A major issue driving enterprises crazy these days is how long it can take in order to convert a sales lead into a paying customer or get any type of response from them when the company contacts them.
It usually doesn’t occur to sales as well as marketing teams that it is necessary to incorporate public relations (PR) activities into the selling process. This is an opportunity which is being missed as PR can be useful in hastening response times in addition to increasing the probabilities of closing sales.
Customer experience: A top global priority
The reason why customer experience has become a top priority globally, in an age when customers as well as prospects have instant access to countless pieces of information and options, maybe self-evident. What PR adds to the sales cycle is an additional dose of stickiness in addition to trust. Sales still reels in a catch, but digital marketing and PR provide the irresistible bait.
Capabilities that PR offers, in the context of the sales cycle, include:
- Being an information channel as well as a resource for getting into contact with a prospect and providing them with useful information outside of sales relationship.
- Acting, when needed, as the gateway/gatekeeper for people and collateral resources.
- Offering recommendations, which are proven, about what to say to a prospect. This incorporates how to organise something as simple and essential as an email subject line that will not cause the email to be seen as spam or deleted automatically.
- Acting as a proactive resource for information in order to elevate your organisation’s status in the industry. Tools at your disposal include pointing out industry awards as well as recognition from industry influencers, turning into a trusted source on key industry data points such as trends, market shares, white papers as well as podcasts.
What is CX?
The term ‘CX’ refers to the sum of experiences that a person has during their interactions with a brand. CX starts from the moment they become aware of the brand to the lifetime of ownership of that brand’s products or services.
CX is a roadmap which makes up that customer’s journey. CX as well as the customer journey consist of two sections: the buyer’s journey and the owner’s journey.
How do PR and CX integrate?
Public relations incorporates CX in two important ways: mitigation as well as amplification.
Mitigation
One of the most common causes of crisis communications in public relations is bad customer experience. A business delivers a poor experience and a customer follows it thoroughly online. This causes a firestorm which the company needs to manage.
The purpose of public relations, in cases like this, is mitigation of the crisis through a prompt response. The faster as well as more skilful the response, the less impact the crisis has. The very best companies catch any crises before they even reach a serious stage. This puts out the sparks before these become a fire.
The key to efficient mitigation is that public relations as well as customer service must be integrated deeply. Both teams should shoulder the tasks of monitoring and both should communicate regarding responses to customer problems.
Efficient CX for PR necessitates the demolition of silos in addition to the belief that support or PR is only responsible for customer communication.
Amplification
The other scenario is when an organisation delivers excellent CX. When a customer experience is incredible, customers tell everyone they know about it. The role of public relations, in cases such as this, is to reinforce positive in a quick and forceful manner.
To accomplish this, public relations must have strong, near-real-time monitoring capabilities. This capabilities must accurately detect not only activity, but also opinion. Public relations must also be profoundly incorporated into marketing as well as sales teams to capitalise on positive customer interactions.
As customer success stories grow, PR should disseminate those stories to digital marketing and sales to reinforce, to prospective customers, what a positive experience they could have with the company’s brand.
Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing
Do you feel that a career in PR is for you? If so, then you should really consider doing a digital PR course such as the one we offer. Want to learn more? Please follow this link.
