Why Omnichannel Business Model is No Longer a Choice, But a Necessity?

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

December 17, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Today, customers expect your business to be easily accessible from wherever they are. They want integrated support across all channels—whether it is email, social media, or phone calls. This means that an omnichannel business model is essential to ensure that you can be found wherever customers are looking.

With increasingly high customer expectations, businesses today have a hard road ahead of them. They need to implement an omnichannel model to facilitate day-to-day communications. Moreover, each channel has to be well-managed and smoothly run to be of good use.

According to research, as many as 65% of consumers actively take steps to use brands that have consistent online and offline customer service. This shows just how important a consistently good omnichannel strategy is.

This article will explore why an omnichannel business model is essential for modern businesses, and how cloud communication can make this possible.

1. Reach customers at all touchpoints

If your business is available for customers at all the touchpoints (social media, email, telephone, WhatsApp, etc.), you’ll have more opportunities to sell your products or services to those users.

Before making a purchase decision, customers prefer to interact with your business on different channels. This is an essential part of their research process and gives your business an opportunity to engage with them at this crucial decision-making stage.

With cloud communications, not only is managing your communications on each of these touchpoints possible, it is much simpler as well.

Employees can access all kinds of communications and handle tasks on a single integrated platform. With a cloud admin portal, all communications are in one central location, making it easy to engage with customers—wherever they feel most comfortable.

An added bonus is that you can pick up the conversation right where you left off, with the ability to add detailed notes in the online portal. Any agent can then take over the call with minimal disruption and repetition of client details.

2. COVID-19? No problem

Once you’ve established your presence at all major channels, you can start building meaningful connections with clients all over. COVID-19 has completely changed the face of customer service and has left many businesses going above and beyond to connect with the consumer base.

One such measure is the adoption of omnichannel strategies to maximise customer interactions and therefore, enrich relationships with them. With all your communications in one place, you can easily identify any rising customer issues. For example, if you come across a complaint on social media, you can use your cloud communication system to follow up via a phone call or email.

Or if a customer gives you feedback, you can log into the channel to follow up with them and show that you value their input. You can perhaps present a special offer or intimate them about how you’re implementing their suggestions. Cloud phone systems help you create a strong and really personal relationship with your consumers which will keep them engaged, even through difficult times.

By keeping in touch in this way, even if a customer is not keen on a purchase right now, they are much more likely to remember this great service and the way you value them once the pandemic is over.

3. Reduce customer waiting times

If a customer has a quick question about your services, then putting them on hold for hours may just deter them from purchasing anything at all. If they have already purchased a product from you and want to clear a simple doubt, you can provide them with answers on multiple other channels, reserving your phone lines for new sales and more intricate inquiries.

With an omnichannel communication strategy, your customers can interact with you at multiple touch points which frees up your phone lines for faster query resolutions of complex issues. Customers get prompt and dedicated replies and your agents can save time, only focusing on critical tasks and calls. It’s truly a win-win situation.

Taking this further, you can even use automation to answer frequently asked questions without ever having to involve human agents. Just feed in critical data and the AI-powered system will take care of basic queries on your behalf. You can add AI to your social media messaging or deploy an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) right on your hosted phone system. With this, you can communicate messages and common answers en masse to callers.

Cloud communications make it really easy to deliver excellent customer service in a timely manner, by giving agents access to critical information and equipping them with the proper tools for staying in touch with customers. People expect different waiting times on different touchpoints, so it is important to ensure that staff can deliver great service within an acceptable time frame.

4. Increase agent productivity

With agents’ time freed up, they have room to become much more productive. If customer inquiries are spread out over different channels, agents will be able to deal with queries more efficiently and will have more time to spend on perfecting the first call resolution rate.

With a hosted phone system, it is easy to see messages coming into multiple inboxes across your channels in one place. Besides, managers can ascertain which agents are free and delegate the incoming workload accordingly.

A customer may send their inquiry via email, and then follow up with a phone call. Without an omnichannel communication strategy in place, supported by your cloud communication system, this may trigger two agents working independently to respond to one customer.

Not only does this waste valuable time and manual effort, but it also causes confusion for all the parties involved. On the other hand, if all your communications are visible in one place, you can simply leave notes, check the progress of fellow agents, and capture each lead with zero hassle.

Omnichannel communication can save your agents plenty of work and time. Such a model is the way to stand out from the crowd and ensure you stay connected with customers—no matter what difficult times you face.

To implement a successful omnichannel business model, you must ensure that your service and information on each platform is consistent and that responses are timely. Don’t risk losing customers before they’ve even made a purchase from you!

A cloud-hosted phone system can help you run the most effective communication strategy by giving your staff access to everything they need in one central location—easily accessible from any device they choose.

To find out more about cloud communication tools and how to build a proper omnichannel strategy with said solutions, don’t hesitate to contact our experts at 1888-859-0450. Or simply drop us an email at [email protected], and we’ll be with you in a jiffy.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Earth Calling: Befriend The Climate With Cloud Communications

Diksha Gusain

Author

Contact Center Service

December 16, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

We have one earth and one chance to do it right.

Undeniably, nature gave us resources aplenty to sustain life. But with rampant misuse and destruction of our home planet, where do we see ourselves in the next fifty years?

Needless to say, it’s time to take action. Climate activism is the talk of the town, especially among the younger generations. People realise that our current practices are not viable to secure a healthy future. As traditional practices are failing the environment, it’s time to take a look at healthy solutions like cloud communications.

Consumers are very smart and conscious these days. Just as they’ve uncovered the ugly truth of fast fashion—the second-largest water polluting industry—it’s not long before they dig into climate policies in other sectors as well.

They want environment-friendly economies, and they want them now. So what do you need to do?

The name of the game is sustainability.

What is sustainable development?

We need to meet human development goals without depleting natural resources. Essentially, attend to present needs without compromising on the future requirements.

This includes keeping a check on CO2 emissions, reducing carbon footprint and global warming, and using resources judiciously.

As companies and factories continue to mass-produce, they deploy heavy hardware at the workplace, which increases their carbon emission. But there is a way to reduce this by cutting down the need for physical hardware at offices.

With the help of cloud communication, a ‘no-hardware office’ can be set-up.

A lot of firms have already made strides in their efforts to curtail harmful practices. In fact, Google just made an incredible pledge for the climate. In September 2020, CEO Sundar Pichai stated that the firm plans to run operations totally carbon-free by the year 2030.

Additionally, Google —via its carbon-neutral policy (circa 2007) and purchase of carbon offsets—managed to cancel out all CO2 emissions made by the company since its founding in 1998.

Other major companies like Facebook, Apple, and Netflix have made pledges to bring down their carbon emissions by 2030 as well.

All the cool kids are doing it, so why not you?

Well, yes, they’re big companies with large emissions, but they also have huge resources to help them achieve their goals. However, you need not be left behind.

Cloud communications are set to reduce your carbon footprint and boost energy efficiency significantly. With Internet-based phoning solutions, voice broadcasting, data storage, SMS solutions, etc., not only do you save costs and widen your reach, you’re able to do it all sustainably.

You can check out your greenhouse emissions using Microsoft Azure’s sustainability calculator tool. With this information, you’ll be better equipped to prepare a green strategy for your business model.

Let’s take a look at how cloud solutions help you run an environment-friendly business.

Bring down your carbon footprint

As a business leader, you want to leave a mark on the world. But as responsible citizens, we need to ensure we leave the smallest possible dent on the earth.

Carbon footprint refers to the level of greenhouse gas emissions made. The more gases released, the hotter our atmosphere becomes. Therefore, firms need to minimise their harmful practices and invest their time in greener practices.

With the rise of IoT (Internet of Things), data-users have grown exponentially over the years. However, this doesn’t have to result in an equally high CO2 discharge—if users switch to the cloud.

It’s been found that cloud operations can reduce carbon emissions by 90% for startups, 60-90% for mid-sized firms and 30-60% for large enterprises.

Needless to say, large data centers use massive amounts of resources. Through a process called dematerialisation, you can convert your high carbon physical resources into virtual ones!

By shifting to a non-physical server, many people are able to connect on one network—even from far apart. With the right business practices, you can boast of environment-friendly operations with high productivity as well.

Use less electricity, get more output

At home, we like to follow conservation practices like switching off devices when not in use or switching to energy-saving appliances to do our bit for the environment. However, huge office spaces are much harder to keep track of.

Nonetheless, since less equipment and storage space is required in a cloud-powered office, you save up on exorbitantly high electricity bills right off.

There’s no energy being wasted on powering rooms and buildings full of heavy machinery when everything is virtual. Moreover, with smart automation taking over mundane tasks, you’ll need less space and workstations to achieve the same level of productivity. So you won’t have to power too many desk systems, and people can simply work on the go.

Low hardware refresh rate

Those who stick to sustainable lifestyles would shudder at the ‘buy once, use twice’ school of thought. In fact, the three R’s we learnt in school have now expanded to include “reuse” as the first step.

But how do you reuse bulky hardware that’s become miserably outdated?

The good news is: you don’t have to.

If you opt for cloud solutions, you don’t have to keep up with a high hardware refresh rate. Instead, you can update and maintain your cloud infrastructure with the latest advancements in technology—at a truly low cost.

This means you don’t have to keep using outdated equipment for long periods of time and can enjoy high-speed updates at the same time.

An added advantage is that new technologies come with better energy-saving features, which further boost your climate conservation efforts. And these updates are implemented by your VoIP provider, so you don’t have to hire an IT team either.

Renewable and clean energy sources

One part of the green equation is to reduce the energy requirement and increase efficiency. However, the other (and equally important) part is ensuring that the energy you do use is clean.

Renewable energy has been on the rise for a few years now, but it needs more attention as a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

You can power cloud solutions with clean energy sources. It’s much easier to implement this in a cloud-based office than a traditional office with heavy equipment that has extremely high energy consumption.

A wireless and paperless office

It’s not only heavy machinery that gets ditched if you move to the cloud. With virtual operations, a lot of regular office supplies are cut down as well.

So you no longer need to print out multiple copies of every document, nor do you need to save files on CDs or hard drives. All your data can be safely stored on the cloud. Moreover, you also get multiple backups to ensure that you never lose crucial information. This helps reduce plastic use and limit deforestation for paper supply needs.

Since many coworkers can work on the same document simultaneously, there’s no need to water resources on transferring information in these preliminary stages. With lesser paper, you also have lower requirements for folders, storage, etc.

Looking ahead

No matter how we dealt with climate issues in the past, the need of the hour is to look ahead and create a sustainably growing economy. Not just to appease environmentally conscious citizens, but also to leave a better world for our future generations.

In this effort, cloud technology has emerged as the frontrunner. It allows you to meet global business growth levels while taking measures to protect the planet.

The cloud will dominate the future and serve as the major mode of business in a world with scarce resources. Therefore, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve and establish climate-friendly operations right away.

There’s no point in delaying, is there? Contact our experts at 1888-859-0450 or [email protected] to clear all your doubts about migrating to the cloud. We’ll set you up in no time, and you can count on our 24/7 support with dedicated agents.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Diksha Gusain

Author

Diksha is a junior content writer at Acefone. As a tech-lover, she aims to bridge the gap between tech articles and non-savvy readers. She’s equally interested in pop culture and worldly affairs. And in her free time, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or discovering new music for her chaotically diverse playlist.

Handling Unhappy Customers Is Now Easier Than You Think. Here’s How. [Infographic]

Kritagya Pandey

Author

Infographics

December 15, 2020

3 mins read eye

Table of content

Handling customer calls all day long can be daunting and tiresome.

You will come across a variety of customers. While some of them are really courteous, others can be a nightmare and an unpleasant experience altogether.

Sometimes, you may have to deal with irate customers who are unhappy with the product or the experience they may have had with the company.

However, you can pacify such irate customers through the skillful use of language and presence of mind.

Golden rule of customer service: Show empathy

While this may sound a bit obvious, it is essential to empathise with your angry customers. You have to understand that their situation arises out of their purchasing experience, failure of the product, or maybe due to the quality of service.

After all, it can be really frustrating for customers to spend money on products and services that do not live up to their expectations. What can be worse is an unsympathetic and non-helpful approach of the agents.

The first way to calm down your infuriated customers is to acknowledge their problems. Ask them questions to understand what about the product upsets them and then look for the possible solution.

The next step would be to apologise to customers for the inconvenience even if it is not the firm’s fault. You can say something like, “I am sorry you had to deal with this; I will just resolve the problem.”

What else can you do to prevent customer rage?

1. Apologise – Sincerely and personally

The key is to be a ‘truly empathetic-not sympathetic’ customer service agent. Take into consideration the customer’s problem and pacify them with a sincere apology.

2. Stay calm and courteous

To deliver high levels of customer service, it is essential to stay calm and polite. Shouting back at the customers is a big no-no as it will definitely worsen the situation.

3. Develop a common ‘answer-database’

To maintain an equilibrium between the frontline and backline employees, develop a common answer base. It will help the backline employees to coincide with the turnaround time quoted by the customer service agents and hence, improve the quality of service.

Let’s walk through the infographic to understand some ways in which you can effectively handle unhappy and angry customers-

Handling Unhappy Customers Is Now Easier- Infographic

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Kritagya Pandey

Author

Kritagya Pandey is a creative and technical content writer, editor, and strategist. She has been writing on customer experience, customer service, artificial intelligence, cloud communication, and more. She invests her time researching the current business, market trends, and studying about social media strategies.

Delivering Perfect Customer Experience With Netflix: See What’s Next

Kritagya Pandey

Author

Operations

December 14, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

It’s a cold, lazy Friday night, and you have no plans whatsoever—thanks to the exhausting week at work.

But who said Friday nights are meant for parties anyway?

No, instead imagine this: You curl up in bed in your cosy pyjamas, get some snacks, and binge the latest content on Netflix—all alone, enjoying every bit of it.

Founded less than 20 years ago, Netflix has now become the biggest OTT (over-the-top) content platform and streaming service in the industry. It has been reported that Netflix, as of the third quarter of 2020, had 195.15 million paid subscribers worldwide—not even counting the people sharing accounts. This popularity is due to Netflix’s huge catalogue of films, documentaries, TV series, and even original content—all personalised according to the viewer’s preferences.

But as many of you veteran movie buffs may know, Netflix did not start off as a content streaming company.

When Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph founded Netflix in 1997, its business model was based on a DVD rental system sent by mail to the entire United States. That is, in their initial years, they mainly sent physical copies of films, shows, video games, and other media through the American standard mailing system in a pay-for-use model.

What started as a frictionless DVD rental business evolved into a gamechanger for the industry—pioneering the popularity of online streaming and original content.

However, one thing remained constant through all these years—Netflix is customer-obsessed.

Todd Yellin, Netflix’s VP of Product Innovation, in an interview with The Guardian, stated that “We own the Netflix customer experience from the moment our customers sign up, and for the whole time they are with us, across TV, phone and laptop.”

Keeping its user-base at the core for all decision-making and business strategies have worked wonders for the brand. Netflix has emerged as the undisputed king of the entertainment industry.

Let’s dig deeper and explore some customer service lessons we can learn from Netflix and how they perfect their user experience.

1. Personalisation all the way

“If the Starbucks secret is a smile when you get your latte, Netflix’s secret is that the website adapts to the individual’s taste.” – Reed Hastings

Think finding the perfect binge-worthy series on Netflix is a coincidence? Think again.

It is all due to multiple AI algorithms that identify and present personalised content to each user. (yes, your own customised home screen!)

When you browse the homepage, the first thing you see is a list of media to “continue watching”, followed by categories like “see it again”, “you may also like” and “because you watched XYZ”.

Netflix’s key to personalisation is offering content to users based on things they’ve already enjoyed—so they end up binge-ing one series after another.

The company has developed cutting edge machine learning algorithms to determine its users’ preferences. In fact, if you open up a certain movie or TV show summary on the site, you can see a percentage indicating how much the chosen media matches your interests.

Such dedication to personalisation and customer experience keeps the clientele happy and loyal.

This formula can be applied for businesses of every type. If you know what your audiences like, you can tailor their needs accordingly and build better relationships.

Here’s how to do it:

Deploy AI algorithms and feed recommendation engines with relevant and sufficient data to learn from.

Essentially, allow your customers to choose their story and their journey with your brand.

2. Keep the customers engaged

Customer retention and engagement are two really important factors when it comes to a subscription company. If customers start doubting the product, become dissatisfied, or fall out of love with it, you risk high abandonment rates.

To battle this issue, Netflix has strived to keep changing and improving. It incorporated a new viewing experience for users with its children shows (kids mode), while the release of the interactive movie Black Mirror: Bandersnatch was a fresh move to engage adults.

Netflix is the best example of the use of data in the media industry. It conducts over 250 A/B tests each year, to gather data and analyse how customers respond to it.

Here’s how to do it:

Offer new value to customers every time they visit your site. Conduct surveys to gauge public opinion and create more accurate buyer personas. You can use this data to add elements that will appeal to your target audience especially.

Keep them engaged by enhancing their product experiences and offering more than what they asked for.

3. Use the right tools for the right job

Technology plays a crucial role in creating memorable customer experiences. The only reason Netflix has been able to cater to such a wide array of audiences in a personalised manner is because of its heavy technological investments.

Simple, yet essential tools like accurate landing pages, personalised emails, and complex tools like live chat and artificial intelligence can all be used to create the perfect experience.

The recommendations on the site are based on customers’ searches, views, scrolls, and rating data, as well as the time, date, and device to predict viewers’ interests.

They also incorporate open-source software tools like Hadoop, Java, MySQL, and dozens of other systems, and hire ReactJS developers, along with other experts to enhance the digital experience. All this effort finally brings us great shows like The Black Orphan and The Walking Dead (and much more).

And what’s even better is Netflix’s efforts to engage customers through collecting data and providing content via customer devices. For example, Netflix is finding ways to connect with IoT devices like Fitbit and even socks (to monitor if the user has fallen asleep).

Here’s how to do it:

Invest in the latest technology—it will not disappoint. Cloud-based tools are the way forward for improving customer experience across industries.

4. Be customer-obsessed from day one

Netflix is a customer dedicated company. They are well aware of the fact that each viewer has a unique preference and experience while choosing their own narrative.

Moreover, the company has made it easier for customers to navigate through the app and explore the content of their choice.

Overall, they extend exceptional customer service and help their users onboard smoothly while giving them complete autonomy to cancel their subscription anytime they want.

Wrapping Up

Netflix’s technological and innovative transformations have always kept customers at the center point of consideration. Experiments with deep learning technologies bring extended personalisation to the way it delivers content.

Providing best-in-class customer service is synonymous to a company’s growth. Thus, organisations must focus on creating client-centric brands that keep consumers at the heart of everything they do.

Explore our content repository to gain access to more customer focussed content: visit https://www.acefone.com/blog/.

Or get to know more about the scope of cloud communications for your business by getting in touch with our experts at 1888-859-0450 or [email protected].

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Kritagya Pandey

Author

A Complete Guide To Cloud Calling US From UK

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

December 11, 2020

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Many businesses in the United Kingdom work closely with organisations in the US, being two of the most influential Western powers. If your business is frequently calling the US, you need to find a way to hold these transactions at minimal costs and with the maximum quality.

Another important consideration is the time difference between the UK and the US. The last thing you want to do is call at an unsociable hour and ruin a potential deal.

This blog helps you explore all the aspects you need to know to make successful Call USA from UK. These aspects are discussed below.

1. Use the right dialling codes

To make a Call USA from UK, you need to follow certain international dialling formats. The format mentioned below allows you to call any number—landline or mobile phone—in the US.

To call the United States of America from the United Kingdom, dial:

00 – 1 – Area Code – Land Phone Number
00 – 1 – 10 Digit Mobile Number

All you need is to add the number of the business or person you are trying to connect with to this template, and you are ready to connect. This can be done from a traditional office phone, mobile phone or even your hosted phone system.

With a hosted phone system, you can make international calls to anywhere in the world, including the US. These calls can be made on any device with an Internet connection and can often offer a more reliable connection to the US than a standard landline phone would.

This also means that you can make the call on the go. Considering the time difference, this benefit becomes increasingly useful. You need not stay at the office till the wee hours to connect with your international contacts.

2. Check the time before calling

Not only does the US have a different time zone than the UK, but it also has different zones within the country. Depending on the coast you have business with, you need to be mindful of the timings.

Check the time zone of wherever you are calling, and make sure your meetings are synced well. This will avoid any awkward conversations between you and your American clients.

With a hosted phone system, you can make detailed notes for all customer accounts, which are accessible by all your agents through an online portal. These notes can be used to detail the time zone of the customer and other such preferences so that whoever is making the call has all the information they need to hold a successful meeting.

3. Keep costs down

With the hosted corporate phone systems, all your calls are made over the Internet. This means that your calls, even long-distance ones, are much cheaper compared to when they are made over a traditional telephone line.

Therefore, if you frequently dabble in international networking with American firms or clients, you can enjoy significant savings with a cloud solution at your disposal. Business owners or managers can keep an eye on costs wherever they are through the admin’s portal.

The online portal gives you access to all kinds of information, such as your performance, plans, usage, and much more. If you find any bottlenecks or wastage of resources, you can simply upgrade or downgrade the plan in a jiffy.

4. Ensure your connection is strong

Nothing is worse for business than a weak connection. If your clients and agents can’t hear each other’s voice, it’s difficult to do business. To remain professional and keep your connection strong, investing in a hosted phone system is necessary. With Internet-enabled connectivity, you can communicate with anyone in the world—at crystal clear quality.

Your connection isn’t limited to your official premises, you can take your hosted phone system anywhere with you. All it takes is a compatible device with an internet connection and you can enjoy the same high-quality communication.

You are free to do business wherever your customers are based, hire remote workers in the US, or even create local numbers to allow your clients to call you cheaply.

It is as simple as ensuring that you have the right area code, use the correct dialling code, and you are connected to the US in seconds!

This is the age of complete globalization. Open your mind and business to international connections by taking your operations to the cloud.

If you’d like to find out more about Call USA from UK, call us today on 800-084-3663

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Don’t Let The Grinch Steal Christmas: Take Your Business To The Cloud

Diksha Gusain

Author

Contact Center

December 10, 2020

8 mins read eye

Table of content

Well, folks, it’s that time of the year again. Raise your hand if you get cosy and start bingeing Christmas movies as soon as December begins (or even earlier, I won’t judge). I plead guilty as well.

We can finally bring out the mistletoe, candy canes and ugly sweaters, and jam to carols. After all, just because the pandemic has thrown a damper on 2020 doesn’t mean it can steal our holiday spirit—even the Grinch’s heart grew thrice its size on Christmas!

Navigating this season in a remote set-up could seem daunting and time-consuming. But fret not, even though you are physically apart, you can still stay virtually connected with the latest cloud technologies.

What’s cloud communication, you ask?

It’s what the world runs on in this day and age. As beings with noses stuck inside smartphone screens, we primarily communicate over the Internet. Calls, texts, videos—all through the cloud.

This is also the technology that helps businesses thrive in high seasons. And you can use the solution too, to help your business through the festive rush. Not just to stay connected with customers, but also to keep employees engaged and aligned with your goals.

So let’s get into it. Here’s how you, as a company, can use cloud communications to prepare for Christmas.

‘Tis the season to be charitable

Christmas is a festival that celebrates the sentiments of giving and sharing—not just for loved ones, but to everyone in the world. It’s the perfect time to extend support to causes you believe in and inspire people to join your mission of helping the less fortunate.

This brings a sense of community that better connects your business with customers, while also showcasing your core values and place in the society. You’re essentially able to curate a positive brand image and reputation. Additionally, you attract people that are passionate about the same causes as you.

The cloud helps you spread your message across better and gives people easy pathways to join you. Simply send a broadcast of your support to different charities and allow people to respond or contribute. These broadcasts are cost-effective and can be sent to your customers, and also to a wider audience.

Other cloud-based solutions, like hosted phone systems and toll free number, make it possible for you and your customers to connect with each other more efficiently at affordable rates.

This way, you’re interacting with way more people and are likely to attract like-minded clients to build a lasting partnership.

Holiday routing with no blockages

Energies are high in the holiday season. With Christmas preparations and gifting in full gear, businesses tend to gain a lot of traction. On the other hand, you also need to be mindful of the burden on your employees and their personal commitments.

So what do you do?

To quote the American entrepreneur Jessica Jackley, “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”

In other words: delegate. Use the latest automation features that cloud solutions offer to manage your workflow like a pro. Leverage Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) to manage all your communication tools and bring them on a single platform.

An intelligent multi-level IVR can be used to determine the level of the query. So, while simpler issues can be resolved by self-service, only the high priority tasks will involve live agents.

These calls will be routed accurately and swiftly to the appropriate extension. This will free up your agents to focus only on the complex queries, instead of getting bogged down by mundane issues.

An auto-attendant can also make sure that no caller goes unaccounted for, even if the office is low on staff. People can leave voicemails which will be sent to the agents’ inboxes with transcripts. They can quickly review the problem and get back to the client in a jiffy.

The calls can also be routed using the holiday routing strategy. This involves redirecting calls to alternate phone lines available especially for the holiday season or plays a special voicemail for the occasion.

Similarly, all missed calls will be recorded in your call logs along with the necessary client information and tags. No call needs to go unanswered, even in high traffic situations.

Season’s greetings, new and improved

Out of sight, out of mind is just a school of thought—but why test the theory? Maintaining communication with customers is always important, but even more so during the holidays.

Spread the holiday cheer around by sending season’s greetings to your loyal clientele. A simple message, full of positivity and support, can truly light up someone’s day.

Use automated calls and bulk SMS features to send wishes to your large target base simultaneously. Make sure you’re a part of their cheer and in a positive light.

But why stop there? You can also send voice broadcasts regarding Christmas offers, campaigns, and gifts, especially to express gratitude to long-time and VIP customers. Even small gestures such as these go a long way in etching your brand into people’s hearts.

With dirt-cheap cloud solutions, you need not worry about phone bills for such promotions and can focus your budgets on the offer itself.

What’s Christmas without carols?

Whether you’re a fan of classic carols like Silent Night and Deck the Halls, or go gaga over Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas, there’s no denying the cosy sentiments these songs evoke in us.

Needless to say, if people call you and are put on hold, you need to ensure they have a pleasant time even while waiting. So bring out the tunes.

Customised music-on-hold is a super attractive feature of cloud phone systems. Instead of making callers suffer through mind-numbing beeps, just play some festive music. You’re much more likely to have successful conversations when the customers are happier from the get-go.

And the best part is, there’s a variety of songs to pick from and you can even upload your own music. Just keep rotating them—and clients can have a totally new experience when they call again.

Bring out some friendly competition with fun contests

All work and no play… well, you know the rest. A relationship between a business and a customer needn’t be purely transactional.

The holiday season is the best time to get people on board for engaging contests. You can offer prizes and giveaways to further encourage participation. Send out personalised e-invites to people for special competitions and broadcast large-scale contests.

For example, you may give prizes for the most aesthetic Christmas trees. Or have a big award for the customer who uses your product or service most creatively.

In fact, why not take this up a notch? Hold a virtual awards ceremony (if the Emmys can do it, so can you). With high definition cloud connectivity, you can hold an online event, and even record it so that you can share it later! Utilising the video conferencing solution, you can keep your event exclusive to your loyal customers.

People can share their acceptance speeches virtually and send congratulatory wishes over chat simultaneously.

As we’ve discussed, there are so many ways to establish a Christmas connection with clients. But that’s not enough. You also need to look at the happiness of the employees and do your bit to share some joy with them.

And that’s not difficult at all. Get your staff involved with activities like:

Virtual Christmas party

What better way to share the festive joy than face-to-face? With the cloud’s large-scale video conferencing capabilities, you can hold virtual parties with ease. Get some drinks, play jolly music and host fun games like Mad Libs, Charades or Pictionary. It’s a great idea to have a Christmas-themed online scavenger hunt as well.

Secret Santa

Everyone loves getting gifts. But add in the secrecy twist, and you’ve got yourself a really fun event. Secret Santa basically involves the random assignment of giftees and gifters, and you don’t know who’s going to get something for you.

The fun is in determining your colleague’s taste well, and then actually guessing who gave you the gift. You can simply place an order online (with secure cloud transactions) and have it delivered to your assigned colleague’s address. Then you can host a video call where people will open their gifts together and guess who their Santa was!

Holiday movie night

Watching movies with someone is a different experience than doing it alone. Considering we have no shortage of festive movies, you can host a viewing party where people can watch a film together (or marathon a series of cringeworthy holiday movies). With food, entertainment and funny commentary, it’s the perfect recipe for an engaging and bonding experience.

Flexible work hours for festive teams

Christmas is all about family. Maintaining that work-life balance is really important, and cloud offers you just the right amount of flexibility to pull it off. Allow people to join the office network right from home, be a part of meetings, share critical files, track team progress, and much more.

VoIP makes remote working easy. You can make high-quality calls even on low bandwidth.

And while your employees are connected from their home network, you can rest assured about your data security. Cloud technology comes with end-to-end encryption and multiple layers of security.

They can have more time with their loved ones and work flexibility around the holiday responsibilities. Automation further helps reduce the workload on agents and smooth out the processes.

Conclusion

We’re a resilient bunch of people. Christmas is here, and it’s all about joy, caring, colours, and a lot of festivities. Businesses and customers alike feel this rush—so a remote set-up need not become an obstacle.

Keep customers and employees connected, engaged, and in the right spirit with the help of a variety of cloud communication tools. The rest will work itself out.

Curious about how to take your business to the cloud, and what benefits you can avail? Get in touch with us at 1888-859-0450 or send an email to [email protected] and we’ll be right with you. And a very Merry Christmas to you.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Diksha Gusain

Author

Hosted PBX vs SIP Trunking: Which One is Better For Your Business?

Acefone Editor

Author

Phone System

December 9, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Hosted PBX (Private Branch Exchange) and SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) Trunking are different solutions but united in bringing a range of exciting features to business communications. If you want to enjoy the benefits of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), the first question you’ll need to ask is whether to opt for hosted PBX or SIP trunking.

This article will explore what hosted PBX and SIP trunking really are, their differences, and why these differences matter. When switching to VoIP, it’s important to make an informed decision and choose the most suitable system for your needs. So, take some time to look carefully through the main differences and reach out to our team if you’re left unsure of your requirements.

Read on to find out the amazing benefits of both Hosted PBX and SIP trunking for modern businesses.

What is hosted PBX?

A hosted PBX system works entirely on the cloud. These phone systems are managed off-site by a third-party company. This allows businesses to connect to the office network from anywhere in the world and at any time of the day—as long as they have an Internet connection.

Additionally, hosted PBX systems can be accessed from multiple compatible devices, making it possible to switch from one device to another seamlessly. This means that hosted phone systems lend themselves to working remotely, or working on the move.

Hosted VoIP systems also make it unnecessary for businesses to deploy specialised infrastructure or equipment. They can simply enjoy enterprise-grade communications wherever they are. This also eliminates the need for a physical office space, and can be a great solution for smaller businesses that still want to achieve a level of professionalism.

What is SIP trunking?

A SIP trunk connects your existing telephone system to the Internet. This means that you can use your existing hardware and still enjoy the benefits of VoIP—all you need is a virtual connection between your telephone equipment and a VoIP service.

SIP trunking is ideal for businesses that have made significant investments in their telephone equipment and would like to manage an in-house phone system. Businesses with larger and more experienced IT teams may lean towards it as they have the resources to ensure smooth operations without having to rely on external agents.

A SIP trunk will introduce your business to a more reliable communication system and many exciting features as compared to a traditional phone system.

How do SIP trunking and Hosted PBX differ?

While both these services have their similarities, such as relatively low set-up costs and similar monthly costs, they do differ quite a lot in other areas. To make an informed decision, you must compare the following elements and see which solution best suits your business needs—now and in the future.

1. Maintenance and ongoing costs

If you choose SIP trunking and connect your existing telephony equipment to the Internet, you are likely to receive a monthly maintenance bill. Further, if your IT team does not have the expertise to deal with your advanced phone system, you’ll need to hire an engineer for updates, repairs, and general upkeep.

Although maintenance can sometimes be included in your contract, emergency call-outs for repairs or anything outside of your contract could end up being extremely costly.

Hosted PBX differs from SIP trunking in this aspect—all maintenance and updates can be completed remotely by your provider, meaning no extra costs for you! You just need to ensure your devices are working effectively and everything else is taken care of by your provider. Without the burden of heavy and expensive infrastructure, you are much less likely to run into unexpected problems or costs.

2. Growth and flexibility

With SIP trunking, you can add lines to your phone system as and when you need them. However, adding lines here also requires the addition of new (and often expensive) hardware, which can limit free hiring.

With a hosted PBX system, you can easily add and remove lines online, and new recruits can connect to your phone system from their own devices immediately. There is no need for any extra hardware.

If your business is seasonal and you need extra hands for certain periods of the year, a hosted PBX would be the better choice. You can add and remove these temporary workers at will without the hassle of dealing with hardware, as is the case with SIP trunks.

It’s also notable that SIP trunking provides a greater degree of flexibility in comparison to a traditional phone system. It allows employees to access a range of VoIP features such as video conferencing, call recording, and more. These capabilities allow your communication system to be used more flexibly throughout your business.

These same capabilities are accessible from a hosted PBX system as well, with the added benefit of not requiring hardware. So you could essentially relocate or simply add and remove lines and features with total convenience.

If your business is heavily reliant on a static physical office without much movement of employees, a SIP trunk would be perfect for you. You can use your existing phone hardware and utilise all the resources of the office building.

On the other hand, if you’re considering expanding to allow remote workers to join you, need employees to travel for work, or don’t have a set office building, then a hosted PBX system may be the better option for you.

Put simply, both solutions can work extremely well depending on your business requirements!

3. Recovery in times of crises

Another question you must ask yourself is: what if something happened to your office premises? Or what would happen if you couldn’t get to your workspace for any reason. Would business come to a halt? If the answer is yes, then you should look for a solution that is the safest in times of crises.

Many people were thrown into a work-from-home model during COVID-19, with lockdowns across the world. Luckily, both SIP trunking and Hosted PBX came to people’s rescue. Both these solutions can handle such a transition with ease—SIP trunking by forwarding calls from the office phone and hosted PBX with its ability to work on any compatible device.

However, if something were to compromise your office building, a SIP trunk may not offer the protection needed to get you back up and running. An engineer will need to come out and complete the repairs which can take a lot of time and can be extremely costly.

In contrast, a remotely hosted PBX system can have you back on your feet within seconds so your business is never interrupted.

As a business owner, you must think very carefully about how quickly you can recover and have a solid plan in place just in case something unexpected happens.

Why do these differences matter?

It’s quite simple. One decision can be the difference between your business getting the best out of its hosted phone system or not! Investing in any change or new phone system needs a lot of careful consideration as it would determine just how smoothly your operations will run in the long-term.

What suits your business now, may not suit you in the future. It’s important to consider all the differences and ensure that whatever solution you choose, it will work for you as your business grows and expands, not just at the current time.

If you need some help figuring out which solution is right for your business, don’t hesitate to call our friendly team on 1888-859-0450 to discuss your business needs. You can even email us at [email protected] and we’ll get right back to you.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Acefone Editor

Author

Acefone provides a broad range of cloud communication services to businesses of all sizes, which includes Hosted Phone Systems, Free Phone Numbers, and Cloud Contact Center Solutions. Being the UK's leading provider of VoIP service provider, we always strive to provide excellent customer service and high-quality custom solutions to our customers.

Effective Feedback: Game Changer in Quality Management

Acefone Editor

Author

Call Center

7 mins read eye

Table of content

For someone who is a part of a call center in any way, be it an employee or manager, the most important aspect to consider is what the client wants. Then, the question that follows is: are we satisfying these needs?

“We all need feedback. That’s how we improve.” These are the words of the one and only—Mr. Bill Gates, on the importance of customer reviews. Quality and feedback always go hand-in-hand. After all, the best way to improve is by knowing what your customers feel about you.

Constructive criticism will also improve your agents’ performance drastically. However, delivering corrective feedback comes with its own challenges. Unfortunately, there are a number of loopholes that can derail this process, such as:

(a) Lack of Confidence

Confronting employees with the results of their feedback or potential issues can be tough. While some managers do it with grace, others may doubt their ability to handle such situations. This greatly impacts the transparency of feedback.

(b) Vague Feedback

Managers providing vague or non-specific feedback often fail to motivate their agents to do better or point them in the right direction. Non-targeted feedback often fails to provide real-time examples and actionable suggestions, vital for improving overall performance.

Providing timely, effective and transparent feedback plays a very important role in employee engagement and improving their work satisfaction as well. To empower call center leaders and improve agent performance, we’ve curated some effective practices that will help deliver impactful feedback.

(1) Consider Customer Feedback as a ‘Starting Point’ Towards Better Customer Service

If you want to implement a continuous improvement plan for your call center’s service quality, the best place to start would be by gathering consumers’ responses to build an assessment. This practice helps understand the current scenario and design new experiences.

(2) Effective Feedback is a Two-way Street

While customer critiques hold enormous value and we believe all feedback is good feedback, you’ve only truly won if you heed the responses and act on them promptly. When we say feedback should be a two-way street, we mean that it should also be acted upon and not just listened to.

(3) Be Consistent with Feedback

They say there’s no better time than now. Reflect upon a situation is as soon as it happens. If you see something positive, say it then and there. For example, when you see an agent doing well on call, do not wait for a month-end meeting —instead do a little thumbs up right away to let them know.

This puts employees in a positive frame of mind, and they act accordingly. It also makes the employee feel valued and boosts their energy and confidence to perform even better in the future.

(4) Let Agents Self-evaluate

When someone initiates the conversation of self-evaluation, be it employees or companies, things tend to flow seamlessly. Both the parties remain open to feedback compared to when it’s a unilateral process.

Impactful feedback is more than just the communication of client comments. It requires meaningful dialogue and parties who are open to encouragement as well as criticism.

Of course, the art of giving criticism is just as important as the ability to receive it.

So How can You Effectively Phrase Feedback to Measure Call Centre Performance?

Be neutral and objective: Feedback should be free of personal bias and emotions. Base your comments on observations, data and concrete figures so that your agents do not feel dumbfounded or cornered.
Empathize: Never forget to listen to the other party’s point of view during a feedback session. This makes agents feel understood and they are more receptive towards implementation of the feedback given.
Start with praise: In case it’s negative feedback, don’t jump to criticism right away. Instead, start with the aspects of their performance that you do appreciate and then segue into critical aspects of it.
Pair feedback with real-time examples: Call center performance evaluation must include relevant examples to help drive home your point.

Simply put, feedback is important at every step of the quality evaluation process. Now that the features of an effective feedback session are clear, let’s move on to creating a call center quality evaluation process that works for you.

(a) Call Analysis

While it’s ideal to trust the capabilities of your agents, there will always be scope for improvement––for them to deliver a service that fits the company culture perfectly.

Call monitoring is the first step towards setting up an effective quality assurance method. By keeping a record of customer-agent interactions, you get to know the quality of the conversations firsthand.

Other important aspects that are highlighted by call monitoring are:

Impactful service delivery methods
If the agent’s tone is in line with the company
If issues are being identified and resolved within stipulated time

Based on the results of these recordings, managers can also create personalized and targeted sessions to improve specific skill sets and train new recruits.

(b) Leveraging Reports to Enhance Quality

Comprehensive and graphic reports based on call center data enable managers to decipher the service levels better. They also let you sort the data and metrics using filters for specific quality parameters.

Call center performance needs a holistic approach across departments and agents, and putting data at your fingertips helps make informed decisions.

(c) Consistent Training

Training should be a consistent and on-going aspect rather than being an occasional effort, and call center quality management lets you do just that.

Implementing a timely and personalized learning process equips your agents with essential tools and eliminates the fluff that can otherwise go unnoticed.

However, don’t try to measure everything

We are living in an information-intensive environment. By including and measuring all the KPIs under the sun, it makes it very difficult to evaluate what really matters.

The transition of quality management from conventional scoring to measuring the overall quality of the interaction.

Effective-feedback

By focusing heavily on rigid measurements, your quality assurance framework might be right, but you may miss out on other important aspects. Smart organizations realize that checkbox approaches such as “Did you say customer’s name at least thrice on a call?” never result in great customer experiences.

Instead, companies should concentrate on the overall outcome of customer delight. Flexibility is key and providing agents with the autonomy to conduct themselves over calls boosts confidence and motivation, and in turn, the overall outcome of customer satisfaction.

Opt for Cloud Solutions for a 360-degree Feedback System

To stay updated on the technology front, you need to look for solutions that are highly flexible and, yet, scalable at the same time. Cloud services provide you with a robust analytics system and real-time feedback. They offer features such as call recording and data insights which are vital to performance evaluation.

Quick wins that Quality Assurance Managers Can Implement Easily

Introducing a comprehensive cycle of collecting data, analyzing it and training the agents surely guarantees excellent quality assurance. However, if you want to start slow, begin with these practices for immediate results:

Ensure that your metrics and KPIs really contribute towards quality assurance. Consider Average Call Handling Time or AHT. A commonly used metric, it can actually be detrimental to the quality assessment process if agents are focused on the duration of call rather than customer satisfaction.
Keep a holistic approach when it comes to customer communication. Scripts should only be used as references. Real value lies in looking at a conversation from the customer’s point of view. If they’re happy with the outcome, you should be too.
Make sure that the insights you collect are not only negative but positive too. Agents should feel comfortable about the feedback session rather than just having their shortcomings pointed out to them. A little praise takes everyone a long way.

By following these strategies, your call center will have a more motivated and focused workforce. Your agents will experience a higher level of engagement and, hence, job satisfaction. Effective quality assurance practices will also boost productivity and collaboration so that your organization works together like a well-oiled machine.

There is no shortage of latest technologies and tools to aid ideal quality assurance processes. However, with a lack of appropriate strategies or goal understanding, these tools can fall short of their objectives.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Acefone Editor

Author

How Cloud Communication Can Help In Improving Inbound Marketing?

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

December 8, 2020

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Generic marketing techniques are no longer effective. The need of the hour is to understand the specific requirements of your customers and solve their problems.

Nobody likes their inbox filled to the brim with sales emails. It is the customer who decides what product to buy and which brand to associate with. Therefore, your business must be ready to connect with people in the most convenient ways. Inbound marketing is the answer—across industries and business sizes.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is a potential method used to improve your brand’s visibility amongst the target audience using curated content. This includes blog posts, social media posts, website content, and infographics to name a few.

Content delivered through inbound marketing should be educational, engaging, and interesting to attract your prospects on the lookout for the right purchase.

For example, consider someone who is interested in purchasing a laptop. He will research the internet, visit your competitor’s website for information, and compare pricing.

Through your inbound marketing strategy, you can reach out to this prospect by offering useful information about your product. You may use your website, social media platforms, or blog posts to showcase how your product stands out.

Why should you focus on improving your inbound marketing techniques?

Inbound marketing helps you to draw in your customers towards your brand. Instead of simply shoving your products and services on the customer’s face or interrupting your target base with mundane emails, inbound marketing offers the opportunity to deliver contextual experiences to your customers.

It helps you communicate the value of your products and services to your customers and cater to their particular needs. This methodology attracts customers to your brand when they feel it is time to make a purchase.

Furthermore, when your inbound marketing strategy begins to promote your business, it automatically attracts prospects organically.

This results in a surge in website traffic and helps in bringing higher ROI with marketing analytics. With so many benefits at hand, don’t you think it is high time you work towards boosting the quality of your inbound marketing techniques?

Here, we have consolidated a few ways about how using cloud communication helps improve inbound marketing. Check them out right away!

According to a Forbes’ report, inbound marketing generates three times more leads than traditional methods.

1. Provides centralised access to data

The current pandemic has made businesses rethink their traditional working methods. It has made stakeholders realise the importance of and the need for remote work.

One major challenge remote work has to address is access to sensitive data. When your inbound marketing team works from home, it is important that they be provided with the appropriate tools to access customer information.

Cloud-based inbound marketing pushes centralised access to data. It saves all your information on the cloud which allows your team to retrieve data from anywhere across the globe irrespective of the device they use.

Furthermore, the cloud facilitates simultaneous file updates, sharing of documents, and sending and receiving information. This feature ensures that your team can work uninterruptedly from the comfort of their home.

Consider a scenario where your marketing team needs to collaborate and discuss a campaign initiation. A cloud-based system can easily facilitate video conferencing equipped with data required for the meeting. Your team members can virtually meet each other and plan strategies.

2. Offers cloud-based phone system

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a cloud-based telephone system that enables your entire inbound marketing team to connect over the Internet. You won’t need to stay near your desk phone attend to customer calls. You can use your IP phone to connect with your system and work from anywhere in the world.

This feature especially proves beneficial in a distributed organisational setup or in situations like this current pandemic when employees are not able to work on-premise. VoIP helps in uninterrupted inbound marketing while ensuring the comfort of the users.

Furthermore, cloud-based systems help you reach out to talent pools across the globe. You need not restrict your recruitment to locals. This helps improve the quality of your workforce.

3. Provides powerful analytical tools

Analysing and obtaining intuitive insights from data is crucial to the success of every inbound marketing strategy. Cloud-based systems are competent to track and monitor inbound marketing initiatives.

Cloud-based analytical tools also help in deriving insights about inbound marketing campaigns like SMS, contests, and customer surveys that have worked best with the target audience and those that have not been successful.

These tools help you understand the shifting trends and demands of your target audience along with offering the support to test marketing channels with minimal risk and determining ways that have been accepted by the target audience.

4. Ensures high-end data security

Your inbound marketing team deals with sensitive business information day-in and day-out. The slightest breach of this information can have a huge negative impact on your brand. With cloud-based inbound marketing techniques, you can rest assured that your data is secure.

Data stored on the cloud is secured by state-of-the-art security protocols. Even in cases where your team will need to work from home and access data through their devices, cloud-based systems provide access to critical data only after appropriate authentication. This system adheres to a role-based authentication where access is provided only if the responsibilities of the user demand access to the data. Again, a multi-level authentication mechanism is implemented to make sure your data remains unharmed.

Moreover, cloud-based systems are managed completely by cloud service providers. They take complete charge of updates and maintenance of your system. This feature not only frees you from the trouble of maintaining this system but also helps you focus on other core business activities.

Additionally, your service provider makes sure to update the system periodically. This ensures adherence to the latest security protocols thereby securing your customer data efficiently.

5. Offers backup and disaster recovery

In case of a crisis, where you have lost all your data, it may become impossible to bounce back and provide uninterrupted service to your customers through inbound marketing. This may hit your brand’s reputation. For example, you may have to stop posting blogs, feed your social media with information, or break promotional campaigns.

Cloud-based marketing has a state-of-the-art backup mechanism in place that helps you to retrieve your lost information quickly. The cloud manages centralised data centers in distributed locations that enable you to save a copy of your data. This feature allows you to restore your data thereby helping you to restart work in a faster manner during an unprecedented situation.

6. Helps save costs

Setting up an in-house data center may cost you a lot. A cloud-based system helps you enjoy the benefits of a centralised data center at minimal costs. You are saved from the trouble of maintaining the system and dedicating a separate team to administer it. These are automatically taken charge by your cloud service provider leaving your team with more time to concentrate on core marketing activities.

Parting words

It has become important to find newer and effective ways to connect with your customers. Your target audience should be able to contact you whenever they need your help. This kind of uninterrupted service is facilitated by a cloud-based inbound marketing kiosk.

Hopefully, the above-mentioned points throw light on the importance of inbound marketing and how adopting cloud technologies can help improve it.

Looking for ways to further optimise your inbound marketing? Contact Acefone at 1888-859-0450 or send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll help you out.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Expert Opinion: Customer Experience Is The Pillar of Modern Business Says Tiffany Carpenter

Tavishi Arora

Author

Expert Opinion

December 7, 2020

8 mins read eye

Table of content

“Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.”

-Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon

Resilience and agility. The two most-spoken aspects of the business arena today. Companies that have survived the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic can confirm one thing: at the heart of their operations is incredible customer experience.

Yet, this can not be the only approach to guarantee success. Entrepreneurs will do everything they can to serve their customers with top-notch service until externalities make it a challenge.

So, what can you do to maintain a strong relationship with your customers? It boils down to one thing: make efforts and keep trying. The dedication you show will definitely be rewarding in the long run.

Your customers appreciate your attempts to keep them happy and that is what ensures success.

However, this drives us to an interminable question of how to achieve top-grade customer experience? How to improve our customer interactions? What do experts think about customer experience?

We talked about customer experience strategies and much more in our recent interview with Tiffany Carpenter—a thought leader and keynote speaker. She has spent 2 decades transforming customer experience for businesses across their sales, service, and marketing operations.

Currently, she guides organisations on the application of advanced analytics and AI to harness customer insights and deliver a highly-personalised service. In addition to being a member of the CMO council, she is the co-founder of Griswold, a boutique fitness concept that delivers personalised fitness programs based on data and analytics.

Here’s what she thinks of the contemporary CX approach and how businesses can guarantee a seamless customer journey.

Q1. What made you choose the field of CX?

I started out my career advising organisations on how to optimise their contact centers to balance customer service while optimising operating costs and profitability.

Back then, the contact center was a growing channel and digital channels didn’t exist as a means of customer interaction. Websites were brochureware and phones weren’t smart. My career in CX has been a progression as the Internet, social media and smartphones empowered the customers; organisations needed to respond by adopting a more outside-in approach.

Q2. How would you define a good customer experience?

A good customer experience is the sum of every interaction that brands have had with their consumers across their entire relationship. It’s the way a customer feels and their emotive sentiment attached to the brand—both during and after all these interactions—and it’s the basis on which many consumers decide to keep transacting with a brand.

Consumers today have increasing expectations and more choices than ever before. To that end, a good customer experience not only meets expectations but exceeds them to make customers want to come back.

Q3. What’s the best way to ensure a seamless customer experience?

Consumers don’t think in channels and they don’t care that your organisation might have complex processes and siloed business units. They see one brand and expect a seamless and consistent experience regardless of how, when and where they choose to interact.

To ensure a seamless experience, organisations need an always-on approach to data and analytics which continuously monitor customer behaviour and pick-up customer insights. This always-on approach must also process and analyse all these signals and act on the insights in a timely way—often in real-time.

For most organisations, this means moving beyond the use of analytics just for reporting and business intelligence and investing in real-time analytics and automated decisions. It’s the only way to pick-up individual customer signals within the noise of data and to create personalised responses in real-time, regardless of the channel.

Q4. How would you define your journey as a customer experience expert?

It’s a personal learning process—a journey that will never end as the only constant is change. Knowing that the work I do is driving change for the better of an organisation, employees, and customers are very rewarding.

Q5. What are some of the best CX tips that you’ve offered? How do you feel when your customers achieve success with your aid?

Whether your goal is to fundamentally transform the customer experience or to improve it at the margins, your CX strategy needs to be clearly understood by the rest of the organisation. I recommend that companies start by defining their vision as a set of statements. These guidelines can act as guiding principles which will drive the behaviour of the entire organisation.

Next up, you need to understand your customers and identify the gap between their expectations and their actual experiences. Gathering data is the starting point but it’s important to ensure you are asking the right questions of the data. Check if you are only asking the “what” and “how” questions but that you are also asking the important “who” and “why” questions. Who are my customers as individuals? Why do they behave as they do?

My final tip would be to avoid waiting on lengthy IT projects and big-budget programmes to build a single customer view and instead prioritise action today using the data you have available right now.

Q6. How do you think inspiring keynote speaker performances help businesses deliver superior customer experience?

Keynote speakers bring an outside perspective and can share industry trends and tips as well as real-life experiences. An inspiring CX keynote speaker can get everyone involved, share the vision of customer experience, help audience members step into their customer shoes and energise the entire organisation to get on board and play their part in driving customer experience towards the future goal.

Q7. Please share an instance where a company successfully went the extra mile for their customers.

Covid-19 created an unexpected and extreme set of customer challenges for every organisation. Despite this, brands across every industry have risen to the occasion. Many of them have acted decisively and quickly to make tremendous transformations in the customer experience, breaking down traditional barriers to change and find new ways of working more effectively and efficiently.

In fact, research by SAS Software and 3Gem reveals that a quarter (25%) of customers surveyed noted an improvement in the customer experience during the lockdown.

The pandemic and resulting recession are pushing customers to the brink both financially and mentally and I have been heartened by so many organisations, from large well-known brands to small family businesses that have stepped up to support their customers and communities, through the crisis, winning customer loyalty in the process.

Q8. Tell us about your journey of becoming the co-founder of Griswold Studios.

Health and fitness are fundamental to our quality of life and regardless of your age, there’s strong evidence that being physically active can help you lead a healthier and happier life. But the business model in the gym industry relies on aggressively selling memberships, not on customer outcomes.

How many people do you know who pay an annual gym membership and turned up once or maybe twice per year? It can also be quite an intimidating experience for many. As an avid health and fitness enthusiasts, my husband and I determined to shake up the model. We have built a boutique fitness studio, focused on customer outcomes, specialised experiences, a sense of community and inclusion, and flexible participation.

Our business model is built on customer experience from the moment a customer walks in the door to the moment they leave. We started with our customers’ wants and needs and worked backwards in designing our space and offerings.

We’ve hired employees who are committed to our CX vision and delivering successful customer outcomes for every member. The best thing is, I have been able to establish and grow a business with my husband, whilst balancing my full-time role at Head of Customer Experience Solutions at SAS Software, the global analytics, and artificial intelligence leader.

Q9. In the two decades of your career, there has been much advancement in AI and related technology. What do you think of using these advanced technologies in delivering CX?

Everywhere you look today you can see Artificial intelligence is making our lives easier. Smart speakers and smart appliances are infiltrating our homes, whilst businesses are transforming and automating legacy processes. At the same time, organisations everywhere are looking to compete on CX, and AI has an important role to play in turning customer data into insights and delivering the type of real-time, individualised experiences that customers have come to expect.

Over the next few years, organisations will increasingly harness the power of machine learning to predict customer needs and automate highly personalised experiences at scale. Self-learning algorithms will determine the best next action for each individual customer, from product recommendations and customer service right through to delivering personalised pricing and offers. AI is already being adopted faster than the arrival of the internet and it’s delivering hyper-personalised customer experiences across almost every industry today.

Q10. Are you working on a new book? If yes, can you tell us what we can look forward to?

I do have a book in the works. It’s still in its early stages, but I’m planning to provide practical advice to help executives understand the promise of AI with concrete examples, and how it can be used to compete on customer experience. Luckily, I’m able to draw on the experience of my company SAS Software, a leader in this space. I’ve been interviewing colleagues and customers to bring together a wide range of views, experiences, and practical examples.

Acefone’s contact center solutions offer downloadable data that you can use to track your CX strategy and figure out the gap between your clients’ expectations and the services you provide. The technology is easy to use and can be used from anywhere on earth, allowing your agents to give their best to your customers. Acefone’s contact centers have a 99.9% uptime and experts to assist you 24×7 should you have any questions. Up your customer service experience by leveraging the latest cloud telephony solutions. Create stronger customer relationships with the help of these latest tools.

Call 1888-859-0450 or email at [email protected] now to get started.

About the Expert

Tiffany Carpenter is a customer experience guru with over two decades of experience helping organizations change customer experience through their sales, service and marketing departments. Currently, she works at Microsoft where she advises organizations on the use of data, digital technology and artificial intelligence to change employee collaboration and customer experience for the better.

Carpenter is also an advisory board member of the CMO Council and co-founder of Griswold Studios, a boutique fitness concept that uses data and analytics to deliver personalized fitness programs

You can learn more about Tiffany on her LinkedIn or connect with her over Twitter.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

Reviews

0(0)

Tavishi Arora

Author

Tavishi is an outgoing person and you will find her near books, dogs, or artsy cafes. She is a fitness freak who also loves to hog. Connect with her on Linkedin and Facebook