New Go-To-Market Strategies For Five-Star Service

How brands are breaking through the noise to deliver value and exceptional experiences

Fewer than 40% of consumers in Australia feel that brands are eager to provide best-in-class customer experiences, so those that do are poised for significant growth. 

When the customer experience is top-notch — consumers are bought in, long-term. Take Airwallex, a global payments platform for businesses, for example. By leaning into their core values of supporting startups and making international payments easier, and investing in key markets like Asia Pacific, they’ve grown their revenue 13X year-over-year.

“AI is a huge asset in improving customer engagement. It’s giving brands the opportunity to move from customer service to five-star service and true product value that encourages them to share. With AI surfacing vital data and information at the exact time it is needed, organisations can proactively provide value to customers. Chatbots and conversational AI help to humanise the reactive experience, reducing friction throughout the customer journey" Sabina Sobinina, Director of Customer Success, JAPAC, HubSpot

The New Marketing Playbook

Marketing and customer experience are more linked now than ever. APAC consumers want to discover, browse, and buy all in one place, via online platforms, where they’re also seeing the opinions of their peers and other users. 

Brands today are solving for new instant buying channels popular with consumers like WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok. APAC consumers now regularly browse for products on platforms like TikTok 1.9X more than traditional search engines, and 93% say they want to continue or increase discovery via content-driven platforms like TikTok in the next 1-2 years. While using social media, 8 in 10 consumers expect comprehensive product information available via social for more effortless digital shopping. 

Thorough automation and tech stack setup

Consumers are impacted by the GTM tech you use. Set up automation incorrectly and they’ll be inundated with so many follow-up emails that lead them towards unsubscribing right when they’re ready to make a decision. HubSpot’s 2023 Customer Connection survey research found that 29% of B2B buyers say that one of the top experiences that negatively influences their view of a brand is irrelevant, spammy comms.

Brands need to align all GTM teams around a unified source of information to avoid inconsistency between departments.

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Appealing to audiences on social media with authentic content

Recent research from the University of Sydney's Business School found brands that connect with their audiences on an emotional level can increase consumer curiosity by up to 20%. 

Buyers want content that brings value and helps them in their decision making process. They also want to see how you as a brand showcase your values and support your employees. Take advantage of AI analysis tools to get to know your audience better, and speak to the topics that are important to them.

“Most marketers know they could play the short-term game and make this quarter’s numbers look impressive with conversion activity. Instead, [the top-performing brands monitored on Tracksuit] were planning for both the long AND short. They created future demand — building their brand among category buyers who weren’t yet in the market. The top performing brands understand ROI on performance marketing next year will be heavily impacted on how well they built the brand this year — so they do both.” Mikayla Hopkins, Head of Marketing, Tracksuit

Proving the commercial value of a strong brand

Metrics to track brand sentiment:

• Total addressable market: the percentage of the total population that falls within your category
• Unprompted (or unaided) awareness: the percentage of people involved in the category who are aware of your brand without being prompted
• Awareness (or aided awareness): The percentage of people involved in the category who are aware of your brand when prompted
• Consideration: the percentage of people involved in the category who would consider buying or using your brand
• Investigation: the percentage of people involved in the category who have investigated your brand

• Preference: the golden nugget. The percentage of people involved in the category who would prefer to use/buy your brand most often.

“The marketers that grew (I’m talking doubled, sometimes even tripled) brand awareness knew how to articulate the commercial value of brand — especially to non-marketing stakeholders,” shared Mikayla Hopkins. How? “They built forecast models that ensured marketing was accountable for revenue, giving them a seat at the executive table. They knew what to spend to meet a meaningful proportion of their audience and the ceilings on those channels. These were checked, and tested, regularly.” 

“The level of awareness and consideration our brand has is a key factor in how much we’re able to sell, and how efficiently — people are much more likely to buy from brands they’re familiar with and feel positively about. So measuring these things is pretty damn important. KPIs that good marketers use don’t just measure things like NPS or scanned sales data. They’re interested in understanding brand health fundamentals against the market.” Mikayla Hopkins, Head of Marketing, Tracksuit

The New Sales Playbook

Currently, only 40% of GTM teams feel they can effectively connect with prospects. Why? 45% of Australian brands have a poor understanding of their buyers' wants and needs. Consumers want to interact with highly trained sales representatives who strongly understand their challenges and business needs.

Better relationship building

88% of sales leaders believe that relationship building is the most important aspect of sales. To do more of this, sales leaders are looking to take manual, repetitive tasks off sales reps’ plates with AI and automation tools so they can spend more time consulting with prospects and establishing trust.

As AI increases access to product information, more and more sales teams are adopting a consultative selling approach versus solution selling. Buyers are conducting their own research and want to talk through strategy with sales teams, rather than features or solutions. 

Smarter sales coaching with AI

“[AI] is like having a personal, private coach on every single deal, all day every day, regardless of time and hours. Instead of getting two points of feedback a week in the old model from their manager, [sales reps] are getting continuous feedback through AI, which exponentially improves their ability to get up to speed. It’s amazing for the customer, they’re going to say ‘all your sales people really know what they’re doing’," shared Christian Kinnear, Chief Sales Officer at HubSpot on the Inside HubSpot podcast.

AI-driven insights to sell smarter

Smart sales teams are using AI-driven insights to ‘smarter sell’ into existing and target accounts; sales representatives are conducting more individualised, meaningful outreach and providing value to their target accounts. Plus, sales teams are aligning with customer service teams to offer suggestions to help existing contacts grow, while generating more revenue.

73% of sales professionals agree that AI helps them find insights from data they wouldn’t have found themselves. “Sales teams are turning to generative AI to lighten the load and accelerate deal cycles. Generative AI offers a shortcut to accelerate content creation and frees up valuable time. Whether tapping the magic of Generative AI to respond to RFPs, create sales playbooks, or pitch decks, it’s allowing reps to focus on what matters most: selling.” Tom Hyde, Head of APJ Sales & Success, Canva.

Strategic visual communication

Leveraging visual communication is growing in importance in nearly every role in the workplace. Canva’s Visual Economy Report found that 95% of business leaders expect employees in non-design roles to have some design acumen in order to communicate effectively. On the sales side, personalised outreach relies on custom collateral that speaks directly to the prospect. 

Searches for “sales pitch deck” are up 81% year-over-year, and the selling process is changing. “Most sales collateral is shared in static and uninspiring formats designed for an era of printing rather than interactivity. But based on a survey that included nearly 400 business leaders in Australia, 88% said that visual communication tools have accelerated their sales cycles. Why? Visual content is more digestible, leading to more responsive prospects that stay engaged throughout the process,” shared Tom Hyde, Head of APJ Sales & Success at Canva.

Hyde further explained “in a world of information and content overload, personalised outreach is key. Sales collateral that speaks directly to challenges or interests will more likely capture attention and drive engagement. This, in turn, shortens sales cycles. Reps also need to factor in the environment. Are they pitching in person or over Zoom? Is it best to play a demo live or show a pre-record? Update collateral accordingly.”

Social selling

“With so many digital interactions and touchpoints shaping the modern B2B sales process, empowering sales teams with engaging and brand-compliant content is key to social selling. However, brand consistency has become a challenge. Whether you’re creating a video, an image, or an infographic, you need to balance the ability to quickly create personalised content with the ability to keep it on brand. If your branding is inconsistent, it not only looks unprofessional but you’re missing an opportunity to build trust with your audience,” Hyde advised.

Foster productive — yet personalised — selling

Aircall’s Voice of SMBs report highlights that, on the business frontline, customer support and sales teams are seeking valuable insights to nurture and enhance customer relationships, anticipate their needs, and improve performance efficiently. 

When sales teams have Aircall and HubSpot, they can instantly see previous call notes and contact details for more relevant calls with better rapport. Sales reps save time with automated transcripts and analytics that guide outreach strategy. “By gaining a 360-degree view of customers, teams can offer the right product options, adapt to cultural nuances, and build trust," shares Aircall's Sales Director, Frank Eagleton.

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The New Service Playbook

Customer feedback is a powerful tool for growth, if brands know how to operationalise data and use it right. “Getting [customer] feedback into marketing, performance, and product allows us to adapt and change the product along the way. Customer feedback is not static. You should receive feedback, good, bad, or otherwise, and iterate the whole organisation.” Tobi Pearce, Co-founder of Sweat on the Unconventional Business podcast

Using customer feedback to drive growth

Customer feedback needs to feed into every decision in the organisation, from marketing to product to ongoing support. And customers might share feedback across hundreds of different channels — customer support inquiries, online reviews, social media posts, on podcasts, in feedback surveys, and anywhere else they can communicate.

In order for every GTM team to have access to customer insights for smarter marketing and sales, they need to break down silos between departments. 

Savvy brands are linking ongoing usage and engagement with customer value and seeing how they can increase value using this information, and they’re rethinking the roles and responsibilities between GTM teams, particularly marketing and customer service. For example, which team is in charge of replying to customer support questions submitted via social media?

"Driving growth through CX requires a proactive, holistic look at existing processes and resources, rather than an action-reaction system that can slow things down. It’s about making every interaction easier for customers from initial purchase to ongoing relationships and beyond." Sabina Sobinina, Director of Customer Success, JAPAC, HubSpot

Adopting effective customer service tech

Technology is absolutely essential to keeping up with a first-class customer experience. It’s simply too manual to keep up by hand, no matter the size of your business. The most important tools that customer service teams are bringing on this year are AI chatbots to take the pressure off of customer service representatives, automated workflows to triage and route support tickets, and a unified CRM with automatically updated customer profiles.

Customer service teams need to gain a deep understanding of customer needs to guide ongoing investments and how they allocate resources. 33% of Australian business leaders agree that having a connected CRM that's actively used by all customer teams is key to solving customer connection. 

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Personalising messaging and sharing proactive recommendations to customer challenges

On both the B2B and B2C buyer side, consumers want to work with companies that have a strong understanding of their individual needs and expectations. Align customer service and sales teams to identify areas where you can help your customers increase their success, whether that’s by using new tools and features, rethinking workflows and processes, or automating tasks. Take a consultative approach to help your customers get the most value out of their tools and provide personalised recommendations based on research and predictive analytics.

“Consumers in APAC are drawn to authentic experiences. The positive response in the region to brands like Heaps Normal, Tracksuit, and LVLY is a testament to what happens when real people grow companies they’re passionate about and don’t compromise on quality,” HubSpot's Sabina Sobinina shares.