At HubSpot’s 2018 INBOUND conference, we learned that sales funnels are dead. It’s all about the flywheel now.
Instead of marketing owning new leads, then sales owning new prospects, then support owning customers, all three of these areas should overlap, feeding back into each other. Each area improves the others and raises the quality of leads as well as the happiness of customers. Instead of new leads funneling down towards becoming a customer and then evaporating, customers can be leveraged to create new leads— so long as they’re kept happy.
Most of business these days is done via word-of-mouth referrals, and customers are obviously the driving force behind that. Make your customers happy and they’ll become evangelists for your business, telling others about your services and leading to highly-qualified, ready-to-purchase opportunities.
To this, I say "No shit."
I’ve known customer service was the key to new business for my entire career. The majority of my clients come to me via referrals, whether it was from previous clients or former coworkers. I worked in customer service for years, first at retail stores and then in HubSpot’s own support department, so I’ve always been on the frontline of customer support and experience.
It’s about time that HubSpot recognizes the power wielded by their own customers. It's about time that they focus on delighting them and teaching others how to do the same. As I and my fellow former HubSpotters in Support know, lack of focus on customers was an issue for awhile.
I actually left HubSpot due to a difference of opinion on how customers should be treated. I was in favor of spending time with them over the phone or on chat to get to the root of their problems, but my boss at the time pushed towards becoming more of a call center. Get customers on the phone, answer a question, push them to a higher-tiered rep and take the next call. It was stressful for the reps I managed, stressful for myself to have to champion something I didn’t believe in, and eventually, it lead to finding greener pastures and starting my own business.
I guess it worked out in the end.
With HubSpot’s push towards delighting customers comes a new set of tools to do just that. I don’t use their new Service Hub, and am not sure I ever will, but the philosophy behind it is solid.
Other than your website, your customers are the best resource for generating new business. It would behoove you give them a little extra attention once in awhile.
I empower businesses and marketers to create automated content systems that elevate sales and delight customers. Here’s how it works.
