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Winning over customers can be easier said than done, and sometimes involves internet providers having hard conversations and looks in the mirror.
By: Brad Randall, Broadband Communities
Taking accountability for mistakes made and not pointing fingers to get out of the hot seat can go a long way towards winning over the hearts and minds of customers.
That was the advice offered by Ben Elkins, the CEO of AireBeam and Utah Broadband, and Lexi Christensen, UTOPIA Fiber’s marketing director, at Broadband Communities Summit West in San Diego.
Elkins and Christensen both participated in a panel discussing how internet service providers (ISPs) and network operators can differentiate their networks from the competition.
“You definitely have to take accountability for mistakes you make,” said Christensen, adding that once upon a time UTOPIA Fiber had poor customer feedback following installations.
“People were upset all the time,” Christensen said.
She said common experiences were broken sprinkler systems.
“We really did a whole 180 and changed it around,” she said. “Sometimes you don’t realize how bad it is until multiple people are yelling a lot.”
Both Elkins and Christensen leaned heavily on the importance of marketing as well.
“The whole mentality when we first started was, ‘if we build it, they will come,'” she said. “That is not true. You have to do your marketing. You have to be engaged with the customer in order to be successful.”
Elkins agreed. He said customers have a lot of choices and advised providers to look at several angles, including customer acquisition costs. In addition, Elkins encouraged ISPs not to segregate their customer experience and operational departments.
“They can’t be in two separate islands,” he said. “If they’re in two separate islands, they’re going to have problems.”
Christensen also shared her approach to social media, which can sometimes be unkind to ISPs.
She said sometimes, she notices that negative comments will lead to customers jumping to UTOPIA’s defense.
When that happens, Christensen said she lets the situation play out, but she emphasized the need to be responsive to customer feedback, a need that Elkins echoed.
Elkins agreed with that point as well, and said his firm will try to engage with negative commenters as quickly as possible to resolve issues, in an attempt to prevent the spread of negative information via word of mouth.
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