4 Real-Life Examples that Prove Content Plays a Vital Role in the Customer Experience

Content is not an extra. It’s not a line item or an option. It’s at the core of everything you do, the crux where your business can succeed or fail. It’s customer service at its finest and most basic.

How is content customer service?

Content speaks to your audience and has the ability to address their questions and alleviate their concerns. With the right content you can:

• Answer commonly asked questions
• Inform your audience
• Reduce the workload of your customer service team (when the answers to common questions are on the website, you receive fewer calls)
• Encourage your audience to take the specific action you want them to take
• Represent yourself as a reputable business
• Position yourself as an authority
• Differentiate your brand
• Grow your business

When your content fails, the customer experience goes downhill with it.

It’s the holidays, and I’m feeling extra sentimental. 2014 has brought an abundance of blessings, both personal and professional, that have overcome all the moments of doubt, worry and confusion that come with being both an entrepreneur and a relatively new mom (my baby just turned 18 months—HOW?).
I fully believe that when you have the ability to do so, you should pay it forward in whatever way you can. But my oh-so-merry outlook on the holidays quickly turned glum as I encountered a series of frustrating experiences with local businesses and non-profits.
In my attempts to shine some extra light this holiday season (and in the course of dealing with the hiccups of life), the following things have happened over the past month or so:

• The organization I wanted to go through to support a local family at Thanksgiving had no information on their website about a program I knew existed. My email received an initial response that someone would get back to me…but they told me they weren’t sure who that person would be. And then no one followed up.

• My boiler cracked and we called three companies for quotes on a new one. Oil Company A took three weeks to call us back, and when they did, there was no apology or even acknowledgement of the delay. Oil Company B gave us a quote and never followed up—and this is our current oil company, who I assume would like to keep our business.

• The non-profit I found to provide Christmas presents to a local family again had very little information on their website. I was promised an email with more information and again…never got one. This is an entirely different organization than the one I attempted to use at Thanksgiving.

• I received an emergency request from a local non-profit that was seeking donations for a single mother-to-be who was down on her luck with her due date fast approaching. My email regarding coordinating the donation drop-off was never returned. Again, this non-profit is not affiliated with the others. (And, through persistence, this time I eventually found a way to get my donations to the right place.)

All four examples are completely unrelated and all four have something in common: a careless approach to customer service. And all four of these problems could have been avoided with content.

You can solve—and avoid—customer service issues with content…

Let’s re-envision my experience with these four organizations:
IF either the Thanksgiving or Christmas charities had information on their websites regarding the program, I would have had all the information I needed without having to contact anyone. That content could have included a striking call-to-action that would have made me feel more compelled to donate and reinforced my feeling that these were the exact charities I should support. (After all, there’s no shortage of non-profits in the world, and enough press regarding the misuse of donations to make donors feel wary.) When I did need to contact someone, I would have had the contact information of the correct person.
IF Oil Company B had followed up with us, maybe we would have felt better about staying with them. An email drip program would be the perfect solution here, since they could easily add me to a list that would send a steady stream of emails with no further work required on their part. And imagine if they directed me to a video on their website about boilers and water heaters and the like, so I could understand exactly what they do, how they function and even what caused ours to break?
IF Oil Company A had returned our call—or heck, even sent word by carrier pigeon—in a reasonable amount of time, maybe they’d have made our short list. The three weeks of silence put a nail in their coffin that no content could overcome. It’s a great reminder that customer service starts with, well….serving the customer.
Instead, we’re moving forward with Oil Company C, the one whose co-owner personally came to our house after hours the same day we called, then emailed and hand-delivered our quote two days later. The quote packaged included a detailed quote and information on each option, and the co-owner spent 20 minutes talking through our options and called to follow up a few days after that.
IF the local non-profit had information on their website, I probably could have coordinated the donation without needing to speak to someone. Since this was something they were coordinating that was both a rush and outside their typical scope of services, it doesn’t surprise me that the info wasn’t there. However, the lack of response was disappointing. They could have taken more time to craft that initial email, which could have laid out all the details, or had a well thought-out email on hand to send back to anyone responding to their request.

…And create an authentic customer relationship.

It’s also worth mentioning that the man from Oil Company C actually took a minute to play peek-a-boo with my daughter (in a totally authentic way). In that moment he wasn’t a salesman trying to make an impression, he was a family man responding to the silly toddler he saw in front of him. When you use content and great customer service to get a foot in the door, you get the opportunity to make an impression in other ways.

If you have a content problem, fix it.

If any of the above companies could be you, resolve to start the new year fresh by making some content changes that will have a big impact on your customer service.
Let’s brainstorm! You can…

• Add an FAQ page to your website, or revise an existing one. It should include answers to the most common questions you receive.
• Sit down with a team of your customer-facing employees and get their input if you aren’t sure what questions customers ask most frequently.
• Research and implement an email solution and craft:
  • Introductory emails
  • Follow-up emails
  • Drip campaigns for various stages of your sales cycle
  • Review your website:
    • Clarify confusing content
    • Add content where it’s lacking
    • Provide contact information
    • Write attention-getting calls-to-action
    • Think from an outsider’s perspective. Would all the information be clear if you had no prior knowledge about your business?
  • Determine your customer’s pain points, then develop content that addresses those concerns and questions. Your customers might love…
    • A short video explaining a complex topic
    • An enewsletter that keeps them up-to-date on industry news
    • An illustration that depicts a complicated process visually

After my experience this holiday season, I’m frustrated, annoyed and to be honest, I’m developing a complex about why people don’t want to respond to me. This is a feeling you never want your customers to have, and it can be avoided with a dedication to content and a strategic approach to every piece you produce.
For more proof of content’s integral role, check out our series, The Case for Content.