Okay, before I dive into the play of the month, I’m itching to tell you something big.
We’re giving away a Jeep.
Don’t click away — I’m serious. And for a shot at winning it, all you have to do is tell us about your favorite automations and the impact they’ve had on your business. This is what the Ultimate Automator Award is all about, but before you’re even tempted to think “I won’t win,” think again.
I thought the same thing a few years ago, but I applied anyway, and guess what? I won. So do yourself a huge favor and apply. You just might win $5,000, $10,000, or a literal JEEP.
Okay, enough about the Jeep (it’s cool, though, right?). It’s time we get to this month’s play, and it’s all about helping you gather data more consistently and easily than ever before so you can use it to scale your business to new heights.
What’s the big deal on data?
Your business needs data. And better yet, your business needs data that you OWN. By data, I’m not just talking numbers. I’m talking about people — your people, the customers who trust you and have experience with your brand.
When it comes to customers, data is their unfiltered thoughts, so this play is all about gathering reviews in a way that is convenient for your audience and doesn’t require constant manual input from you.
But once you have that data, what should you do with it? The possibilities are endless, but two big ones are to put it to use so you can:
Make more sales: Your prospects want to hear the true, honest experiences of people who have gone before them. There’s nothing more convincing to a lead than a positive review, which is why you should gather them from every happy customer and use them throughout your website, in lead-nurture follow-up campaigns, ads and anywhere else you see fit.
Improve your customer experience: A huge part of scaling your business is constantly improving, but knowing exactly what areas need the most attention can be tough. You don’t want to waste time fixing something if it’s not broken. So, what’s the best way to know without a doubt which improvements will have the biggest benefit on your customer experience? It starts with hearing directly from your customers.
The play: A ready-to-use customer survey
This month’s play is insanely easy because we’ve done the work for you, and all you have to do is customize the campaign and set it loose in your app. You probably know what we’re hinting at if you tuned into our Product Update Livestream (catch a recap on our blog) because that’s where we announced our brand-new, ready-to-use Proven Automation Templates.
In case you haven’t heard, you can access 12 of these templates for free and there are over 50 additional ones available for purchase through your Customer Success Manager. These templates were designed to give you tried and tested automated campaigns that have worked for thousands of businesses. The best part? They require little-to-no manual input from you.
Today’s play is one of those Proven Automation Templates, and it was crafted to collect customer reviews. Here’s how it works:
- When a customer has completed a purchase and has had time to enjoy it, you’ll apply a tag to their contact.
- From there, the automation takes it away by sending an automated email that asks the customer to select whether they had a happy, neutral, or negative experience.
- When a customer clicks the happy option, they’ll be led to a form asking them specific questions about their experience.
- Once submitted, the customer input will be stored in your small business CRM (that’s Keap!).
- Happy customers will be sent a follow-up email a bit later, autofilled with their responses to your form. The email will have links to popular review sites and prompt customers to copy and paste their reviews on whichever site they prefer.
Now, not all customers will have had a happy experience, and that’s just the reality of running a business. But that doesn’t mean you can’t redeem yourself. The automation is set up to send a separate form to anyone who selected a neutral or negative response. This form will ask customers what part of their experience didn’t sit well with them. This small step can increase their trust and help you know what you need to improve for the next person.
Pro tip
By sending happy customers to an internal survey form first (instead of sending them directly to Google or another review site), you’ll get their feedback loaded into your database so you can use it wherever you want. Plus, because it’s your survey, you can control the questions, which helps you get the details you need and more honest input in the long run.
Bonus tip: Land more referrals
Once you have this template set up, you’ll have to customize a few things to make it your own (i.e. add your logo to the email and forms, swap links if you want, tweak copy, etc). After you’re done, there is one extra step you can take if you want to level up this automation sequence even more and score some referral business in the process:
To increase referrals of qualified leads, add a yes/no question field to the survey happy customers will be receiving. With this question, you should ask customers if they’ve told others about your product or service. Anyone who says yes will get an immediate follow-up email asking them if they would let you know who they talked to so you can reach out.
That’s it! With this small tweak to your form, you can boost your referral traffic without increasing your manual input.
Action items
So what do you need to do to take advantage of this play? Start by reaching out to your Customer Success Manager so you can access this template (if you don’t know your CSM, contact support and they’ll help you out!). Then, dive in and put it to work. If you have questions, watch the video to see this template in action!
By the way, with the time you’ll save by not having to build the automation yourself, you can fill out your submission for the Ultimate Automator Award and start daydreaming of where you’ll take that Jeep!
