Internal and external marketing of customer experience: CX Mini Masterclass – E67

This CX Mini Masterclass explores the importance of marketing customer experience, both externally to customers, as well internally to employees. Show host and customer experience expert, Julia Ahlfeldt, shares some practical tips and ideas for how you can leverage your customer promise as a marketing draw card, and how to foster awareness of customer experience within your organization. If you’ve been looking for some ideas about internal and external marketing of customer experience in your organization, then this episode is for you.

Spread the word about great customer experience

Most major brands spend loads of time and resources marketing their products and services, so shouldn’t this be enough to draw in customers? The short answer is no. Most marketing emphasizes the CVP, products and promotions. Few brands dedicate much of their marketing budget to helping consumers understand what kind of experiences they can expect. And to be honest, I’m not sure why. Perhaps they think it’s a waste of marketing spend or they’re afraid of putting a promise out there that the business won’t be able to deliver on. I see it as a huge missed opportunity. If you don’t help consumers know what they can expect, it sets the stage for a mismatch between expectations and reality…something that often ends up with an unhappy customer.

If your organization has established a customer promise or experience principles, these should be shared this with consumers. T Mobile in the US has focused quite a lot of external marketing on experiences, such as their unique Team of Experts support team.

Focus on the touchpoints

If your organization has already mapped the customer journey, you’ll know that there are many, many touchpoints. Each of these channels of interaction can become an avenue for marketing customer experience and sharing the good word about what sets your brand apart from the others. Marketing teams are normally very organized with messaging via traditional above the line advertising, newsletters, etc., but remember to look for opportunities to weave the customer promise into less obvious touchpoints like statements, contracts, and sales/support support teams.

If you are wanting to learn more about touchpoints and journeys, be sure to check out Episode 16.

Internal marketing of customer experience can rally employees 

If customers know what kind of experiences they can expect, then naturally employees need to be rallied around the same mantra. This is where internal marketing of your CX program comes into play. Internal marketing of CX is important because it helps establish a cohesive understanding of your company’s customer experience ambitions.

Internal marketing of customer experience generally takes two forms:

1. Consistent messaging about the long term vision of CX – Each organization needs to craft an enduring unified message about its customer-centric aspirations. Usually this takes the shape of customer experience principles or a customer promise. Like a vision, mission or purpose, this is something that should remain constant, with occasional refreshes as the business evolves. This message should feature in an organization’s cornerstone employee engagement and rituals like onboarding. Think of it as marketing for the long haul. Employees should know the customer promise like they know their favorite brand’s slogans.
2. Short-term efforts to rally and energize teams – These are communications that are of the moment, often intended to encourage specific behaviors or change rather than act as a philosophical Northstar for CX. If an organization is looking to catalyze customer-centric change, they might investigate launching a branded campaign with an inspiring call to action. We can see a great example of this at Multichoice, the South African media company, where the CX team spearheaded a campaign called #99problems to engage all staff in helping resolve the top 99 customer pain points along the customer journey. Be sure to check out Episode 6, for an interview with the head of CX at Multichoice about #99problems. It’s a great case study on how to create and execute a branded internal CX engagement campaign. 

Want to keep learning about CX?

If you’d like to checkout more of these CX Mini Masterclasses or listen to my longer format CX expert interviews, check out the full listing of episodes for this CX podcast.

Decoding the Customer is a series of customer experience podcasts created and produced by Julia Ahlfeldt, CCXP. Julia is a customer experience strategist, speaker and business advisor. She is a Certified Customer Experience Professional and one of the top experts in customer experience management. To find out more about how Julia can help your business achieve its CX goals, check out her customer experience advisory consulting services (including CX culture change) or get in touch via email.