By Tom Hershberger
“To be the world's most trusted airline.” - Delta Airlines vision statement
While on a recent Delta Airlines flight, I headed to my seat, sat down, and got comfortable. Almost immediately a flight attendant came by, looked directly at me and said, “Thank you, Mr. Hershberger, for flying with us again. I just wanted to take a moment and personally thank you for your business and see if there was anything I could provide to you before the flight takes off to make it more pleasant for you.”
I had just flown Delta a couple months earlier, so they were tracking and utilizing current passenger information. The personal touch and name usage put me at ease before the flight, plus, it tied a few important service skills into view. The interaction was personalized. The interaction acknowledged my previous use of their product. And the interaction was proactive. With this experience in mind, I will be giving Delta the first shot at my flights in the future.
What can we learn from this experience? Data matters and it can drive better service. If you truly want to connect and care for customers, data needs to be part of your solution. As a consumer we are conditioned to give out certain personal information when making a purchase or when seeking to have a customer service need met. We can use those pieces of information on future interactions with customers.
COLLECT
Collect information from customers with each interaction: via in person, telephone, web visits, online chat, email, and even text. If you have an experience with a customer and you have an opportunity to collect any information that might be helpful with future contacts, take advantage of that experience and collect it!
Start from the beginning. From the first time you interact with someone as a prospect, collect a minimum set of information, name, address, telephone number, and email. With that basic set of information, we can begin to paint a picture of who they are and where we might be able to communicate with them, market to them, and personalize their experience in the future.
ANALYZE
One huge benefit of collecting information on clients is analyzing it for comparison. You begin to see where your clients are concentrated geographically. You can see how many of them have a mobile number for future text message marketing. You can see what percentage of your customers have an email address on file, which leads to utilizing email marketing to communicate with that group.
Sometimes the biggest piece of information may be the one that is missing from their profile. If we know their mobile number maybe, we still need their birth date. Or, by examining their products and services, we can determine if there is a product or service, they are not using that would be of benefit to their household.
UTILIZE
The last step is to use the data! We now have the ability to personalize communications, just like the flight attendant did for me. They could address me by name while sitting in an airplane full of strangers hurrying to find overhead storage space and the correct seat.
Once you have taken the time to collect data and analyze it, you owe it to your customers and your coworkers to actually use that data. Sending marketing messages via a customer’s preferred communication method is common sense. Let’s learn enough about each customer to communicate personally and effectively with them.
The more we do to help customers feel comfortable, appreciated, and satisfied, the more likely they are to trust us the next time we discuss a new product, make a recommendation, or refer them to a specialist for more information.
If you currently don’t have a process for collecting the data, make that your first step in the data management process. If you already have an abundance of data, but you haven’t taken the time to analyze the information, start by understanding the data. And if you are already utilizing your data, take the time to examine what is working.
If a portion of your information is generating busy work, but not producing desired relationship outcomes, dig in and determine what is truly influencing customer actions. When you utilize information correctly, the most significant benefits are directed to your customer.
Tom Hershberger is CEO of Cross Financial. For more information, visit crossfinancial.com.
