Let’s face it. We’re in the middle of a global crisis at the moment.

Because of this, I’ve been flooded with emails from companies trying to reassure me that they’re “on top of the situation” and they care about me as their customer.

This is probably true. I do pay many of them money and they want to make sure that keeps happening. But really, this is all about customer perception.

My question for you is, how do your customers see your business and are you happy with what they see?

Why Customer Perception Matters

We all have the “face” or persona that we show the outer world. It’s a very human thing. Businesses need this “face” as well. Granted, none of us regular humans consider a business as a human, but businesses are ultimately made up of humans.

Every business, whether run by a single person or thousands of people, needs a positive customer perception to survive.

It’s why customer service teams are so important and why they’re full of incredibly patient people who are willing to suffer the slings and arrows of their fellow humans. (Please be nice to customer service and customer support people, especially right now.)

It’s also why so many companies ask you to fill out surveys whenever you’ve had a recent interaction with them. That information helps the company promote their customers’ perception of being a “good company.” It can also help the higher-ups figure out where problems may be occurring and work to fix those problems, so they can keep that positive customer perception going.

As business owners, we need to think about how our customers and subscribers see us and figure out the types of messages we want to deliver to influence that perception.

The Coronavirus crisis is giving me a perfect opportunity to show you what I’m talking about by reviewing examples of emails I’ve received over the last few days.

These are my professional opinions about how these emails may affect customer perception. I do not claim to know the company voice or anything beyond my initial impressions. But I do write emails for a living, so I have opinions.

Kayak – Making Information Clear and Available

If you don’t know about Kayak.com, you should. It’s a great travel aggregation site.

I recently found an airline ticket on their site, so they sent me this friendly, straightforward email telling me they’re doing everything they can to give me the best information to make my upcoming travel plans. The part that mattered to me specifically here was the list of airline policy changes due to Covid-19. But I appreciate the additional information about using their site.

I like that their subject line (not shown here) is straightforward and to the point. “What to know: coronavirus & travel”

I also appreciate that they are clear about what they’re doing to help me and the resources they have to offer.

All in all, I’d say this email definitely makes me have a good feeling about Kayak and remaining their customer. I expect this email and these changes to their site have done a lot for their positive customer perception in general.

American Airlines – Requesting Your Patience During This Troubled Time

The folks at American Airlines are having a bad time of it, according to this email. I’m not surprised, I expect all airlines are having similar problems right now. For the record, American Airlines is the airline I booked my ticket on, via Kayak. Presumably that’s why I received this email.

The subject line, not pictured here, is “We are experiencing a high call volume.”

The message is short, simple and a bit pleading, understandably. I will say that I don’t find this email terribly comforting, nor does it give me a lot of confidence that, should my event be cancelled, I’ll be able to reach the airline to deal with changes to my itinerary.

I do appreciate that they sent me this email, and that they have somewhere to direct me for the latest travel updates. However, I suspect that most people who arrive at this page are already expecting to get vague information that they don’t feel applies directly to them. So, they’ll call anyway.

My opinion of American Airlines has never been particularly high. This email doesn’t do a lot to increase it. I don’t think this will do a lot for their customer perception, though I do hope it helps slow phone calls enough that their customer service people can handle the volume and not get too many angry people yelling at them. (Please see above for how to treat customer service people.)

Capital One – Helpful but Not Really Helpful

I was utterly unimpressed by this email from Capital One. In fact, the stark contrast between this email and the one above from Kayak is what prompted me to write this blog post.

I am a Capital One customer. I have probably called them or used their chat services about 10 times in the 5-6 years I’ve used their services.

I will admit to being more technically savvy than the average bear, but really, Capital One? This email makes me feel like you don’t want to hear from me at all. There’s very much a vibe of “don’t call us, we’ll call you” here. I’m not even auditioning for anything. I’m your customer. And if you looked at your analytics, you’d see that I use your digital tools regularly.

I don’t know what’s going on over at Capital One’s call center. They may be totally mobbed right now with people saying they won’t be able to pay their bills if they can’t work and asking what kind of arrangements they can make in advance. However, this email makes me feel like I shouldn’t contact them until I know I can’t pay my bills, if at all.

They do make it clear that they care about their customers and want to help those who end up in financial difficulty. But to me, this email feels very disingenuous. If I had been the one writing it, there would have been a lot more compassion and a lot less, “use our online tools” involved.

I like Capital One. I chose them as my credit card company. I’m afraid this email lowers my perception of them as a customer. Not a lot, but still, not their best moment in my opinion.

Writer Access – Turning Misfortune Into Opportunity

If you have signed up for any sort of conference in the next few months, it has probably been cancelled. I know several of my clients have said their conferences are either postponed or cancelled. I have one coming up in May, no word on that one quite yet.

Writer Access, an online writer’s gig platform, had to cancel their upcoming conference. But, as they say in the email, “hindering our quest for content marketing wisdom and stalling our career advancement is not acceptable. Period.” They’ve taken their conference online instead, so everyone can still get the information they need, but not get sick (they hope.)

To their credit, everyone who has already registered for the conference automatically gets a free ticket for next year’s conference, which is very smart.

What I love about this email is that it is an excellent example of taking a bad situation and turning it into something awesome. And they’re not shy about it. They recognize that holding an online conference gives them the chance to sell more virtual tickets and help more writers advance their careers. It may also help them recoup non-refundable costs from this year’s conference.

The email is well written (which it should be as they’re writers) and keeps a light and happy tone, despite the change in their plans. It addresses the problem of Covid-19 and the cancellation of their conference, but it doesn’t dwell on it. They move quickly into what ends up being a solid sales pitch for their online conference.

If you have to make changes to any sort of event or upcoming plans, this is a good email to use as a model. I haven’t logged into Writer Access in years, as my own client work keeps me quite busy, but they definitely have a good customer perception from me.

All This Corporate Stuff is Great But I’m a Small Business Owner…

Yes, me too.

And I get that. We don’t have hundreds of thousands of customers or email subscribers on our lists. Some of us probably have 3-5 employees total, if that. Most of us are solopreneurs, doing everything ourselves.

That doesn’t change the fact that we need to make sure our customers see us positively every day and in light of this crisis. I’d say it’s even more important than normal as small businesses are going to have it rough for a while if we can’t get customers in our doors, physical or virtual.

I have a few examples of emails from smaller businesses, like ours. Two from the B2B world and one from the B2C world.

Pat Flynn – Recognizing the Situation and Doing What We Can to Help

Pat Flynn is probably best known for his Smart Passive Income blog and podcast. He’s also started selling courses and writing books in recent years. He’s an excellent marketer and a good human. I’ve met him, I can attest to this.

Normally, Pat’s weekly email promotes his blog, podcast, upcoming promotions, etc. I was rather touched this week to see that he and his team deliberately decided to talk about the general stress in the world and how it’s affecting those of us who subscribe to his emails and buy his products.

His subject line, not shown here, says it all, “What We Can And Can’t Control During a Crisis…” It shows that he recognizes that everything is chaotic right now, but we can make choices for ourselves regarding what happens to us, to some extent.

I love that Pat talks about his own past experience with job loss and that it can be overcome. His message of “we’re all in this together” definitely resonates with me. As a marketer, I also love and respect the fact that he’s being transparent about where he is in his business right now and how the current crisis is affecting what they’re doing with their launch.

The fact that Pat is offering subscribers the chance to get his current promotion price at any time and the mention of the fund for entrepreneurs shows that he gets what’s going on emotionally with his subscribers and wants to help.

In my opinion, this email strikes the right balance of “we get you and we want to help” that many of the emails above did not. There’s a lot of “humanness” here, which I really appreciate. I will always have a good customer perception of Pat. This email has just raised it a bit more.

Own Your Money – Checking In and Offering Help

My friend Belinda Rosenblum from Own Your Money starts her email off with a simple question in the subject line (not shown here) that everyone is asking right now, “Are you okay, Tanya?” (Yes, the name is automated in her ESP, but it’s still a nice touch.)

By immediately acknowledging that what’s happening in the world is scary and offering help, Belinda increases my trust in her. She gets it. I appreciate that.

She also talks about the launch she was planning and is now pulling back from, as it’s hard to think about scaling your business when the world feels like it’s falling apart. Then she offers a free, no-opt-in required resource to help business owners manage right now, which is awesome. It shows that she does genuinely want to help.

Belinda does take a moment to tease an upcoming free bootcamp, which I think is totally acceptable here. She’s not transitioning from “how can I help” to “buy my stuff.” Instead she’s offering more help, even though it will eventually lead to a sales pitch of some sort (these things always do).

I trust Belinda, I’ve taken one of her courses and I’ve met her personally. I appreciate that she is reaching out to offer help to worried small business owners. I know I’m worried about my immediate future. I’m worried about a lot of other small business owners too. It’s nice to feel appreciated and supported by your fellows in this weird time. My customer perception for Own Your Money is definitely solid.

Tansy Undercrypt – A Message of Kindness in Dark Times

Tansy Undercrypt writes beautiful dark fiction. If you like horror and fantasy, I strongly recommend following her on Facebook to read her daily microfiction pieces and subscribing to her Patreon for additional goodies.

I am a subscriber to her Patreon, so I received this delightful email which contradicts what most artists need at this time. Instead of raising Patreon level prices or asking her supporters to contribute a bit more to get her through the hard times right now, she’s actually decreasing her prices and grandfathering those of us at lower levels into higher levels at no additional charge.

Why?

Because she wants us to be able to take care of ourselves and those around us and to contribute to others to keep them going through all of this. She is being a good human. She is being kind to her humans. And she is encouraging us to be good to all of our humans in return.

Definitely a way to increase positive customer perception.

Here the awesome part in my humble, marketing opinion. Tansy’s descriptions of her new Patreon levels and what I as a subscriber will get, make me want to increase my subscription level. I am currently one of those lowly $1 subscribers who will be raised to a Rule of Three subscriber. Now I want to become a Fate Doubles Down subscriber, looking at everything she’s offering. As soon as I can afford it, I probably will.

This is the perfect mix of customer care and promotion messaging, because this email is really about upcoming information. Tansy is changing her rates and she is doing it in our favor, because she wants us to be good to each other. A very subtle not really sales message cloaked mysteriously in a dark but humorous “be kind in these hard times” email. All done with her normal style, grace and aplomb.

If you want an example of how to deal with crisis in your own unique voice, follow Tansy. (Follow her anyway, she’s awesome.)

Use These Examples to Shape Your Customers’ Perception of Your Business

Now that you’ve seen some examples of good and bad messaging regarding our current crisis, think about what you can do for your customers and subscribers.

Is there a way you can provide a benefit to them while helping your own business, like Writer Access is doing?

Is there information your customers need, like Kayak provided?

Is there something you can do to be kind, and encourage kindness in return, ala Tansy Undercrypt?

Ponder this and use these examples to shape your own messaging, going forward.

My Own Way of Increasing Positive Customer Perception

This blog post wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t take a moment to ask you all to be kind to yourselves and everyone around you. Things are rough right now for all of us.

I am incredibly blessed to work from home and have clients who still want work done, despite everything being upended. My worst problem right now is that I’m running low on toilet paper. Don’t worry, I own a LOT of books. I have an emergency plan if it comes to that.

I know that a lot of people are worried about being able to pay their bills, keep their kids entertained and educated while they’re not in school, find edible food at their grocery stores and generally stay sane through all of this.

I get it. I’ve been there myself. (Well, okay, not the kid part, but everything else.)

If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. Seriously. This is a difficult time for all of us.

If you’re in the Ventura, CA area and just want to get together (at an appropriate social distance) or you’re sick and need someone to run errands for you, say so. Shoot me an email and we’ll coordinate.

If you’re using this time to work on your business and want to talk about your plans, need help with your customer perception or need someone to brainstorm with, please click on the button below to schedule a free consultation with me.

These consultations are always no strings attached. I’m happy to talk with you about upcoming projects, but I’m also happy to go over your ideas and give pointers on how to make them happen.

Most importantly, help others where you can. I know everyone’s resources are limited in some way, but if you can, give your time, your energy and if available, your monetary support. Our fellow small business owners are going to have a rough time of it. If we can all help each other out, we may all survive this relatively intact.

I know you’re hearing this from all quarters. Be thankful we’re all trying to help each other. And let’s try to keep that up as long as possible, even beyond the end of this crisis.

Be well, thank you for reading my blog and let me know what you need.

Cheers,
Tanya