Year: 2016

Benefits of Cloud technology, Cloud computing benefits

Scalability, online storage, cost-effectiveness – are the three most publicized benefits of cloud computing. It won’t be an overstatement to say that based on these multiple benefits large and small companies get convinced of mapping their infrastructure to the cloud. But then are these 3 factors the only advantages of cloud? Or is it that cloud’s biggest benefits are hiding in plain sight?

Learn the Benefits of Cloud technology. Scalability, online storage, cost-effectiveness – are the three most publicized benefits of cloud computing. It won’t be an overstatement to say that based on these multiple benefits large and small companies get convinced of mapping their infrastructure to the cloud. But then are these 3 factors the only advantages of cloud? Or is it that cloud’s biggest benefits are hiding in plain sight?

Well, if you actually think, then post the signing of the agreement, setting up of the cloud process and training of the employees – the actual benefits of cloud occurs, the benefits that are not necessarily mentioned by the cloud vendors themselves.

According to a latest report by Forrester, Cost savings… elasticity…. load bursting are the secondary benefits of cloud. The real ones emerge later that provide far more value to the business than initially planned. Interesting isn’t it?

As the CIO of a leading merchandizing company states – ‘’it is amazing to see that post the cloud CRM software implementation, the more substantial benefits of cloud has been realized. I would define these as the icing on the cake. These unexpected but pleasant benefits of cloud have inevitably given my company the much needed opportunity to grow and expand.’’

So what are the unexpected benefits that companies gain from their virtualized setup? Here’s a snippet –

1. Flexibility: Think what holds a business from pursuing new ideas? Lack of time and money.  Let’s say you want to design a new app. Using the cloud technology, new configurations can be up and running within minutes. Since cloud has a pay-for-what-you-use model, you will only pay for the time you use the resources. Consequently, with less time and more money-save, you will get the liberty of constant innovation. Cloud technology will help you try out experimentations with extreme investments, without worrying about time and money.

2. Tried-and-tested formula: Few experts complain that cloud services offer the same platform for all business customers. They perceive cloud to offer homogenized services. However, this same characteristic of cloud can actually be seen in a positive light. Understand that due to the homogenized cloud services, new businesses immediately get exposed to proven formulas, processes and interfaces. Thanks to collective learning and sharing that makes businesses benefit from each other.

3. Quick and smooth mergers: Wonder why are the most mergers so prolonged and delayed? Needless to say it is the transferring of data from one system to another that makes merging a sticking point. Post the introduction of cloud technology, mergers and acquisitions have become relatively smooth and faster. Now consolidating agencies and departments are not an uphill task anymore. No more manual coding of information from system to another. The ultimate benefiter is the end-user who can rapidly access merged data in conjoined organizations using cloud-based systems.

4. Technological investments: Technological resources are the key to flourish in a hyper-competitive global economy. However, how many organizations are able to do so?  To lay hands on the latest technology, organizations need the guidance and leadership of their CTOs and CIOs (who are mostly busy supervising the IT systems). To validate this fact further, many statistics have come up which has shown that close to 80% of IT time and budgets are spent on routine maintenance.

Well, as we all know cloud frees up IT leaders from the boring routine maintenance. They have the time to think and choose the right technology resources for the business.

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How do you keep your clients happy

Are your clients happy, learn How do you keep your clients happy. You’re happy because customer attrition has been low in the past months. You’re happy because your customers are staying with you. But then, are your customers sticking with your brand or have got stuck with it?

What is the difference between sticking with a brand and being stuck with one?

Sticking with a brand happens only out of cent percent customer satisfaction. But if your customers aren’t happy with your brand but they are still staying with you, this is indeed an alarming situation!

In this case they’re not sticking with you—they’re stuck with you due to unavoidable reasons. These reasons can be any such as – lack of alternatives or hefty switching costs.

Remember customers do not want to be compelled to be tied to a brand. But in anyways, if your customers are finding it difficult to leave your company, you’re not building brand loyalty—and you’re definitely not building a great brand.

How can you convert your repeated buyers into genuine life-time customers?

To create valuable, sustainable customer relationships, you need to magnetize your customers —with effective emotional connections which will ultimately lead to True Brand Loyalty.

Virgin America executive comments – ‘’People decide which brands to stick with based on how the brands make them feel; which is why all good brands aim at wining customers’ hearts than their wallets. Instead of concentrating on selling products, they strive to forge close emotional ties with their customers.’’

How to establish an Emotional Connection with Customers?

  1. Prioritize long-term customer relationships over short-term salAlthough this is a universally-recognized business tip, the fact remains that hardly a few handful of brands abide by it. You can say that the pressure to generate immediate return on investment often compel companies to put sales ahead of relationships.

What we suggest – Sales leaders (in particular) need to understand this. They need to control their urge to chase the sale, by building a firm commitment toward developing brand identity.

  1. Focus on your brand to determine business expansion plaMost often, companies use product categories to determine business scope and scale. Understand that if you focus on creating deeper emotional bonds, automatically it will bring in product innovations and company expansions.
  2. Understand the nature of your businessVirgin America does not perceive its business as to gain more number of passengers yearly. Its focus is to always provide its customers with an unforgettable experience that adds value to their trip.

Similarly, you need to change the perception towards your business by understanding it nature. Then only can you (like Virgin America) continuously redefine consumer expectations and uplift the standard of industry.

Role of CRM in building strong customer relations

CRM expert comments – ‘’Great brands have the same business goals as others such as – long-term customer loyalty, retention, and satisfaction. However, great brands are able to achieve their goals by using the CRM in forging personal and meaningful bonds with customers. ‘’

CRM helps businesses to proactively stay in touch with the customers. With a 360 degree view of customer in hand, brands are much enabled to treat customers like special guests. They tend to their needs and make sure they’re comfortable and content.

How can you use the CRM to build emotional connectivity with customers?

  • Schedule simple reminder activities that prompt your users, to proactively follow up with customers.

For example if you offer pet grooming services, then you can use the cloud CRM software to set reminders for grooming dates. Getting reminder from CRM, your customer support team can remind customers when their dog is due for grooming. Customers will more likely continue with you if they see that you care about their pets as much as they do.

  • Checking last date of transaction, you can use the CRM to identify customers who has not been in contact from a long time. To restore the connection, you can send a newsletter/email informing about the launch of latest product/service.

Alternatively, you can segment active and high value customers in high priority for everyone.

  • CRM allows you to track time sensitive detail such as expiry date of customers’ membership. You can set reminders around these and inform customers in advance to boost renewal rates.
  • Based on the customer order history and preferences – you can personalize your emails with dynamic content.

For example, if a customer has booked beach destinations earlier, then you can include beach vacation deals in the e-mail.

  • Using the Social CRM, you can track your customer’s social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Google+. This will keep your users up to date with customers’ activity and also help them make new interactions with customers from CRM. Inevitably, doing this will develop brand loyalty.

How to provide better customer service

A few days back, I came across an interesting article on how SMBs were going down the success ladder through their wrong customer actions. From use of slang talk to bad grammar, there were many such examples of negative customer service actions. Unfortunately all of us have come across such bad customer service actions where we have felt like saying – ‘These customer reps do not have any clue of their jobs’.

Do you know how to provide better customer service, here is that cheat sheet to help you lead the way in customer servicing. A few days back, I came across an interesting article on how SMBs were going down the success ladder through their wrong customer actions. From use of slang talk to bad grammar, there were many such examples of negative customer service actions.

Unfortunately all of us have come across such bad customer service actions where we have felt like saying – ‘These customer reps do not have any clue of their jobs’.

Sadly there is a possibility that your own customers might be listening to the same negative customer service actions that you complain about. (A check on how your customer reps are handling your customers is what you can do to find out).

If you find what is called a ‘’your call is most important to us’ starting note followed by a next 10 minute solo speech from the customer rep – then indeed you need to quickly work upon your customer service strategy, before your customers start getting frustrated.

So here are 12 customer service actions that you and your customer service reps should follow to bring about a 100% customer satisfaction rate:

  1. Train your customer reps thoroughly about the products/services so that they can solve the customers’ problems in the first call.
  2. Train your customer reps to have a positive and friendly attitude over the call.
  3. Make sure your customer reps do not sound scripted. Prevent them from using a standard approach towards all customers.  Remember personalized is the key to good customer experience.
  4. Train your customer reps to be a patient listener. They should not jump to conclusions without identifying what the customer needs.
  5. Train your customer reps to address the customers by their names to make them feel important.
  6. Make sure your customer reps do not up-sell products/services irrelevant to the customers.
  7. If possible, use IVR menus. This will prevent your customers from going through several stages to speak to the customer rep.
  8. Do not have a repetitive hold music that can irritate the customers.
  9. Try and keep the on-hold time short. Remember long on-hold time can put your company under a negative light.

10.Display the customer helpline numbers on your website to make it easy for your customers to contact you.

11.Do integrate your cloud CRM with the telephony for the convenience of the customer reps.

12.Send post call surveys to your customers to get their feedback about the call.

Is following the above-mentioned customer service actions compulsory?

Today customers are very smart. They know exactly when their feedback is not taken seriously. In most situations, they lack the patience of customer service reps catering to their problem over days/weeks. What they want is instant or quick results. And if you do not provide them the same, they move.

Many of you might say that customers even after making up their mind to move take a bit of time before the actual switch. Well, even if they stay for a grace period, they tell others about their bad experience. And as we all know that in today’s always online society, viral publicity (good or bad) affects a company big time.

This is precisely why you need to follow a systematic customer strategy. Analysis of data, listening to customers, fixing of broken communication touchpoints and finally installing a cloud based CRM for small business is needed to improve customer experience.

For those who are still in doubt, cloud-based CRM is one of the most crucial tools for business’s bottom line. It gives you clear picture about the exact relation of your company with its customers. As a company owner, you need to understand that every company face chunks of rocks in their route to customer satisfaction. It depends on you whether you want to overcome them or stop right there.

 

Patricia is a full time CRM consultant at ConvergeHub and part-time blogger. She has earned herself quite a fame as a specialist and market expert in CRM software. In the last five year she has worked with various companies as CRM consultant to help them move their businesses to cloud. Her expertise lies in offering cloud CRM consultation, CRM customization and integration solutions to small enterprises. For last one she is engaged in building ConvergeHub, cloud-based CRM solution for SMBs, as a consultant.Follow her at Twitter: @convergehub

What Does Excellent Customer Service Mean

The importance of customer service is known to all. However, in spite of this, not many are able to score high on this area. Reason being that most businesses are still not aware of the elements that differentiate a standard customer service from an excellent one. In this blog, we explain that one rare factor that elevates the level of customer service and empowers businesses to win the loyalty of their customers for lifetime.

What Does Excellent Customer Service Mean. Say hello to the new category of fast-growing small and medium-sized businesses – they are passionate to grow, to innovate, and to outstrip their biggest competitors. They understand it’s the Age of the Customer and are hell bent on providing a stellar customer service. But in the pursuit of delighting customers, they have missed out on the fundamentals of customer service.

They have started and jumped straightaway to Z instead of learning and strengthening the basics (A,B,C) first. Resultant of which, the efforts put by the SMBs are often getting negated because they haven’t got their basics correct.

Basics of Customer Service: Consistency

Today’s customers are social, mobile, and always connected. They want fast answers wherever they are and whichever time it is. But most importantly not only do they expect to receive service on the channel of their choice, they expect to receive a CONSISTENT experience as they traverse across channels. They value ‘consistency’ more than ever and expect customer-facing representatives to have prior knowledge of all their past interactions.

Quoting the words of Adam Toporek – ”People are creatures of habit — they enjoy knowing what something is going to be and then having it be that way. As a result, people’s happiness with any given experience is usually based on the expectations they have carried into it. This makes consistency of service a fundamental attribute of excellence of service.”

Principal Analyst at Forrester Research Kate Leggett also states the same viewpoint. Paraphrasing an excerpt from her article – Right from marketing to sales and service, customers expect the same level and quality of experience across all communication channels. And this can only be possible when businesses have an understanding of customers past purchase history and prior interactions. This ensures that every interaction starts off as a continuation to the previous interaction. Customers do not have to repeat their query or introduce themselves when migrating from one communication channel to another during a multilevel interaction.

Consistency drives Customer Loyalty
In majority of cases, customers start their journey by visiting the business website and gradually move to interact with the business through other channels such as live chat, email, social media and call. If the perception of the business formed through the website matches with the interactions happened in live chat, email, social media and call, customers get encouraged to make the purchase and continue the association for a long time.

Alfonso Pulido, Dorian Stone and John Strevel of McKinsey & Company conducted a survey and concluded that consistency created a positive emotional response among customers that increased satisfaction and fostered loyalty.
Quoting an excerpt from Tibor Shanto’s article – ”I go to the coffee chain Starbucks not because they are the best, but because I appreciate the quality, consistency and predictability of the experience. No matter if I am in Toronto, Las Vegas, London or Grand Rapids, the experience is consistent. Put this way: when it comes to the nectar of the gods, I don’t want any surprises. I want the hit I am expecting and that’s exactly what Starbucks gives me – from the surroundings, the atmosphere, the coffee, to the disciples of Landru baristas. All satisfying my expectations, Starbucks provides a predictability I find worth paying a premium for.”
This extract clearly shows how Starbucks enjoys the loyalty of thousands of customers because it provides a consistent experience throughout all locations.

How to deliver a consistent customer experience?
The first step is to have brainstorming sessions and come up with well-defined customer service standards. Once done, comes the most essential task: communicating about the customer service standards to all the customer-facing employees. Merely informing about these will not serve the purpose. To ensure successful execution, it is essential to convey the benefits and objectives of the customer service standards. For instance, employees should have clear answers to:

  • Why were these customer service standards chosen?
  • What objective is being aimed for through these service standards?
  • What is the best way to implement these standards?

Customer experience consultant Micah Solomon has a unique take on setting up the employees to implement the service standards. Quoting an excerpt from his article –
”Consider using the acronym PEPI as your framework:
1. Purpose: Inspire employees with a clear sense of the purpose of their organization, and their purpose in the organization—and help them grow their understanding of how your service standards support these.
2. Enforce intelligently: Keep things simple, keep them visual, and reinforce, reinforce, reinforce.
3. Peer pressure: Positive peer pressure is a must.
4. Input: Employees are able to have a say in the refinements, changes, and even possible future abolition of the standard.”

The role of Technology
Customer consistency can be achieved with the right mix of approach, people and technology. So once approach and people are ready, comes the technology section. New age CRM software that functions as Customer Engagement platform is the perfect solution required to deliver a consistent customer experience across all communication channels. That is because it empowers businesses to:

  • Work on every interaction happened over all communication channels, in a same standard manner
  • Have a full view of all interactions that customers have had over all communication channels
  • Access updated data stored in a centralized repository, to communicate one same message to the customers.

Final Thoughts
Every business understands the importance of customers and works hard to deliver service in a friendly, timely and accurate manner. But while they manage to create WOW moments for some customers, they drop the ball for many others which eventually makes the end result zero.
To ensure that you do not have to face the same plight, embrace consistency as your USP. Whether you have hundreds, thousands or lacs of customers – make sure that a same standard of service experience is being delivered consistently to all at all channels and time. Once you start doing this, you can create significant competitive advantage and increase customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Businesses are embracing the Digital Revolution and how!

Customers are the primary force behind digital transformation. In view of the fact that people are using social networks and digital interactive tools to carry out tasks, it’s a compulsion for businesses to embrace digital devices and operating models to form a competitive differentiation in the market. The IBM 2010 Global CEO Study has discussed in detail about this trend. In what holds further is a summarized and paraphrased version of a few selective key takeaways from the Report.

Customers are the primary force behind the shift of businesses to digital transformation. In view of the fact that the common people are using social networks and digital interactive tools to carry out majority of their tasks, it’s no less than a compulsion for the businesses to undertake the path to digital transformation.

That’s precisely why you have businesses embrace the innovative digital devices and operating models to form a competitive differentiation in the market.

The IBM 2010 Global CEO Study has discussed in detail about this trend, highlighting the common apprehensions that businesses are going through.

In what holds below is a summarized and paraphrased version of a few selective key takeaways from the Report. Take a look –

Age of the Customer combined with the Digital Age has resulted into a stellar combination. Responding to the customers demands, businesses are using information technology to

improve productivity and efficiency

reach new target markets

optimize the supply and service chains to better cater to customers.

The shift to Digital Transformation is a part of this endeavor too. As people have started exhaustively using the social and digital devices to do their tasks – it’s expected of the businesses to change their strategies and respond to this shift.

But the question is how to do it? How can businesses innovate, differentiate and grow in this Digital Age? How can they leverage, integrate and optimize the newest digital technologies?

Well it’s not that difficult. Experts opine that all that is required is a cohesive strategy for a successful digital transformation.

On the path to Digital Transformation, the focus primarily needs to be on two areas:

Using digital technologies for fostering better customer relations

Using digital technologies for redefining the operating model.

And to do so, businesses need to build a new set of frameworks that allows them to progress along both areas equally.

1. Using digital technologies for fostering better customer relations

Digital technologies can play an instrumental role in strengthening the customer relations. With the help of the right digital tools, businesses can enhance and redefine their customers experience. Let’s see how –

a. Bettering the quality of the products and services

Product and service improvement is an ongoing cycle. Businesses need to continue doing this to better the offerings and meet the dynamic expectations of their customers. Using this logic, some renowned businesses have incorporated digital technologies to augment their products and services.

Example – Automotive companies have started providing digital media access to enhance their customers’ automotive experience. Many have added in new features to their products, taking inputs from the virtual communities. How cool, isn’t it?

b. Expanding offerings for new revenue streams

Capitalizing the digital technology, businesses can create various prospects of increasing their revenue. And that’s exactly what one of the renowned toy companies has done.

Example – Toy company named Webkinz has started providing to all its customers the facility to venture into the online world and accessorize their pets. This idea has garnered immense praise from the customers. In addition to this, it has opened an additional stream of revenue for the company by selling the customer data to other marketers.

c. Redefining the products and services core elements

This is the final and by far the most exhaustive way to better customer relationships with the use of the digital technology. It’s all about completely transforming the existing product and service concept to give customers a totally brand new thing that they would be compelled to pay for.

Example – Medical device manufacturers have created the new-age disease-monitoring devices that can communicate about a patient’s condition to remote caregivers. Undoubtedly, this device with the added feature of message transmission has caught the attention of the people.

Note: Although till now very few businesses have totally revamped their products and services by seizing the digital revolution, the future predicts many other businesses to initiate something in these lines. Reason – this step guarantees optimum benefit if done right.

2. Using digital technologies for redefining the operating model

Businesses need to implement stratagems that hint towards the development and honing of their operating model. Once the operational model is improved, it automatically results into increased productivity gains. Let’s see how –

a. Initiation of New Digital Capabilities

That’s nothing but the engagement of customers through digital channels, such as online social communities. One of the companies to be the pioneer in doing this is none but Burberry.

Post the establishment of its brand, it created an online channel for customer engagement. Customers got the option to digitally view the fashion shows via the internet and order online during the events.

Benefit: Online streaming gave an all-new convenience to the customers. Now they could shop anytime and easily click on the web site to engage a representative by phone or text chat.

b. Leveraging information across channels to better handle customers

Once businesses have initialized multiple digital channels – the next step is to leverage the insights derived from them. Capturing and streamlining the multi-channel data through tools like cloud CRM for small business, entrepreneurs can extract actionable insights from these and provide most value to the customers. They can use the CRM to share the data across departments and equip the employees to better handle customers queries and demands.

c. Integrating digital and physical channels

This is the ultimate step where businesses need to integrate all the traditional and digital channels to provide a cohesive and united service to the customers at all touch points.

Example – Tesco that has fully reshaped its operating model by merging the traditional channels with the newly-built self-service checkouts.

Benefit: Customers get integrated information at all points of the journey as they move from marketing to sales to service.

How CRM is a necessity for every small business

Managing sales, marketing and customer relationships can be a daunting task for every business. Especially for the small businesses and start-ups who do not have the budget to invest in multiple software applications. Luckily, there is CRM that saves the small businesses from the trap of different standalone systems by managing nearly every area of a business. This blog defines the importance of CRM and gives you a mini-guide on selecting the right CRM software for your business.

CRM is a necessity, do you feel that? Dealing with existing customers and acquiring new ones into loop is dominantly a challenge for most small businesses. By far and large, Customer Relationship Management is the strongest and the most efficient approach to tackle this challenge. Unlike other software models that specifically concentrate on one area of business, the new-age CRMs have evolved from a simple contact management system into a robust tool that carries the power of multi-channel marketing, offers the framework to build a well-defined sales process and streamlines all customer conversations/interactions. All this together empowers a business to increase the lead acquisition rate, up the sales figures and maintain and create valuable relationships with customers.

And this is precisely where the benefit of using CRM software lies; which is accomplishing organization-wide tasks from one centralized hub. CRMs can also seamlessly synchronize data from other areas of the business without any additional technical assistance. In short, installing a robust CRM platform empowers the entrepreneurs to cope with all the areas with the least amount of effort; and drive the business to new levels of success.

Choosing the right CRM software

There are 240+ CRMs in the market which obviously makes it tough for the small business owners. The market is no less like a Bermuda Triangle where often owners get lost in the CRM features jargons and buzzwords.

To guide you through this maze, we have put together the infographic below, which serves as a primer for introducing our CRM application ConvergeHub.

In the old and mature CRM market which is already brimming with different vendors, ConvergeHub has made an impact by demonstrating innovation in its approach to help organizations better manage their sales, marketing and customer relationships.

Check out the infographic to gain a complete picture about the software, and let us know: Does ConvergeHub ring value for your small business?

How to exceed customer expectations

Customer Service is the key to business growth. Whether you are an established business expanded across the world or a bootstrapped SMB with limited human and financial resources – good customer service is what will take you far. Read this blog to learn four compelling ways in which you can outshine the expectations of your customers to build a strong and positive name of your business. Simple yet effective – these tips will help you meet the needs of today’s modern customers.

How to exceed customer expectations, have you ever planned or thought about it, if not let’s do it. It’s tough to meet customer expectations, let alone exceed them. However, with little tricks even the smallest company who is in its infancy stage can set a new record of outstanding customer service.

Needless to say, the ripple effects of outstanding customer service automatically pave the way to outshine customer expectations.

So here we are dishing out 4 exclusive ways to provide outstanding customer service and outclass customers’ expectations. Take a look and also get real case studies from some top notch leaders.

1. If you make a mistake, admit it, apologize, and fix it

In short, be accountable to the customer. Remember, apologies through a product/service return or money refund will always cost you less than bad press from an unhappy customer.

We suggest: Recall a similar experience where a company had failed to meet your expectations (as a customer) and later fixed the issue brilliantly. Make a list of things the vendor did to make that experience a good one for you. Implement any of these right now.

Case Study

Well-known Wallet Manufacturer, Rogue Industries sent an apology letter to all the clients who received defective products from their online store. And what made this whole gesture more appealing was the free replacement that came along with the letter.

Unsurprisingly, this initiative won great positive reviews on the social platform. Customers acknowledged the fact how the company proactively recognized its slip-up and then immediately fixed it up for free.

Without a doubt, this step not only exceeded the expectations of the customers (who may have been upset with the quality of the original product) but also laid a strong foundation of customer loyalty.

What you learn?

Not every customer experience is going to turn out a winner. Even the best of companies can do the blunder. It’s important to realize when you’ve stuffed up and make it right, quickly.

2. Go the extra mile and surprise your customers

For delivering a truly exceptional service, go the extra mile and do something your customers won’t usually expect.

In this festive season, sending shopping coupons, a Christmas gift, or a box of chocolates can be a great idea. However, somewhere or the other, these things are becoming run-of-the-mill with time. Moreover, you do not need any special occasion to surprise your customers. As a company, you should look for opportunities regularly to surprise your customers and surpass their expectations.

Case Study

Callaway, an up market manufacturer of golf equipment set an outstanding example of exceeding customer expectations. It directly parceled a product to a customer’s house that was looking for a replacement grip for his putter.

The story goes like this – George, an avid Callaway user, emailed the Callaway Customer Service Team, inquiring about replacement grips for the putter. He clearly mentioned that he had been looking for the putter online, but has been unable to find it till now.

Callaway customer service representative simply asked for George’s home address and shipped one over for free.

This act was followed by multiple testimonials from George. Not only did he shared this amazing experience online but also ensured to advocate the company on all possible platforms.

What you learn?

It’s not always necessary to do something grand to make a difference. Small yet substantial acts can enable a company exceed customer expectations. What is required is that companies keep looking for these small opportunities to offer excellent customer service and outshine customer expectations.

3. Take your customers’ interaction beyond sale

Do not pander to industry myths that ask you to concentrate only on sale. Instead try and build an intimate conversation with your customers. Focus your time and resources on understanding your customers’ actual priorities. This is one of the best ways to exceed your customers’ expectations.

Case Study

Zappos – a leading shoe manufacturer is considered by many as the one of the companies that delivers the worlds best customer service. Here’s a look at one of the instances where it went out of its way to exceed customer expectations –

A customer ordered six pairs of shoes from Zappos. While she took the two, she decided to return the other four. She called up the customer service representative to find out what she needed to do to return the other four. In the middle of the conversation, the customer explained how she had just come out of harsh diabetes medical treatment which made her feet sensitive to pressure. Resultant of which, she ordered for the specific pair of shoes from Zappos.

With Zappos100% returns policy, the company immediately took the four shoes back. However, two days later, an enormous bouquet of lilies and roses went to the customer’s place, from the Zappos customer service representative!

This gesture showed exactly how considerate Zappos is towards its customers. It really care about its customers and went an extra mile in its effort to leave a lasting impression.

What you learn?

Personalize your customer interactions. It always works. While interacting with the customers, – anticipate possible issues, demonstrate knowledge and recommend solutions.

4. Speed up your problem-solving service

Speed is the essence of any good customer service. Hence ensuring that a customer’s problem is understood quickly and that they do not have to re-explain themselves should be the fundamental of every company’s customer service policy. Implementing this practice not just guarantees complete customer satisfaction, but ensures that customers’ expectations are exceeded on every occasion.

Case Study

Amazon has been known worldwide for delivering exceptional customer service.

One particular example of this is cited below.

One of the Amazon’s customers called up at their customer service department explaining how the play-station that he ordered got picked up by someone else from his doorstep before he came home. Completely aware that Amazon was not responsible for this plight, the customer just requested for a discount in the new play-station that he was about to order.

To his surprise, the Amazon customer service representative had another PlayStation shipped out to his home, just in time! And that’s not it – Amazon didn’t even charge him for shipping!

What you learn?

Just like Amazon, companies need to go above and beyond, to outdo customers’ expectations, especially when it comes to solving the predicaments of customers. Only then will they have a strong base of happy and loyal customers who will forever be spreading their love and talking about their amazing experience with the company.

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Five steps to buy a CRM solution for your business

According to Gartner report, many failed CRM cases have occurred because the decision makers overlooked the initial steps of the CRM selection and implementation process. The first step to buy CRM is to ensure that the business executives and business decision makers understand the CRM system and the core CRM setup. 1. Understand the CRM Concept: There’s no point of investing in a CRM if you and your people have a vague understanding of this software tool. Remember once you are equipped with all the necessary information, it can be easy for you to test the knowledge base of the vendors. Let’s say, you can ask your vendor for a few functionalities and see if they can explain them in simple terms. If the vendor fails to provide a convincing explanation on the functionality of their CRM application- do not buy it.

Five steps to buy a CRM, learn the system with us. According to Gartner report, many failed CRM cases have occurred because the decision makers overlooked the initial steps of the CRM selection and implementation process.

The first step to buy CRM is to ensure that the business executives and business decision makers understand the CRM system and the core CRM setup.

  1. Understand the CRM Concept: There’s no point of investing in a CRM if you and your people have a vague understanding of this software tool. Remember once you are equipped with all the necessary information, it can be easy for you to test the knowledge base of the vendors. Let’s say, you can ask your vendor for a few functionalities and see if they can explain them in simple terms. If the vendor fails to provide a convincing explanation on the functionality of their CRM application- do not buy it.

The second step to buy CRM is to develop a thorough understanding of how your business works.

  1. Know your business: We make assumptions about how our business works; the gulf between those assumptions and reality can be dramatic. Executing a thorough mapping of how the business processes work is important. The best way to do this is to start with the processes that aren’t working. These processes will represent problems that your CRM solution should solve; or things that your employees can do better.

Note: Executing a process-mapping exercise can be difficult especially because no one wants to hear that a process he or she manages is broken or inefficient. To avoid any such situations of awkwardness in your organization, you can hire a third party consultant to carry out this step.

At the end of the mapping process, you should have a list of processes you need to improve. This guide will help you make a list of must-have features in the CRM application.

The third step to buy CRM is to choose the right people for the team.

  1. Think about the people who will be involved in selecting the CRM: Most often CRM selection is made without input from the people who use them. Do not follow the same strategy. Understand while the involvement of the executives and IT leaders is important, end user adoption holds greater significance. A detailed understanding of how the people work; their personal pain points, concerns, objectives, fears and suggested improvement areas can help in choosing the CRM application with the right fit.

Note: many companies involve a fraction of users to give their inputs in the CRM selection process. Doing this ensures that the company has a better understanding of what the users think is important, and later when the selection is made, there is a team of end users who can help accelerate adoption among their peers

The fourth step to buy CRM is to understand your regulatory realities.

  1. Understand the information system linkages that will meet the compliance requirements: HIPAA is important for health care industries. Similarly, Graham Leach Bliley is applicable for financial services and Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) requirements for public companies. Remember each regulatory body mandates specific ways in which data can be handled.

The fifth step to buy CRM is to consider the budgetary concerns.

  1. Frame an estimated budget: The ideal way to decide the budget is by first understanding the two different delivery models of the CRM – traditional on-premise vs. cloud CRM solutions.

Traditionally-delivered on-premise software: It requires users to own and maintain the technology infrastructure viz. servers, storage, disaster recovery and networking capabilities, plus personnel. On-premise CRM solution involves an initial cost along with an annual maintenance fee.

Cloud-based SaaS software: Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model in which the applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider. The application is made available to customers over a network, (typically the Internet). While there is no infrastructure cost, the software cost is applicable in a monthly subscription basis.

Note: earlier, the smaller, cash-constrained companies used the cloud while the larger companies with IT resources used on-premise. However, gradually, this division has blurred. Increasingly, large companies are employing cloud-based applications due to the several benefits that it poses such as shift of labor costs and hardware requirements to the vendor.

First 6 steps to choose the right CRM for your business

Investing in the right CRM solution will help maximize your profits, cut your operating costs, and boost IT efficiencies, but with many options available, what selection criteria should you use to make the right decision for your company? Knowing that not all CRM solutions are equal, it becomes a matter of serious thought to choose the right one.

Do you know you are loosing business & leads, choose the right CRM for your business and stop getting sleepless nights on missing out on opportunities. Investing in the right CRM solution will help maximize your profits, cut your operating costs, and boost IT efficiencies, but with many options available, what selection criteria should you use to make the right decision for your company? Knowing that not all CRM solutions are equal, it becomes a matter of serious thought to choose the right one.

In what follows is a step-by-step evaluation process to help you zero in on the right CRM. Take a look –

1. Define your purpose

Before you dive in, it’s important to understand why your business requires a CRM. A well planned CRM strategy coupled with the right technology can prove to be very powerful – only if you know what precise goals you want to achieve through it.

  • Do you want to produce powerful sales and business insights that will make your business more profitable?
  • Do you want to scale your operation to make it more productive?
  • Do you want to centralize your business and make it more organized?
  • Do you want an organized history of your contacts, leads, accounts and deals?

Write down the goals to keep you grounded throughout the selection process. Remember you will be able to evaluate the CRM options better if you are clear about your end goals.

2. Time frame

How soon do you want or need to have your CRM up and running? Remember there’s no point investing in a CRM that you have to wait nearly a year to use? Do ask the CRM vendor how long they expect the implementation to take.

Your job isn’t done when the CRM is working; it’s only complete when your team is actually using it. So do take into account factors such as busy seasons and other company events that may get in the way of a timely implementation and adoption.

3. Adoption

With so much money invested in CRM, it’s important to address an alarming concern that can hinder your CRM strategy– a low adoption rate. Look for a CRM solution that encourages user adoption. In the words of a CRM strategist – ‘’Find a CRM partner who minimizes friction so your team can easily use it.’’

2 factors to ensure higher user adoption:

Zero Input

Too much time should not be put into feeding the data into the CRM. Remember you do not want to turn your top salespeople into typists. Henceforth, try and choose a CRM that has easy and quick data import/export feature.

Easy UX

No one wants to work with a confusing CRM with too many unnecessary fields. CRMs help produce profits, not by virtue of their existence, but because they smoothen the sales cycle. They track the tasks and data relevant to closing deals. Consequently, look for the CRM with a great UX that helps you customize the software according to your business requirement.

4. Mobility

A CRM that works when you’re sitting at your desk might not necessarily work in the field, or on a plane. Worried? Well, mobility is a key-driver in overall CRM value to make sure the experience is seamless from desktop to mobile. As a result, try and look for the solution that meets your team’s needs, irrespective of their geographical location

Questions worth considering:

  • Is the experience in desktop and mobile smooth?
  • Does the CRM offer mobile applications for Android and Windows?
  • Does the CRM automatically sync to ensure information is up to date all the time?

5. Integration with other tools

What are the key tools or programs you need the CRM to work with? Select a CRM that integrates with the tools your company already uses. This will help you manage your entire business from a single interface, without having to juggle with multiple browsers.

Factors to consider:

  • What email/FAX marketing tools does the CRM integrate with?
  • Does it have an online meeting and video conferencing software like GoToMeeting?
  • Does it offer integrations with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn?
  • What about document storage like Box?

6. Annual Cost of the CRM

Now that we’ve established that you do in fact have good reason to invest in a CRM, we’re cutting right to the chase. It’s important to know if you can actually afford the CRM services you’re evaluating.

Annual Cost = Number of Users x Cost per Month

Figure out how many people in your company will be using the CRM, and then visit the company website you’re evaluating to figure out their subscription fee per month.

Cloud based CRM systems are ideal because they typically don’t require a development fee up front. As a result, you can pay on a per month basis and can easily monitor your cash flow. Many large and small businesses use cloud CRM applications due to benefits such as easy administration, mobility, collaboration, automatic upgrades, patch management and compatibility.

Stay Connect with Convergehub customer relationship management

How to improve social customer service

Social media is the leading medium for customers to voice opinions about companies and their products or services. As a result every company is hell bent on delivering social customer service. But only few are successfully managing to do so. Why? Expectations of speedy replies and immediate attention which requires a systematized approach from the companies’ side. This blog discusses the three tenets of social customer service that can be used to implement a successful social customer-service plan:

An examination and taste How to improve social customer service. Social Media is the new podium for customer service. On one hand where it presents major challenges for the companies, on the other it also brings major opportunities for them to elevate their service level.

If companies get social customer service right, then nothing’s going to stop them from making it big in their industry. Not only will their customers get satisfied but also turn into advocates for the brand. (How wonderful is that?)

And all this will happen at a much lesser spending on service & support.

So what do the stats suggest? How successfully are companies delivering social customer service?

Sadly, too many businesses are getting it wrong. Wrong perception, incompetent policies, and ineffective implementation – multiple factors are contributing together to a failed social customer service.

In this blog, we’re going to present an overall idea of social customer service and suggest ideas about what you should do.

The Three Tenets of Social Customer Service

To realize the full potential of your social customer service, understand the three main tenets of it. Implementing them will empower you to proceed systematically and make a real tangible difference to your customer relationships.

#1 Listening

You can’t serve customers without knowing who they are and what they are talking – (it’s as simple as that)

So before you jump into the bandwagon excitedly, listen first. That will help you to get to know your customers better; identify your industry influencers, advocates and detractors

Remember, the temptation can be very high when you see your customers complaining about your product or acknowledging it on Twitter – but do not straight away dive in

Listening to your customers first will always pay dividends in the long run.

For instance, by merely listening to the customers you can understand:

• What are your customers posting on social media?

• Are there any specific groups/forums of your brand or industry?

With all these insights, you can proactively create a map of what you need to do in different social media platforms.

#2 Engaging

Determine the types of conversation that are important and respond to them in real-time. Remember social media is all about TIMELINESS

If you are not agile enough to provide the reply fast, – things are ought to go out of the hand.

In fact, a leading survey states that most of the customer service issues that blow up on social media are because of the sluggishness of the companies.

So make your service fast and responsive. Don’t panic, when we say fast customer service, it doesn’t mean that you have to solve the entire issue in 5 minutes. You just need to acknowledge the issue and begin the process of addressing it.

Tip: Use web CRM solution with active social media management capabilities. Using this tool will empower your team to keep a 24/7 tab on posts and reply to them via the CRM solution. Most importantly it will kill all the corporate silos. Since social media monitoring will be tightly integrated with your customer service system, your team can easily refer to the CRM data and get back to the customers with the correct replies. In short, not only does your team provide fast but correct service too.

With all these benefits – do you need anything else?

#3 Measurement

Let’s make it clear: you cannot have a forward-thinking social media strategy unless you do not measure and evaluate what you have done till now. So extract insights from your activity measure them and relate the results with your business goals. Adjust your strategy and establish social media guidelines accordingly.

Tip: You can get flabbergasted with ample metrics. Focus on only those that really matter.

Final Thoughts

In many ways, social customer service is way more effective from traditional customer service. It offers the easiest way to solve customers’ problems and make your ‘good’ customer service known to all.

And when you have your ‘good’ customer service promoted, you create evangelists who proactively market your products and services.

So act now. Remember almost every company is building its social business journey. Some are already active while others are taking their first preliminary steps. If you do not buck up – chances of lagging in the race can be very high.

What’s new in ConvergeHub (Release Update on 17th September 2016)

One of the common resistances towards CRM user adoption is the exhaustive data entry which comes along with it. Most CRM users complain of wasting hours entering chunks of information into the software which leaves them with little time to act. ConvergeHub has Quick Create Forms for all major modules such as Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Deals etc and has now extended it to other modules such as Lists, Cases, Knowledge Base, Notifications, Tags and Payments. This feature lets users add data into the CRM in seconds that enables them to concentrate on other critical matters.

CRMs function as centralized repositories that store comprehensive information about customers. This makes it easy for businesses to use CRM as a reference point for all customer data and deliver personalized experiences at all touchpoints.

How efficiently the CRM performs depends on the data inserted into it. But while sales agents dedicatedly fill all lead and contact details in the CRM, things become challenging when data has to be entered during another activity, say a sales call where they are interacting with the prospect or in a trade show, exhibition, conference and seminar where there are chances of meeting with several individuals that match ideal customer profile. In such events, filing up long forms to create leads and contacts takes up a toll.

For instance, sales agents have to enter their new prospect’s company name, industry, contact name, contact email, salutation, phone number, address, social links, status, lead source and so on. Once done, they have to save the information and go back to the sales module to open up a new lead or contact creation form.

This round and round navigation breaks the rhythm of the work process and slows things down. So when sales agents are quickly making calls, the call happens faster than entering information into the CRM. Similarly in networking events, sales agents invest chunk of time to fill up the lead and contact creation forms that decreases their productivity and diverts them from prospecting.

Some sales agents don’t enter the data timely, completely, accurately or at all in these critical situations. Does that help? No.

The Customer Relationship Management system then becomes progressively less useful with incomplete or inaccurate data inserted into it.

So ideally, CRM systems should have features that enable sales agents to create leads and contacts quickly and do what matters most – connecting with customers. But while other CRMs do not have anything like that, there is one new-age CRM that has made data entry job easy as a pie.

ConvergeHub: Quick Create Forms

ConvergeHub, the easiest converged CRM for SMBs, have shortcuts to create new leads and contacts. This eases the data entry burden on the sales agents who can add leads and contacts into the CRM in a few seconds.

Quick create forms are miniature versions of the actual data creation forms. They have fields to the minimum such as First Name, Last Name, Account Name, Source, Status, Contact Number, Email and Comments. So the most critical information about the leads and contacts gets entered and saved first while the remaining information is filled later into the CRM.

Special mention of the Save & New button that allows sales agents to keep adding new data without opening the form repeatedly. They do not have to follow a back and forth process where they create one lead, save it, click on new and again create another. Once the Quick Create form is filled, sales agents can click on Save & New to save the details and jump onto adding the next lead/contact. Save & New button ensures that the data gets saved in the CRM while the quick create form just gets refreshed to allow sales agents for filling up the next record details.

Quick Create Form, overall, offers simplified data entry, ease of use of the CRM and complete user adoption. Not to forget that it plays an instrumental role in making sales too. After all while other sales agents are busy entering piles of information into their CRMs, ConvergeHub’s quick create forms limit data entry to the salient information and empower sales agents to get freed up from the tedious, repetitive behind-the-scenes work and focus on engaging, communicating and collaborating with leads, prospects and customers.

How to use Quick Create Forms?

1. Click on the option Create Cases in Quick View.

Quick Create 12. Fill all the fields in the Quick Create Form.

Quick Create 23. Click on Save & New.

4. The data gets saved in the CRM while the form gets refreshed. Fill new data into the form.

Quick Create 3

The high demand of Quick Create Forms

Quick Create Forms have been one of the most loved features in ConvergeHub CRM – all thanks to the time-saving benefit it provides. Existing for Leads, Accounts, Contacts, Deals, Targets, Partner, Library, Events, Tasks, Automation, Sales Process, Projects, Sales Tools, Assignment Rules, Products, Quotes, Invoices and Reports, it has been extended to other modules such as Lists, Cases, Knowledge Base, Notifications, Tags and Payments.

So now ConvergeHub has 24 Quick-Create options more than any other major integrated CRM. This makes ConvergeHub the undisputed leader in the category of – CRM with the easiest data entry process. Isn’t it?

Next Step

Use Quick Create Forms and share how they save your hours which was otherwise lost in CRM data feeding. We’ll be waiting to hear your experiences.

Not an existing ConvergeHub User?

Sign up for ConvergeHub CRM now. Learn about ConvergeHub CRM through the following ways:

Thank you!

ConvergeHub

P.S. Twitter is a great place to reach us.

https://twitter.com/convergehub

Looking forward to see you there.

ConvergeHub with SkyDesktop, InfoStreet, SkyAppMarket

ConvergeHub CRM has joined SkyAppMarket and is now available to small businesses using in-browser cloud app platform – SkyDesktop. SkyDesktop users can choose from three different ConvergeHub editions called Lite, Professional and Premium as per their specific business requirements. Burdened with the management of sales, marketing, and customer success processes, they can lighten their load through automation in the CRM and convert more leads and build stronger customer relationships.

ConvergeHub with SkyDesktop, InfoStreet, SkyAppMarket. CRM software helps businesses manage their customer relationships. However, only a minimal percentage of small businesses admit of benefiting from their CRMs. Continue reading “ConvergeHub with SkyDesktop, InfoStreet, SkyAppMarket”