Over the last several years, AI has become a popular trend for enhancing all areas of business. With the ability of the machine to learn how to perform tasks like forecasting, clustering, text and speech recognition, error corrections, database filling, and other activities that involve human intelligence, AI has become an invaluable tool for sales teams to understand and interpret the behaviours of customers and suggest products for these customers. One of the critical factors, according to SuperOffice, behind the growth of CRM software is its ability to allow businesses to access customer data in real-time. Here are several ways that AI-driven sales CRM is leading the way in customer relations.
Collecting and Filling Data
It is no secret that marketing and various CRM applications require substantial sets of qualified data. Many of today’s new AI-driven sales applications have made it much easier to capture the corporate data that allows users to create and fill in the new information to solutions, as well as cleaning the existing lists. With this new technology, the need for data entry is eliminated with Spiro.
Clustering Contact Details
With AI applications you can structure, clean, and analyze the sales data you collect. After a series of algorithmic executions and iterations, the application can effectively provide you with the best model along with a pattern, which will allow you to group your customers. After the data has been clustered, it can give you a list of all the customers included in each of the groups. It will consider new sales and provide updated reports to improve marketing strategies.
Suggest Products
When a specific product is considered, the AI-driven application will provide you with a list of the various products purchased in the past by the customer. An excellent example of this in action is Amazon. When a customer is shopping at the online retail shop, it provides them with a list of suggested products that they might want to purchase. For B2B companies, the product basket of all their customers is carefully analyzed to interpret details like business sectors, employee’s numbers, address, and the revenues. All of this increases customer relations because the company doesn’t have to waste time suggesting products that the customer won’t be interested in purchasing.
Forecasting and Pattern Recognition
AI-driven solutions play a critical role in the process of the forecasting of sales, regarding production. Through pattern recognition, the trends of the purchase of a product over the years can be determined. Also, the success rate of the product can also be predicted, which can save companies thousands in unused and unsold inventory and can help increase revenue by nearly 41%, according to the site, Big Contacts.
Highlight Inconsistencies
The ability of a sales team to close sales is dependent on the accuracy of the sales pipeline. An AI-drive CRM application can effortlessly highlight any inconsistencies within the sales pipeline so that it can quickly be addressed. With accurate reports and sales forecasts, companies won’t have to worry about the sales process being slowed down or stopped because of inaccuracies.
The most prominent advantage of AI-driven CRM solutions is the ability to efficiently analyze the data of the company, which can lead to an increase in sales, better customer satisfaction, and better responses to customers’ needs.
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It’s 2019, and the power consumers have in today’s marketplace continues to be unparalleled.
In particular, today’s savvy consumers have access to and can communicate with companies around the world at virtually any time of day, allowing them to not only compare the value of products and services, but also determine whether they share the same core brand values.
Indeed, it doesn’t matter if you represent a big corporation or are a solopreneur — your customers are calling the shots. In many ways, your customers expect to be able to engage with you on their terms and on their preferred channels.
Here’s a look at ways many of today’s successful companies are meeting the needs of the modern consumer.
Multi-channel Service
These days, communicating with companies of all sizes is easier than ever. But with a multitude of options with which consumers can communicate with your brand — from phone and email to SMS and social media — you’ll need to employ a strategy that covers these bases and more to be successful.
According to Shopify, more than 85 percent of today’s consumers use at least two communication channels when interacting with companies, albeit to shop or raise a customer service issue. This is true whether they research online and buy in-store or vice versa.
With this in mind, ideally, you will need to ensure your company has — and maintains — a presence on the digital channels most popular with your customers and prospects. The exact combination could be very different depending on your industry.
Ultimately, your best bet is to ask your customers, typically via email or an online survey, the contact methods they prefer and see which channels your competitors use as well.
Social Media Monitoring
When it comes to social media, meeting the needs of the modern consumer becomes more complicated. Your customers expect you to be listening at virtually all hours of the day and respond in kind in a timely manner. That means you can’t create social media pages, monitor the inboxes for those channels and call it a day.
While some of your customers will use those channels to contact you directly, many more are posting about your company, its products and its people on various social media sites. Some of these will include the ones on which you may already have a presence, like Facebook, but there will be others that you might not use, like WhatsApp or Yelp.
With this in mind, it’s a good idea to have a program in place to help monitor mentions of your company and its offerings so you can respond as quickly as possible, to both positive and negative comments.
Calls are Not Going Away
While it’s important to offer a variety of online communications channels for customers and prospects to reach you, you should also realize traditional phone-based customer service isn’t going away anytime soon.
That’s because multi-channel communications typically do not replace the need to speak to a live person. Instead, they enable previously dormant or silent followers to ask questions and otherwise engage with your company.
Phone support is one of the top ways that companies representing all industries provide support. It is efficient, empathetic and responsive.
Personalization
Not all phone support is created equal, though. According to Entrepreneur, roughly 80 percent of consumers say the customer service agents with whom they interact are unaware of any past communication with the brand. The other 20 percent are doing something right.
Some companies have contact center agents standing by who look up information as the caller speaks. Other services, such a cloud call center, take it a step further by integrating a slew of self-service options to direct the call to the right department. The idea is to provide context to the current conversation — and, perhaps more importantly, any future ones — wherever possible.
When these efforts are integrated into a robust customer relationship management solution, it becomes easier for agents to determine whether specific customers have had previous interactions with your brand.
More to the point, keeping a record of what transpired on the previous customer service interaction means customers don’t have to repeat the same information — and become frustrated — over and over again. Customer service then improves, which can bolster consumer loyalty, creating a win-win for both parties.
Letting Customers’ Voices be Heard, Loud and Clear
Today’s modern, savvy consumers expect to have multiple channels to communicate and do business with their favorite brands. They also want their voices heard — and to be amplified when necessary — on social media if their brand experience is anything less than stellar. Of course, that doesn’t mean they won’t turn to and rely on phone-based customer service.
Oh, but the times are a-changin’ — and it’s up to forward-thinking brands to continually come up with new ways to allow customers to be comfortable and in the driver’s seat when making important buying decisions so these customers become repeat customers.
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As Christmas draws closer, business owners around the world will be starting to think about organizing, purchasing, and giving corporate gifts to their clients, customers, and suppliers. Whether these gifts seem like an expensive and unnecessary thing to do, or they feel like a Christmas tradition that can’t be broken, the point is that, if you want to make a good impression going into the new year, you’re going to need to give at least something to someone.
If you don’t quite know what to offer up as a holiday gift yet, and you’re not sure what to think about when choosing the gift, here are some key pointers that will help you out and ensure that everyone is happy with what they are given.
What Is Your Work Culture?
If you can distill your company’s culture down into one gift, this will certainly help you to be remembered, and it will ensure that whatever you choose to give will be completely unique. To do this, you need to think about the work that you do and the people who work for you. You might be famed for your dress down Friday, or perhaps your office parties are something that everyone talks about. Maybe it’s the fact that you give everyone their birthday off, or you include your employees’ families in everything you do. Whatever it might be, search around for a gift that speak of it, and give this to those important business connections that you want to impress.
Be Inclusive
It is important to find something that you can give to everyone because buying individual gifts will be expensive and time-consuming to find and purchase. If you want to offer up branded t-shirts, for example, think of the cut and the material – will everyone like it? Is it going to work for both men and women? This is an important point but one that will help to set you apart and show how caring you are and how you think of others when it comes to all aspects of your work.
Think Of Presentation
No matter what you are giving and to whom you are giving it, presentation is all-important. Wrapping a gift well in nice paper, perhaps with additional bows and ribbons will always be appreciated, especially when the alternative is a poorly wrapped gift that no time, thought, or effort was put into – assuming the gift is wrapped at all. Although this is a corporate gift, it should be treated no differently to any other that you would give to someone important to you. Make sure it looks good, because first impressions regarding anything county for a huge amount.
Ask Employees
As a business owner, you have final say in what corporate gifts you want to give, but it could be worthwhile to speak to your employees and get their opinions too. If you are completely drawing a blank, then ask your employees to come up with some ideas that you can work with. They might have more insight into what your clients and customers would like because they work with them more closely.
If you do come up with some ideas but can’t decide between them, again, you can ask your employees. They might be able to help you to determine which of the two, three, or more ideas is the most viable, saving you from buying and giving something that just wouldn’t really work.
Ask Questions
Being considerate and asking questions is another important step. You may feel you have discovered the ideal gift, but if there is any doubt then getting in touch with the recipient to determine whether this really is the case will help you – it will show that you are thinking of your clients and customers rather than simply buying the first thing that comes into your head (even if, in reality, you are). For example, if you are thinking of offering a food-related gift, it is a good idea to speak to the recipients and check to see if they have any allergies, or if they prefer beer to wine or red or white wine. You don’t have to tell them what you are buying in detail, either, so the surprise element will still be there.
Make It Local
Something that is always widely appreciated is a gift with some local flavor. This is a great gift whether the recipient lives nearby or far away – it’s always fun to be given something made in a specific place, perhaps in a specific way. You could choose a calendar showcasing your local area, or some food products that a local maker has created. If your area is famous for anything, this is a great gift to give as it will help the recipient get a better idea of where you are based and what the place is like.
This is also a great way to support local small businesses who might be able to help you in return. By doing this, you are enabling the economy to thrive, which is certainly another bonus.
Make It Personal
Whatever you choose to give, you need to ensure that it reflects your company in some way, and the easiest way to do that is to brand it with your logo or company name. Many companies such as Perfect Imprints make this an easy thing to do, and your branding can be added to mugs, coasters, Christmas decorations, t-shirts, pens, and much more.
You should remember not to overbrand, however. You can make yourself remembered with just a small logo, for example, rather than printing your name all over the front of everything that you give away. This can look much more attractive, and will even do a better job of reminding those who receive the gifts about you, as they will be more likely to use items with only small amounts of branding on them.
Give Quality
Whatever it is you choose to give, it needs to be of good quality. If you buy cheap and give items that are poorly made and that break apart quickly, or that can’t be used, worn, or even eaten, this will reflect badly on your company. You don’t need to spend a fortune to find good quality products, but you should take the time to read reviews and even sample the products for yourself if possible, to ensure that you are happy to give them to important clients and suppliers.
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There’s no getting around it; the customer is king. Without them, your business will be going nowhere fast. They have the power to make or break your business, and your aim should be to do everything in your power to make their experience a good one. Once upon a time, it would have been the quality of your product or service that made you stand out from the competition. Nowadays, however, the focus has shifted to the experience a brand is able to offer the customer throughout their journey. Improving the customer experience is not the easiest thing to deal with. There are certain things your customers will expect. These include being able to interact with your company, however they decide to do it. It’s also important that their experience is a personalized, rewarding and effortless one. Above all, they want this to be provided in an efficient amount of time. Here are some things you can do today.
The Customer Experience vs. Customer Service
You might think that they’re one and the same, but they’re actually quite different. Customer service focuses more on the way a service is delivered, before, during, and after a purchase. Customer experience, on the other hand, is the sum of all the experiences and interactions the customers have from your business relationship. The two work closely together, and you can’t have one without the other.
10 Steps to Improving Your Customer Experience
The first contact your customers will have with your business will be via the phone, email or one-to-one interaction, and this is where you can start making improvements.
Create a Customer-Focused Culture
There is little point in trying to make improvements if the whole of your workforce are not behind the changes. From the bottom to the top, everyone has to be focused on customer satisfaction. A good way to do this is to create a list of statements that can be used to guide company principles and focus your staff. Principles can include delivering an excellent service, to show humility and welcome change. Take steps to introduce a staff training program and focus on etiquette, how best to address customer complaints, and the standard responses to use.
Know Your Customers
If you don’t know who your customers are, how can you address their needs to improve your customer experience. The beauty of humans is that we are all so different. We don’t have the same needs, desires or expectations. As well as understanding demographics such as age, race, and residence you need to consider several other things. For example, how will they use your products and services, what are their expectations, and how will they prefer to interact with you.
Understanding who your customers are will result in a deeper understanding. Your employees will be able to empathize with them and look at the service they’re providing from their point of view.
Live Chat
Providing your customers with a live chat option is crucial to improving the customer experience. If your audience is within the 18-34 age bracket, you might do well to appreciate that more than half of them prefer this option over phone interactions. It is particularly popular among online retailers. However, there’s more to providing live chat than just having a person to answer customer questions. It can include co-browsing, which is where an agent takes control of a user’s browser to provide technical support or to direct them to pages where they will find what they want. Audio/video chat services, integrated knowledge bases, and Chatbot services are also being added to the list.
Mobile Customer Support
More than 91% of adults in the US own a mobile phone, and more than 63% of them use their phones several times a month to search for products and customer support. Providing a mobile interface for your customers is vital. Unfortunately, many are poorly designed and cumbersome to use, even if there is an optimized website. The result of these poor designs is that customers are forced to contact a business directly for simple queries. Contact centers are then flooded with queries. Allowing customers to solve their problems using their mobile phone will improve the customer experience.
Social Media Support
It’s possible to use social media to communicate with customers in a customer-centric way. Many large companies use it very effectively. Using a variety of social media platforms, companies can share content and answer questions from customers. The marketing department can also ask interesting questions and gain a better understanding of the customer base.
Self-Service Portals
There are two ways self-service portals can help a company. Firstly, they improve the customer experience. Secondly, they reduce workload and thereby increase company capacity. A self-service portal provides customers with instant access to information. A series of self-help functions are open to the customer and accessible through a company’s website. Features include:
Self-resolution of issues through the use of a knowledge base
Password reset
Self-logging of incidents
Service request
Collaborative spaces
Chat services
Empowering customers to find information, request services, and resolve their own issues is a great way of improving the customer experience.
If you think outside of the box a little, you can probably work out some pretty ingenious ways that you can help people to improve their own experience with these kinds of portals. You might have a visitor sign-in app, for instance, so that you know who is in the building. However you approach it, the fact is that these kinds of portals are growing in popularity with good reason, and they are some of the best ways to make sure that the customer’s experience is so much better throughout the journey.
Provide a Range of Communication Channels
Not so very long ago, customers would have been more than happy to call customer care to get assistance. Those days are long gone, and today’s customers want to have access to more options. These should include text, email, and social media, depending on which your customer is most comfortable with.
Younger age groups may prefer to use social media while those over 40 might prefer to call customer care. The industry you’re working in can also influence the channels you choose to use. In a more professional industry, phone calls or post might be more appropriate. There is no one size fits all, and some experimentation will be required to find which fits best.
Customer Experience Manager
This is a relatively new role and has come about because customer experience requires effort from across a company, which means someone needs to be managing it. A customer experience manager will look across a range of departments such as customer service, sales, market, production and more. They will act as the link between customer and company, coordinating work across all the different departments.
Researching and Gathering Data
A crucial part of the customer experience is conducting research and gathering data. Customers expect a certain quality of service when calling your company. The service you deliver has to be above average. If the service received is excellent, it is more likely they will pay more for your products or services and return time and time again. To provide exemplary customer service, you first have to do some research and gather feedback from your customers. Asking customer testimonial questions will help you to establish their needs, wants, and expectation. It will also help you to grow your company with the help of customer reviews.
Benchmarking and Evaluating
There is no point in implementing any changes if you aren’t going to spend time evaluating whether the processes, teamwork, and technology are paying off. It’s important to measure the return on investment of customer experience. Finding the best strategy will be much easier if you’re able to try different things. Collecting data to ensure you know what works and what doesn’t. A good question to ask customers that will gauge the effectiveness of a strategy is “Would you recommend this service to a friend or relative?”. Provide a point-scale to measure how happy or unhappy they were.
The Benefits of Optimizing the Customer Experience
Companies who invest time and effort in improving the customer experience will reap the rewards, both in terms of revenue and financial health. There are many benefits of providing an excellent customer experience including increased customer loyalty and higher customer retention. It’s also interesting to learn that a high percentage of customers will pay more for a better customer experience.
There’s no way you can anticipate every customer issue, but you can anticipate there being an issue and making it easy for customers to contact you. Being reactive and proactive will pay off. Customers want to be treated well, respected, understood, and get what they want. They want a good experience when dealing with your company and an assurance that every time they get in touch, the experience will be equally good. The modern consumer has an immense amount of power, and they can choose to wield it as they see fit. Providing an excellent customer experience will instill trust and boost revenue.
Providing the best customer experience can help you to build meaningful relationships with your customers. The experience you provide is a reflection of your business. Your brand image depends on more than just a single moment when a purchase is made. It is a culmination of every interaction they have with your company. Provide a superior customer experience, and you will have a competitive advantage, build customer loyalty, encourage positive word-of-mouth, personalize relationships, and provide customer satisfaction.
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Over the last several years, AI has become a popular trend for enhancing all areas of business. With the ability of the machine to learn how to perform tasks like forecasting, clustering, text and speech recognition, error corrections, database filling, and other activities that involve human intelligence, AI has become an invaluable tool for sales teams to understand and interpret the behaviours of customers and suggest products for these customers. One of the critical factors, according to SuperOffice, behind the growth of CRM software is its ability to allow businesses to access customer data in real-time. Here are several ways that AI-driven sales CRM is leading the way in customer relations.
As Christmas draws closer, business owners around the world will be starting to think about organizing, purchasing, and giving corporate gifts to their clients, customers, and suppliers. Whether these gifts seem like an expensive and unnecessary thing to do, or they feel like a Christmas tradition that can’t be broken, the point is that, if you want to make a good impression going into the new year, you’re going to need to give at least something to someone.
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