Why Customer Experience Matters [According to Former Pinterest Executive]
Most of the big platforms are monetized via advertising. The products are very similar in terms of people who are trying to acquire customers. Whether it’s Google or Pinterest, you’re trying to acquire customers to some degree, and that acquisition is done through paid advertising. Dutta Satadip is the Chief Customer Officer of ActiveCampaign. He spent the last decade at Google and Pinterest, where one of his big focuses was figuring out how to grow a business. Pinterest has over 420 million active users. Google has billions. So, when you operate at that scale, you have to think very differently.
He’s learned many things during his time at each company.
“I would say I’ve learned not just the importance of having an amazing customer experience on the business, but also, I would say how much scale matters in today’s world.”
Customer experience matters if you want a faithful tribe of customers and your company to grow. Dutta learned that growth happens by engaging your customers and taking them through the entire customer journey.
Engaging Customers
ActiveCampaign is a platform that’s not just all about acquisition. Acquisition is one part of it, but it’s equally about engagement and repeating ongoing business.
Dutta explains that it’s about taking customers through the full journey and creating advocates because they trust you as a business and they want to do more business with you.
A true ambassador of the customer has only one allegiance. That allegiance is to ensure that everything the brand does is optimized for the best outcome of the customer.
Small businesses are time poor, Dutta said. Therefore, Dutta sees his greatest responsibility as doing everything he can to ensure customers are using the software to get their time back. That way, they can spend more time with their families and focus more on their business. It’s also to ensure they are using ActiveCampaign to best serve their own customers.
An abandoned shopping cart is “deadly” for e-commerce businesses, for example. The customer has almost purchased from you but didn’t follow through.
Utilizing the Entire Customer Journey
Dutta knows that for a small business owner, everything is NOT about just “top of funnel.” For smart business owners, he knows they also must get customers returning back to them. It’s about getting repeat business.
In my work with just about all of the top online brands that support small business owners, it’s well-known that brand executives know that customers vote each month with their subscriptions. Each month a customer can decide we are still going to use your product, or we’re not. With a simple “mouse click” a customer can stop using the software and go to another vendor.
Smart executives like Dutta know that it’s all about the customer experience. This includes how the software works, the support, the marketing, and everything in between. It’s the entire customer journey.
Most good tech companies have similar features. What differentiates so many is the experience their companies have with their products and services.
It’s executives like Dutta, at companies like ActiveCampaign, who provide the tools we need to save time, save money and better serve our customers. You can listen to or watch Dutta’s entire interview below.