How to engage customers in closer communication and why do you need it

    The outflow of customers, aka churn, is the main enemy of an aging and online business with a paid subscription model. It is common for users to quickly migrate from one application and service to another, and you can save a client base only by maintaining interaction with users throughout the entire time of using the service. At Wrike, we have developed several principles for communicating with customers to make communication more personalized and try to push it beyond regular sales. More about them under the cut.

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    Fast feedback
    It has been said a million times, but still relevant. It is especially important not to miss the case when the user himself wants to get in touch - the feedback forms should be accessible from different points and be in sight. If the only feedback form is hidden on the "Contact Us" page, you will never get most of the feedback or will have to get it from public user accounts on social networks (and the information may be negative). In Wrike, users can leave feedback:
    • by link from anywhere in the service workspace,
    • replying to one of our letters,
    • By writing directly to support and on pages on social networks that are integrated with the internal support service.

    Regardless of the location of the request, they will certainly receive a response within one business day. By the way, on Facebook, administrators can quickly check how quickly support responds to requests and whether everyone receives a response right on the company's page.

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    A guaranteed response and a pronounced willingness to dialogue gives users confidence that their opinions are heard, and this is a textbook way to gain loyalty. Even if the problem that the client has contacted cannot be resolved in the near future, the support team can always give him workarounds that will reduce his dissatisfaction. By the way, we already wrote about how we form a support service .

    Not only a well-established collection and processing of requests is important, but also the most complete use of the received data. In our case, the feedback data initiates quick corrections of the most critical bugs, significantly affects development priorities, and also allows us to understand where we left significant gaps in the user's training cycle. Since we offer a service for project management in a team, quality training in working with it plays a key to minimizing the outflow of users at the initial stage.

    Identify brand advocates
    Loyal customers serve as the basis for creating a strong community around the brand, which will affect the perception of the product by other users (and potential buyers) much more than a dozen PR-managers who besiege journalists in full-time mode. After a certain time after registering an account, we invite users to answer the question “With what probability are you ready to recommend Wrike to someone else?” on a scale of 1 to 10. This is the classic Net Promoter Score test , which allows us to understand product satisfaction, but we are not only interested in statistics. Users who put from 8 to 10, we invite you to join our Wrike Club .

    A club is, first of all, a community where users can exchange experience and tips on using the system (which, again, is very popular for corporate services) and be the first to test beta versions of new functionality. There we also try to get feedback and work on increasing loyalty. For example, community members are invited to complete assignments - for example, take a survey and share their impressions of the updated Android notification feature. The most active club members receive gifts from us to choose from - discount cards and certificates to various online stores, coffee houses, etc. Since only loyal users are initially selected to the club, we do not disturb the rest with our requests, and we get a high percentage of answers.

    Expert Problem Information
    Everyone who uses your service or application has some kind of need or problem that they are trying to solve with your help. If people think that you are not doing well or completely, this careful attention to their requests will not stop users from leaving. In the case of Wrike, customers are worried about how to effectively establish work processes in a team, therefore, in addition to the service for organizing work, we provide unique information on this topic in various forms. First of all, this is the Wrike blog.in several languages ​​with posts on productivity, project management and teamwork, the best posts of which are sent out in the form of a weekly digest. One of the favorite visual and interactive forms of communication for our users was webinars on how to better organize the work of the team.

    Finally, based on surveys of a large part of our user base, we began to issue reports on the main problems that teams face in the workplace. So, recently we released reports on the organization of work and the impact of mobile devices on productivity , which may be of interest to a wide range of managers and employees.

    Such content also has a reactivation potential. Useful information makes you return to our website including those customers who, for some reason (changing their jobs, for example) have stopped using the service, keeping their attention.

    Fair exchange
    The principle of fair exchange works in every way. Therefore, if we want to ask our customers for something, we first offer them something in return. For example, Wrike long ago introduced the practice of providing free accounts to charities and student teams. About the most interesting projects, we then create success stories. In addition, as mentioned, Wrike often conducts surveys among users, offering in exchange a discount on a subscription or gift.

    We hope our experience will help you deal with the outflow of the audience more successfully, and we, in turn, really look forward to your recommendations on this topic.

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