With 'word of mouth' and referrals being the top two ways buyers are being influenced today, what are businesses doing to help propagate this? If you are not thinking of your customers as your marketing team, it's perhaps time you should!
As more marketing money floods digital channels, our world is poised to get noisier with more content chaos and more marketing messages competing for our attention on our feeds.
With consumer trust with advertising and marketing dropping, it is inevitable that we will turn to our trusted family, friends, and peers more and more to help make our purchase decisions.
Delving deeper on what people share about their experience with a brand, product or service, it ultimately comes down to a brand delight moment story. I call these " Moments of Delight" or MOD.
These are special moments that compel people to talk about their experience and share this with their community and on review sites.
As an example, a friend during our gym workout recently got talking about how he was on an Air Asia flight and wanted to have a meal. He had a 50 Dollar note and the stewardess said she would come back with the change.
She did come back later to say they didn't have change for the 50, and then she smiled and said that the meal was on the house or should I say 'on the plane.' A surprise from a budget airline that makes most of its profits from extra in-flight services! Well done Air Asia.
This was something my friend wasn't expecting and has now become his moment of delight brand talking point. He tells it to me, I share this it with my community, Air Asia wins here with positive social currency.
It's also a MOD when a Disney cast member sees a kid at the theme park who has dropped his ice cream cone and gets him another.
Similarly, a MOD is when a bar gives surprise mini Vodka shots to people standing in the queue waiting to get in. When my cab driver who has dropped me to the airport texts me the next day to say enjoy my holiday in Phuket. Or when you and your partner arrive at your hotel room and there's a bottle of Champagne chilling with a happy anniversary note.
So, as a customer experience or marketing head, how can you help orchestrate these moments of delight, so your customers have talking points to share about your brand? Just coasting along and being 'average' with your customer experience ain't going to deliver MOD's!
We just don't talk about or share our 'average' everyday brand experiences do we? We only talk about those moments that have surprised or delighted us or impacted our lives in some way.
So, at your next customer experience update meeting ask the team; "What MOD's are we looking to create to help our customers talk about us? How can we help our customers do the marketing for us?" Then watch what happens to your business.
About the author
Ashok Miranda is a Business Transformation Architect and founder of Transform and Transcend. He is the author of the book: Culling Culturitis, How To Rid Your Company of this Toxic Disease and Build a Winning Company Culture.
As a speaker, consultant and trainer, he is passionately committed to architecting a better business world by building purpose-driven companies that nurture happy and engaged employees and positively impact peoples lives.
He connects the dots between company culture, branding, marketing and customer experience and works with business leaders, owners, founders and HR professionals to transform their companies for success in the digital age.