When you set out to give your audience a better experience, beware of overcomplicating the process.
It may seem like you need to reinvent the wheel and get into the weeds, but that’s not necessarily true because the answer is simple: Reduce your response time.
In this blog, we’ll dive deep into why this is important and how exactly you can execute it across your entire customer journey to delight your customers and convert your leads.
The nonnegotiable
With everything you and your team juggle each day, responding to lead and customer inquiries across all your different platforms may not happen as quickly as you’d like.
Why is that a big deal?
Simply put, people hate waiting. And in the age of order-ahead coffee and 2-day shipping, they rarely have to. So when your audience reaches out to you, they want to hear back right away.
And, the longer it takes you to respond, the more time they have to seek out your competitors.
But how can you deliver immediate responses even if you have a small team? The key is to have an automated CRM system in place that cuts down your business’s response time AND delivers targeted, quality messages. Then you’ll be able to:
Delight current customers and reinforce their decision to choose your solution
Impress new leads, leaving a stellar first impression and giving them another reason to convert
Leave no room for competitors to sneak in and steal your potential customer
All of these benefits compound to create a consistent, pleasant customer experience from start to finish.
There’s really no downside to a more efficient response time, so let’s make it happen. Below you’ll find the top three areas you should focus on and CRM system tools to help you get it all done automatically.
Top 3 areas
There are three main areas across your customer journey where you can impress your audience by cutting down your response time. Each of the following sections accounts for a key stage in that journey so you can offer a great experience from start to finish.
Lead inquiries
When a lead fills out a form on your site, immediately delivering what they’re looking for is the best way to funnel them into your sales pipeline and get them moving through the stages.
Whether a lead is looking to schedule a consultation, learn more about your products and services, or download a lead magnet, you can use the same tactic: Custom forms and a lead-nurture campaign.
This dynamic duo will enable you to respond immediately to each lead without constant manual input. No matter what time of day they decide to reach out, a custom form will capture their info and load it into your CRM system.
Then, marketing automation can launch your lead nurture campaign to deliver what they asked for and check in with them periodically to educate and provide value until they’re ready to take the next step with your business.
Use your small business CRM and automation system to build branded forms and nurture campaigns. Once you do that, you and your team will be free from routine manual outreach.
Pro-tip: If you’re a Keap user, you don’t have to build this sequence from scratch because you have access to a free Proven Automation Template designed to capture leads and nurture them. All you have to do is customize it with your info and publish it. Check it out in your app by going to Automation Templates (located within the Automations section).
Customer requests
Post-purchase service is just as important as converting a lead. It’s how you’ll be able to land repeat business and referral traffic later on.
A huge part of delighting your customers in the post-purchase phase of the buyer’s journey is being readily available for them. As you quickly respond to their help requests, answer questions, provide free resources, and anything else they might ask for, you build trust and deepen the relationship you have with them.
But to respond to customers in a timely manner, you need the help of software. Your small business CRM and automation system can help here too. Similar to your lead nurture campaign from above, you’ll want to use custom forms and automated replies.
How it works: Let’s say you have a help page with a custom form. When a customer fills out that form, your CRM will tag them as needing help and reach out with a relevant nurture campaign.
This campaign could include an email confirming you’re working on their request, texts with status updates on their inquiry, an invitation to set up a call with a member of your team, and more. The key here is to communicate quickly and continue to provide updates so they know you haven’t forgotten about them.
Then, as customers learn that you respond quickly to their requests, they’ll have more confidence in your brand and will be more likely to return for future purchases.
Review/referral responses
Last, but certainly not least, we have reviews and referral responses. These two things are often neglected by businesses because they find them awkward to ask customers for. And even if a business does collect reviews and referrals, it’s rare that they actually follow up after receiving them.
This is a great opportunity for you to be different and stand out from the competition. Respond to these items quickly by automating your entire review and referral requests (Keap users: Find the Referral Request sequence we’ve pre-loaded into your app under Proven Automation Templates).
After a purchase is complete, set up your automation platform to automatically reach out to customers at the right time to collect reviews and referrals. Once they fill out your form, you can also automate a thank you message with a reward inside to show appreciation. This is an awesome way to reinforce the buyer’s decision and impress them after the sale.
But that’s not all: Thryv Marketing Center™ comes with AI Review Response to help you efficiently generate responses to reviews on Google Reviews, Yelp, TrustPilot and more.
Before you go: Freebies
Do these tips have you hungry to level up your customer experience even more? If so, you’re in luck because we have plenty more expert insight to share:
Unlock Growth and Free Up Time: Product Updates To Transform Your Customer Experience
How To Increase Retention Using Service Automation and Your Small Business CRM
Creative Ways Your Small Business CRM Can Help Prevent Buyer’s Remorse for Your Customers
Those are just a handful, but you can browse our Customer Service blog for additional tips!
