Blog Post | May 17, 2022
5 Tips for Humanizing Your Company
Though the world has gone digital, customers continue to crave interpersonal interactions. If you don’t make efforts to humanize your company, it can feel cold and impersonal and alienate prospective customers. Check out our five tips for maintaining a human touch with customers that demonstrates you value their business.
We indisputably live in a digital world. Advanced technologies have led to increased engagement with consumers but have also, paradoxically, put greater emotional distance between integrated marketers and their audiences by eliminating many face-to-face interactions. So how do we maintain the human touch in today’s digital age? Consider these techniques for keeping it personal with customers:
Create memorable, lasting experiences
Unique or memorable experiences stick with customers. More than just a single incident of service, knowing that they will enjoy rewarding experiences every time they interact with your company stays with them and creates loyalty. Build connections with customers on every platform where customers engage with your brand including social media, your website, through texts or an app. This will help keep your business top of mind when the customer needs to make a purchasing decision for a specific project.
Keep social media personal and human
Customers want to get to know your business, so make sure your posts and tweets sound like there is a real human being behind your handle. There are other places where AI or bots make sense (e.g., chatbots), but your social media should have a personable, engaging tone of voice that is an extension of your brand. Your business social media account is also where you should show the humans behind the business and avoid sounding like a robot: ask open-ended questions, share photos from events, communicate individual and team accomplishments, reflect your brand personality and convey your company’s values.
Market to customers’ emotions
Dale Carnegie once said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” Indeed, emotions are a fact of life in humans and those companies that connect with customer sentiments can reap powerful results. Understanding customer feelings builds a resonant bond. Reflecting or reciprocating emotions like love, confidence, happiness, well-being and belonging persuades consumers to engage with brands, buy products, share content or increase their loyalty.
Be and do good
Customers, especially younger millennial and Generation Z customers, care that businesses are in the habit of doing good. They view pro-social values, integrity and demonstrations of corporate social responsibility as evidence of a human heart at work. They want to see that companies do good for the world because they have genuine values—not for a tax write off or to sell more products. In fact, 77% of consumers are motivated to purchase from companies that demonstrate they have a good conscience and a reputation for purpose.
Build relationships with customers
Replacing direct customer engagement with social media or other digital outreach can add a layer of detachment, so it’s important that your company continues to work on building relationships with customers. Make your company accessible and available, invite engagement and make customers feel that they are a part of your brand family. Be authentic, transparent and honest about what your company stands for. Humans crave connections so you absolutely cannot skip this step for your brand.
In the digital age it’s easy to lose sight of the human side of business. But consumers have not. They want to feel a personal touch from brands. Using these techniques will allow you to humanize your company and show customers how much you value them.
Create memorable, lasting experiences
Unique or memorable experiences stick with customers. More than just a single incident of service, knowing that they will enjoy rewarding experiences every time they interact with your company stays with them and creates loyalty. Build connections with customers on every platform where customers engage with your brand including social media, your website, through texts or an app. This will help keep your business top of mind when the customer needs to make a purchasing decision for a specific project.
Keep social media personal and human
Customers want to get to know your business, so make sure your posts and tweets sound like there is a real human being behind your handle. There are other places where AI or bots make sense (e.g., chatbots), but your social media should have a personable, engaging tone of voice that is an extension of your brand. Your business social media account is also where you should show the humans behind the business and avoid sounding like a robot: ask open-ended questions, share photos from events, communicate individual and team accomplishments, reflect your brand personality and convey your company’s values.
Market to customers’ emotions
Dale Carnegie once said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” Indeed, emotions are a fact of life in humans and those companies that connect with customer sentiments can reap powerful results. Understanding customer feelings builds a resonant bond. Reflecting or reciprocating emotions like love, confidence, happiness, well-being and belonging persuades consumers to engage with brands, buy products, share content or increase their loyalty.
Be and do good
Customers, especially younger millennial and Generation Z customers, care that businesses are in the habit of doing good. They view pro-social values, integrity and demonstrations of corporate social responsibility as evidence of a human heart at work. They want to see that companies do good for the world because they have genuine values—not for a tax write off or to sell more products. In fact, 77% of consumers are motivated to purchase from companies that demonstrate they have a good conscience and a reputation for purpose.
Build relationships with customers
Replacing direct customer engagement with social media or other digital outreach can add a layer of detachment, so it’s important that your company continues to work on building relationships with customers. Make your company accessible and available, invite engagement and make customers feel that they are a part of your brand family. Be authentic, transparent and honest about what your company stands for. Humans crave connections so you absolutely cannot skip this step for your brand.
In the digital age it’s easy to lose sight of the human side of business. But consumers have not. They want to feel a personal touch from brands. Using these techniques will allow you to humanize your company and show customers how much you value them.