My whole career, I’ve been in customer service.
I started in traditional retail in high school, selling Replay cards at Sam Goody before transitioning to my college job of slangin’ lattes at the local Starbucks, which turned into my first post-college job as a store manager with that same coffee giant.
I transitioned to a more expensive beverage indulgence in my early twenties, and made the leap into the wine industry. I started out as a tasting room manager for a small local winery before getting into the digital marketing space in 2007. I spent over 10 years getting to know hundreds of winery owners across the United States, helping them tell their stories, reach new customers, and generate direct sales through compelling email marketing campaigns.
At Starbucks, I received some of the best customer service training in the world. I’ve worked with some of the nation’s most recognized wineries, and experienced first-hand the red-carpet treatment they provide each and every one of their tasting room visitors. World-class hospitality is at the center of my career journey, and I believe customer experience is what separates the winners in business from the also-rans.
I started this site because I want to help businesses of any kind deliver create those world-class customer connections through digital marketing. I believe the quality of customer connections is the single most important element of business success, and I also know that the businesses out there crushing it could go next level with a few marketing automation programs and a thoughtful strategy that maps to their customer journey.
I have seen, first-hand, how effective email marketing automation programs can increase overall customer engagement and lifetime value. Through this blog and the resources I share on this site, my goal is to empower businesses of all shapes and sizes and industries to exploit their technology tools more effectively, to harness the power of those customer connections, and to humanize marketing automation. I want to help business owners experience growth without having to add more hours to their work week. I want to see more customers receiving messages that are personal, relevant, and that add value to their lives.
Everybody wins when the customer comes first; and everybody loves to win.
So let’s start here: What is The Thing your customers tell you they love most about your business? How could you take the essence of The Thing and increase its reach?
I’ve always felt a tension with the words “human” and “automation” – like they’re at odds. As in, is it human to be connected with impersonally? I’m not suggesting it’s not effective or powerful… but do the recipients become more human by engaging it? Or, maybe that’s not the point? I’d love to hear more about your thoughts on this. Thanks!
Great questions, Dane, and thanks for taking the time to read and share your thoughts. When done well, I think that marketing communications can deliver value and relevance that feels really personal and even human, while self-serving or disingenuous attempts at connection are easily discarded whether they were “delivered” by a real human or not. I guess I don’t equate “impersonal” with “automation”, though many peoples’ experiences probably have them thinking quite differently. It is not my intent to slap a “human” skin on the actions of robots, but rather to advocate for putting human beings at the center of business communications and practices. Does this answer your question, or introduce even more? I’d be happy to dive deeper, as this is a topic I feel very strongly about!
Great post Erica! It sounds like your on a mission that’s close to your heart. I look forward to hearing your perspective on marketing with the twist of customer service. This combination is sure to provide interesting topics.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment, Courtney! I am excited to share, and to refine the content here to meet the needs and interests of the audience. So… keep it coming! 🙂
Thanks for the article. I think you’re absolutely right about this. I’m not sure how to address this from my own perspective. In my consulting work, if customers don’t feel personally taken care of by me, I’m really failing at my job. That’s what they’re paying me for, after all. Of course cheerful professionalism helps. Where I think I run the most risk of _not_ doing this is when I start to get self-conscious about how they are seeing me, and project a need for confirmation that things are going okay onto them. Of course I need to be sensitive to whether things are going okay, but the moment that my confidence needs to be bolstered by feedback from them, I’m in trouble. This is actually the sharp end of the rope for me right now. 🙂
Interesting perspective, and thank you so much for sharing and for your commitment to personally assuring your customers’ needs are met. I can think of some parallels from your personal experience in consulting and larger B2C entities falling into a similar trap. When a feedback loop ceases to be a loop, some businesses fall into a pretty ugly escalating system of shouting to get attention in an attempt to get a response. By no means am I implying that you’re shouting at your customers, but I can see how the need for some validation that all is as it should be might increase the likelihood of less-than-self-aware tactics. I wonder, what are some of the processes in your business that you don’t personally have to fulfill? Are there certain components of information or feedback gathering that might actually be better accomplished through an impersonal system to free up some of your personal attention to devote to the connections that matter most? How can expectation setting with your customers ensure that they aren’t feeling disconnected when one of those not-you connections that serve your business function come through?