Are You Engaged?

In the current landscape of greater automation and AI driving professional efficiency, do businesses run the risk of losing the personal touch and creating greater distance from clients and customers?

I don’t necessarily mean personalised emails, messages or targeted campaigns. My question is more about asking “do people still buy people” – specifically, what value, contribution or benefit is still powered by personal interaction and engagement? Does it still influence decision making to the same extent? Is the relationship still the unwritten heart of a client contract?

Much depends on the nature of the product or service your business provides, but a question to ask is what effective relationships and engagement contribute to perceptions your brand, and the influence these may exert in building trust, confidence and distinctiveness.

Collaboration is a key consideration in the early stages of fostering a new customer / client relationship. Rather than delivering a standard sales pitch,  it is those who offer meaningful insight, perspective and understanding of client need that will usually engender trust, establish credibility and build competitive advantage sooner. A sales presentation will potentially feel more like a strategy and planning session, with you providing objective, yet, informed recommendation. The ability to contribute and exchange through dialogue builds rapport and instils confidence. This speaks to another point – the ability to listen, understand and question rather than react. Often, sales teams cut straight to the chase – this is what we do, how we do it and and so on. Perhaps this should be thought of as supporting – not driving – prospect client engagement? After all, how many of us are averse the hard-sell approach…

Another consideration is how a strong personal brand supports business branding. Building trust and confidence in your values, integrity and consistency, as well as what you contribute through thought leadership or intuitive understanding of a customers’ needs, means that when help is needed, your name is front of mind, as well as your business. You become the personification of the reliability your customers seek. With your personal brand reflective of your business values (the delivery of high quality services through effective processes, systems and competitive pricing), your relationship will elevate this through the  emotional investment and level of involvement that brings additional value and assurance on a long term basis.

Perhaps the answer is recognising that although business systems and client relationship management are changing to embrace new technology, our brand strategies must also provide for the value and benefit of the “personal” - intuition, empathy and consideration - in delivering the best customer service and providing the assurance to new clients that you are forward thinking, but not at the expense of caring.