Customer Engagement. We keep talking about it, but why should startups listen? If I were operating a global brand, it would make sense, but I’m CEO, CTO, CIO, and CFO. I don’t really have time to be Chief Engagement Officer, too. Without effective customer engagement, however, you could be stunting your startup’s growth, and there’s no better time to start than today.

It’s one thing to engage your customers, but it’s another to do so effectively. We understand a startup’s time and resources are precious, which is why, if you’re going to set up a plan to effectively engage your customers, you’re going to need to do it by putting efficient processes in place.

Building a startup can be an exciting adventure – you’re at the beginning of building something truly great and unique. Unfortunately the reality of such a situation is that there’s lots to do and not enough resources; forcing founders to spread themselves thin. Chaos naturally becomes the reoccurring environment that is all too familiar to startups. Now with customer experience becoming the #1 brand differentiator by 2020 and avenues/touchpoints in which customers can interact with brands only continues to multiply – it’s just going to get more chaotic.

Taming the Customer Engagement (CE) Chaos

Whether we like it or not, CE is going to drive customer experience (CX). And yes we understand you’re not at a point where you’re exactly worried about your CX because you’re working on acquiring customers. But what happens when you are hundreds of customers deep and these customers are trying to interact with you in ways you can’t handle because you weren’t proactive in setting up a process to automate your CE?  Guess what – not only will your CX suffer, but you’re going to wish you had set up a process…

As stated by the Startup Genome Report – the number one reason startups fail is “premature scaling” – the idea of startups expanding before they are ready. Please note, we’re not saying CX is your answer to everything here – many things need to consistently line up to succeed but taking care of your customers will never hurt, in fact it’ll give you a leg up in differentiating your brand.

Proactive Process with Present Day Value

This process may seem more proactive, but it’s a present in disguise – as it can start adding value to your startup today. Processes help:

• Save you time and money, increasing efficiency so you and your team are able to get more done in less time.
• Create consistency and provide that structure that most startups lack.
• Free up time that startups already have less of and begin to tame some of that chaos that is naturally inherent within startups.

Initiating a process for CE is a great step in the right direction if you want to create a customer centric culture, and start on the path to joining the likes of companies such as Virgin and Nordstrom.

Did we Mention Processes Help Startups Scale…Faster?

Did you know – one of the main reasons Uber has had explosive growth is due in part to their Playbook – an extensive collection of strategies for overcoming obstacles they use from city to city. Specifically, they have processes they follow and automate while customizing them to the city they are in.

By building similar processes within your startup around Customer Engagement, you can scale your business more efficiently and effectively. Next week, I’m going to walk you through building an awesome Customer Engagement Strategy and give you 5 steps to building an effective CE process for your startup.