This topic is a big one with lots of depth available for people to work through. True to our mission, this month you’ll hear from people all over the business talking about the multitude of tactical and strategic ways to get ahold of customers and prospects so you can deliver value and help them find success with your product.
Early in my career, when I was still learning how to operate within the SaaS world and what that meant to help customers, there was someone with whom I was working and spent a lot of time helping them understand how our product worked on a deeper level. We weren’t paid to upsell, but I knew the client needed to expand their account to really, truly be successful. We had a good relationship and they trusted me, that much was obvious. But when it came time to pass them along to a salesperson, something that really wasn’t in my purview, I’d found them impossible to get on the phone, let alone reply to my emails.
Without their interest, I simply stopped emailing them (our role was more support based). I knew the account wasn’t as strong as it could be, though, and a few weeks later, I sent them a very personal email with links to several blogs our company had written on the very topic I knew with which they were having issues.
They replied, I put them in contact with a salesperson, and the account grew.
It wasn’t a massive deal for the salesperson, but the account became more valuable to the customer, and that’s the absolute definition of customer success in our industry. We spend an incredible amount of time and brainpower at Sprout purely on how we can elevate our customers to a level where they’re winning more business because we want to give them resources to do so.
This is where I’m spending time in my article. Engaging and re-engaging with resources. The first thing I do when I consult with an organization is take stock of the readily available resource centers they offer. Most companies have a blog and social channels. The more resources available, the better for your CX teams.
For example, Sprout offers an industry blog, a thought leadership blog, a help center, and social channels. There’s even more, but just at a surface level, I’d look at that and think about how easily my sales and CX teams can help engage with prospects or re-engage with customers that have ghosted.
HubSpot has some amazing examples of re-engagement emails, so this is a great place to look for some tactical examples, but thinking strategically is vital to a proper re-engagement campaign.
Absence Does Not Make the Heart Grow Fonder
I’m certain another writer will talk about the value of being personal, but I want you to think about how you’re currently approaching your book. Are you organized enough to know right now that everyone in your book has heard from you in the past 30 days? Most books will be adjustable and my book has always been smaller (my onboarding book heard from me every 14 days at the longest), but your customers should never go more than a month without hearing from you.
Take an hour this week to organize yourself and reach out to any accounts that have ghosted you within the past quarter.
Make Human Connection
One amazing way to re-engage customers is to ask for in-person meetings. Forbes talks about this in point 8 of this article from four years ago. I’ve recently been hit up for in-person conversations from a vendor looking to land a project I’m heading up, and without it, they’d have never been involved in the bidding process. In-person connection works. You can look them in the eye and talk to them like a person.
Treat People like People
Without question, your number one tool is to never forget that the person with whom you’re talking and trying to engage with is an actual living, breathing human. They aren’t there just so you can hit an email or dial number for the day. They’re actively working to make their business better. Work with them to make it happen.
If nothing else, you need to find ways to add value during your engagement and re-engagement efforts. Spend time and be thoughtful. You’ll find people a lot more responsive.
Joe Huber is one of the co-founders of the Chicago Customer Success Podcast. He is currently a Customer Community Strategist with Sprout Social.
Chicago Customer Success 