Delight subscribers to turn them into your WISP’s best promoters.
Subscribers aren’t equal. Some pay their bills on time and you don’t hear from them until there’s a real problem; there are others that cause your team to work harder because they complain and have a ton of questions. Some become your best promoters and won’t stop talking about how wonderful you are.
Which of these groups is most valuable to your WISP’s growth?
If you guessed the customers who just pay their bills every month – not always. Yes, you want to keep these subscribers happy so they continue to pay. And, you want the people who are thrilled with you to continue to love you. But, your biggest opportunity is with the subscribers who are unhappy.
Every business has a chronic complainer or two who can’t be pleased, but it’s the subscribers with legitimate gripes or persistent problems that you can turn into your best promoters. When you please these folks, they might go beyond loyalty and thank you by telling people about your WISP.
Why are promoters important? Because 92% of buying decisions are influenced by friends and family rather than traditional or online advertising. If you inspire your subscribers to refer and talk about your WISP in positive ways, they transform into your best salespeople. This article discusses how to turn subscribers into active promoters to drive your growth.
Your Best Promoters are Delighted
This goes beyond offering trouble-free broadband or VOIP services—that’s the minimum your subscribers expect for their fee every month. To get customers to be spontaneous and talk about your WISP, delight them.
To do this, you and your team must commit to finding ways to drive happiness in your customers. This is a multi-step, continuous process that starts when you listen and respond to your subscribers.
Get to know your customers and you’ll get to know what’s important to them so you can deliver what delights them. When subscribers call in to report issues, they expect a rapid response.
Get beyond “expectation” to delight subscribers by doing something competitors don’t do. Before an installation or service call, email a picture of your smiling technician. This does two things, subscribers feel secure when they know who will arrive between 10 a.m. and noon the next business day – and it could delight them because you took the time to make them feel secure.
It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money — you can delight subscribers with a thoughtful reminder to vote for the upcoming election. Or, you can demonstrate how much you care for your community with a program to collect school supplies and deliver them to underprivileged kids at the start of the school year. To find out which tactic delights your subscribers, just listen.
Incentivize Advocacy
Starbucks used the power of social media to advance an advocacy campaign. The “Tweet a Coffee” campaign had customers purchase a gift card for a friend through Twitter and the purchaser also received an additional $5 gift card for their use.
This campaign helped Starbucks identify advocates for their brand and increased sales by $180,000 You don’t have to get fancy with your rewards, you can provide your promoters a dollars-off coupon for referring new subscribers and to keep the referrals coming.
Call Out Subscribers’ Achievements
If you see a news story about a customer who is expanding a business or you discover that a subscriber just had a child or is doing something noble for the community, build goodwill and mention the good news in a newsletter, or send a card to your subscribers.
These are some of the ways to set your WISP apart and build relationships with customers who become your WISP’s best promoters. Want to experience delight first hand? If you’re in the market for a billing and automation system and want to be delighted with one that supports your success, check out Visp.net.
