How Data-Driven Positioning Boosts Customer and Community Support
By Ellie Victor, Co-CEO
Often, when our clients take on a comprehensive positioning project, it has a ripple effect. Leaders see the importance of clearly stating their position with proof that supports their promise. With that increased awareness, we’ve seen leadership apply the model to other aspects of the business, such as customer support and community.
Does your competitor have a reputation for terrible customer support? That’s a positioning opening. Would your customers benefit from a community of tens of thousands of like-minded practitioners sharing best practices for success? That’s a positioning opening.
Increasingly, we’ve seen support and community stand out as meaningful ways for clients to support their differentiation.
In 2022, customer support and community surfaced as a powerful proof point to their positioning. Everyone knows retaining customers is both cost-effective and results in return business and referrals. Salesforce found if a company’s customer service is excellent, 78% of consumers will do business with them again after a mistake. And it can get even better than that: Bain and Company found increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by between 25% and 95%. And, the Harvard Business Review makes the case for why (and how) executives need to invest in understanding the customer experience. Making the right investments in customer relationships has significant benefits.
While support and community are increasingly important to customers and prospects, the market is rife with broken promises. Choosing the right words to articulate the message matters. The more concrete and provable, the better. Here’s how some of our recent clients have been winning with messages and strategies that support customers.
Anaconda helps data scientists, developers, students, and enterprises fuel innovation using Python. They focus on community and looking for ways to make access to their tools easier.
Anaconda is the world's most popular Python data science platform. Anaconda equips individuals to easily search and install thousands of Python/R packages and access a vast library of community content and support. Anaconda is like a data scientist’s hardware store. Everyone can access the hardware store and all the tools inside.
The message: “Over 30M users worldwide rely on the Anaconda platform to access hundreds of millions of open-source packages annually to drive outcomes faster. A community-powered platform that meets enterprise rigor is the preferred choice of Python users.”
Splashtop is the leader in Secure Remote Access and Support. It delivers an in-person experience that users need with security IT can trust--secure remote access made simple. It lets you connect to your computers from any device.
The message: “Help when you need it: Talk directly to an expert with instant global support, regardless of company size.” This approach won over customers and prospects. Talking directly to an expert provided a warm, fuzzy feeling because it means dealing with a live person who will listen, versus a bot, email, or support ticket and waiting hours for a response.
Scandit provides Smart Data Capture on smart devices allowing users to interact with physical items by capturing data from barcodes, text, IDs, and objects to automate end-to-end processes and provide actionable insights.
The message: “We support you at every step with a pre-design solutions team, integration, trials, implementation, and live service.” This message was liked or really liked by 95% of prospects because it details the quality support across the customer’s journey and says Scandit stands behind its product.
Nutanix reaps a 4.5 out of 5.0 rating on G2. No surprise, since customers went on and on about the Nutanix partnership approach. To prospects excellent support is paramount--they’ve been burned many times before. Making support a priority drives customer love and loyalty.
The customer: “The support experience has always been amazing. I have never had a bad experience with Nutanix support. I know that if I call support, something’s going to happen. It’s going to get done, and it’s going to get done quickly. I can’t overstate how important that is.” IT Manager, mid-sized financial services company.
We’ve worked with clients in various stages of growth, working with them to define their hill and ensuring their position is ownable and supported by proof. If you’re considering a positioning project, let us know. We’d happily take you through our process and recent success stories.