Why is emotion important in customer advocacy?

[Jahangir655]

When I was introduced to customer advocacy, it was through transactional and traditional reference recruitment.

We interact with our customers, provide them with an opportunity through email, whether that's a speaking opportunity, a webinar, etc.

Oftentimes, people spot an opportunity for a customer to share their story, work with them to bring this to life, and showcase their story, before thanking them and ending communication.

It’s not unusual for companies to not reach out to their customers until another opportunity arises. There’s a gap that materializes, and it's difficult to nurture relationships with customers if you’re only reaching out as opportunities present themselves.

This model is very transactional and you need to make your customers feel a connection and a commitment to your business - but how, if we're only reaching out as opportunities become available?

When we gather in person we don't just walk up to each other, exchange the belize telegram number bare necessities and leave. We stay, listen, share experiences, and connect. This is why building an online customer advocacy community that mirrors that feeling of being a person is so important.

You need to give your customers a dedicated space to share their stories and a place where they can connect with your business.

They need to feel a sense of partnership in this relationship where you’re both communicating consistently with each other and learning about each other, beyond the transaction at the sales point.

Identifying customer touch points
It's critical to complete a business assessment to identify all of the customer touch points within your business.

From the moment that our customers transact with sales, what happens next? And what does that journey look like? Who's engaging with our customers throughout their journey? And what does that experience look like?

Considering these factors will help you when you’re building your community, as well as your customer advocacy program in general; it’ll help you see what that experience currently looks like and decipher your vision for what you want it to look like in the future.

Launching a customer advocacy community
Launching a customer advocacy community.
1) Identify internal stakeholders and executive sponsors

As you take off on this adventure, it's important to first identify your internal stakeholders and executive sponsors.

Think about all of the teams you support as a customer advocacy team, as those will be important stakeholders that you'll want to identify as you're building out what it looks like to launch this community.

Your executive sponsors, for lack of a better word, are going to be your advocates through this journey. They’ll help you get to the point of launching your customer advocacy community. From there, you'll want to research and identify a platform for hosting that community, so take the time to look at what makes sense for your business.

When we were at VMware, we partnered with Influitive, and it was a great partnership, and we were able to accomplish a lot together. But I would recommend looking at what makes sense for your business and your overall goals.