How Narrative Ties into the Customer Experience

Companies are more focused than ever on delivering a quality customer experience – especially in B2B tech.

Part of that experience is how the company connects with the customer – on a human level. People want to work with companies who relate to their challenges, clarify industry misperceptions and know the industry trends that directly impact them.

Many of the leading companies do an incredible job at this by articulating a focused industry narrative. Not only does it provide clarity on who the company is, but it adds to the customer experience by talking about the things they care about most within the context of a specific industry.

Now, if narrative-building was easy every company would have a good one, but that’s simply not the case. In fact, it often requires looking outside of the company, understanding what the industry (and especially customers) need and getting to the root of why the organization exists – none of which is an easy undertaking.

And once you find those things, you need to share continuously with the industry-at-large – you need to become ‘narrative-driven.’

Three Core Narrative Actions

We’ve identified three core actions that will help you start to think differently and help you better connect with the people who need your services the most, including:

1. Get familiar with the competitive narrative landscape.

   In order to understand what your customers are facing day-to-day, you need deep context into the conversations at the industry level. Read the articles and know what the analysts are talking about in order to understand and best articulate your organization’s story. The PR team is often a hidden weapon here because they spend their days reading, listening to and conversing with the influencers who are shaping the industry.

2. Define industry trends.

   The context for a great company narrative is based on the answers to “Where do we fit in the world, and what unique role do we play?” This is the core of the elusive “why” that is often missing in a company’s story. It’s easy for a company to say what it does, but not so easy to explain why it exists. And people care why your organization exists.

3. Focus on the words.

   Written messaging through concise and easy-to-understand language is at the core of every industry story. You either need the skills to condense big, often complex topics into prioritized, to-the-point verbiage – or you need to find someone who does.

Each of these elements contributes to a stronger narrative and helps you speak to your customers in a way that not only helps them understand what you do, but connects with them in a way that serves their needs as a consumer.

If you need a little help getting started on a narrative, take our free assessment and I’ll send you personalized feedback on your messaging and some insights for your narrative.

Take the assessment here

As always, if you have any thoughts, feedback or questions you can reach me at: [email protected]