It's been a tough few days and you could use a dopamine boost. Common wisdom suggests it's time to splurge on retail-therapy. You've got the perfect little article lined up too, and the cherry on top; is the timely "offer" on the very product you've been researching all this while.
When executed timely, Offers can be a great tool to incentivize customers by tapping into the pain and pleasure psychology.
It's often a combination of urgency, exclusivity, and fear of missing out that makes offers, deals and discounts so attractive!
Thus, it's only logical for businesses to invest in process and systems that could continuously evaluate what's most relevant for a given customer, and marry these insight with available offers & promotions. This is not easy to achieve though; as it requires us to deeply "know" our customers, and "listen" to what they tell us directly and indirectly.
But what about the times, when our customers may not be looking for the next best product, up-sell, or cross-sell offer. what if buying something from us may not be what they need at this moment?
If we consider our relationship with customers purely transactional, this wouldn't worry us. However, if we wish to build long lasting loyalty, we've got to look at the bigger picture beyond Transactions.
I call it "stuff that happens between Transactions", which may be equally important, if not more; when compared to transactions. This is where I feel Empathy fits in, where we want to:
- Ensure the customer doesn't have buyer's remorse
- Help customer get the most value out of the purchase
- Take this time to thank them & show gratitude, especially to customers who have given you good business so far
- Make sure you check on customers who actively reach out for help or even read FAQ, attempt to write an email, or initiate a chat
- Listen and pre-empt situations and conditions that would result in churn (path that branches away from concentric circles in above diagram)
Note that this is not a series of static customer service communications, or activating a "cool down" period on your promotions. This is about putting in the same effort, we would to build our Next Best Offer framework; into the softer and more human aspects of our relationship and experience delivery.
A truly customer centric Next Best Offer framework, thus then; needs to be a combination of offers, propositions etc. along with product utilization, CSAT, proactive support, loyalty and appreciation, all packaged, prioritized and delivered by a single centralized system.
A better term for such a framework would then be "Next Best Offer Conversation"
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