{"id":49913,"date":"2020-10-15T17:53:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T17:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=49913"},"modified":"2022-11-06T19:27:14","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T03:27:14","slug":"how-xero-supports-future-growth-with-innovation-in-comms-support-and-product","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/au\/blog\/how-xero-supports-future-growth-with-innovation-in-comms-support-and-product\/","title":{"rendered":"How Xero Supports Future Growth With Innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a recent webinar launching the Salesforce State of Marketing Report<\/a>, Xero Chief Customer Officer Rachael Powell shared how Xero\u2019s marketing and customer experience functions have innovated in communications, support and product to help customers while strengthening Xero\u2019s ability to weather the COVID crisis and prepare for post-COVID work. <\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re seeing more marketing leaders take responsibility for customer experience across their organisations each year \u2013 this year 79% of respondents to the State of Marketing research said they lead CX initiatives, up from 45% in 2018. <\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, Powell shares practical lessons marketing leaders with a customer experience focus can take from Xero\u2019s innovative, customer-centred COVID journey.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even while managing a crisis, businesses need to support future growth with marketing that focuses on building business. When the crisis is affecting customers and the community as well as the business, it\u2019s more important than ever for that marketing to be relevant, empathetic and helpful \u2013 for it to play a role in a valued end-to-end customer experience built around customer needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration is crucial<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When COVID hit, Xero\u2019s first priority was to look after its people and ensure everybody was safe and effectively working from home. We then promptly switched our focus to our customers, pulling together a cross-collaborative team representing all areas of the customer journey. We could see that 75% of our customers were affected by the COVID crisis and 20% were in decline. Some had gone into hibernation, others had pivoted. With data in hand, we focused on what we could do to get behind small businesses and support them as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaboration with product teams, education teams, marketing teams and with finance is crucial \u2013 it must be part of a complete end-to-end customer strategy. What\u2019s often missing, in even well-developed teams, is this collaboration with finance \u2013 you need to plan iteratively with finance and product managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resources to support customers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We set up the Business Continuity Hub<\/a>, a repository of resources that helped customers navigate large volumes of information from the government and media about assistance programs in Australia and New Zealand. Using the data in our platform, we swiftly provided customers with the information they needed to qualify and apply for payments to keep them afloat. We also shared tools, tips and information on how to build resilient teams, support wellbeing activities and successfully move to remote working. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This approach is how we focus as a business \u2013 we strive to understand our customers\u2019 problems and share our learnings to help them find solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Build digital communities<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With that shift to remote working for many businesses, we created two-way dialogue with some of our customers to find out how we could best support bookkeepers and accountants to support small businesses. We also created online communities that could help each other and launched \u2018Xero Hour\u2019 to facilitate conversations among peers on topics of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing stories of success, particularly focusing on how customers had achieved that success, built positivity and momentum as well as providing insights and inspiration. We built trust and a deeper relationship with our partners and fostered a community of people facing similar challenges to learn from each other.<\/p>\n\n\n

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A vital part of supporting our teams was to focus on activities and outcomes, creating trust and providing people the opportunity to work out how to be successful in their \u2018new normal\u2019.<\/p>Rachael Powell, CCO, Xero | See Rachael Powell speak in the State of Marketing launch webinar.<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n