Competing on the Basis of Customer Experience
When I first started at MetaCX, one of my first priorities was selecting and setting up a marketing automation platform. Based on my prior knowledge of the space, I narrowed it down to two options and began the process of determining which was a better fit. When investigating option A, their support team immediately connected me with a sales rep who listened to what I was trying to achieve—email automation, inbound lead management, sequencing, and the like—and offered a solution tailored to my needs. Communication was prompt and personalized. When investigating option B, I had difficulty setting up a meeting, felt that MetaCX wasn’t a priority prospect, and had to ask pointed questions to determine if the platform would work for what I was trying to achieve.
As most anyone would predict, I ended up going with option A. Even though it was slightly more expensive and didn’t necessarily offer more functionality than option B, I felt confident that their team would help me meet my goals and objectives. That’s the power of a good customer experience.
While the importance of customer experience is lost on no one in business today, many companies undervalue its impact on the selling process. The fact of the matter is that the experience you offer is one of the most powerful levers you can pull to get a deal across the finish line.
Features Don’t Sell Products
When you’re close to a product, as you often are when working in the world of software, there is a tendency to show off shiny features and try to wow prospects with the bells and whistles of your offering. After all, these are features that your team may have worked on for months and you, being an employee, intimately understand the power of what they can do. More often than not, however, the people BUYING your product simply don’t care. In fact, using features as the first or only selling point is the quickest way to lose a prospect’s interest.
What a prospect really wants to understand is how you’re going to help them succeed.
“When I’m evaluating vendors, I’m looking to create an extension of my team. What I’m really asking is, are they going to be good at what they do? Am I going to get the value I need to hit specific goals?” – Muhammad Yasin, EVP of Marketing at PERQ
Offering a great customer experience means:
- Understanding the needs of your customers
- Offering solutions to their problems
- Providing unwavering support and direction
- Helping the customer achieve their desired outcomes
Most importantly, a great customer experience is about demonstrating your commitment to all of these things and consistently proving that your walk matches your talk.
The Connected Customer Experience
When the topic of customer experience comes up, people automatically think of the period of time after a deal has closed. But the customer experience starts long before that. It starts during the sales motion.
The goal of SaaS companies should be to create a connected customer experience from the very first interaction with a prospect all the way through renewal. Accidents often happen at the intersections—in the handoffs from sales to onboarding teams and from onboarding teams to customer success.
Creating a connected customer experience means establishing trust and open communication throughout the entire customer lifecycle and never losing sight of the customer’s goals and objectives. It means creating a tight linkage between the value you promise in the sales cycle, the value achieved through implementation and usage, and the value you can prove at renewal time.
Where MetaCX Fits In
Creating a great customer experience sounds great in theory, but is hard to achieve in real life. After all, the customer experience goes beyond a single interaction and is influenced by multiple teams, competing priorities within those teams, and disjointed internal processes.
MetaCX gives suppliers the ability to manage the entire customer lifecycle through a single, centralized platform. SaaS and digital product companies are able to transform how they sell, deliver, renew and expand with one connected digital experience that includes the customer at every stage.
By providing a shared space where suppliers and buyers can define and measure value together, MetaCX gives suppliers the ability to align with their customers at every stage of the customer journey and create an unforgettable customer experience.
Learn more about the platform by requesting a demo today!