THE CHALLENGE
My client is a web development and SEO company based in the United States. They are mid-sized with under 25 employees, growing, but have challenges. They are attracting larger and larger clients, able to get results based upon goals but is being asked by clients to cancel contracts regularly before the end of the agreed-upon period.
INSIGHT
We quickly identified where the things they did well and where the challenges were. They had a good outside sales process. They were quickly able to build trust and were landing larger and larger clients, not only regionally, but nationally and internationally. The team that they had implementing solutions was strong, and the campaigns that they ran achieved desired results. However, what they lacked was a process for on-going, effective, and accurate information back to the customer.
CREATING THE LIVING BRAND
With this knowledge, we started to look for the gaps in their process. Where did the challenges lie and why were they not able to communicate successes and challenges back to the client effectively and timely so that the client felt involved and understood the process?
ROLLING UP OUR SLEEVES
We quickly determined that within their internal process, they had no one that was a true advocate for the customer. Someone whose purpose was to communicate internally to determine where projects were in the system and provide on-going communication with the customer.
There was an assumption that this was the role of the outside sales rep. The issue was that outside sales reps are not usually good relationship managers. These are people who thrive on bringing new and larger projects t the table and their skill set is not usually to provide on-going and detailed communication.
The client required a customer experience team. People who are hired and trained to be the liaisons between customers and operations people. People who enjoy working with customers, on an on-going basis, to build relationships, trust, and ensure that customers know, like, and trust the company they work for.
THE RESULTS
At this point, the results are early, but the company is no longer losing clients regularly. The projects that they are working on are more on track, and customers are happier. Bringing in this layer of a customer experience team created value for the end client and provided them with a single connection who could work with them in a detailed way. This will eventually result in long-term relationships, larger, more profitable wor, and more referrals of companies like them.
