Your business is successful because you deliver value to customers. Their growth supports your growth, and advocating for them with help you both be successful.
Customer advocacy is the art of learning what customers need and working to help them gain the value that is in their best interest. This could mean introducing them to the features that will help them achieve their business goals, offering expansion opportunities, and more. When you advocate for your customers, they’ll reward you with their loyalty and become lasting proponents for your brand. Learning how to drive customer advocacy is the best thing you can do for both your enterprise and your customers.
How to Drive Customer Advocacy
Customer advocacy starts with understanding your customers’ needs and goals. To do this, you will need to identify precisely what a given customer wants so you can help them realize value. Then, gather customer data throughout the customer journey and take action at the right time.
You can also help your customers by developing open communication channels and encouraging frequent opportunities for feedback and discussion of best practices. This not only ensures a strong relationship but also provides your organization with valuable insights. Open customer feedback channels can help you identify areas of opportunity in your own standard workflow and even the product itself. You should set up the right processes to gather, carefully consider, and act on customer feedback at all levels of the organization.
Here are some techniques you can use to boost your customer advocacy efforts:
- Collect customer data. Gathering customer data helps you identify patterns and check whether customers are effectively progressing toward their goals. Keeping an eye on key metrics and proactively reaching out based on the insights they reveal shows that you’re really attuned to your customers’ needs.
- Survey customers. Customer feedback is critical in helping you understand how to best support them. Try tracking Net Promoter Scores (NPS), which measure customer loyalty. Identify customers who have a high NPS of 9 or 10 and ask them to be part of a case study or to review your company. Or, send them a survey. Not only will these loyal customers help you learn more about how to advocate for them, but they will likely give you good reviews and feedback.
Customers with very low NPS scores, such as six or lower, may not be willing to give you feedback, but you should ask anyway. Some may be willing to respond, but be prepared to hear negative feedback. Remember, critical feedback is important for helping you identify problems with your product or the customer journey. - Segment customers. Segmentation can be a big help when trying to learn about what types of advocacy customers want. Break customers into segments so you can identify your most enthusiastic supporters. Survey these customers and target them whenever you have questions, as they are most likely to be willing to offer suggestions.
- Leverage technology. When advocating for a large number of customers, it can be easy to miss key events. But every missed piece of information is a lost opportunity for customer advocacy. Identify important events that require engagement, such as changes in a customer’s NPS. You can set up an early warning system so that when these events occur, the CS team is notified immediately. This ensures that every customer is engaged and nothing slips through the cracks.
- Engage effectively. To become your customer’s advocate, connect with them frequently and personalize engagements by including videos or tips specific to their needs. Individualized contact strengthens the relationship by reminding customers that your brand is always there for them. More importantly, it stops customers from forgetting about you! Be sure that every engagement provides some type of value, such as a tip for using your product or new best practice info.
Fill the communication with as many personalized details as possible. This will make customers feel valued, which is important when demonstrating your commitment to customer advocacy.
During every interaction, ask yourself, “If I was in the customer’s position, how would I feel and what would I want?” This simple question that can guide your strategy, and customers will be impressed by a customer success team that demonstrates empathy.
The Technology You Need to Drive Customer Advocacy
Being a good customer advocate requires transparent and accessible data, and the ability to intelligently connect with a large customer base. But attempting to do this manually isn’t realistic. Instead, be sure your team has the right tools, including customer success software that lets you access customer data quickly, share it across teams, automate responses, and monitor customer sentiment.
By following best practices and with strong customer success software on your side, you can guide your customers towards value every step of the way. Customer advocacy will benefit customers and your brand, all at once.
Totango offers Spark, a customer success platform that gives you the capabilities you need to help your customer succeed. See how you can connect your customer data and take action at the right time. Request a demo today. To learn how our software can help you become your customers’ best advocate, explore Spark.
