It’s not every day you see a CEO dancing on TikTok. But being vulnerable and transparent is one of the reasons Ali Bonar has seen incredible growth and success with her company, Oat Haus. Consumers are moving more towards sharing real experiences and less about hiding behind the perfect filter. Customers crave connection and want to build relationships with transparent leaders—even if that means showing off their dance moves.
Ali started sharing her journey online long before she ever considered being an entrepreneur. As she recovered from an eating disorder, she shared the ups and downs of her physical and mental health and began to grow a following.
Ali’s journey led her to create granola butter, and Oat Haus was born. But in her new role as a founder and CEO, it was only natural for Ali to continue sharing a behind-the-scenes view of the business. As Oat Haus grows, Ali shares authentic updates along the way, including everything from dancing in her living room to an inside look at creating new products.
Ali strongly believes that sharing helps customers feel like part of the journey. It’s refreshing to see a business that isn’t hiding behind a façade or trying to come across like it has everything together. Ali’s goal is to take customers along for the ride and make them feel so involved that no matter when they see her content, they feel like they’ve been there from day one.
But sharing online doesn’t come easily to everyone. Ali recommends starting where you’re comfortable, even if that means photos without video to start. A good starting point is simply filming what you do throughout the day. Take people through your life as a business leader and show what life is like behind the curtains.
As your comfort level grows, Ali recommends planning content for the entire week to hit different topics, including informational videos about your company, stories about what it’s like to be a leader and fun content. A variety of content builds strong connections and resonates with a variety of customers.
Even planning and great content don’t lead to overnight social media success. It takes time to grow a following, and a lot of how a post or video performs is based on the Instagram or TikTok algorithms. Even then, it’s hard to see the ROI of social and a direct connection between storytelling and sales. But it’s all about building the brand, showcasing the human side to the business and establishing your company and yourself as a leader who cares about people and wants to share.
The moments you’re the most scared of sharing are often the most worthwhile things to share that resonate with your people. In the end, Ali says not to overthink it. Just be yourself and feel comfortable bringing your whole self to work and your community. You’ll naturally develop strong customer relationships as you share your authentic self and brand.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
Investing in customer experience is just that—an investment. Being able to prove the return and value of that investment is crucial for all companies, especially startups and those looking to get new customers on board.
In the early days of CampusLogic, President and COO Chris Chumley used ROI as a tool to gain new customers and establish credibility. Prospective university clients agreed that the student experience was important, but many weren’t willing to spend money on it. By demonstrating the ROI of CX and how it would eliminate pain points and create a better experience for customers, students, and employees, Chumley could connect with potential customers and grow his business.
Chumley says illustrating ROI starts by identifying the pain point. Where do customers face friction? What areas of the experience could be improved? Where is the frustration for customers and employees?
The pain point for CampusLogic’s university customers was often paper-heavy financial aid systems.
Chumley says to work side by side with customers to put a number to that pain using the customer’s metrics. The pain point could be impacting sales, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, or a host of other things. If the company can move that number, CX has value.
For potential CampusLogic customers, Chumley often tied ROI to reducing costs and increasing financial aid completion rates—two metrics that are crucial for universities.
Tying ROI to metrics that customers care about makes ROI more impactful. The personalized approach shows the value of CX for each unique customer and becomes more applicable and accessible.
Chumley says the key to a successful ROI model is to involve customers. Cooperatively building ROI helps customers catch the vision of how CX can solve their pain points. Instead of simply telling customers the ROI, Chumley uses each customer’s numbers to build the solution with them and showcase the value. That means each ROI model is unique to the customer using metrics they already track and are familiar with.
Numbers don’t lie. Building a strong ROI model for CX creates a compelling case for its value and can be crucial in getting new customers and creating customer-centric companies.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
One bad experience and the click of a mouse.
That’s all it takes for a customer or employee to go somewhere else. As life and work have become digitized in the last two years, the switching cost has decreased to almost zero. It’s never been easier for people to change their company loyalty.
Experience management has never been more important.
But creating those great experiences that resonate with customers and employees requires paying attention to customer feedback and insights.
In times of uncertainty, organizations aim to consolidate the number of ways they listen to understand the cause and drivers of the experience, says Brad Anderson, President of Products & Services at Qualtrics.
Turning customer feedback into actionable insights requires continuous listening, finding areas to improve and driving those improvements. Those insights direct organizations to the next best step for the individual and the group and can be adjusted in real time.
Organizations need to pay attention and understand the emotions people feel as they interact with the organization, both as customers and employees. Understanding those emotions helps brands identify what is and isn’t working.
Anderson says call centers are a gold mine of information that doesn’t even require asking for new feedback. By listening to conversations that are already happening with the help of AI, companies can understand what experiences need to be improved and the next best action for individuals and groups.
Listening to customers helps pinpoint areas of friction within the experience that can be improved. Anderson recommends paying attention to the emotions behind the experiences. People are often willing to share good and bad experiences, but organizations and leaders need to listen to their feelings to drive improvement.
As companies listen, experience management programs create memories of every experience a customer or employee has had. As technology advances, brands can recall those experiences in real time to provide personalized insights into the next right step for every person.
Experience matters now more than ever. And the key to delivering great experiences to customers and employees is listening, finding areas to improve and continually driving improvements.
*Sponsored by Qualtrics
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.
Customer success and customer service may sound similar. But what’s the difference between these two important disciplines?
Emilia M. D'Anzica, founder of GrowthMolecules and author of Pressing On as a Tech Mom, has consulted companies across numerous industries on customer success. She says one of the core differences is being proactive versus being reactive.
Customer success is proactively engaging with customers to help them get the most out of their investment. The goal is to help customers find lasting impact and value from the product to drive loyalty and long-term contract renewal. When customers don’t see value, they’ll switch to the competition.
Customer success requires building relationships with customers to know where they want to be a year from now and proactively helping them reach their goals. CS leaders and CSMs aim to be continual partners with their customers to help them get the most out of the product and stick with the company. And while CS is often connected with B2B software, D'Anzica points out that companies in numerous industries have robust customer success programs.
Customer success efforts are directly linked to a business’s operations and should be part of the go-to-market strategy. Customer success impacts the entire customer journey because it helps customers reach their goals and get the most out of the product.
On the other hand, customer service helps customers when they get stuck. This service takes many forms, including in-app support, a knowledge base or a contact center customers can contact when they need help at the moment.
Customer service exists to answer questions and solve problems and applies to every industry and type of company. While customer success relies on relationships, customer service tends to have more one-off interactions. A customer doesn’t contact the service department unless they have an issue to resolve. But customer service is also crucial to being there when customers need it and has a strong influence on how customers view the company.
Both customer success and customer service are focused on improving customer loyalty and helping customers find value in the product or service. Companies with a customer success team also likely have a customer service team to address different issues.
Although their methods and focuses differ, both customer success and customer service are critical to creating the overall customer experience.
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Blake Morgan is a customer experience futurist, keynote speaker, and author of the bestselling book The Customer Of The Future. For regular updates on customer experience, sign up for her weekly newsletter here.