Having customers at the centre of your story

During our Humans Come First summit, we had the pleasure of welcoming Julie Hogan, VP of Customer Experience at Drift. She gave a talk on the importance of putting customers at the centre of everything you do-which is actually Drift's leading principle. This blog post is meant to serve as a quick overview of some of the points she covered during her talk. 

Oftentimes, go-to-market teams are divided into sales, marketing, and customer success. When it comes to prospects and customers, sales is responsible for venue; marketing is responsible for leads; customer success is responsible for customer health. 

In the overall customer experience, the secret sauce is made up of demand, business, and retention. As you build up your customer relationships, telling their stories becomes critical to effectively focusing on your customer base. 

Story before solution

Before getting deeper in with your brand via a purchasing decision, prospective customers are looking to see themselves in the solution that your organisation offers. The interpretation of this information looks like: 

• Here's where they are and here's what's next ('they' being current customers)
• Starting with the challenge and making it hurt 
• Showcasing the solution and surfacing the strategy at the same time 

When you're presenting your solution through a customer story, don't be afraid to share results. Although you want it to read like a story, remember that metrics do matter; include numbers where you see fit. In doing so, you make the customer the star. 

No matter what, don't lose your human approach to storytelling, even if it is in a business setting. Get to know who your customers are as people and never stop adding value to them and their organisations. 

Want more? Get the full talk here.