You might know I’m a huge fan of Twitter. You get to meet a lot of people, learn lots of new things, and listen to myriad points of view. It’s a great educational and networking tool.
Except.
Except when people forget how to relate to potential customers as human beings rather than sales prospects. Let’s consider these two private messages I received from the same person a few weeks apart.
Always great connecting with another CX professional Annie! We at COMPANY would love your feedback on our new eBook on customer-centric measurement and analytics to help with your customer improvement efforts to reduce churn, increase engagement and fuel growth. LINK
Message 1: First, it’s nice that the person took note of my human name rather than my Twitter name. Kudos on that. However, I’m curious why they would love my feedback on a CX ebook since I don’t really do any work in CX. Why do they want my feedback? Why do they want my feedback for free? And, wow, what a pretty series of buzzwords – reduce churn! increase engagement! fuel growth! I won Business Bingo with one DM.
Now let’s dissect the followup private message I received a few weeks later.
Hi Annie. I noticed you didn’t download my prior offer. Well, here’s another one that might be more relevant to you. I’ve summarized my decade long research efforts on the Net Promoter Score in a free white paper, “TITLE OF WHITE PAPER”. One NPS myth is that many customer-centric professionals believe the claim that the NPS is the best predictor of growth. In reality, only 25% of customer-centric professionals believe that claim. Download the free whitepaper to see the other four NPS myths and learn what you can do to improve your customer analytics efforts. Be sure to share it with your colleagues; you’ll be a hero. LINK
Message 2: STALKER ALERT! Apparently they’ve been watching their email list for ME. Checking whether I personally downloaded their ebook. (Ignore the fact that I regularly use an unnamed email account to download these sorts of things because newsletters aren’t my thing.) If I didn’t already download it, but was planning to, those plans just got canceled. Second, their offer? You mean the ebook they wanted me to download so I could give them free feedback? That’s not an offer. That’s free consulting. And lastly, share with my colleagues so I’ll be a hero? My, we think highly of ourselves, don’t we! For a company focused on customer experience, the experience that this potential customer had was less than stellar and less than heroic.
I actually like it when people share links to webinars, ebooks, and white papers. But I don’t like presumptive strangers telling me what I like or what I need or what they think I’m doing. And I definitely don’t like being stalked. So to end on a more positive note, I took a stab at rewriting those marketing messages in a way that is more human, and less stalky.
Tip #1: Get rid of the you and your words that imply you know what I need or want or do.
Tip #2: Never, ever, ever indicate or imply you are stalking. Even though we all do it.
Always great connecting with another CX professional Annie! I just wrote an eBook on customer-centric measurement and analytics to help with customer improvement efforts to reduce churn, increase engagement and fuel growth. If that sounds interesting to you, download it here. Maybe we could chat about it. LINK
Hi Annie. I prepared a free white paper based on my decade long research efforts on the Net Promoter Score, “TITLE OF WHITE PAPER.” One NPS myth is that many customer-centric professionals believe the claim that the NPS is the best predictor of growth. In reality, only 25% of customer-centric professionals believe that claim. Download the free whitepaper to see the other four NPS myths and learn what can be done to improve customer analytics efforts. Feel free to share it with any colleagues who are interested in the NPS. LINK
This lesson in relating to people in a non-stalking way is brought to you by the letter circle and the number orange.
The LoveStats Blog 