Launching a Customer Advocacy Program: Tone of Voice
This post covers the plumbing or data integrity of contacts and customers. This is the foundation of your advocacy program. Another set of pipes are automated customer emails and these are often hidden behind walls. The inventory of emails can include:
- New customer welcome
- Registering for a user account
- New user welcome (often a series)
- After registering for an online class, webinar or onsite event
- Thank you note after an event
- Support ticket open and close
- Account renewal
We have all received automated emails that are years old with broken URL’s, promoting programs that no longer exist and out of date messaging. As these are automated they can be out of sight and therefore out of mind. The author is probably long gone and it may even be hard to figure out if they are launched from the platform, marketing automation or CRM system. One way to collect these emails is to become a user of your product.
Tone of Voice An even more important concern is the tone of your communications. Are they all about us and our product? One of the best customer presentations I saw while at Brainshark was created by Aviva, a UK financial services firm. As part of their re-branding, in 3.5 minutes, Our Tone of Voice made the point that it is not about us the vendor, but you the customer. All customer facing communications, from how the phone is answered to text in the help center should convey the tone you want to get across.
I will never forget a talk my friend Tim Riesterer, the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Corporate Visions gave at a conference about companies that we-we-we all over themselves in their communications.
As an example, this is from the Getting Started section of Crimson Hexagon’s Help Center. It is followed by the updated version.
Here in the Crimson Help Center, we have assembled a collection of materials that will help you become acquainted with our products. To begin, we have the Get Started section, which provides a walk through of the basic tools and functionality in our platform. Once you complete this introductory series, you can dig deeper into best practices and advanced techniques in our various Help Center sections. We also have a Community space where you can interact directly with our team and clients.
The original has 8 we-we-we’s. Let’s try again… just 2 we-we’s.
Welcome to the Help Center. This is the best place to learn about the Crimson Hexagon platform, product updates, events, classes, and more. Start your journey at Basic Users. Then dig deeper into Advanced Users, Tips & Tricks, and Resources.
You are now part of a growing community of social media professionals that use social data analytics and insights to drive organizational strategies. If you have any questions go to Ask the Community to interact with other users and the Crimson Hexagon staff.
At least once per year, check your automated emails and other customer facing communications for their accuracy and tone of voice.
Note: Originally posted on Linkedin
Responses