In our previous articles on the customer lifecycle, we have looked at what it takes to develop your brand and then attract prospective clients to your business; having reached this point, it is now time to foster interactions between you and your customer-to-be. How do you persuade that client to take that next step and actively engage with your business? At Reach Revenue, we believe that to be truly effective at client engagement, you need to understand the drivers of human behaviour and then evoke these through a tailored client engagement strategy.
Meeting human needs to promote engagement
If you want to understand human psychology, a great place to start is with the work of Tony Robbins. Tony is undoubtedly the most successful global business coach and mentor, in addition to being a wealthy business person and investor in his own right; and all of this has been achieved through his understanding of human behavioural psychology. Following his model, he believes there are six needs which drive our behaviour, namely:
Certainty/Comfort: assurance you can avoid pain and gain pleasure
There are many ways in which to encourage certainty and comfort, and therefore positive prospective client engagement. Have you ever made a phone call to a business to enquire and instantly known your experience was about to become painful, arduous and uncomfortable? Only last week I phoned the local train company to ask a couple of questions and ended up with a headache instead. Not only did the person not know the answer to the question, but they also made me wait what felt like an eternity on hold, to advise me of this fact.
On the other hand, another company I recently spoke to prior to making a purchase, was remarkably sharp, insightful; in fact, I felt as though they knew me, my needs, and my concerns; it was almost like telepathy.
Prospective clients are more likely to engage with you if you make it easy for them. The worst possible outcome is that you have been successful in attracting the person, only to let them down now. Part of this process of friction removal is to assess all of your customer engagement channels to make sure they meet the widest possible needs of your clients. For example, not everyone wants to use the phone. BBC News reported that voice calls fell for the first time last year despite the fact that making calls has never been cheaper, and smart phones are more popular than ever across the population. However, if you have other channels to reach your business, they need to be performant, slick, and responsive across the range of digital devices. Many businesses now allow enquiries to be made by Skype, live chat, searching on customer forums, regular phone, any other methods. Regardless of the channels offered, make using them a pleasure, not a pain.
Uncertainty/Variety: the need for the unknown, change and new stimuli
Businesses can accommodate the human desire for new experiences by engaging prospective clients in a manner which expands their thinking on a given topic. For example, some customers may appreciate being told of a new product feature, material, design, alternative, which they didn’t know existed. When I visited a local restaurant recently, my experience was all the better because of the service I was provided. The waiter recommended a dish I would never have considered, and it was simply superb. Suffice to say I have since returned twice.
Significance: feeling unique, important, special or needed
It is all too common to feel treated like one of the countless others who engage with a business. But if you have ever been made to feel wanted and as an individual, you will know how powerful that feeling was. On the contrary, there are far too many businesses who treat the customer as a mild inconvenience, in the manner of a wasp or yapping dog. Whatever you do, from the moment you seek to reach out to a prospective client, or they make the merest step in your direction, make them feel unique. They will love you for it; which leads us to:
Love/Connection: a strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something
Ideally, you want your prospective client to feel a connection or bond with your business, but not in a cynical or manipulative way. By feeling closely connected with your ethos, products, service, and staff, you are likely to drive conversion and retention at a later stage. This can be achieved by being warm, empathetic, responsive, understanding, aligning values, and personalising their experience.
Growth: an expansion of capacity, capability or understanding
Explain to your prospective client how you can help them grow. This might sound farfetched, but it is not. The largest companies are constantly evangelising that their products will transform the lives of their owners. Just by buying an iPhone, you will have the capabilities of an expert photographer, a new bed will allow you the capacity to sleep better, and those new shoes will make you more interesting and dynamic.
Contribution: a sense of service and focus on helping, giving to and supporting others
A sense of contribution can be achieved in several ways. The Body Shop, for example, is adept at making you feel as though you are socially and environmentally responsible when you make a purchase. Other businesses may align themselves with charities, and others may foster this feeling through making you feel part of a community. Even McDonalds, by providing accommodation for parents of sick children near to hospitals communicates its willingness to contribute.
Wrapping up
By understanding and leveraging human psychological and emotional needs, your business will more effectively engage with all prospective clients; the key is knowing which techniques to use within your marketing and sales function for the best possible results. This is where we can assist you.
Reach Revenue, with a combined four decades of senior sales and marketing leadership with some of the UK’s largest brands, work with small, medium, and large enterprises, to reliably promote robust sales growth and foster a loyal and committed client base.
By engaging our services, we will create a tailored strategy to achieve your business objectives in a manner that preserves your budget, prioritises the actions which will have the greatest benefit, and ensures a rapid implementation of your new sales and marketing processes. Call Nik or John today – your business has everything to gain.
Reach Revenue works with business owners, leaders and investors to develop high performing sales and marketing teams aligned to the strategic objectives of their business. To find out how we can help you, please call 0203 858 8030 or email info@reachrevenue.net