What industry changes faster than the automotive industry? The nature of this business vertical requires an entrepreneurial approach. At Marchex, the year 2023 has been a year of growth, collaboration, and service. The most important learning has been how sound practices can apply across multiple industries, many of which Marchex serves. This has yielded tremendous insight and opportunity.
Serving a Variety of Verticals
Many companies work with Marchex and consider us a firm that focuses on the healthcare industry. Others look at Marchex as a conversational analytics provider for home services companies. Still, many more view us as a company that serves the automotive industry. We serve all these industries and thus are positioned to apply everything we have learned since 2008 across all industries to offer unique and compelling insights, regardless of the business we serve.
The end of the year is as good a time as any to discuss what we have learned, how we will apply it with all our distinct customer types and finally, what we will do as we turn the calendar to 2024. I will do a little foreshadowing: 2024 will be the year of the customer experience and real clarity into customer expectations.
Using a Broad Perspective to Identify Customer Trends
As most reading this may know, I work with the automotive vertical. The most interesting part of automotive is that it’s a unique industry requiring the collaboration between auto manufacturers, franchise locations, and vendors (like Marchex) to best serve the customer. What may not be as apparent is that when you have access to data aggregated from millions of customer engagements across multiple industries, you don’t only see how unique the automotive industry is. It is also apparent in many ways, when endeavoring to positively influence customer experience, that there is also extensive commonality with other industries.
Marchex’s intention is to combine our deep experience in automotive with the incredible variety of insights available across our entire ecosystem of customers, to optimize the customer experience with every voice and SMS engagement, across every industry. We plan to make a difference by shining the brightest spotlight on what it takes to provide the best customer experience, and as a direct result, to win business consistently and profitably.
Addressing Changing Customer Expectations
With advanced analytics technology, it becomes easier than ever to spot patterns and to uncover opportunities to make a good engagement great and make great experiences exceptional. The reasons people call may have changed, but the experience callers expect remains consistent, even as intentions shift. Prospects now call to validate or confirm their decision in choosing a place of business. It is essential for businesses to display product information online, but the way that business treats potential buyers is of equal importance to the customer as the content on the website during the journey to purchase. People are not willing to accept a poor experience and when a call goes poorly, they will not book an appointment.
Marchex has clarity across a number of engagement and buying signals that indicate a good or poor customer experience and when we look at these signals across the multiple verticals we service, we uncover key insights about what customers expect. The lesson is that although the automotive industry is unique, customers have the same expectations as with other businesses. One good example: as we measure calls, Marchex’s analytics can garner a customer’s view of a business and discern why they are frustrated by analyzing sentiment and emotion expressed during the conversation. For any industry that thrives on reputation, this information can be pure gold.
Looking Ahead
The learnings of 2023 and the future in 2024 are about leveraging the trove of information aggregated from millions of phone calls to offer insight into customer expectations. With these insights, businesses can coach their agents to offer the best possible experience to their guests, regardless of what they buy.
The coming year will be pivotal as we learn more about why prospects choose one business over another. It’s all in the data; the more we learn, the more we can help!
