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What would you ask your best customer if you could sit down to have a coffee with her?

If your aim is to improve the relationship, your best bet would be to talk about her experience with your company and to ask her what's working and what's holding the relationship back.

The customer experience is critical: More than half of customers are ready to switch to a competitor after a single negative experience. But, on the flip side, companies that focus on providing a positive, personalized customer experience report profits that are 60% higher than those who don't.

So, the effort you put into the customer experience can make or break your brand in the eyes of your customers.

The Start/Stop/Keep Technique

The key to showing your customers you're committed to the relationship is to embrace their feedback, especially if it's negative, and take specific actions to improve the experience.

One of the best ways to ensure you have meaningful conversations with your customers is to deploy the start/stop/keep technique by asking...

  1. What new behavior your business should start
  2. What practices you should stop
  3. What activities you should keep

We've all experienced the magic of the start/stop/keep approach in one form or another, whether in personal or work relationships. It works because it implicitly acknowledges two central truths: Feedback is key for a successful relationship, and so is acting on the feedback you receive.

That's why the start/stop/keep technique can be such a natural starting point for customer engagement, improving communication and transforming customers' relationships with your brand.

How Start/Stop/Keep Builds Responsiveness Into Your Business DNA

Most B2B businesses keep track of customer sentiment with surveys.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, which ask whether customers would recommend the company to a friend or colleague, are especially popular; almost two-thirds of Fortune 1000 companies using this method. Other customer satisfaction surveys ask customers to rate their experience. These types of surveys can provide extremely valuable insight, so if you're currently deploying them, keep it up.

Consider a survey created using a start/stop/keep design, which will help you build responsiveness into your B2B team's DNA as you engage your customers.

You need responsiveness as a core value now more than ever: 72% of customers want immediate service. We are in a period of exponential growth and change for B2B companies, and your survey data can help you navigate challenges and capitalize on hidden opportunities.

The good news is that emerging technology, including generative AI, is providing tools to help B2B teams thrive in this environment. But it will take a concerted effort to make sure responsiveness is a core value at every point of interaction, and that starts with ensuring you reach as many customers as you can.

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Start/Stop/Keep: A Better Customer Engagement Strategy

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

image of Tara Kelly

Tara Kelly is the founder, president, and CEO of SPLICE Software, a customer engagement company that specializes in using big data, small data, and artificial intelligence to create messages that drive customer engagement and the desired call to action.

LinkedIn: Tara Kelly