We’re all human you know, even businesses

Yes, we realize that H2H sounds like another piece of jargon, but it’s a piece that we think is actually quite good. At the end of the day, everything we do is about people. It’s people and not businesses who buy our services. When we’re on the phone, we’re chatting to people. When we’re exchanging e-mails it’s a person at the other end. And we sincerely hope that you, yes you, the person reading this blog right now are a real human being!

It’s a refreshing realisation in one sense but also a huge problem in another, because people are complicated. None of us are the same, so it’s much easier as a company to position yourself in the market, make whatever you make, sell it to the world and then tell everyone how great you are. It’s much harder to actually get involved with your customer and their complicated lives.

Technology – the friend of the people

Technology has long been blamed for the impersonalisation of business. But, in actual fact, it’s making it much easier for people within companies to interact with their customers, get feedback from them and give them exactly what they want.

If you want a speedy response to a question, give Facebook at go. Facebook messages can’t get lost in the post! So social media has forced companies to think about the way they communicate with the real people who they do business with.

Let your staff do the talking

The trouble is it’s risky. If you step outside the realm of the company controlled monthly e-news and the quarterly magazine you’ll need to give your staff more freedom to talk to your customers, be they business or consumers. For some, that’s a scary place to be, but it can also be incredibly powerful. Your staff are the experts. They’re real people who know your business better than anyone, and they’re much more powerful ambassadors for your company than a standard letter or recorded reply message. A little extra investment in your staff can pay huge dividends in the long run.

Admitting failure

Of course, being more personal about the way we do business does mean being open about our flaws and failures and that can be a hard pill to swallow. In the world of social media everything comes out in the wash, so companies are forced to deal with their mistakes head on, rather than waiting for them to surface at an in opportune moment.

Practicing what we preach

So what are we doing about it? Well, unlike a lot of design firms we don’t farm our work out to other agencies. Our account managers and designers sit alongside the client to really get under the skin of what they want. We don’t keep the techy brains locked in an upper room either. Oh no. They talk to you, we talk to you and – shock horror – we even talk to each other!

Just take a peak at this little graphic that shows how we do things here at ifour. We’ve even employed the lovely Claire, to help develop our business on a more personal level from day one with clients. We want to start as we mean to go on.

So if you want to chat to a real person about how we can help you to interact more personally with your customers, please give us a call 01892 541111, email us at hello@ifour.co.uk or visit our design agency studio in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.