Have You Overlooked Your Best (+ Most Affordable) Marketing Tool?

Sometimes we forget.

It’s not intentional neglect, but we overlook it for sure.

Because in the smoke + mirrors social media landscape, sometimes we’re lulled into prioritising our tweets, facebook statuses, facebook ads + even our blog posts over our best marketing tool ever.

It’s our customer service.

The fancier term being customer experience.

Either term, it’s the treatment of our customers/clients that basically says: “I value you. I care about you. I’m devoted to how my service truly serves you.”

It’s demonstrated with small touches, swift responses, extra love + especially follow-up.

When you’re a “starter” (I am… I literally had my brain mapped + it’s wired to start things) the “finishing” part can be a real struggle. Not because you don’t care, but because you’ve got a new idea you want to birth. It can be easy to forget the customer service in the follow-up, the follow-through, the way things are wrapped up nicely.

Are you (+ I’m fully including myself in this question) overlooking your ultimate marketing tool?

I get it. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that this is even a marketing tool at your disposal. Because it feels so natural + beautiful when done right. There’s no sense of ‘am I pushing here?” or “am I blowing my own horn?”

Recently an aspiring copywriter who wanted to start her own business contacted me for advice. Frankly I was chuffed + happy to share the insights I’d gained in the short-time I’ve worked for myself.

When asked “how do you market yourself?” I found myself explaining, “ya know: everything is marketing.” I thank the ever-inspiring Alex Franzen for that pearl of wisdom.

Then I fleshed out that borrowed wisdom in what probably sounded like the lyrics of a country ‘n’ western song…

I don’t post on my facebook page all that much.

I don’t pay (eeyay) for ads.

And I don’t tweet as much I should.

But you know what?

I’ve never been out of work.

I’m always booked out well ahead.

(Maybe it only sounds like a country ‘n’ western song in my head.)

Of more value than any blog post, tweet or ad I could construct is how I treat my clients.

And while I’m doing a good enough job, I could *probably* do better.

We all can.

That’s why I’m fully included in the call to claim customer service as your best marketing tool.

ou know you can have the sexiest facebook ads ever, a huge twitter following (+ I’m not disputing the validity of either), but if your customer service isn’t awesome, it all falls down. It pains me to say this, but in the spirit of truth: even your copy doesn’t matter if your service sucks. No sales page can save you. Copy is one piece of the puzzle. A very important piece. Obviously. But it’s not a replacement for doing excellent work + that includes excellent customer service.

In the spirit of gentle disclosure: I have not nailed my customer service in the last few months.

My customer experience — I feel — hasn’t been the kind of amazing experience I want to deliver. And for many reasons. Over-committing being the main one. Which is why I’ve committed to making my #1 marketing tool my # 1 priority.

I lovingly invite you to do the same.

If we are to compete in life, let’s compete in how much loving attention we can show one another.

When you’re starting out, it’s easy to become hyper-focussed on doing everything, + building big followings, like yesterday. It can be too tempting to think you need to be tweeting, facebooking, insta-wha-wha-ing more.

Those things are important. But what’s paramount (+ yes, I’ll say it again) is your customer service.

Making a real-life-flesh-and-blood human happy (very happy) is worth more as a marketing tool than tantalising the 10-second attention spans scrolling their online feeds. The best people I know do both impeccably well.

Building an online empire is uber-important. Building credibility via your customer experience is even more so. But don’t assume the two are mutually exclusive — they’re not.

This is just a gentle reminder that — amidst the plethora of marketing tools available to us — one continues to reign supreme.

Customer service. We can all do better.

So let’s chat about that, shall we?

What’s one thing you can commit to that will improve your customer experience?

I’d love you to share in the comments below.

With love,

Kate

About the author: Kate Erlenbusch

Kate Erlenbusch is a writer, teacher and creator of Word Love, a digital copywriting service for coaches, consultants and creatives who want to sell and serve with soul. When Kate’s not playing with words she’s playing with her boisterous sons on their trampoline. Download Kate’s free eBook 7 Cheeky Secrets of Writing that Sells & Serves at wordlovebykate.com

This article was first published by Kate Erlenbusch