Let's step back in time for a moment to see how far we've come with our business communications. Before the internet, your business relationships were largely local, with a personal connection. These relationships were built over time with trust and loyalty. Enter the worldwide web and now the connection is global, with zero personality. In fact, it was a mess of pop up windows and offers that mimicked your mailbox being stuffed with flyers. Technology now has the capability to dial back to those personal connections, and building trust and loyalty is exactly what our goal is.
When anyone communicates with your business, they need to be met with the right message, at the right time, with the right information, on the right conversational channel, every single time. With a range of platforms to communicate on and the technology and analytics that can tell us about our customers and prospects preferences, we are able to have one to one communication. People want to be met where they are, with similar content they are already attracted too.
A key element to factor in is the time to live(TTL), which is the amount of time that is perceived as acceptable from the time the message is received to the response. Snail mail is acceptable up to 30 days, fax has a few days, email 24 - 48 hours, and minutes to seconds on social platforms.
THINK about how people are communicating with your business, which platforms they are engaging on, and how they prefer to maintain that communication. Let's also think about the information they are initially met with, is it repetitive, is it frequent and popular? By introducing consistent content that each person is met with upon initial contact, your prospect will start to build trust with your company. You don't want to sound automated, so listen and respond with context based on their reason for contact, and pay attention to the details.
Build a PLAN to ensure predictability. There should be a start, middle and end to where people go from their first engagement with your business to either becoming a customer or realizing it's not the best fit. Be consistent within each stage, across all platforms, from someone making a phone call to a message over Facebook. If someone converts twice in different channels and receives conflicting information, chances are you have lost that prospect.
Every strategic plan needs to account for GROWTH. Your conversational growth strategy should be impactful. It should leave a lasting impression that should follow the SCOPE rules.