Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones

14

The New Customer-Activation Model: Content, Conversation, Commendations

With more proactive, integrated, responsive. and accessible systems designed to move customers along the flipped funnel, companies put themselves in a better position to foster a customer culture built on a platform of customer experience, loyalty, and an inside-out approach to marketing.

By tearing down the walls that prevent employees (team members, as Virgin America would call them) from openly conversing with customers (or guests to Virgin America), companies become that much more human, approachable, trustworthy, and engaging to the various communities they serve.

And all the while, the inevitable by-product is a customer who spends more frequently and more money—and one who is more likely to tell others to spend, too.

As mentioned in Chapter 13—to incentivize or not is less the question than how to do so in a manner that is transparent, authentic, credible, and trustworthy.

I’ve developed a model that fills in the final part of the flipped funnel with a bridge of partnership between company and customer. It provides a win-win-win scenario by extending an arm beyond: the segment that—for the longest time—was the target of the spray-and-pray approach of the holey net of acquisition marketing.