intersection of marketing communications and community.”
Having led remote teams at both Yelp and Dribbble, Nicole provides herself with being able to immediately jump into a community and connect with the customer at their level.
Do You Know Your Customer?
This is the first question Nicole asks upon meeting a new client or joining a new team. Without knowing who your customer is and what their needs are, you’ll never be able to effectively market to them or address their pain points.
Solving your customers’ problems is the key to longevity and being able to create an experience that matters. The brands that do the best at standing out are the ones most dedicated to this message and conveying it to the consumer.
The Root of a Good Experience
A standout customer experience is usually done by teams that “frame it out from start to finish.” Realizing the process is an entire cycle, from the customer’s first exposure to the brand until the after-purchase experience, is crucial. Many brands have a cool persona and maybe even some quality products, but then aren’t following through all the way down the funnel. Companies have to lead the consumer down a path that results in them being a satisfied customer who wishes to return.
“Making your customer feel involved in the process is hyper-critical.”
Filling the Gap with Visuals
When it comes to customer experience, clear visuals can be extremely effective. From using them to explain a more complicated feature to posting them as shareable marketing collateral, the possibilities are endless.
“Don’t just tell them, show them.”
People aren’t sitting around waiting to hear from your company about a product, visuals are a deliverable that passive consumers find compelling and there is greater opportunity to resonate.
One use case that Nicole brings up for visuals is all of the ways brands can learn about unintentional or unintended uses of their products from people sharing photos on social media. This shouldn’t be something to necessarily be pursued but is an interesting avenue to explore when it does organically occur.
It’s not complicated, “people like to look at things.”
Customer Support: Our Unsung Heroes
Eliminating friction in the after-purchase can have remarkable effects on the impression your brand leaves on the consumer and in predicting future customer loyalty.
“A great customer support team with a solid messaging and ticketing system is magical.”
So few companies do it well that taking a little extra effort towards customer success will pay dividends.
Closing the Loop
The world is heading towards remote- being able to expand talent pools to having the flexibility to live in more affordable cities are all things that the stats are showing that employees and employers are increasingly valuing.
There are a lot of great tools out there, but still, quite a few that are lacking.
We also don’t talk enough about how we need better remote managers- because it can be quite a different skill set. Managers will need to adapt and learn how to best effectively manage a team of directs without physically seeing them.
Nicole compares it to a long-distance relationship. “It can be worth it, but you gotta put the work in.”
Listen to the episode here.
