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Storytelling Is Really the Only Marketing

Maybe the inverse of my title is more true:  if you’re not telling a story, you’re not really marketing.  As marketers, we’ve all spent plenty of time analyzing features and benefits of our offerings, figuring out just the right messaging and discovering the right ways to talk to our prospects and customers.

In more recent years, notably with the rise of online marketing of every sort, we’ve started talking about conversations, storytelling, and how to engage our prospective customers and build relationships.  This is also an important part of marketing work.

But no matter what you sell and no matter what audience you want to engage, if you’re not telling them a good story and engaging them with that story, you’re not going to garner much interest.

Why Storytelling Matters

Kathy Klotz-Guest, CEO of Keeping It Human, (also a friend and sometime MENG speaker) recently released a book, Stop Boring Me! How to Create Kick-Ass Marketing Content, Products and Ideas Through the Power of Improv, based on her years as an improvisational actor, then as a storytelling marketing adviser to Silicon Valley businesses.  Her premise is that all business is human (also the premise of my work, which is one reason I admire her!).

Kathy cites marketing professor and author Jennifer Aaker of Stanford University, who notes that people remember stories as much as twenty-two times more than they do facts alone

Worried?

You should be.  If you’re “talking” to your prospects by showing them features and benefits, and your competitors are telling engaging stories, it might explain why you’re having trouble with your conversion rates.

One of the most important pieces of advice Kathy offers is that marketing is about change, as are stories.  If you help your prospect see and understand the possibilities and how to change to realize them, you have a far better opportunity to engage and, eventually, sell to that prospect.

How do I do that?

Three Steps to Better Storytelling

Like me, you’ve probably heard that advice from way too many marketers and so-called experts. But doing it seems to escape you.  Here’s one person doing it well every single day.  My colleague, Megan DeGruttola heads storytelling and content marketing for Stitch Labs and uses these three guideposts to create a story:

1.  Know your audience

Who is the person you want to hear your story?   What interests them?  Why is your story going to matter to them?  This is nothing more than knowing your target audience but in a much more human way.

2.  Understand their problems and aspirations 

This is not about the problems you think they should have (sorry, we’re marketers, you know you think that way even though you shouldn’t).  Make certain you are addressing the problems that person faces in their daily life.  Maybe it’s something that frustrates them endlessly or maybe it’s something they never thought they could solve.

Then make sure you know their aspirations.  What do they want to change?  What do they hope to become?  How, very specifically, do they think they can get there―and how can you help them?

3.  Take them on a journey 

Show them where they are and make clear the problems.  Show them the way forward to achieving their aspirations.  In other words, tell a powerful story.

Remember, journeys are never a single step, and they are fraught with setbacks. Don’t forget that your story shouldn’t be a carefree romp to the finish line. It should be an honest and credible account of the challenges and motivations that keep the story going.

Are you worried you don’t tell good stories (it’s the worry I hear most often from marketers about storytelling)?  Don’t worry.  You do.  Ask your family or friends.  At least some of them love your storytelling.  Go find out why and use those strengths to get better.

And as with everything else in marketing, keep trying and experimenting.  You’ll get to what gives you and your company that twenty-two times engagement multiplier.

Then tell us the story of how you did it in the comments!

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How Do You Define Customer Success?

Customer success is a very hot topic (rightfully so).  With the rise of the subscription economy, companies are more obligated than ever to make sure their customers are happy with their products and services.  Companies from salesforce.com to Dollar Shave Club are adding “customer success’ departments (or the like), appointing chief customer officers and finally paying attention to what happens after the initial sale.

But what constitutes “customer success?”  Regardless of your business, it’s a hard question to answer.  For a company such as salesforce.com, one customer might be successful if they use the software to track and report on sales reps, but another might be successful if they can establish and enforce a sales process.  For a company such as Dollar Shave Club, a customer might be successful if they get a close shave from the razor blades, while a different customer might be very happy as long as the blades are delivered on time.

Not My Definition of Customer Success

Here’s a personal story of how a large subscription economy company failed to understand customer success:

A few weeks ago, I was watching television one evening.  The picture became pixilated and then disappeared, leaving me staring at a blank screen (Have you guessed that I’m going to pick on my favorite target:  my cable television provider?). After ruling out all the other equipment in my home, I determined the CableCARD device that my cable company provides was malfunctioning (A CableCARD allows a third-party device to decode the encrypted signal sent by the cable company, meaning you don’t need extra boxes in your house…sometimes.).

When I called the cable company’s “customer success” line, they walked through it with me again and agreed with my conclusion:  the problem was with the CableCARD.  They said they would send a technician to install a new one in three days.

Three days (!) seemed a long time to wait just to be able to watch television again.  When I challenged this, I was told:

“This is not a priority issue.  We are successfully delivering a signal to your home, and a malfunctioning CableCARD is not important enough for us to send someone tonight or tomorrow.”

I reiterated that I felt they were leaving me without their service for three days, and that this is a failure to deliver the service promised.  They reiterated:

“We are successfully delivering signal to your home, so we are successfully providing service.”

Our definitions of “success” did not match.  Theirs was “signal on the cable wire,” while mine was “seeing a picture on my television” (I’ll spare you the rest of the argument; it didn’t go well from my perspective.).  Maybe there are other customers who use their signal differently and who consider “signal on the wire” to be success, regardless of whether their TV is watchable.  Not I.

As I reflected on this discussion, I thought about all the other companies that fail to make sure I am using their service successfully, and only focus on the limited set of issues they choose to define as success.

A recent study showed that 53% of Americans would choose to switch cable providers if they had the choice (cable television service is a monopoly in many parts of the country).  If the monopoly is broken, it does not bode well for these providers.  Not only does it mean customers will be looking to leave and take their recurring revenue elsewhere, but it opens the market for disruptive competitors who may be more than happy to meet the needs that the current providers are not meeting.

The important question for your business is this:

Do you know how your customers define “success”?

If you don’t know that, you can’t help your customers be successful. And their definition is the only one that matters (cable companies, be damned).

An Approach to Customer Success

One company that is making a good effort at answering this question is Contactually (a social CRM product I use in my own work).  Susan Watkins, their newly appointed head of customer success, tells me that when a customer shows up, Contactually contacts the customer and offers to help them get started, including personal tutorials on how to do the things the customer hopes to do with the product.

In that process, they discover how the customer intends to use Contactually—and how the customer defines success.  When renewal time comes, they can then contact the customer and, instead of just asking for a renewal, ask how they are doing against that definition of success and how Contactually can help them be more successful.

Their data is not in yet, but I’ve seen this approach reduce churn by 5% to 10% in other companies.

In the subscription economy, if you don’t help make your customers successful—by their definition—you won’t be in business for long.

Post a comment and tell us how you figure out how your customers define success.

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Customer Service Culture Keeps Customers Coming Back

Best Customer Service

Below are  examples  of two very different customer service cultures.  Which would you prefer? Let’s say you have to bring your car in for repair.  The mechanic diagnoses the problem. Would you choose:

A)  The shop where the mechanic tells you:  “This is a simple issue.  We fix these all the time.  It’s not going to be any problem at all.  Your car will be good as new in a few hours.  Just go about your business, and I’ll call you when it’s ready.” or

B)  The shop where the mechanic tells you, “Your car’s coolant system has three leaks in different hoses.  The hoses are easy to access, and I have replacements in stock.  It will take me two or three hours to replace the hoses and test them to be sure they are working.  I’ll call you as soon as I’m done.”

If you’re like me, not only do you prefer option (B), but if you run into the mechanic in option (A), you’re likely not to come back (and maybe not even leave your car in the first place).

The reason is we don’t like to be dismissed, and we don’t like condescension.  The mechanic in option (A) was condescending and a bit insulting. She assumed we not only have no idea how our car works but that we don’t care to know and will trust her implicitly. The mechanic in option (B) showed respect for our knowledge, ownership of the car, and likely, our time.

Is your company’s customer service  insulting your customers without even knowing it?

I’ll give you another example of good and bad customer service.  Recently, I contacted technical support for two different software products.  Both are websites that run SaaS products.  Both issues were simple ones that required little explanation and should have been easy to identify as issues (I can’t say how hard they would be to fix).

Company 1 responded like this:

We really appreciate you bringing us this kind of issue affecting our software’s performance.  Rest assured our developers are fully aware of the changes and the glitches that occurred after the software update.  They have made these adjustments their top priority to ensure our software is as stable as possible.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.

Company 2 responded like this:

Thanks so much for writing in!  This is a great question, not too odd at all! 🙂  I’m afraid there isn’t a great solution for this at the moment.  Sorry about that. 🙁  We haven’t figured out a great way for it to know to re-look for the image and description if nothing shows up at first.  Great idea though, and we definitely see the value of it.

Sorry I don’t have a better answer for you on that one.  Is there anything else I can do to help or any questions I can answer?

I’m guessing you know which one I thought was well-done and which I thought was disingenuous

Company 1’s response is more troubling than just a dismissive response.  It points to a customer service culture that assumes customers want reassurance and kind words above all else.  It suggests that the company’s customer service protocol has guidelines or even templates that advance the idea that customers are to be dealt with and dismissed as quickly as possible.

This was reinforced after my follow-up question asking if they knew about the specific issue and might be working on it.  I was told there are many issues on which the developers are working and that I could be certain they would be informed of this one.  Further reinforcing the dismissive approach, five days later the company announced an update that resolved the specific issue.  I have to assume someone there knew that this update was coming yet failed to communicate that to me.

Company 2’s response points to a customer service culture of openness and honesty.  Telling me that there is “no great solution” admits the software has shortcomings and just can’t do everything all the time.  This is true of all products of all kinds.  Being direct about the limitations and aspirations of your product shows both honesty and confidence in your ability to deliver value to your customer.

My cultural assumptions were reinforced on follow-up exchanges, where I offered an idea for a solution, and an interesting discussion on how to best get the specific value I needed from the product ensued.

Evaluating customer service

Far too many companies evaluate the performance of technical support or customer service success on how quickly issues can be resolved and how friendly the language of the company’s representative is.  Both of these measures lead the customer service teams to shorten their responses, use more reassuring and friendly (not honest and direct) language, and to be dismissive of customer issues in the hope they will accept answers such as those above from Company 1 and go away.

But customers are evolving the other way.  Customers demand more details and honestly from companies, as well as more and more transparency.

In order to meet the needs of this evolving customer, companies must also change their customer service culture and the metrics that support it.  For example, rather than measuring duration of interactions, you might measure how many interactions it takes for the customer to consider the issue resolved.  You might also want to measure how much progress each interaction made toward resolving the issue (if it makes no progress, you are wasting time and angering your customer).  Your metrics should always focus on what the customer perceives as progress and what your customer perceives as a resolution.

Is your company’s customer service  culture dismissing and alienating your customers?

Try acting like a customer with a problem for a day, and go find out.  Then tell us your story in the comments.
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