Conversational AI is a blend of voice and digital messaging that empowers customers to resolve various issues without speaking to a live agent. The technology is positively impacting the efficiency of customer service departments, tech support domains, and sales teams that employ it in the form of chatbots, virtual assistants, and intelligent virtual agents (IVAs).

The beauty of conversational AI lies in its ability to facilitate two-way, humanlike interactions with customers, using a blend of natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), deep learning, and contextual awareness. These two-way, humanlike interactions are central to what’s known as conversational CX. Conversational CX goes beyond transactional exchanges and provides customers with more personalized, convenient, and engaging experiences.

For example, some solutions utilize generative AI to take interactions between brands and customers to the next level. Mosaicx Expert, for instance, uses generative AI to understand customers’ questions and respond in a conversational manner with voice or chat.

Conversational CX can play a vital role in helping companies keep up with today’s competitive landscape. Here are four ways conversational CX can give your business a competitive edge:

No. 1: Deliver Self-service Capabilities

Conversational CX offers fast, seamless customer interactions through IVAs, empowering customers to resolve issues with self-service options. The evidence shows that a large share of customers—as much as 81% of them across all industries—prefer resolving certain problems rather than waiting on hold to speak to a live agent.

IVAs allow customers to receive instant, accurate responses to their inquiries any time of the day or night; no more waiting in long support queues or dealing with delayed responses. By catering to their needs promptly and naturally, conversational AI helps customers help themselves.

Delivering the self-service options customers crave can foster customer loyalty and advocacy because customers feel heard and valued. Loyal customers lead to higher lifetime value because they spend more, repeat their purchases and refer others to the brand. By cultivating a strong bond with customers through conversational CX, businesses build a formidable defense against the constant churn of the competitive market.

No. 2: Save Costs with Proactive Communications

Businesses can use conversational AI tools to deliver automated reminders to customers who have items in their online shopping cart but have yet to complete a purchase. These reminders can cut down cart abandonment rates, thereby directly increasing sales. It’s also important to note that organizations can brand these reminders to align with their voice and personalize them to be unique to the customer. After a set amount of time has passed, IVAs deliver cart abandonment reminders via text, email, or automated calls. To sweeten the deal, reminders can include a special offer alongside a link to the customer’s cart.

No. 3: Personalize Support

One of the most significant advantages of conversational CX is its focus on providing personalized support to customers. Oneway conversational CX delivers personalized support is through tools such as IVAs. IVAs have extensive datasets from previous interactions. Data might include:

• Customer preferences (e.g., language, channel, etc.)
• Pain points
• Behavior patterns (e.g., requesting support at a particular time of day)
• Purchase histories.

Virtual agents can analyze this data to personalize customer service, fostering a deeper and more meaningful relationship between the brand and the customer.

No. 4: Boost Employee Satisfaction

Happiness at work sells. In today’s complex labor market, top talent pays attention to various factors, not least whether employees say they like where they work. By enhancing the efficiency of day-to-day processes and reducing the demand for live agents to perform repetitive, high-volume tasks, conversational AI offers improved employee satisfaction and retention.

Strive for Conversational CX to Stand Out from the Pack

The versatility of conversational AI is evident across industries, from healthcare and finance to tourism and retail. Tools like IVAs can schedule appointments, offer tips, resolve queries, send outage alerts, and even help customers find special offers on the products they’re looking for. Offering customers seamless and natural interactions through conversational CX is a key differentiator in today’s crowded marketplace. Conversational CX is helping reshape the customer journey landscape while simultaneously elevating efficiency for customer service teams.

In all these ways, conversational CX is the driving force for success in today’s customer-centric world. The competitive advantage is yours for the taking.

About the Author

Rebecca Jones is the general manager of Mosaicx, a leading provider of customer service AI and cloud-based technology solutions for enterprise companies and institutions. Rebecca joined the West Technology Group, owner of Mosaicx, in January 2021, after a 25+ year career focused on growing businesses, people and client success. Rebecca also serves as a member of the board of the Families for Effective Autism Treatment (FEAT) of Louisville, KY, is an executive sponsor for Women of West, actively volunteers for The Molly Johnson Foundation that supports children with special needs, and champions causes promoting women in technology, including the IWL Foundation (Integrating Women Leaders Foundation), Tech Up for Women, and CCWomen.

Featured image was provided by Blake Wisz; Unsplash; Thanks!

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Staying Motivated

This could go for any top performer in any field. It’s an underpinning of success and necessary for any objective completion. Action completes tasks and motivation is the ability to rev up the engine.

Motivation on a goal-oriented mindset allows for the top salesperson to focus-in on the task’s achievement and level up their game accordingly. Served as “the desire to act in service of a goal,” being motivated translates into often relentless action (given the degree of motivation) towards the ascertainment of a given outcome. Being able to stay in this state is what allows for greater completion and thus more tasks being completed over time.

Being Goal-Oriented

If motivation is the hypothetical ability to drive forward, being goal oriented would seat itself as the destination to where you are heading. Motivation is the drive, but that in and of itself will not complete the puzzle. The capability to move does not mean productivity.

The top salespeople set lofty metrics, often both in terms of results and of expectations. Think I will make thirty calls in the next hour, or I will close three deals this week. Regardless of the particular metric in which they work the top sales individual focuses in on mapping a high objective and then working relentlessly toward it.

It is often better to fail at greatness than achieve at middling mediocrity.

Stay Focused

Top sales performers need to hone in on their objective, then be willing to work toward it. If both of these are achievable then the premiere salesperson will need to stay on track until the objective is met.

Focus is the ability to tailor your course to your goal and then shrug off distraction and detraction until the objective is achieved. It can help to take time to break down the bigger goals into readily available and achievable milestones. The point is to find whatever beats you as a salesperson require to stay involved.

Time Management

Another top habit of sales performers is time management, as everything you do in life will require time to complete. Everything. Making your bed, brushing your teeth, and reaching your goal. Feeling existential yet? Not to worry. While each task that is undertaken will require a specified amount of time this also means that the salesperson can allot the time needed to accomplish the task. Likewise, remaining time conscious allows the top salesperson to keep the objective in mind and be mentally available toward its completion.

Surround Yourself with Better Salespeople

Networking is huge. Via the top salesperson’s network, there are mentors, competitors, and potential clients that can all add benefit and status to the aspiring salesperson. Regardless of what the developing individual needs to up their sales acumen, it can be found in the network.

Sales mentors can offer advice. Competitors can push the salesman to dominate the market. Clients offer the saleswoman a chance at honing the craft and potentially closing the sale. Networking is huge for salesmen of all levels. Learning to properly network can be what even land you the deal in the first place.

Reading and Listening

The top salespeople are always concerned with how much information they know. Specifically, in what ways they know can help present them with the information or opportunity to lock in a deal. Listening and reading help the top salespeople know what to do, in potentially pivotal situations before they ever occur.

Many sales professionals have either spoken or written at length about their process, perspective, and nuances that have appeared to them over their tenure in sales. The shrewd sales-minded individual recognizes this and pulls from that pool of knowledge.

Remain Consistent

Often starting something off is deemed the hardest part. This typically holds true for sales. Yet, there is the discipline required to keep production high even after sales numbers begin to take off. The top salespeople are able to maintain a high level of action, motivation, and performance throughout their careers through focus and dedication. Keeping an eye on the level of production is a tip many salespeople advise. This is especially imperative as the sales novice starts down the road to becoming a veteran.

Knowing the Product

One of the top habits of sales performers is also the best advice. What the salesperson is selling can vary greatly, and while there are many philosophical outtakes to help a general sell-all mentality there is no makeup for knowing the thing that is being sold. The top salespeople on any given product need to have a thorough enough grasp on the thing and system in which they are selling to answer whatever questions a potential buyer may address.

Understanding the common thoughts, typical questions, and their frequency as well as the common woes of the individual on the opposite end of the sale allows for great closing rates among the top sales professionals. This also can offer insight into what areas of the product they should understand most thoroughly.

Persistence

In essence, persistence combines motivation, focus, consistency, and passion. There is no remedy for persistence. Passion is persistence’s best bedfellow. Passion and persistence make sales.

Persistence will often close whatever deal the top salesperson is facing largely off the point that no is not an operable answer until it is the only answer. Not conceding until necessary is an often unbecoming aspect of the typical salesman, but absolutely critical to a goal-oriented, top sales focus.

Mentality

Finally, the last top habit of sales performers is perspective. The lens through which you see the circumstances inform how you may address the world. By tailoring sales to produce agency, the top salesperson can put him or herself in a place where they are ready to look on to the next sale. Whether previously met with triumph or defeat, a strong mind creates the top salesperson’s most versatile weapon.

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This approach relies heavily on the ability of the salesperson to use nuance and their communicative ability to fetter out the proper and easiest path to sell the product. While both hard and soft selling could be equated to water – think something akin to the old Bruce Lee adage about water.

Soft selling in this sense is “becoming the cup.” Ascertaining the shape of your client’s needs and filling them appropriately based on the situation. While hard selling brings the client toward becoming accustomed to you, soft selling requires the salesman to become suited to the client.

In essence, there are three parts to an effective soft sell. Here is the general basis of soft selling listed below.

1. Ask Questions
2. Ascertain the Client’s Needs
3. Offer Appropriate Targeted Feedback

1. Asking Questions

Asking questions acts in essence to lay the groundwork for the rest of the sale. To keep the running theme of this article going, this is Jordan Belfort selling the pen – section starts at 1:36. This is the part where the needs of the client are assessed so that the proper service or product can be matched to the client. Salesmen are pushy facilitators – not con men.

By connecting the dots of needs and wants to purchase potential they are selling themselves time and likelihood of money. This is true of both soft and hard sales. Needs must be assessed and highly important and specific questions are necessary to properly figure out those desires. After this, it goes to the salesmen to listen well and think fast. This is where sales skills come into play.

2. Ascertaining the Client’s Needs

Largely done by positing the right questions as they appear in conversation, in this part the salesmen will begin building a profile of the buyer. I’m sure there’s a “Criminal Minds” reference here but it’s not really appropriate. By beginning to understand the client you can properly navigate them through and around your inventory. What time frame, what expense level, and maybe even what item they should be buying in the first place.

In this, a skilled salesman simultaneously operates passively in a conversation, while also formatting and effectively “cross-referencing” that with the inventory he’s able to capably move. Knowing the client’s needs is what will help you facilitate them toward the goal. This once again is part of both hard and soft selling.

3. Offer Appropriate Targeted Feedback (the Close)

This is the most distinguished difference existing between the two camps of hard and soft sales. Hard sales produce the offer in what is ultimately a more or less take-it-or-leave-it option. There can be possibilities for negotiation. But, these salespeople are here to close with that being the prime and typically only of their objectives. This is often referenced as the preferred method for short-term selling. Yet it can permeate into a long future of consumer/proprietor relationships.

Soft selling rather offers a more “friendly” consultation angle. Instead focusing on building a relationship and pursuing potential sales opportunities in the established relationship as they appear down the road. For your buzzword think, consultation.

This is the opportunity to implement the “Soft Sell” into your selling style. With all business and life, relationships are maintained through a mutual exchange of value. Be it real or perceived value is necessary. When working in a Brand to Brand (B2B) type business especially, the displayed value is often the best and most readily accepted way to present value within a company.

It’s free value, “it’s free real estate.” Offering a much more open consultation about services and products that can fit presented needs gives some salesmen an out for their conscience as you are providing an informed service.

Additionally, soft selling tendencies can also be employed freely in any form where a salesman opts to take a backseat and shelf their more assertive sales tactics. Once again opting to listen and inform the prospective buyer’s decision. This is an extremely employable method across the board that can and should be used in conjunction with hard selling to best navigate any tepid or tumultuous sale.

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How Abandoned Carts Undermine Potential Revenue

Abandoned carts are precisely what they sound like.

They’re the digital equivalent of filling your cart with items at a store, changing your mind about buying your cart’s contents, and walking out without making a purchase.

It’s worth pointing out that, in this case, it’s even worse. It’s much easier to add items to a digital cart, close out a window, and never look back.

It should come as no surprise that abandoned carts are a common issue for online retailers. This is easiest to explain via a retailer’s “abandonment rate.”

Customer Cart Abandonment Rate in Simple Terms

Your abandonment rate reflects the number of carts visitors generate on your site. The abandonment rate compares that to the number of purchases they complete.

For instance, consider if 100 people visit your Etsy site on a given day and create a shopping cart. If 36 of those people complete their purchases, your abandonment rate is 100 – 36 = 64%.

That number may sound high, but Baymard Institute begs to differ. The research organization reports that the average documented abandonment rate for online shopping carts as of August 2022 was 69.99%.

Steering Clear of Making Hasty Assumptions

The good news is that this number doesn’t represent potential customers who have definitively decided not to patronize your brand. On the contrary, there are many reasons for people to abandon carts while online shopping.

Statista lists things like slow delivery, excessive extra costs (like shipping), and the need to create an account as the primary reasons people didn’t cash out in 2022. It isn’t until the fourth reason on the list (just 18% didn’t trust a site with their credit card information) that the issue becomes more connected to specific failures on the part of the retailer.

In other words, in most cases an abandoned cart isn’t a burned bridge. It’s simply a failure to complete a purchase. This naturally implies that, if handled correctly, following up on abandoned carts can be a legitimate (and profitable) source of revenue for an e-commerce company. The question is, how?

Reclaiming Cart Abandonment Income

With so many abandoned carts out there, it’s important to consider multiple ways to reclaim that unrealized cash. Here are some different strategies to consider heading into 2023.

Send abandoned cart emails.

This is one of the most tried and true ways to follow up on an abandoned cart. If a potential customer gives you enough information (including an email address), you can send them an email reminding them about an abandoned cart.

When a shopper is a repeat buyer or an older customer with an account or purchase history with your brand, you can even personalize the message.

Retention.com points out that there are also ways to engage with anonymous cart abandoners. On-site software can collect first-party cookies, allowing you to reach out to unknown website visitors who filled a cart and left it behind.

Fire off a text message.

E-commerce website giant Shopify reports that nearly a third of all U.S. internet users used mobile devices to purchase something every week in 2021. The significant number of mobile shoppers makes text messages a solid alternative to an abandoned cart email.

When a mobile shopper leaves items in their cart in your app or mobile site, sending an SMS notification can be a perfect way to draw them back in. These are quick, subtle messages — and they aren’t seen as spam, either.

Try exit popups.

Abandoned carts are a time-sensitive issue. If someone leaves your site, there’s a good chance that they’re still shopping and want to find a better deal or an easier checkout process. This sense of urgency means the sooner you connect with a customer after they leave a cart, the better.

Exit intent popups allow you to do exactly that — before they even leave your site. These popups trigger when a user is about to leave a website. Hubspot explains that these should include offers or information that can draw potential customers back to their carts, such as a discount or free shipping.

Reclaiming Abandoned Cart Revenue in 2023

Customer cart abandonment revenue should never be an afterthought. It’s a significant source of potential revenue growth for most businesses.

Remember, a consumer who has gone as far as putting an item in a cart is close to being sold. They are much closer to the point of purchase than a new lead. They are far closer even than someone at the beginning of the customer journey.

Make sure to keep this dormant income in mind. Leverage it as you create and adjust your e-commerce strategies for the year ahead.

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Because the customer journey now has so many potential touchpoints, having a siloed CX team is no longer enough. Now, the customer experience needs to be a top priority across the organization — not just in the marketing department. Here’s what to consider as you make your company more customer-centric.

Product Teams Need Clarity on What Customers Want

Among the 71% of consumers who switched brands last year. 58% did so for better product quality, per Salesforce’s 2022 State of the Connected Consumer report. Customer centricity starts with knowing what your customers want, why they want it, and how they will use it. Even if the product team has access to the same customer persona data as the marketing team (and if they don’t, they should), deciding what products to build or source is a continual challenge that’s shaped by consumer trends, economic forces, and the quality of the supply chain.

Customer data can help inform product decisions if it’s granular and comprehensive enough. For example, in addition to knowing which existing products have sold well, the product team can use the voice of customer data from product reviews, social media conversations, and customer-service feedback to identify the features customers like and use and those they don’t.

AI-powered demand forecasting tools can help product teams see the details that can separate a winning product from a dud. One demand forecaster recommends testing products that include “20 or 30 customer-centric attributes” as opposed to a handful of merchant-focused attributes, then evaluating their appeal and forecasting demand with an algorithm that identifies the most important attributes to customers. That data can then go back into the algorithm along with the next season’s sales data. It creates more precise product selection and development over time.

Service Teams Need to See Complete Customer Histories

Customer service teams can reduce customer churn, increase loyalty, and even drive revenue. But only if they have the insights they need to deliver the kind of customer-centric service experience consumers expect. The proportion of consumers who say that the experience a company delivers matters as much as the products and services have risen from 80% in 2020 to 88% now, according to Salesforce. When it comes to contacting customer service, that survey found that 83% of customers expect to reach a person immediately. The same number expect one customer service person to solve their complex problems.

When customer service agents have the customer’s purchase and customer-service contact histories available, they can understand the issue faster and save the customer time and frustration explaining that issue. If agents also have support from CS solutions that can analyze that customer data along with product data, they can lead the customers through remote troubleshooting. Or suggest the next steps for resolving the problem without transferring the customer to another person or making them wait on hold. Automated, personalized CS tools can also suggest related products that the agent can offer as upsell or cross-sell options. And the data from each customer service engagement can help those AI/ML tools become increasingly accurate.

UX, Commerce, and Fraud Teams Need Unified Visitor Insights

Understanding what customers do when they visit your website or app is critical to improving CX. There are a number of UX elements to consider. This includes from accessibility and ease of navigation to localization for different markets and personalization for each customer. Two critical areas to focus on are customer recognition and cart abandonment.

Customer recognition is the key to displaying personalized product recommendations and other content. It’s also one of the keys to avoiding false declines during the checkout process. However, the data that supports personalization and the data that drives fraud control aren’t always unified. That can lead to order rejections that undermine the customer’s feeling of being recognized. Ultimately, it can push them to switch companies. For example, in ClearSale’s State of Consumer Attitudes on Ecommerce, Fraud & CX 2021 report, 40% of online shoppers in the U.S., U.K., Mexico, Canada, and Australia said they’d boycott an eCommerce retailer after a false decline. More than a third also said they would complain about the site on social media.

Unifying those data sets, with proper permission, can reduce false declines and improve CX. So it can carefully analyze how customers behave during checkout. Complicated or slow checkout processes pushed 35% of the consumers in the same survey to abandon checkout at least once within the past year. If those shoppers found a competitor with an easier checkout, it’s unlikely they came back to the store with a frustrating checkout experience.

Final Thoughts

Unifying data and making it visible across the organization is important. But making your entire organization more customer-centric requires more than sharing data and insights. There also needs to be a top-down commitment to change. This can include a chief experience officer or similar leader, One who can own the process and connect with different departments and rethink siloed processes and technologies. It’s a long-term process. But, with customer experience expectations and consumers’ willingness to switch companies continuing to rise, it’s an important process to begin now.

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In the end, your customer service personnel is the face of your organization, and their skills and quality will define their experiences. A powerful company already has amazing customers. Good customer service is about being attentive to your clients’  needs and wants. Furthermore, your connections will stagnate if you don’t always look for ways to improve customer service.

Here are some customer service tips to help your team improve:

Tip #1. Improve customer service abilities.

First, make sure your customer care crew has the capabilities to handle consumer requests. No amount of CRM software can make up for this. But what abilities should a customer service rep have?

• A sense of humor. Customers may be enraged. Others will be perplexed. Others will simply chatter. Your team must be able to handle them all and deliver the same level of service.
• Adaptability. Every consumer is unique, and some appear to change from week to week. Therefore, you should be able to handle the unexpected and adjust to the customer’s mood. Good customer service requires a constant learning process.
• Excellent Communication Skills Make sure you say exactly what you mean. No one wants to think they’re getting 50% off when they’re actually getting 50% more merchandise. Furthermore, never finish a conversation without confirming that the customer is satisfied.
• Work Ethic. Customers appreciate a rep that will follow up on their issue. At the same time, you must be able to manage your time well and not waste it on one customer while others wait. Therefore, focus is necessary in order to strike the correct balance.
• Knowledge. In the end, your customers rely on your product knowledge. Therefore, know enough to answer most questions and know where to go if the questions are too difficult or technical. However, don’t be afraid to say that you don’t know. Your customers will appreciate both your diligence and your candor.
• Thick Skin. Accepting blame or negative feedback is vital. Customer satisfaction is paramount, whether your team interacts directly with clients or solicits input via social media.

2. Examine each touchpoint.

A poor customer experience at any point in the lifecycle of your relationship can be damaging. Therefore, you must have the right skills available at the right time. In addition, focus on critical touchpoints. However, also ensure that you have a complete picture of the client experience in order to avoid costly service gaps.

3. Improve customer interactions.

It helps if your personnel has the right skills. However, they must still relate to your customers. Here are some customer service tips for providing the best service:

• Ask salespeople to find common ground with the people they assist. This knowledge helps resolve conflicts by humanizing the relationship and endears clients to your rep and ultimately to your company.
• Actively listen to your customers. Ask questions to clarify and restate what customers say. Encourage them by saying things such as, “I understand how you feel” or “I understand your frustration.”
• Admit your faults, even if you find them first. This restores confidence and trust.
  It also allows you to regain control of the situation and fix the issue.
• After-problem follow-up. Make sure there is resolution and that your consumers are happy. Sending a follow-up email or feedback survey shows the customer you are still on their side.

4. Expand your customer service strategy.

Your employees may be able to interact with your clients. However, how do you please customers as an organization? Therefore, make your customers happy with you before they have a chance to complain. How do you do this?

• Be Persuasive. Your customers want to talk to real people, not bots or FAQs.
  Therefore, make use of social media and make comments to your consumers’ posts. In addition, publish images and bios online. This demonstrates to your clients that you are human.
• Show up. Providing a personal touch includes being accessible. Always be flexible, especially if your clients are in different time zones.
• Cater to your clients. Ensure you thoroughly satisfy your customers. Therefore, consider assigning salespeople to individual clients to foster relationships. In addition, show your appreciation by giving your finest customers VIP treatment.
• Form groups. Treat your consumers like valuable members of a community. You can connect customers via webinars, social media, interactive websites, trade exhibits, or conferences.

5. Reps who are engaged are more effective.

The best customer service skills and training in the world won’t matter if your reps are less than enthusiastic. Improving employee engagement also benefits customers. Employees that are unhappy are unlikely to speak up. Therefore, consider an anonymous tip box or an employee engagement survey.

A supportive staff is one of the best customer service tips. Sometimes that means huddling up and encouraging yourselves before a long day of work.

6. Allow customers to submit feedback.

No matter how proactive you are, you can never anticipate every client’s concerns. Therefore, create an easy mechanism for customers to provide feedback. That way, you can learn about their experiences.

Furthermore, having a way for customers to provide feedback makes it easier to learn what needs improving. Additionally, it keeps angry consumers from venting on public forums like your social media platforms. Your customers will always notice your commitment to offering top-notch, proactive customer service.

Image Credit: Andrea Piacquadio; Pexels; Thank you!

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However, there is one thing that your sales team alone cannot cure. And that is customer churn. If customers don’t return, no amount of new customers can help achieve a steady growth rate for your business.

Yet many sales and marketing leaders in organizations are always busy looking “out there” for new customers instead of introspecting and improving customer retention. In fact, a paltry 40% of businesses are equally prioritizing both customer retention and acquisition.

Don’t let your company fall into the same trap. You should find ways to delight and generate more revenue from your current customers than relying solely on acquiring new customers. Below, we’ll look at the top reasons why.

Why You Should Prioritize Customer Retention

There are several benefits that make customer retention critical to your company’s bottom line.

Every loyal customer presents an opportunity to develop a brand advocate, get more referrals, and encourage word-of-mouth marketing. Let’s take a closer look at each key advantage, one by one.

Get positive word of mouth.

75% of customers loyal to a brand will refer their friends and family to the same. And this desire to spread the word comes from the customer retention efforts of the brand.

A decision to prioritize customer retention initiatives has the power to convert customers into brand advocates, increasing your likelihood of gaining referrals. A recommendation from a third party can be the final nudge that moves a prospect to action and persuade them to buy from you.

When customers are happy with your brand, you can even launch a referral program to realize their full potential in promoting your business. Ellevest is a great example. The company rewards both the referrer and the referee for each successful transaction.

To launch a similar program, you can use a tool such as Early Parrot. It lets you create referral marketing campaigns. These can seamlessly integrate with any of the major website builders in the market.

However, you can’t expect such an initiative to work without a focus on retaining customers. Disengaged customers are less likely to tell others about you, even if you reward them for doing so.

Boost conversion rates.

A customer who has bought from your business twice is 9 times more likely to purchase again than a new buyer, as per a study by Adobe. In other words, current customers help you get more conversions and make more money.

CVS Pharmacy is great at targeting present customers, for example. The company sends customers personalized email messages with deals and coupons based on what they have purchased before.

An email campaign is not the only way to target current customers. You can also insert Google Ads or Facebook pixels within your website’s code. These snippets can be used to run advertising that targets people who have already visited or purchased from your website.

Since the customers are likely to need similar products again, a retargeting campaign allows the company to bring customers back and sell more in the process.

Increase your customer lifetime value (CLV).

In case you’re unaware, customer lifetime value is the total monetary worth of a customer during the period of their relationship with your business. And it’s an important metric that speaks to the overall financial health of your company.

A recent study suggests that 37% of buyers will shell out more money on a business if they’re loyal to the brand. So repeat customers are not just more likely to buy from you as we discussed above, but they are also inclined to spend more.

The result? High CLV and low cost of marketing, which brings us to the next benefit of prioritizing customer retention.

Reduce marketing expenses.

It is widely agreed that customer acquisition costs more than customer retention.

When you acquire customers, you also get to learn about the best ways to reach them. And you have the contact information to reach them again and again in a cost-effective manner.

Acquiring new customers, on the other hand, requires you to allocate a dedicated budget to sourcing new leads, advertising your website, lead nurturing, and customer onboarding. No matter how careful you are, you are always left with a huge dent in your pocket.

Get predictable revenue.

Running a business is a game of risk and uncertainty. But that doesn’t mean you can overlook ways to minimize them as much as possible. And that’s another aspect where customer retention shines more than customer acquisition.

As we discussed above, happy and satisfied customers will keep buying from you again and again. As a result, your overall revenue is more steady and predictable.

In fact, annual subscriptions — a recent business model that has taken the world by storm — relies solely on a business’s ability to retain customers as the main source of growth.

When a customer pays for the annual subscription, the business has a certain amount of assured income for the whole year. And at the end of 12 months, customers renew their subscription based on their needs and level of satisfaction with the product or service.

The global SaaS market (subscription software) is projected to touch $437 billion in 2025, at a CAGR of 12.5%. So you can imagine the kind of growth possible with retaining customers for the long-term.

By retaining customers, you can say goodbye to your day-to-day sales worries and focus more on the future vision of your brand.

Shield your business from the competition.

The more customers connect with your business, the more habitual they get in terms of preferring your brand. They do not get easily swayed by other brands as long as your product or service is working fine for them. And this is a huge competitive advantage to have in a fickle world.

A brilliant example of a brand that builds customer loyalty with an authentic connection is Bombas. The company openly communicates its philanthropic mission of donating to the needy, which plays a big role in customer retention.

When customers are served with stories that help them connect with a brand’s mission and values, they experience a strong sense of loyalty.

Improve business operations.

82% of consumers agree that they would move to another brand if they experience poor customer service from the brand they were loyal to. As scary as it seems, the truth is that it takes just one bad experience to push buyers away from your business.

That means you must do everything in your power to ensure that your business operations are aligned with customer preferences. And that’s another area where customer retention can help.

Loyal customers give you a valuable source of feedback that helps improve your products, services, and overall customer experience.

Case in point: Southwest Airlines. The company quickly follows up with customers who voice a negative experience or a piece of feedback, even on social media platforms. In doing so, it gets insights straight from the customers instead of relying only on internal research and development.

Wrapping Up

The value of acquiring new customers can’t be denied. However, it’s equally important to level up your customer retention strategy. If you’re focusing only on empowering your sales reps while your customer success team is grasping at straws, then you’re compromising your organization’s potential to succeed.

The solution? Give equal weightage to customer retention. As we discussed above, customer retention is crucial for the long-term sustainability of your business. Moreover, it gives you new opportunities to leverage the trust you have built with current customers to take your business to the next level.

After all, customer retention is what differentiates one-hit wonders from strong and stable brands that dominate their industry for decades.

The post Why You Should Prioritize Customer Retention Over Customer Acquisition  appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

What is call monitoring in small-business marketing, and why is it important? With powerful cellphones and laptops, and virtually ubiquitous Wi-Fi, we all increasingly expect current consumers to research goods and services online. Surprisingly, many individuals still prefer contacting a company’s phone number to filling out cumbersome online forms or chatting live.

Call monitoring may be a handy tool for small companies as it can help them assess their performance and uncover possibilities based on the phone calls they get. Any agency knows this because we utilize a unique marketing plan that integrates with our clients’ calls to maximize their marketing investment and help them build their company. Confidentially, it’s all edge technology.

What is the term “tracking?”

Measuring which marketing initiatives are generating calls and creating interest among prospective clients is known as call tracking. You may use this data to determine your next marketing strategy and budget.

Call monitoring also collects useful caller information that you may use for customer service and marketing. Therefore, small firms may use call monitoring to make data-driven marketing choices.

What is the mechanism behind it? There are two fundamental components of how call tracking works:

1. Set up a call-tracking system.

When you set up call monitoring for your company, the questions you will answer are if you want a toll-free number or a local number.

You may also choose to have calls redirected to your workplace, home, sales department, third-party answering system, or even your mobile. Your provider will match them with your phone tracking number.

2. Gather and analyze data.

Your provider will notify you whenever a prospective client contacts your number. The contact service records the origin, time, and duration of each phone call and whether or not the customer answered the call.

However, caller information, such as the caller’s complete name, location, and purchasing history, will also be revealed. Above all, call monitoring will reveal which marketing effort prompted a prospective consumer to dial a phone number.

What are the benefits of call tracking for small businesses?

Call monitoring is helpful for small firms for a variety of reasons.

Analyze and enhance the marketing return on investment.

You may gain insights into which keywords, advertising, or campaigns attract new clients via call monitoring.

It’s possible to increase conversions and ROI by learning which marketing methods work for your company.

You will miss no more calls.

Customers may be disappointed if their calls go unanswered owing to congested lines.

All tracking delivers a real-time notice through email or voicemail every time a call is lost. Once call agents are available, they will be able to take quick action.

Conversion rates should be improved, and lost leads should be recovered.

Conversion numbers are accurate when you use call tracking. You’ll be able to track the source of the call back to a specific campaign since you’ll be using a unique phone number.

Call monitoring also records phone conversations to examine a lost lead’s interests and worries. Then build retargeting advertisements or emails that address their concerns.

The company should improve customer service.

You may determine your target audience and learn how to pique their attention with call tracking. Contact tracking will offer crucial caller data to enable the customer care agent to customize their encounter with the consumer when they call you.

You can analyze your sales procedures to understand the client’s journey better.

You will have a thorough insight into your sales processes and your consumers’ experiences when they contact your organization if you use call tracking.

Call tracking allows you to learn more about:

• the days of the week when the most people contact you;
• when individuals contact your company throughout the day;
• how successfully your team members deal with incoming calls;
• who answers the phone;
• if your call takers are doing well or if they need further training;
• if you can turn leads into appointments, and how often;
• the caller’s intention; and
• whether the company should improve employees’ call-handling abilities.

Leaders may use call tracking to record both incoming and departing calls. Therefore, they may assess your staff’ customer service skills by listening to recorded calls.

The company may evaluate its agents on their ability to follow call scripts, handle bookings, and sell effectively. You can figure out which call takers require more training.

Get detailed information on the caller.

Call monitoring provides detailed caller information for marketing, customer service, and quality assurance. However, you may provide the following information about the caller:

• number to call;
• the caller’s first and last name;
• the caller’s current location;
• whether they’re calling for a campaign;
• if they’re a new or returning caller;
• the call’s length and quality;
• the reason for the phone call;
• purchase history of the caller; and
• explore uncharted territory.

Small companies may utilize call tracking to find new business possibilities and develop their firm.

You may examine the location details of the individuals that call your firm when you monitor calls. You’ll learn where most of your calls are coming from, which you may utilize to create new marketing efforts.

During high call hours, be more efficient.

You may determine when your firm gets the most calls from prospective clients by monitoring calls.

Consequently, with this information, you may effectively organize your employees’ working hours so that you can handle all calls during peak hours.

Call monitoring is a simple yet effective practice that may help small companies in various ways. It will help you better understand your consumers and develop your marketing tactics.

The post What Is Call Tracking? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Why do your NPS and CSAT matter?

In any company, client satisfaction is vital. After all, you wouldn’t be in business without happy consumers. Metrics like NPS and CSAT may help you understand how satisfied your customers are. However, have you ever heard of them? We’ll explain what they are and how you may utilize them in your company. (You might wish to hire a technology partner to do this.)

What are NPS and CSAT?

You may have many queries if you are new to NPS and CSAT. What are they?

NPS

An NPS, or Net Promoter Score, measures consumer loyalty and likelihood to refer a firm to a friend or colleague. Ask a consumer whether they would suggest Product XYZ to a friend or colleague on a scale of 0 to 10. Here’s how the scoring works:

• 0 – 6: Detractors are dissatisfied clients who may leave.
• 7 or 8: Passives are moderately happy with your product or service
• 9 or 10: Customers who adore your products and are lovers of your company. This is word-of-mouth marketing!

Using an NPS technology has a lot of advantages. Therefore, it can not only assess client loyalty but also improve long-term connections, minimize churn, and identify issues. For example, Patriot Software loves utilizing NPS to gain fast feedback from consumers.

Regularly checking your score will help you understand how consumers feel about your product or service and where you can improve. When satisfaction drops and negative feedback rises, it’s time to change. (Remember that Net Promoter Score varies by industry, so conduct your research to find out the average score.)

CSAT

A Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is another customer satisfaction statistic. A CSAT gauges consumer satisfaction with a product or service. So, you may utilize your CSAT to get feedback, e.g., customer service, recent purchases, etc.

Like NPS, you usually ask clients one straightforward question. How satisfied were you with your experience? You may customize survey scales. In the survey, you can ask customers to rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 10 or 1 to 3. A CSAT score of 80% or more is considered satisfactory.

Industry-specific average or “good” ratings differ. So, do your homework and determine what type of marks you should aim for. Once you know your industry’s average rating, you can compare and improve.

Your CSAT is a simple method to gather consumer feedback. To collect client feedback, you can quickly embed brief surveys in your app, website, or email. It’s quick and easy to respond to. Therefore it gets a lot of responses.

Your Scores Help Business

Don’t simply toss your customers’ or participants’ scores away. Instead, utilize them to enhance procedures, goods, services, and operations. Here are four strategies to increase your company’s ratings.

1. Improve customer interactions.

You can utilize both NPS and CSAT to gain meaningful client feedback. Depending on the program or approach, you may ask consumers for further input. Based on such input, you may enhance customer interactions.

To learn why customers favor your company over a competition, utilize NPS ratings. Then utilize your insights to improve customer relations. Say you’re utilizing CSAT to assess your company’s customer service. Your ratings may help you enhance customer communication.

Your business’s success depends on communicating with present and future clients. You might lose loyal consumers and money if you don’t listen to what potential customers have to say.

2. Identify issues.

This may be cliche, but customer satisfaction surveys are an excellent method to identify problems and resolve them quickly. Why? They give you honest comments.

Negative criticism usually hurts a bit as a company owner. But it’s required if you want to develop your company. Your CSAT and NPS may help you identify common issues, enhance your product or service, and assess your overall company performance.

So while reviewing your results, focus on the flaws so you can discover where your company is lacking and make adjustments to enhance KPIs and client happiness.

3. Cut churn.

Nobody hates to lose a client. But, tragically, that happens. Not everyone will enjoy your company or products.

OK. You may dread the concept of client turnover, yet it is a reality for every successful organization. However, you may utilize customer satisfaction surveys to boost and minimize client turnover.

Also, keeping consumers is far cheaper than getting new ones, so you want to do all you can to keep them. Get ready for feedback.

Your scores are a big red flag for churn. You may use them to capture a disgruntled consumer and (hopefully) resolve the problem before they depart for good.

Again, keep an eye on the nasty comments so you can stop issues before they spiral out of hand. Picture terrible word of mouth, negative reviews, and disgruntled customers.

Positive Reviews Boosted

Your customer satisfaction measurements aren’t only about fixing issues and making people happy. You can also utilize NPS and CSAT to positively ask satisfied consumers to promote your brand.

Pay as much attention to good feedback as negative comments and ratings. You may invite promoters (9 or 10) to submit reviews about your company. Customers who offer you good CSAT scores, e.g., satisfied or highly satisfied.

You may also use positive comments to your advantage. Reach out to your promoters or very pleased consumers from your good evaluations. Therefore, they probably won’t mind sharing their positive experience and promoting your company.

The post Why Do Your NPS and CSAT Matter? Because Your Clients Care appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Listed below are five technological developments and how they may affect your organization. Zoom is just for starters. Did you miss these items?

1. Zoom is branching out into customer service.

Zoom has unveiled its new Zoom Contact Center solution. That is to say, it will broaden its customer care offerings.

Zoom Contact Center will continue to operate with video conferencing. Consequently, it allows businesses to engage with consumers swiftly. Zoom hopes to consolidate all parts of customer support into a single, easy-to-use solution for managers and operators with the expansion.

Why is this significant for your company?

• With pandemic demand fading and more employees returning to work, Zoom has to find new ways to make money, and delivering video-based customer support tools strikes me as a brilliant idea.
• For small organizations to consider Zoom Contact Center a realistic alternative, greater integration and collaborations with other customer care, help desk, and customer relationship management applications are required.

2. Self-driving vehicles are becoming a thing.

Self-driving trucks are causing a land grab in the vicinity of major cities. Consequently, they have fewer incidents to report.

As the demand for driverless cars grows, some speculators rush to buy property outside of major cities. However, they aren’t the automobiles you’d expect to see. It’s not the automobiles. It’s all about trucks. And in-house technology.

As autonomous trucks become more ubiquitous — and a few large businesses have huge aspirations for this technology — suburban stops will be needed. That is to say, places where people can climb in the cab and take control of the truck for the last few tricky kilometers.

Why is this significant for your company?

• We’ve heard about self-driving vehicles, but they’re still a long way off. That’s because many talented individuals, including Uber employees and even Elon Musk, have stated that these tasks are more complex than they anticipated.
• But what about autonomous trucks? Now there’s a thought. That’s because trucks can safely drive themselves along a highway, saving money on petrol and decreasing insurance premiums. As long as humans finish the remaining part.
• Therefore, it’s logical, and it might be the first generally accepted use of autonomous technology in the coming years.

3. Walmart will deploy technology to assist customers in trying on garments.

This week, the retailer launched a test version of its “Choose My Model” try-on option, driven by neural networks. Customers may choose models that “better resemble their looks and body type” then try on virtual replicas of their clothing choices to see how they’ll look.

Walmart adds it will continue to increase its model choices over time, according to TechCrunch. Walmart has plans to debut over 70 new models in the coming weeks to provide greater variation in terms of size, skin tone, and even hair color.

Why is this significant for your company?

• Will this be the last time they use the dressing room? Most likely not.
• However, it’s another tool that innovative businesses will use in the following years to assist shoppers in purchasing their goods.
• Additionally, it’ll be fascinating to see which “models” people pick to represent me. Experts like the George Costanza look…not.

4. Pittsburgh firms introduce technology to analyze bridges from the ground up to the sky above.

Following a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh, Penn., local firms have leveraged their associated technologies to construct their bridges and develop their businesses in January.

Mach9 Robots, a local company, was the first to respond. They were there using robotics and sensor technology to survey subsurface and surface regions and generate geospatial models of critical infrastructure in minutes.

Why is this significant for your company?

• Unfortunately, necessity is the mother of creativity, and it takes a catastrophe — or the threat of a tragedy — to generate chances for entrepreneurs.
• The collapse of a bridge in Pittsburgh provided an excellent chance for local entrepreneurs to show how their innovations might enhance infrastructure safety.

5. Etsy’s post-pandemic aim is to increase the number of guys who shop there.

Etsy is looking for its next move now that the masks and home décor purchasing frenzy have subsided.

Etsy recently reported that half of the male buyers in the United States had no idea what Etsy was, according to a study performed in 2020. According to the same report, 80 percent of Etsy consumers are female. Therefore, Etsy attempts to attract more male buyers to the site by placing tailored advertisements on male-dominated channels.

Why is this significant for your company?

• Small companies might consider selling on Etsy. However, they mainly serve a female audience.
• If you’re an Etsy reseller – or thinking about becoming one – make use of the platform’s new options and focus on male clients.
• It’s an opportunity to save money on advertising while potentially reaching a larger audience.

The post Zoom Is Getting Into Customer Service appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Most small businesses typically have limited resources, including employees, time, and money. Therefore, small business owners must be resourceful. This is especially true when planning how to best use these resources to meet the needs of customers.

Use customer relationship management (CRM) data.

CRM data can be used in a variety of ways to improve customer service.

Because it contains a database of customer profiles, including contact information and birth dates, small businesses can send customers personalized birthday cards, thank you notes, or holiday cards. These digital greeting cards can also include an incentive, such as a promotional offer.

For example, if CRM data indicates that a customer frequently buys a certain product, employees can send the customer a coupon for the product along with a birthday greeting. Marketing strategies such as this one can improve customer service. They also increase customer retention, and build brand loyalty.

Respond quickly to customers’ concerns.

When a customer shares a concern about a product or service they have purchased, it’s time to act.

It is not only essential to address the customer’s concern. It is essential to do so as quickly as possible. That’s why high-profile service providers such as private doctors and lawyers are turning to human answering services. For instance, a human answering service for a law office instills trust in callers as well as keeps your staff immediately informed in case a client has an urgent issue that needs quick attention. 

Addressing a customer’s concerns with a lack of urgency makes the customer feel as if they are unimportant and unappreciated.

Provide opportunities for honest feedback — positive and negative.

Small businesses can collect feedback from customers through surveys, online forms, or social media reviews.

Some companies censor their reviews when possible by requesting that negative reviews be removed. However, small businesses can use honest feedback as an opportunity to improve customer service.

For instance, if a customer reports a negative experience in an online review, small business owners can address the feedback publicly and privately. When small business owners publicly address negative feedback, current and future customers can see whether the business owner responds professionally and whether they are willing to offer a solution.

As small business owners address negative reviews with customers privately, it gives them an opportunity to change the customer’s perspective and regain their trust. When small business owners respond to positive reviews, it shows current and potential customers that the company appreciates and cares about their customer base and their customer service.

Use feedback to improve.

In addition to addressing feedback from customers, small business owners can also use the feedback customers provide to improve their services.

For example, let’s say a small business owner is a grocer. They receive several reviews from clients stating that the organization of the store is confusing.

They could consider reorganizing the grocery store in a way that makes more sense to customers. Customers see that small business owners are not only taking their ideas into consideration but are also taking action. They are implementing changes based on feedback. As a result, they feel more invested in the company and its success.

Wrapping Up

There are several ways that small business owners can distinguish themselves from larger businesses.

Big businesses can make customers feel as if they are only a number. By taking the time to improve customer service, small business owners can create a brand that earns customers’ loyalty.

The post How Can Small Businesses Improve Customer Service? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

These cashiers factors determine the shopper’s experience. Despite being low-paid or even entry-level employees, cashiers collect most of a grocery store’s payments. So, why is there an increasing tendency to automate, self-checkout, and cashier-less technologies?

Until recently, cashiers were essential in retail. But upcoming federal rate hikes are causing small business owners to lose sleep.

Cashiers are the front-line employees, ringing up customers and counting every payment. A precise till is your savior. Miss it too frequently, and you lose your job. So you’re counting money and being mindful of delivering exact change.

Every hour, you herd hundreds of people, establishing eye contact, smiling, and initiating small chats. To help them discover their gluten-free cauliflower crust pizzas, diners on special diets had to search in the cooler, not the freezer.

Nothing new here.

When an item doesn’t scan properly, or a consumer believes the sale price was X instead of Y, you call your supervisor to help resolve the issue.

It’s essential to be diplomatic when the grocery section is out of a customer’s favorite item or when out of stock is over 20% of a customer’s favorite things and to thank them for their patronage. When clients complain about rising pricing, you respond politely and effectively.

Every shift, a bagger packs clients’ things into shopping bags and loads them onto carts. 15, 20 times each hour, you have to move from scanning products and counting change to bagging yourself.

When your business installed automated self-checkout kiosks, they assigned a few staff to monitor their usage. Most clients still preferred cashier checkouts.

Cashiers are essential in retail. So why do stores try so hard to get rid of cashiers?

Cashierless technology is coming to tech-enabled retailers. Big and small. Executives and cheerleaders contend that it reduces wait times, congested kiosks, and possible Covid-19 exposures. Customers may pick up their items and go out without interacting with anybody.

But, like other digital advancements like click and collect, the technology will impact store operations. Cashier-less technology not only eliminates cashiers but also needs rigorous retail discipline, de-skilling, and store supervision.

The planogram from corporate HQ dictates where each product goes. Someone must front products often to ensure proper inventory and scanning. Everything on the shelf and out the door is monitored and quantified in real-time. Changing the merchandising to fit seasons, location, or changing consumer preferences is not an option for a clerk. This new retail ecosystem monitors shops, items, employees, and consumers. Is the merchant a panopticon for convenience?

Cashiers, a service business in itself, are threatened by automation.

Cashiers accounted for 3.3 million jobs in 2018, ranking third among all occupations. Jobs in retail sales or cashier are widespread in 46 states.

The supermarket business employs about 865,000 cashiers or 30% of the total employment. Retail employees are often younger, female, and disproportionately Black, Latino/Hispanic, and immigrant. Most cashiers have no college degrees and are roughly twice as likely to be on Medicaid.

Unlike their European counterparts, who have more vital unions and better working conditions, most American cashiers must stand all day at the register.

In 2019, the mean hourly salary for cashiers was $12.00, while the median annual income for full-time cashiers was $22,100. They are underpaid and underestimated since their job is to gather and account for every retail transaction. They make up for the lack of hourly pay by enormous numbers. A busy business will have 10 to 30 cashiers working at any one time.

Getting rid of cashiers is about streamlining retail labor; businesses won’t relocate those roles.

Reduced costs directly enhance the bottom line. Grocery stores budget 12-15 percent of sales for labor, whereas mass merchants and discounters spend less. Cashier teams account for 20-25 percent of work in certain stores.

This technology’s partial implementation would appeal to retailers hoping to save 2-3% on expenses, even if it changed operations and the customer experience.

Is it possible? Online ordering, delivery, and click and collect were unthinkable only a decade ago.

Females and people of color make up the majority of cashiers.

This technology’s broad adoption would remove hundreds of thousands of jobs.

In non-inflationary periods, stores without cashiers may offer somewhat reduced costs for customers. So business owners may spend earnings in expansion and market share increase. Scale is essential in the retail industry with limited Robinson-Patman Act monitoring.

The difference will presumably return to institutional shareholders and executives as buybacks, dividends, and bonuses. Whether or not holdouts embrace the technology, the sector as a whole will be under pressure to reduce labor costs.

However, working in retail during the epidemic has forced many supermarket employees to rethink their careers.

Hundreds of thousands of people have changed employment or left the supermarket sector in the last year. With low pay, inadequate benefits, and unpredictable schedules, retail employees lead the so-called Great Resignation.”

Many stores have boosted pay and benefits to attract and keep employees. Still, these increases are often significantly below what most large metro regions consider livable.

To put it another way, this is what the minimum wage would be if it had kept up with productivity growth since the 1960s. Retailers have utilized personnel shortages to invest in greater automation. Consequently, de-skilling technology. It may indicate that these jobs are gone for good.

But presuming labor should be replaced by AI in the interest of convenience and narrowly defined consumer sovereignty is a fair dose of misanthropy. Are living pay, good benefits, and safe and pleasant working conditions antiquated and unattainable? The technology historian David F. Noble seems to foresee the authoritarian nature of automation.

Thank your cashier for their hard work next time you shop. Maybe call the store management and thank the cashiers…before they’re gone.

The post Will Grocery Stores Ban Cashiers? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Small businesses can teach big companies a few things about innovation. SMB’s are recognized for being resourceful and imaginative, whether because such qualities are part of their image and beliefs or because they have limited resources. Whatever the cause, they deploy and survive on some clever techniques, including the technology of automation.

Firstly, there are many things major organizations can learn from their smaller — but often more innovative — counterparts, ranging from structure to innovation.

1. Consider the company as a small business franchise.

Small companies often turn to franchising for growth. While giant firms may not be interested in franchising, they may discover opportunities to innovate by thinking of their company as a franchise. They might uncover chances for innovation and simplification. That could be if they record and standardize marketing, operations, and sourcing. That is to say as if they were trying to reproduce themselves in new areas.

2. When scaling, maintain a strong culture.

Employees are the actual worth of any company. It is a vital fact that many leaders forget as companies develop. Retaining a strong culture as a company grows is a piece of wise advice that large organizations may learn from tiny enterprises. Therefore, people management is personalized and focuses on culture-driven productivity as small enterprises expand in a “pod-like” structure.

3. Complete small business transactions as soon as possible.

The number of departments through which a single transaction may transit differs between large and small firms. Because they have a flat structure, small businesses tend to react quickly. Yes, screening (for example, marketing material) is beneficial, but time is valuable in any organization. It is critical to carry out tasks in a timely and efficient manner.

4. Quickly respond to customer feedback.

The essential thing to keep in mind is not to over-complicate things. This is something that small firms must do, but the more individuals between the consumer and the decision-maker, the lower the customer happiness. Therefore, they react fast to consumer input by empowering employees close to the decision. Only bring in people with a critical purpose. Consequently, enhancing customer pleasure, loyalty, and revenues become easier.

5. Shorten the time it takes from concept to small business execution.

The idea of execution time-frame is something that tiny firms excel at. Cumbersome processes and coordinating schedules sometimes slow down performing market research and generating a viable product in more prominent firms. For example, smaller firms are far better at transitioning from the strategy to the execution stages — a process that larger enterprises may learn from.

6. Form self-organizing, smaller teams.

Put together smaller, self-organizing teams around particular challenges based on a single metric. This is due to the way small businesses function. Allow these teams to function as a small business, with a lean approach to inventing, building MVPs, failing quickly, and pivoting as required. Also, allow them the time they need and avoid overburdening them with bureaucracy and micromanagement.

7. Be able to quickly react and pivot.

Of course, because huge organizations have smaller staff, they can respond and pivot more swiftly when necessary. For example, the entertainment industry’s maturity has prevented TV networks from comprehending the TV. That is to say, a TV is just a monitor into which you input material. Rather than a “thing” that people would continue to watch with ads. It’s healthy to change your opinion.

8. Allow for quick and easy small business collaboration.

Do your workers know what to do if they have an excellent idea? Although this may seem straightforward, the answer is “No” in many giant corporations. Entrepreneurial individuals generally work in small businesses since there is less red tape and bureaucracy to deal with. However, when developing a brilliant concept, they can rapidly cooperate with their more minor team and put it into action.

9. Put more emphasis on customer engagement.

By their very nature, small companies excel in providing excellent customer service. Daily, they know who their customers are and build meaningful personal connections with them. However, large corporations are often disconnected from their customers and are distracted by the complexity of their operations. Therefore, as a large corporation, is there any way to interact more with your customers and make them the focal point of every choice you make?

10. Promote small business pilot projects.

Allow for trial and error in prototype programs. However, small firms are known for their flexibility, rapid implementation, and willingness to make errors. Therefore, policies, procedures, and processes become increasingly vital. Consequently, firms sustain the brand experience, but they may also stifle innovation and advancement. When large corporations cut the red tape from these procedures, innovation may speed up.

The post Small Business/Big Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Why spend time on an organizational chart when the world is coming apart?

That is an excellent question. Most firms see it as a time-consuming corporate activity. And, in the aftermath of shutdowns and a pandemic, it’s more complicated than ever to figure out who is responsible for what.

We all had to make a significant shift in our workplace in 2020, and it seems like everyone has had the same job description since then, namely “additional responsibilities as appropriate.”

Should small companies bother with an org chart in this day and age, when the world and our enterprises are constantly changing? By the way, how’s your tech branding coming along?

Here are several contradictory facts, as well as a preliminary conclusion.

Appropriate business requires reasonable limits. People have seen that clear lines of duty and procedure differentiate the best from the others.

That’s what an effective organizational chart does. Chaos reigns supreme when there are no limits.

Clarity has a nice side to it.

Org charts might be challenging to create, but they give definition and clarity. The loudest voice triumphs when no one understands who reports to whom and who is accountable for what.

And the most pressing need receives attention, even if it is a different voice and a minor requirement.

Is there another advantage? Coworker relationships benefit from clear limits.

How are you navigating The Great Resignation?

And while we navigate the Great Resignation, wise leaders will do everything possible to keep their teams together.

Tight limits result in an inflexible corporation that cannot adapt to changing times and crises. During the chaos of 2020, thousands of firms needed assistance with staffing, payroll, and other pivots.

Agility was a common denominator among the firms that survived (and even thrived) throughout that year. They could all shift, which meant abandoning the formality of “the way we’ve always done things” and the statement “that’s not in my job description.”

The downside of organizational chart technology is that it might make the team excessively inflexible, which doesn’t work in an era when agility and flexibility are becoming more critical.

So, the issue is whether to use an org chart or not. It would be nice to provide a general response because, you know, each team is different.

What works for your team in 2021 may not work in 2022. It’s an art, not a science, to set reasonable limits while avoiding rigidity. And technology can help.

Do employees understand their roles and how the organization runs as a whole?

Is your company’s organizational chart assisting or limiting your ability to complete tasks in a changing environment?

Is it a servant who helps you be more productive or a master who hampers you?

Teams are living entities that evolve throughout the season. Every year, ask yourself these questions.

You’ll figure out the solution and be able to lead your squad to the most excellent decision for the season.

Consider employing QR codes to get feedback from customers.

Almost all customers do internet research before selecting to deal with a company.

An astonishing 79 percent of customers believe internet evaluations of local companies are as trustworthy as personal recommendations from friends or family!

When it comes to a lack of online evaluations for companies, the technology-driven world we live in today provides no room for error.

Getting 72 percent of customers to agree to submit an online review is as easy as asking them and providing a direct link, but how can a company owner be sure that the consumer will follow through? After all, time presses consumers.

QR codes make things easier for everyone.

Convenience is the solution, as it is with almost everything else in the realm of customer service.

No matter how pleased consumers are with the service they received, they are unlikely to look for the company online and submit a review. Some customers may not even know how to use the internet to offer favorable comments.

By using QR codes to collect client feedback, you may prevent these issues from occurring in the first place. Here are three compelling reasons to use QR codes:

• QR codes may be placed everywhere your consumer could view them. They can scan them quickly and easily.
  • Place a QR code on the front desk if you have a physical location.
  • If not, you may place your review-gathering QR code on the side of business cars, on stickers or magnets, or even as wallpaper on your technicians’ phones so clients can scan it after service.
• You may customize QR codes to direct people to the relevant website, whether it’s Google, Facebook, or Yelp, depending on where your company would benefit the most from a review.
  • This is also an excellent approach for a company to see which QR codes clients are more likely to scan.
• QR codes are becoming more popular and helpful.
  • According to a Statista poll conducted in June 2021, 45 percent of U.S. consumers had used a marketing QR code in the last three months.
  • 59 percent expected them to remain permanent.

Why wouldn’t small companies embrace the convenience and accessibility of QR codes to promote good internet reviews?

Who can read QR codes if they don’t have a smartphone?

Even if QR codes get wide use for business and consumer convenience, there will always be a few skeptics.

That’s OK. We all want to make life simpler for our consumers, even those who don’t have smartphones or aren’t acquainted with QR codes.

To avoid any complications, having an employee assist these consumers through discovering your company listing online and getting to the correct page is an intelligent solution.

Using QR codes to generate online reviews is one method to profit from their growing popularity. The fact that 87 percent of customers read evaluations of local companies online should be a primary focus for your small company in 2022.

The post Use an Organizational Chart or QR Codes for Reactions? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Data is now undeniably a key driver of corporate success. The ability to get insights from the ever-increasing volume and complexity of accessible data increasingly separates market winners from losers.

One of its most effective advantages is its ability to help us better analyze and respond to changing customer behavior.

On a social level, it has helped us comprehend the activities and movements of individuals during the Covid-19 epidemic. In finance, corporations have excelled at recognizing outlier behavior that might indicate something shady is afoot.

A “360-degree consumer view” lets marketers identify people ready to purchase and place items and services directly in front of them.

Data helps address client demands (and catch tuna).

The more you know about your consumers, the better you anticipate their needs. You may also convey it to them in a manner that suits them.

An excellent comparison is tuna fishing. Initially, fleets of boats would set out, with no more information than historical success places.

Our capacity to discover and capture fish increased as technology advanced — first by learning to navigate the stars, then by predicting the weather by meteorology, and finally by GPS and sonar. We can now track fish using satellites and underwater sensors.

Commercial tuna fishers must stay up with the latest technological advances. If they don’t, they’ll be out-fished and go out of business.

Customer fishing follows the same rules. Others will surpass you if you don’t keep improving your capacity to utilize data to locate them and understand their behavior.

What data do you need to know your clients?

Many organizations start with transactional and point-of-sale data. So we can identify broad consumer patterns as well as local preferences.

This helps us build goods and services that consumers will pay for. It also allows us to price our items at levels where we are sure they will sell.

These are also quite precious. We can understand who buys what once we know what individuals purchase.

As usual, combining multiple forms of data is much more beneficial than using them alone. Working with personal data has certain dangers and duties.

Therefore, it’s essential to grasp data governance principles, i.e. how to comply with all legislation and earn your customers’ confidence by protecting their data.

Attitude data is just another basic form of data.

You can obtain this data via simple market research or more sophisticated social media sentiment analysis.

Using artificial intelligence (AI) – mainly machine learning – advanced analytics systems may develop automatic reports showing us who is using our goods and what they say about them.

Customer data collected via schemes like loyalty programs or activity monitoring may also be considered internal data.

You may also purchase consumer data and other external information to get further insights. This may contain economic statistics, GDP growth, climatic data, and local and global events.

One innovative window installer and maker allegedly pioneered a certain practice. He began using publicly accessible data on crimes like vandalism to determine where to best deploy its rapid-response window repair services.

It also combines data from services like Google Trends to identify what people are searching for online. More recent advancements like Facebook’s Custom Audience service utilize people choices. Users may input information about their consumers, and algorithms display their ads to other customers who share their profiles.

Putting all of this information together needs a sophisticated analytics infrastructure.

Target, for example, was able to anticipate when consumers were pregnant before they ever began shopping for baby things. Amazon has lately discussed adopting anticipatory shipping. Currently, this allows it to guarantee things are at the distribution facilities closest to clients, but it aims to ship items to customers before purchasing them.

Observations and micro-moments are the new drivers.

The goal is to capture “micro-moments” — split-second purchase opportunities that exist for just a few seconds but may be tremendously lucrative if spotted and acted on at scale.

Walmart collects petabytes of consumer data, but they consider only the most recent transactions in its prediction engines. Because it recognizes how quickly consumer behavior changes, only current data can tell us what’s occurring now and shortly. Don’t make mistakes. But if you do, learn from them.

A micro-moment is someone getting off an aircraft after a trip. They may need a hotel room, a cab, or simply a meal.

Previously, firms may have anticipated seeing an advertisement in the arrivals lounge. Marketers may now target them with a targeted text message, phone notification, or Facebook pop-up when they check in to let their friends and family know they’ve arrived safely.

Today’s data technology provides firms unparalleled insight into their consumers. We can better forecast client needs by merging transactional, demographic, and behavioral data from internal and external sources.

The post Use Data to Better Understand Customer Needs appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

When handled well, customer service can lead to better retention rates, higher levels of loyalty, and superior word-of-mouth marketing. However, achieving quality customer service is becoming more and more challenging.

That’s where customer service coaching can make a difference.

What is Customer Service Coaching?

Customer service is an art as much as anything else. It requires a subtle combination of data, training, experience, confidence, creativity, and many other soft and hard skills.

Data has become an instrumental way to oversee and improve customer service. Analytics are applied using tools such as recordings, live chat, customer feedback, and surveys.

The problem that many companies face is figuring out how to apply the cold, hard facts to the fluid activity of being a customer service rep.

Training can only get you so far. The activity tends to focus on run-of-the-mill responsibilities. Using company software, understanding basic product features, and studying brand guidelines all factor into the mix.

Once trained, though, companies must look to a deeper solution for continual customer service improvement: coaching.

The Impact of Coaching

The QA experts at MaestroQA are quick to point out that live agents handle tougher tickets these days. Basic questions are answered by automated systems. That means, if a customer gets through to a human, they often have a detailed and personalized question in tow.

To understand the impact that this has on customer service, one needs to look no further than the numbers. The QA brand highlights a study by Gartner stating that self-service questions cost an average of $0.10 per contact. In contrast, live service solutions are a sizeable $8.01 per contact.

In other words, you’re paying an average of 80 times more per contact to have individuals talk to your customer service team members. This makes having high-quality support agents a priority. You need individuals who are able to think on their feet, act empowered, be creative, and always be learning

Coaching solves this by working one-on-one with agents in a constructive manner. Rather than micromanaging, it fosters an ongoing process of working with agents to improve their skills and knowledge. This leads to superior customer service that is worth every penny of that $8.01 per interaction.

The case for coaching is easy to make. However, actually implementing an effective, up-to-date, data-driven coaching strategy for your company is more challenging.

How to Be a Data-Driven Coach

Here are some actionable steps that you can use to keep your customer support agent coaching current and data-driven.

Set Clear Expectations

Coaching never works if the coach is the only one with their head in the game. Agents must also be clearly briefed regarding the intentions of a customer service coaching effort.

By setting clear expectations, you can create buy-in from your team. You can help them see the activity as an opportunity for professional development — rather than a responsibility or, even worse, criticism or punishment for past performance.

Make Wise Use of Your Data

It’s difficult to make improvements if you don’t know what areas are struggling. There are many ways to discover this, but in the modern world, nothing is as effective as data.

This isn’t just a case of setting up a third-party analytics tracker and letting it “do its thing.” It requires focused targeted efforts. Audit your customer service interactions through surveys, feedback, recordings, and whatever other tools you see fit.

Make sure to be purposeful throughout the process. Don’t just collect any and all data. Ask meaningful questions, and ensure that you’re working toward clearly defined OKRs (objectives and key results) that help you associate data with end goals.

Use Accountability

Accountability is a critical piece of sustainable improvement. The good news is, it doesn’t just consist of checking in on your support agents ad nauseam.

On the contrary, accountability is simply setting benchmarks and goals and then checking in on progress toward those objectives at select times. This gives you the chance to reevaluate unrealistic goals. It also helps you realign a support agent’s efforts if they aren’t producing the desired results.

Accountability also lets you celebrate when your coaching efforts reach recognizable milestones. This can go a long way in maintaining momentum and engagement for coaches and agents alike.

Cultivate Two-Way Feedback

As a final measure, don’t underestimate the value of two-way communication. Feedback from your agents is one of the most valuable pieces of data that a coach can receive.

This provides the opportunity to go beyond formulaic training. By communicating, a coach is able to learn about the specific needs and challenges that each agent is dealing with. This can lead to tailored solutions and superior results.

Coaching your customer support agents is a constructive and positive way to maintain a customer service edge over your competitors. It gives your workforce the tools and resources that they need. It also ensures that they are both inspired and empowered to do their jobs with excellence.

This leads to happier agents as well as satisfied and loyal clients.

So, in the future, approach coaching your customer support staff as an investment. Rather than a bother and an expense, you’re taking the time in the present to proactively pour into your team, your future, and eventually your bottom line.

The post Why Customer Service Requires Coaching — Not Just Training appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

1. Be On Time

If you have a meeting scheduled for a particular time, do not make your client wait. Time is money and your client will not be impressed if you’re late, thereby wasting their money. Show up early if you must, but short of an emergency, there should be no reason to make your client sit around looking at their watches. Being on time shows that you value the client and the client’s greatest resource.  Being on time costs you nothing in dollars but offers you incredible opportunities.

2. Be Prepared

Preparation is critical if you want to impress clients. The best service providers learn everything they can about their potential clients before they show up the first time. They do as much preliminary research as possible so they can ensure they offer the best solutions for the client’s needs. They don’t want to be caught off-guard by something that they could have know if they had taken the time to discover it. Alexander Graham Bell once said that “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.” If you’re not prepared, you’re missing the key. Preparation won’t cost you money, but lack of preparation may cost you a client.

3. Be Kind

Some clients can come off gruff and rude. This doesn’t give you license to do the same. Kindness goes a long way, especially with clients who may have tried other solutions or service providers that didn’t meet their needs. They may already be frustrated and angry and unfortunately you end up at the receiving end of their stress. Kindness can help diffuse the situation and perhaps even turn a potential client into a paying client. Not only is kindness good for your health, it can help you win in business and in life. It doesn’t mean you become a doormat, just that you treat people with dignity and respect. In some cases, when they don’t deserve it. Kindness isn’t expensive and anyone can do it.

4. Dress For Success

How you dress depends on the industry you’re in and your clientele base. But you’ll impress clients when you dress accordingly. It shows that you value yourself, your expertise, and your client. If you’re a personal trainer, come dressed and ready. If you’re a real estate agent, make sure you look professional. If you’re about to close a high-end deal…well, you get the picture. Dressing for success doesn’t mean you need an Armani suit if you can’t afford one, but it does mean that you come looking and feeling like the professional you are.  

5. Buy Gently Used Luxury Items

Speaking of that Armani suit, you can save big money if you buy one used. It’s easy enough to hire a good tailor to ensure it fits you accurately, but for those of you just starting in your industry or who need to look the part, gently used luxury items will save you a big chunk of change. People love their high-end accessories as well. So if you have the suit, you might as well pick up a pre-owned A Lange Söhne watch. A good jeweler will only sell the most impeccable watches, so you can be assured they are genuine and in top working order. When you’re on the path to success, you can easily celebrate your wins with these

6. Make Eye Contact

Have you noticed how few people make eye contact these days? People are so used to looking down at devices that it feels awkward to connect with someone in the eyes. Eye contact communicates confidence, competence, and boldness in a way that looking down or away cannot. While you don’t want to stare, you do need to practice make eye contact if you want to impress your clients. Plus, it costs nothing.

7. Have a Firm Handshake

No one likes a wet noodle handshake. A firm (dry) handshake goes a long way to impress your client. Obviously, some people have stronger handshakes than others, so it’s vital you also don’t overdo it and crush your client’s hand. However, if you’ve done your research and your potential client is not American, it may help you to learn other ways to greet them.

8. Don’t Hide Your Costs

No one wants to sign up for something to later realize what they need is going to cost 25% more than they had planned. Share the costs up front for the entire project. Include a buffer for unforeseen expenses, and any other miscellaneous fees that you charge. Clients are not happy when they didn’t know about costs up front. Show your value, share the costs, and give the ask to your clients. Being forthright is an affordable way to impress your clients.

9. Answer Their Questions

New clients especially have a lot of questions. It can feel tedious repeating the answers over and over again, but you need to remember that for this client, it’s the first time they are hearing the answer. You’ll impress them more easily if you quickly answer their questions, and help them feel confident and excited to work with you.

Impressing high-end clients isn’t all about looking wealthy by the car your drive and the clothes you wear. Impressing clients has more to do with how you behave and how you treat them from the first point of contact, all the way through project completion. Don’t discount the power of kindness and honesty in 2021. You’d be surprised how they can go a long way to building client trust and respect.

The post The 9-Part Checklist to Help You Impress Clients without Breaking the Bank appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Artificial Intelligence

When used as part of a customer experience plan, artificial intelligence programs can be an incredible asset. AI programs can run through phone systems, on the computer, and even through texting. A robust AI can easily help staff navigate and resolve simple issues. For more complex issues, the AI system can connect them with a real person either via chat or phone. Technology has come a long way. And while the best customer experiences still have a human touch, there are countless ways to leverage technology as part of the end-to-end process.

Remote Phone Staff

Be careful before you outsource your phone team to another country. Many customers have expressed frustration over the quality of the customer experience when they struggle to communicate their issue due to language barriers. Because of this, remote phone staff in the native country of the bulk of your customers are a better use of your resources. You gain hours’ worth of phone time if you have your team on the East Coast start at 7 a.m. and have new people picking up the phones in each time zone until you hit Pacific time. These remote workers help keep your business running at all hours of the day and sometimes even the night. The technology of VoIP and excellent computer systems can all help facilitate an incredible customer experience. Expanded phone hours also means customers can call and talk to a real person at almost any time of day.

Live Chat

Some people need to resolve issues while they are in situations where they can’t wait on a phone call for 30 or 45 minutes. Live chat offers them the opportunity to chat with a real person in real time to get their needs met. Whether they are trying to resolve a billing issue, change something on their account or something completely different, live chat is a perfect addition to the customer experience. It’s also good for those introverts and people who dislike being on the phone in general.

Web Returns

Trying to return products from online shopping can be a nightmare. The struggle for many customers is real. Some companies have a convoluted process where you spend a ton of time on the phone only to hear that the item you want to send back cannot be returned. Web-based returns are the perfect solution to this problem that empowers the customer to initiate and do the return process without needing to wait on anyone else. Web returns can be completed through simple web portals using just a few pieces of data.

Empower Employees

Some companies have empowered every single employee to make the customer experience the best possible. They have given them freedom to make the issue right without needing to go up the line to higher ups. This empowerment of employees means that the customer only needs to interface with one person and that person always has the authority to do something to right the wrong or perceived wrong that the customer faced.

Whether this is taking a return that falls outside the usual policy, offering a refund for a mistaken charge, or sending the correct product when they received the wrong one. While this isn’t about technology directly, empowered employees who can help the customer will always improve the customer experience.

Create Easy-to-Access How-To Content

Do you have simple how-to videos and documents on your website? These are great ways to use technology to improve the customer experience. Whether customers are trying to figure out all the positions of a baby sling or put together a piece of furniture, a good video explainer or informative help sheet can go a long way. Customers who want to learn a new piece of software will spend more time on your website if you offer informative guides for the most common tasks they want to complete.

Help Kiosks

For in-person experiences, help kiosks can help alleviate a ton of stress. Whether a customer is trying to find a price for an item or a location for something they need, strategically placed help kiosks provide an easy tech-based solution. When these kiosks have a simple and appealing user interface and easy to follow prompts, it improves the customer experience. Instead of needing to track down an employee from somewhere else in the store or wait on a manager, they can get many of their pressing questions answered immediately.

Leverage the Right Social Media Channels

Some companies have a presence on every platform because it helps connect with customers wherever they are. Social media is a great way to use technology to improve the customer experience for your company. When you communicate with your customers in real-time where they need you to be the most, you make an impact on that customer. The better the experience, the better the response from the customer.

It’s clear that there are many ways to use technology in your customer experience plan. It’s important to ask “How do I want the customer to feel after they interact with our team?” and then build your plan from there. Look at the different opportunities and channels you have as a business to connect in a positive way with the customer. A robust plan will give you happy customers who will tell their friends.

The post 8 Ways To Improve The Customer Experience Using Technology appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Perhaps, then, this might be the best time for digital transformation in every type of business.

Unfortunately, many businesses fail to utilize their most valuable data resources to make this transition smoother and more successful. Research from Gartner reveals that more than half of companies don’t include data and analytics as key factors in their digital transformation strategy.

Moreover, 62% of companies have experienced stalls during the digital transformation process. McKinsey reported that the most common reasons for these delays were a lack of direction or clarity, ineffective planning or design, and misinformed strategies.

Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/digital-transformation-spotting-the-winners-and-losers-in-2020/

It’s quite clear that any strategy needs to be built upon a foundation of accurate data to succeed. So why is it any different when it comes time to boost digital transformation?

The fact of the matter is that data needs to fuel decisions throughout any process. Here’s how business leaders need to approach and integrate data along the digital transformation journey.

Boost Digital Transformation by First Identifying Opportunities from Data

For most companies, the process of digital transformation seems incredibly overwhelming. But the fact is that it does not need to happen all at once. Neither do you have to take a formulaic or one-size-fits-all approach.

For instance, digital transformation can give SMBs a much-needed leg-up against their competitors. While they can’t match large corporations’ million-dollar budgets, small businesses can focus efforts on specific areas that make the greatest impact.

Companies of any size can succeed at their efforts to boost digital transformation by solving some of the most significant issues first. Data can provide the roadmap and crucial starting points to get the transformation going.

Say your website’s traffic numbers are high but conversion rates are significantly lower. This could signal an issue with the user experience (UX). You can use data analysis to pinpoint the steps in the buyer’s journey where your numbers start to fall off. Tools such as Google Analytics will tell you which pages on your website people are spending the most time on. Others such as Hotjar will point out how visitors are interacting with those pages.

Make the Customer Journey Easier at All Times

It’s important for every company to focus on cutting costs, improving efficiency, and maximizing revenue. However, since customers (not money) drive business, the real transformation needs to start in customer experience (CX). This warrants that digital transformation takes place beyond marketing campaigns or web/app technology.

The best way to measure and improve CX is by creating a better internal structure that allows the business to personalize interactions. In a study by PTC, C-suite executives agreed that the greatest benefit to digital transformation was improving the customer journey. The report found that providing employees with the right information and tools was the best way to do this.

A good starting point is using data tools to create complex, data-driven customer journey maps. The entire organization can have the tools they need for better decision-making simply by monitoring the audience’s behavior. AI-powered algorithms can take these data points and transform them into actionable journey maps that show what needs to be done to keep customers engaged, retarget them, and close the deal.

Track Both Qualitative and Quantitative Data

To truly unlock the power of data, it is important to understand the difference between qualitative and quantitative.

• Quantitative data is usually affixed to a numbering system. These are common metrics that businesses track, like revenue per quarter or the number of leads generated per channel.
• Qualitative is a bit more difficult to organize since it is based on variables instead of specific numbers. This requires more advanced technology to categorize, especially for metrics like customer sentiment.

These two data types need to be used together to truly boost digital transformation. This goes beyond just stating that quantitative data is measurable in numbers while qualitative data is based on characteristics.

For example, if you’re conducting marketing research for the launch of a new product, your team should be collecting and analyzing both types of data from consumers in order to deliver a product that has market fit. You need to use automation as well as AI technologies, such as natural language processing and predictive analytics. This lets you combine hard data (quantitative) and uncategorized data (qualitative) for accurate insights.

Separate the Transformation Strategy from the Data

The quickest way to make organization-wide positive changes is to make data accessible for strategizing and decisions.

According to a McKinsey study, companies that successfully implemented digitalization derived the greatest benefits by providing employees with better tools. Complement this by making information accessible across all departments and creating digital programs to assist customers and employees.

Source: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/unlocking-success-in-digital-transformations

McKinsey also found that the greatest barrier to transformation was a lack of leadership and direction through the transformation process. Robust data sources and top-of-the-line analysis programs are useless unless your entire team knows how and when to use them.

To make the transition more seamless, you can start with specific types of transformation. For most organizations, there are four key approaches:

• Business Processes: Applying technology for system support, such as inventory management or automation.
• Model Transformation: Incorporating technology to improve an aspect of the industry, such as digitization.
• Analytics: Centralized performance monitoring of all initiatives, especially digital, with end-to-end observability.
• Organizational Transformation: Integrating new systems to support the internal workings of a company, such as collaboration tools and data-sharing technology.

No matter which approaches your business goes with, you need to support every new strategy or system with data. Then monitor the results of these changes to see what is making a positive or negative difference.

It’s Your Turn to Boost Your Company’s Digital Transformation

There is so much potential that companies of any size can unlock if they have the data to do it.

Data analytics, processing, and organizational tools are critical pieces to the puzzle of digital transformation. Leaders must understand how to interpret the data they collect before, during, and after the digital transformation process to ensure continued success. Good luck!

The post How to Boost Digital Transformation Using Data appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Users don’t typically remember the characteristics of a product, but they do remember how they felt when using it or when it failed in a critical moment. That means IT solutions should now cover both technical and user experience expectations.

This state of things pushes IT outsourcing companies to pivot from service-level agreements (SLAs) to experience-level agreements (XLAs). Let’s discuss the differences between them and reflect on the possibility of XLAs replacing SLAs.

What are XLAs?

XLAs are contracts concluded between IT service providers and customers. Providers use them to establish quality levels of using the solution in clear terms for users. In other words, XLAs attempt to provide better IT experiences with a focus on end-users.

XLAs use hard and soft data to measure user satisfaction levels. As a result, IT service providers introduce customer satisfaction KPIs as a combination of functional and emotional interactions with the solution. This allows them to constantly improve the technology and optimize the user experience.

XLAs vs SLAs

To understand why the existing SLA practice has become subject to modification, we need to look at it closer.

An agreement designed to mitigate IT outsourcing risks, SLAs define the service level the customer expects from an IT outsourcing partner. SLA relies on such metrics as service availability, capacity, defect rates, and security. It means the solution can meet business-level requirements without providing guarantee end users will be happy with it. For instance, the service is available 99.5% of the time as per the concluded SLA, but users can experience occasional critical outages or extremely slow performance during peak times.

For this reason, growing demand has appeared for modifying SLAs. All to factor in user experience and measure business outcomes from both the business and user perspectives.

How to quantify XLAs?

Because SLA metrics are quantifiable, everyone easily knows whether the contract requirements have been met or not and can then administer the corresponding penalties. But XLAs measure an intangible concept: user experience. How do you measure something qualitative like this?

To deal with this challenge, companies can measure the following data:

• Hard data looks at IT performance analytics, the product’s impact on user productivity, user interactions with different components, and such.
• Soft data focuses on user sentiment analysis, issue statuses rated by users, and user feedback. As user evaluations can be extremely biased (users can have different perceptions of such attributes as slow or critical), the common definitions of problems should be clearly defined.

Each experience category accumulates a score that helps measure service outcomes and user experience. It enables the search for components causing a poor experience or slow adoption. This also helps evaluate the overall experience and defines the probability of a customer recommending the service provider to others.

XLAs can also drive the shift from penalties to continuous improvement using closed-loop feedback cycles. When users are dissatisfied with some service outcomes, they can submit their problem and get it fixed. Such an attitude results in boosting their satisfaction levels throughout the project.

XLA challenges

As XLAs attempt to measure user experience, IT service providers will deal with lots of subjective and biased evaluations, often ending up in a losing position. For example, a few instances of a poor experience can cast a shadow on the overall project. These situations force a service provider to apply additional efforts to change this perception. Otherwise, the customer can channel this negativity in their review or recommendation.

Other users will be reluctance to provide consistent and sufficient feedback, especially with positive outcomes that are often taken for granted. As a result, a score can gravitate to lower indicators even though the majority of users are satisfied yet prefer to stay silent.

Service vendors need to propose XLAs to those customers who have already established a feedback routine with their users, be it consumers or employees. Users should be encouraged to provide their feedback regularly across different touchpoints. In this case, there’s a low chance that a few cases of a negative experience can skew the overall metric. What’s more, an XLA itself can promote feedback collection by making it a binding requirement.

In search of a healthy mix of XLAs and SLAs

SLAs define IT service success, focus on the expected quality of service, and outline the work to be done. This effort turns cooperation between service providers and their customers into measurable outcomes. SLAs are here to stay, but it has become clear by now that they need to evolve and accommodate user experience quantifications.

SLAs ensure that all kinds of technical issues are solved quickly and maintain the minimal service level. However, they aren’t geared towards optimization and proactivity to help avoid similar issues in the future. Business leaders understand that users make a product a success, so their experience matters. Companies couple SLAs with XLAs trying to change IT service motivation and focus on improving user experience.

Summing it up

The customer experience rush affects IT outsourcing too, giving rise to the new concept of experience-level agreements. Traditional SLAs will keep measuring the technical side of cooperation between service providers and customers. XLAs are here to attempt to measure and improve user experience.

The post Is IT outsourcing moving from SLAs to XLAs? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Many businesses do not want non-essential workers to visit their sites, while other businesses had to work remotely, leaving their sites closed to field workers. As a result, workers in the field industry have had to find solutions to service clients and to communicate with them while ensuring everyone’s health and safety. 

How Remote Work Affected Field Service Workers

For many workers in the field service industry, this situation moved them to virtual consultations and assistance. Consequently, video technology became a game-changing tool for businesses to overcome the challenge the pandemic brought about for service delivery. Business are increasingly implementing remote consulting and assistance to overcome any obstacles traditional service delivery faces. 

With this new change, it has become very important to have a highly experienced and skilled consultant as part of the field service team. Especially, when it comes to highly specialized products, such as customer relationship management solutions. For this, it is essential to have a trained and knowledgeable Salesforce consultant on the team. 

The Role of a Salesforce Consultant in the Field Service Industry

Firstly, field services can be complex, and even more so if it is done remotely. So, choosing the right Salesforce Field Service (FSL) consultant for successful Salesforce implementation can be tricky. 

The role of a Salesforce consultant is important in proper customization and optimization of the Salesforce platform as per a client’s needs. They are known for developing innovative solutions and can analyze how future changes can affect a business. 

Before we delve into the role that such a consultant plays, let’s consider the attributes the right candidate should have:

• Excellent experience in the CRM implementation industry 
• Experience in the functional areas of development
• Consultant personality that fits with the internal team
• Strong work ethic and self-motivated
• Strong communication skills 

Now, let’s delve into the role a Salesforce consultant should play in a business’ operations to ensure success. 

• Designing, implementing and maintaining databases

The main role of a consultant is to ensure that the business maintains its relationship with its clients. Therefore, a consultant will design, implement and maintain a business’ databases to effectively link the business with its customers. This process requires careful consideration and research to ensure the most effective outcomes. 

• Assisting with strategic decision making

For any business to scale, it has to make the right decisions to take on changes in the CRM system. A skilled consultant will collaborate with a team at the strategic level. They will design implementation procedures that perfectly fit your business needs.

• Creating and managing project plans

The Salesforce consultant will ensure great attention and consideration is given to the scope of the CRM project. This includes developing a project timeline and regularly communicating developments to stakeholders.

• Deploying and training 

A Salesforce implementation consultant also has the responsibility to assist with the deployment of the CRM project in the most productive way. After this phase, the consultant will provide effective training to clients to ensure they know how it functions. 

• Managing critical issues

A Salesforce functional consultant also assists with the managing of all the critical issues affecting the functioning of any business.

So, with a skilled Salesforce certified consultant leading a team, a business can achieve much success with new product implementation. However, with the many changes in the field services industry recently, it is also vital for businesses to consider how digital technologies will shape the industry in 2021. 

Five Ways Digital Technologies Will Change the Field Service Industry in 2021

Recently, the business world has changed significantly, thanks to the development of new technologies. This has also led to a major focus on customer experience, as consumers are constantly looking for more efficient and effective experiences. Fortunately, new and innovative digital technologies are consistently being developed. These innovations can help businesses to better understand and communicate with their target market to ensure better customer service. Let’s take a look at five ways digital technologies will shape the field services industry in the coming year.

1. Virtual Reality (VR)

With the focus on remote work, VR technology can assist teams to showcase new products to clients in a very realistic way. Additionally, training programs can also use VR technology, so workers can gain experience in a real-life environment. The health, aviation and education sectors are already using this technology for training purposes. 

2. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Studies show that 54% of businesses report that their adoption of AI has boosted productivity. AI technology uses historical data to compare current behavior with past trends. Furthermore, predictive maintenance purposes can also use these types of assessments. With this, teams will be able to predict when their next scheduled appointment for field service will be. 

3. IoT technology

IoT uses a network to connect devices or objects. When teams correctly implement IoT, they can remotely access clients’ systems. 

4. Machine learning (ML) 

ML is a method used for data analysis that can automate analytical model building. Teams can use it to compile data, organize information and report trends. ML is ideal for making important decisions with minimal human intervention. 

5. Cloud services 

Cloud services offer improved productivity through its quick, multi-device self-service experience. Studies show that 90% of businesses already use some sort of cloud service. Teams can work remotely alongside clients by having access to important data. 

Digital technology transformation is fast reshaping the way the field service industry operates. And all of these are highly beneficial for both field service teams, consultants and clients. 

The Field Service Industry in 2021: Looking Ahead

Undoubtedly, the worldwide pandemic has had a major impact on all tech industries, including the field service sector. However, many companies in this industry have found clever ways to service clients. 

Altogether, with the help of a strong team and an experienced consultant, a business can reap the benefits of using field services both now and in the future. The consultant should have the right skills and knowledge to lead a team, to communicate effectively and to design and implement a CRM project successfully. 

The post 5 Ways Digital Technologies Will Change the Field Service Industry appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

How to build a better customer service strategy 

Presently, ninety percent of Americans say customer service factors into whether or not they choose to do business with a company. 

Knowing this information presents you with an opportunity to win new customers. Therefore, if the customer’s experience with your company outshines your competitor, you will gain a new customer.

Take your customer service from mediocre to crowd-pleasing with these seven steps.

1. Evaluate your current customer support process

For starters, you can’t improve something without first identifying shortcomings. Take the time to evaluate your current customer service strategy and identify weaknesses. 

• Are calls and support tickets often bottlenecked? 
• Is your help desk disjointed? 
• Are agents flailing about to find answers to customer’s queries? 
• How many new customers return? If the number is low, could it be that you are losing them because of poor customer service? 

2. Set goals

Now that you know where the problems lie, you can set goals to overcome them and improve your service. Be specific. Do you want:

• Increase response and query resolution times?
• To add new channels for customers to contact you?
• To employ more help desk agents to alleviate long wait times? Thirty-three percent of customers are frustrated by long hold times and having to repeat themselves to multiple support agents.

 Don’t try to revamp everything all at once. Focus on a few priority goals that you can realistically accomplish within 12 months. You can roll out other upgrades at a later stage. 

3. Implement the right customer service software 

One of your priority goals should be to replace your old clunky customer service system with well-rounded CRM software. This single change will immediately up your game.

What to look for in customer relationship software:

• Integration with your other business applications and ecommerce systems. 
• User-friendly with a 360-degree view of the customer’s profile. All customer information, product purchases, and interactions should be in one easy-to-view place. 
• A multi-channel system that is capable of centralizing communication from different platforms like email, calls, social media, text messaging and live chat. 
• An efficient ticketing system for fast query resolution.

To help you find the right CRM system for your businesses, here’s a list of  the 13 best customer service software solutions of 2020.

4. Train help desk agents

All the best systems in the world won’t mean much if your agents are not properly trained. Just how much of an impact do customer service agents have on your business? Here’s what customers say: 

• 68% of customers said the customer service representative was crucial to a positive service experience with a company.
• 73% of customers say they fall in love with a brand and tend to remain loyal because of friendly customer service reps.

That’s how important your customer service team is to your business. So, invest in selecting the right staff and train help desk agents in company knowledge, product knowledge, communication skills, conflict resolution, and friendliness. They are on the frontline of your business and often the first point of contact for customers. 

5. Provide more digital channels 

Online shopping fared well in 2020. COVID quarantines pushed businesses to provide more digital contact options as customers struggled to access traditional channels like in-person assistance and overloaded call centers.

If you don’t already offer customer support via social media, live chats, and self-serve knowledge bases, it’s time to expand to more digital channels. Customers want the convenience of being able to contact a company through multiple channels, and most choose to do so online.

6. Continually analyze data 

When your customer service upgrade is complete and the results are delighted customers, take a moment to feel proud. However, that’s not where your job ends. Every good marketer will tell you that measuring and analyzing data is an important pillar of marketing. 

Continually analyzing data reveals a lot about where you’re succeeding and failing at customer processes. It also reveals insights into customer sentiment and preferences. 

You’ll be able to track customer retention rates. You’ll see patterns emerging from compliments, criticism or complaints. There’s a wealth of information you can glean from analytics to further enhance your customer service.

7. Reward high-value customers

Did you know that the number one reason customers stop using a company’s product or service is because they feel unappreciated? How can you turn that around? Offer your high-value customers rewards like an exclusive offer, a gift voucher for the birthday or other milestones, or discounted membership. Make them special and they’re likely to remain loyal to your brand. 

As the statistics show, customer service is often the differentiating factor between competing businesses. You can’t afford to let this area of your business just coast along. It’s time to make 2021 the year you level up your customer service. 

The post 7 Steps to Building a Better Customer Service Strategy in 2021 appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

If you are at all skeptical about leveraging marketing analytics in your business, take a look at the numbers. Forbes.com reports that:

“58% of enterprises are seeing a significant increase in customer retention and loyalty as a result of using customer analytics.”

“44% of enterprises are gaining new customers and increasing revenue as a result of adopting and integrating customer analytics into their operations.”

Taking advantage of what marketing analytics can do for your business directly translates into more customers and greater loyalty from existing customers, and the industry experts like London Sign Maker also vouch for ability to draw analytics for further strategising the digital signage display to enhance results in targeted demographies.

1. Use the Data to Create Personalized Experiences

Customers today demand highly personalized experiences. Salesforce’s annual “State of Marketing” report, found that,

“52% of B2C customers say they’d switch brands if they didn’t feel they were receiving a personalized experience.”

Analytics allow you to personalize the customer experience, optimize the customer journey, and increase engagement all along the way.

By leveraging marketing analytics, you now have access to a wealth of information. You can see which age groups, ethnicities, geographic locations, or income brackets are frequenting your site. This data gives you the opportunity to target specific groups with marking strategies that are designed especially for customers that fall within those data sets.

Jared Lees, the senior manager of industry strategy for financial services at Adobe says,

“Use data to create personalized experiences for your audiences. Customer interactions leave behind hints, creating digital fingerprints that can be analyzed for an abundance of information—right down to what your customers are doing or even how they’re feeling at that very moment.”

2. Look for Ways to Improve the Customer Experience

We all know by now that the customer experience is king. But, many businesses are still struggling to employ marketing analytics to improve the customer’s experience. One of the biggest advantages of leveraging marketing analytics is the ability to see how your customers are responding and how you can improve.

• What’s working well and what’s not?
• Are your customers experiencing roadblocks or obstacles that you’re not aware of?
• What’s the data telling you about pain points along the customer journey?

Looking at analytics can give you quantitative and factual data about customer behavior. In turn, you can use that data to improve the customer experience and increase your likelihood of retaining current customers and attracting new ones.

3. Don’t Discount Social Media

In addition to all of the analytics that you can pull from your internal systems, social media is a virtual gold mine for customer information. We all know social media sites collect our information and track our habits. Facebook even had to testify to Congress about what they do with our information, yikes! (cue the Zuckerberg memes) But, did you know that you have access to how your customers are engaging with your content on those social sites?

• You can see what time of day your Instagram is getting the most engagement,
• which Tweets are performing the best, or
• if your Facebook marketing strategy is generating leads.

It’s time to start leveraging your data for a better customer experience, your customers will thank you.

The post How Small Businesses Can Leverage Marketing Analytics for Better Customer Experience appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

1. Virtual Reality

More and more brands are integrating virtual reality into their customer service offering. It is becoming a game changer when it comes to how agents are able to interact with a brand’s customers and create unique customer experiences. VR offers the user a deeply engaging experience that enables them to experience things they would not really be able to experience physically. VR is making it possible for brands to offer customers the opportunity to try out or experience products from their phones before they make a purchase.

2. Artificial Intelligence

As a result of huge advances in the development of cognitive computing, natural language processing, and machine learning, agents are able to service customers faster and more effectively, and it’s having a great impact on the customer’s experience. From enhanced support and security services to personalization, Al functionalities are increasingly being adopted by brands in various ways.

3. Internet of Things (IoT)

The internet of things is the ever-expanding network of devices, ranging from smartphones and wearables, to simple sensors, that have IP addresses for internet connectivity, which makes it possible for all of them to communicate with each other, and with other devices and systems that have access to the internet. These connected devices are making it possible for brands to be more creative and take customer experience to a completely new dimension.

According to CXService 360, the huge amount of data that the IoT generates provides “rich insights on customer behavior and device performance which can be used to identify areas of improvement, user patterns and more”. Companies can utilize these insights to enhance efficiency, improve products, or create services and conversations that are more personalized. When it comes to BPO then make sure you use a good BPO service provider who can help you to close some sales.

4. 3D Printing

Gone are the days when 3D printing was only fictional. It has become reality and is revolutionizing customer experience by transforming how businesses produce and deliver products. Through 3D printing, a virtual product can be transformed into a physical one in seconds. Not only does 3D printing improve manufacturing, but it also makes it possible to produce completely customized products for users.

5. Chatbots

Chatbot technology is radically improving the way brands interact with customers. Chatbots provide businesses with several benefits. Not only are they easy to use, but they are available 24/7, automate repetitive work, and reduce waiting times. Chatbots are improving customer engagement and simplifying customer experience.

Businesses who realize the importance of being able to stand out from the competition are already investing in these technologies and reaping the benefits.

Written in partnership with Merchants.

The post How Technology Can Enhance the Agent’s Ability to Deliver Superior Experiences appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Here are some client gift ideas to steer clear of this holiday season and some helpful alternatives:

Gifts to Avoid at All Costs

Promotional Items

Promotional items of any kind are a big “no-no.” They come off as insincere, cheap, and just plain tacky. These are marketing tools that you should be giving away for free throughout the year. Your client will not be impressed with a grab bag of pens, notepads, and t-shirts with your company logo emblazoned across them. A bottle of wine in and of itself is not a bad gift, but, as soon as you slap a label with your logo, or even worse a picture of your face, on the bottle, it quickly turns into one of the worst holiday client gifts. 

What you can do instead: Gift your clients with an exclusive sneak peek of one of your products or services that haven’t hit the open market yet.

Unique Idea Gifts

If you’ve got been trying to find an exclusive gift for your love partner then it might be the simplest choice to buy a star online. this is often surely getting to be a singular and excellent gift for your love partner and it’s getting to make your love partner think that how important he or she is to you. A good range of companies are available on the web which give you facility to do a star registration online, so if you are doing not have time to travel to the market to shop for a present then it might be the right choice to buy this type of gift.

Generic Gift Cards

You want your clients to feel like you really know them. Sending a generic gift card will make you look out of touch and thoughtless.

What you can do instead: Find out what their favorite local restaurant or coffee shop is and send them a gift card or certificate there instead. You’ll be supporting another small business and they will appreciate that you remembered it was their favorite place, or at least that you took the time to find out.

A Meal Out…With You

No offense, but your clients probably don’t want the gift of listening to your next sales pitch this holiday season, even if it’s over dinner.

What you can do instead: Arrange a client appreciation night. Clients will enjoy the opportunity to meet and network with one another. Do most of your clients have families? Organize a kids’ holiday party to show your clients that you care about their whole family.

Canned Greeting Cards

Don’t send clients pre-printed and impersonal holiday greeting cards. They’re going straight in the trash.

What you can do instead: If you’re on a tight budget, but still want to let your clients know you are thinking of them this holiday season, send them a holiday greeting card. They key here is to make it personal. A photo card with a handwritten note can go a long way.

“Bill Bachrach, founder of Bachrach & Associates, a financial advisor coaching firm, also says that personalizing is key. ‘I love the family photo cards and the cheesy form letters about what’s going on in our lives this year,’ he says.

The Bottom Line–Don’t Miss the Point

“Recipients who reported receiving a memorable gift are 33 percent more likely to state that they feel more connected to the brand and 20 percent more likely to alter their behavior as a result, according to our research.” – Laura Jennings, CEO of Knack for Entreprenur.com

Client gifts can be memorable and personalized without breaking the bank. Remember that client gifts are in fact about the client, not about you or your business. Keep in mind that while your price point for client gifts should be consistent, all clients don’t have to receive the exact same gift. Give a gift relative to what they’ve contributed to your business and personalize gifts to each client’s interests. It will take a little more time and effort, and you may have to stalk their social media accounts, but the extra work will be worth it.

The post The Perfect Holiday Guide for Small Business Client Gifts appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Hopefully, not.

We all have a love-hate relationship with our phones. They do bring us closer together which is why we love them. While robocalls and automated answering services create problems for us. Fortunately for busy small business owners, there are answers that end the problems with automated answering services, if you want to avoid this, then consider contacting a managed service provider.

Why real people should answer phones

Ruby Receptionists is an answering service, but real people man the phones. This service can be managed from a mobile phone app and can be fully customized for any business. Over 8000 businesses rely on Ruby Receptionist because they value the power of a real person answering a phone, so if your business ever starts to get too busy to answer phones, then consider contacting these answering services for professional assistance. 

According to Nelson, having a real person answer business phone calls is a sure-fire way to grow your business. She has the stats to prove it:

• 40% of phone calls are buyers ready to buy
• 30% of all business phone calls lead to sales

Treating the customer with kindness

She also understands the value of customer service, beyond the phone call.

Nelson believes that kindness toward the customer is real customer service. Since businesses generally all offer speed and quality, the way that employees treat customers is the difference-maker today.

In her 15 years of running Ruby Receptionists, Nelson learned that people do business with companies that answer the phone and are pleasant and kind. Even over the phone, customers can tell if they are talking to someone who is smiling. The idea is to wear your voice on the phone – if you are smiling, the sound of your voice is different than if you are wearing a neutral face. Customers appreciate working with a happy employee.

Training for employees

To ensure that your employees sound happy on the phone, it is important to have happy employees. If your employees are tasked with phone duties, they should be people who enjoy talking on the phone. And, their employers should provide them with training so they can:

• Listen to customers
• Understand customers’ needs
• Feel empowered to answer questions
• Solve problems
• Make customers

Making meaningful connections works

People who listen and understand do exist. It’s a noble mission, according to Nelson, to be a caring person. To keep those noble employees, it is important for employers to inspire and empower them. When you make their day, they will do the same for your customers. When you make meaningful connections with your employees, they will do the same for your customers. It’s all about caring about people.

The post The Secret to Good Customer Service? Real People. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

What Broadly Does

At Broadly.com, Melick and his team understand what small businesses need to succeed. First of all, they need to provide quality customer service. Then, small businesses need customers to share their positive experiences through word-of-mouth. Customers can do this by talking to friends, family, and colleagues or they can leave reviews online.

Steps To Increase Word-of-mouth Reviews

But customers don’t do this very often. So, how do you get them to leave online reviews that will get new customers to become patrons? According to Melick, it’s rather easy, and it requires dedicated communication.

To get positive customer reviews, follow these best practices:

1. Provide good service.
2. Get a point of contact – either email or phone number.
3. Send a well-timed message.
4. Communicate quickly as needed.

These practices sound easy, but for small business owners, they are just one more (or four more) things to do. Broadly can help, but you can also do some of these steps on your own, especially the first step and the fourth step.

Improving Communication For Better Service

Since the best intentions do not always end up with the service that customers expect, it is a good idea to have a plan to address problems. Customers need to have a way to readily contact you and express their joy, frustration, irritation, or other experiences with your business. If something goes wrong and customers can contact you, then you can fix the problem. In theory, this should increase positive review, Generation Us specialize in coaching communication skills hen you can help and grow your special skills.

Bad reviews happen when customers cannot reach businesses. If there is a problem and no one is available to take care of it, then the customer will leave a bad review. Small problems can quickly escalate into bad reviews. Communication is the key to success, especially when looking for positive, online reviews.

Modern Communication And Websites

Organizations like Broadly.com can help you build your website with web chats and mobile messaging services so you can open up lines of communication. With these types of communication services, it becomes easy to gather customer email addresses and phone numbers. As soon as you have those points of contact, you can ask customers to leave honest reviews.

Get Real, Effective Reviews

According to Melick, businesses should not give customers anything in exchange for their reviews.

“You want real reviews, so you do not give anything to customers to get the review. Don’t give a card, because no one wants to type in a link.”

The well-timed email or text is best because customers click on the link and leave the review.

The post Get Customer Reviews Efficiently Using Strong Communication Techniques appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Typically, chatbots designed for business fall short because they don’t really understand what the customer is asking. They’re good with simple questions and uncomplicated situations. But if the customer asks something that is off-script or follows up with a line of questioning that the bot is not programmed to understand—as people often do—the chatbot becomes hopelessly lost.

And customers, on their end, become frustrated and angry. So, a tool that you purchased for the purpose of engaging customers ends up driving them away. And that can cost you real money.

What you need is a truly conversational AI assistant that can better understand your customers. One that can conduct a relationship-based discussion and give customers get the answers they’re looking for. The result is happier customers, increased productivity and greater profitability. The trifecta. And that is what we developed at Frontdesk AI.

Let’s say you’re running a yoga studio. Your customers and prospects are calling your business to ask all sorts of different questions: Can I take a class if I’m six months pregnant? Do you have classes for kids? Is Brianna teaching the 4pm vinyasa flow class tomorrow?

A simple chatbot won’t have the answers. Whereas a conversational AI assistant will be able to listen to what the customer is asking, seek information from you (the business owner) when needed and reply intelligently to as many of the questions as possible.

But don’t get fooled by a chatbot that only pretends to have AI. Here are four questions to ask when trying to distinguish a mindless chatbot from a truly conversational AI assistant.

1: Does it learn over time?

A true AI assistant gets better over time, as it handles more interactions with customers and engages in more conversations. The ability to learn really sets conversational AI apart from traditional chatbots. With each conversation, the AI assistant becomes more capable and intuitive, and builds expertise around your particular business.

The key is the assistant’s ability to continuously learn about human behavior when it converses with people or when it is confronted with new, unscripted situations. To accomplish this, there should be human trainers in the loop, so there is always a second layer of intelligence. These human trainers can also groom the AI so that it speaks in the same style and tone of your brand. With each exchange, the AI becomes more and more independent, building knowledge and experience from thousands of conversations.

Say, for example, you own a hair salon and a customer calls up asking if the hair dye you use is 100% organic. If your AI assistant doesn’t have the answer, it should at that point be able to reach out to a human trainer to get the correct response. That response should then be written into the system, so the AI can provide it the next time it hears the same question.

2: Can it be customized?

Traditional chatbots tend to be highly generic and hard to customize. But today’s conversational AI assistants can be tailored to your exact business requirements and workflows.

Let’s go back to your hair salon. You need an AI assistant that understands how your business operates, including how you book Groupon promotions, how you manage parallel appointments, how you collect credit card information in advance of appointments, how you handle cancellations and a thousand other daily processes. If an AI assistant can’t be customized to fit your business, it’s of limited value.

3: Does it remember my customers and can it engage in personal conversations?

Unlike traditional chatbots, conversational AI remembers everything about your customers’ preferences and can even call customers by their names. It knows what services they have used cheap viagra generic online in the past and even their preferred appointment times. That means it can help grow your business by targeting specific customers with special offers or introducing them to new services.

4: Can it think on the fly?

Say, for example, you own a local fitness center. One of your customers calls to cancel her spot in the 5pm spinning class. An intelligent AI agent will know that spot is now open and that someone else called in yesterday asking about that same time slot. Now it can go back to that customer and see if he still wants the spot. This is just one way an intelligent AI agent can generate more revenue for your business. PushPress Gym Management Software is for gyms and health clubs of all sizes and stages. Helping you have happier members, healthy business growth, and more time for you to do the things that you love

AI assistants are starting to play a vital role in today’s digital economy. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2020 the average consumer will have more conversations with robots each day than with their spouse. The more positive you can make those conversations, the better your business will succeed.

Authored By:

Srivatsan Laxman is the founder and CEO of Frontdesk AI, which was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. FrontdeskAI creates AI solutions for the un-sung heroes of the global economy – the small business and is the fastest adopted AI solution for the salon and fitness studio industries.

The post Your AI Assistant Should Be Able to Answer These 4 Questions appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

1. Use Social Media to Connect with Customers and Their Values

64 percent of customers say having shared values with a company is the number one factor in winning their loyalty. Combine that with the fact that consumers spend more time than ever on mobile devices and social media, and you have a simple recipe for connecting with them.

First, identify what values go into the products or services you offer, things like quality, ease-of-use, individuality, sustainability, and enjoyability. Next, come up with creative, engaging campaigns to showcase those values on social media.

• Create short Behind-the-Scenes videos showcasing the passion you put into your business.
• Do a Fact-of-the-Day highlighting a fun detail about a product or service.
• Write a social media post about industry-trending topics and seasonal content, or simply wish everyone a good weekend.

2. Provide Top-Notch Customer Support In-Person and Online

Customers want to know that you care about their experience, no matter where they interact with you. Many small businesses get this right when it comes to face-to-face interactions, but neglect to consider online environments, such as review sites and social media. With so many consumers online now, this is a sure way not only to lose a disgruntled customer but also any potential customers who see a damaging review.

• Train employees who interact with customers in-person or over the phone on proper customer service practices.
• Assign someone you trust to be in charge of responding to negative reviews and complaints online, and follow the best practices for responding to negative reviews.

3. Engage Your Customers to Encourage Loyalty

Customer engagement takes customer service one step further. Rather than reacting to issues and problems that arise with the customer experience, you’re proactively reaching out to customers to see what they want and what you can do better. Once again, the prominence of social media gives you an easy way to do this.

• Do a poll on your business’ social media pages to see what new products or services customers would like you to add
• Ask customers to post their favorite photos of your business online and tag you—incentivize the campaign by offering up a free deal or award to a random participant

4. Implement a Loyalty Program

For many business types, a loyalty program is a perfect way to keep your customers coming back frequently, and spending more when they do. With modern digital customer engagement platforms like what SpotOn offers, it is quick and easy to set up your loyalty program that utilized mobile technology rather than old-school loyalty punch cards.

• Create different tiers of rewards, including an easy-to-achieve reward to turn first-time customers into regulars, and then more lucrative rewards for your VIP customers.
• Get creative with your rewards—in addition to offering freebies and discounts, you can devise personalized rewards, like letting a loyal customer pick a menu item or get exclusive VIP access to special events.

5. Use an Automated Platform to Do it All

As a small business entrepreneur, you probably don’t have the luxury of hiring a dedicated marketing and social media team to accomplish all the tasks above. That’s why it’s essential to take advantage of the technology available to you, such as marketing email services and social media management software.

As a company founded by small business entrepreneurs, SpotOn has done one better and created an integrated customer engagement platform that streamlines everything: social media campaigns, marketing emails, review management, and loyalty. By putting it all in one intuitive dashboard and utilizing time-saving automation tools, it allows you to effectively do the job of an entire marketing team in minutes and for a fraction of the cost.

In the end, it’s about doing whatever it takes to keep your customers happy and coming back as lifelong, loyal regulars.

Authored By:

RJ Horsley is the President of SpotOn Transact, LLC, a cutting-edge payments and software company redefining the merchant services industry. SpotOn brings together payment processing and customer engagement software along with industry-vertical software, including best-in-class POS software for restaurants. 

The post 5 Ways to Boost Customer Retention appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Not Just a Chatbot

According to founder and CEO, Mathrubootham,  Freddy significantly expands on the capabilities of chatbots. Afterall, modern-day customers are demanding better service.

“Consumers demand better service in the communication channels they prefer, whether it’s modern messaging platforms, social media or even automated IoT applications. With Freddy the AI engine, possibilities become limitless and customer experience can be enriched at every touchpoint and across multiple channels.”

How Freddy Seeks to Help Businesses

Sales

Salespeople who are currently taking advantage of Freshworks’ CRM will be able to will be able to auto-calibrate their available leads, making sales easier to conduct.

Customer Service

Freddie creates automatic replies to common queries in email, chat, voice-calls and even social media with context from the customer’s knowledge base. This way, easy questions can now be put on Freddy’s plate rather than on your support team.

Customer Engagement

If you’re a savvy customer, you’re usually pretty aware of when you’re chatting with a robot. But, with Freddy’s capabilities, the goal is for him to appear like he’s an actual support person. Customers want to feel heard and they want their concerns heard, Freddy is there to listen.

With Easy Implementation

Unlike traditional enterprise AI platforms, Freddy seeks to be less intimidating to implement.
“Freddy removes that complexity and frustration by delivering timely customer information for representatives and instantly answering questions anytime or anywhere customers need support.”

The post Have You Met Freddy? Say Hello to a New AI Engine Set to Enrich Customer Service appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

There are several different types and features can be included in a CRM. How do you know which is the best one to use? Take a look at our 10-point guide before you invest in a CRM that doesn’t work for your needs.

1. Types of CRM Systems

There are three different types of CRM systems that meet the needs of businesses of all sizes. A single entrepreneur can get by one computer. Small businesses with more several employees often rely on a self-hosted CRM on a server. Larger businesses tend to use CRM systems that are hosted on the cloud and can be accessed anywhere via WiFi because a third party provides it.

2. What does a CRM do?

The question should be what doesn’t a CRM do. The real goal of a CRM system is to manage customer contacts – everything from basic details like phone numbers and email addresses to details about conversations. With this information, users can track activities and goals to build sales. The CRM also helps employees take a customer from the lead stage to the conversion stage – even if more than one employee is involved.

3. Do CRM systems integrate with other applications and systems?

Yes. They can be synced with email programs and calendar applications.  Some CRM systems actually have messaging functions built right in, so they do not need to be synced. Larger companies benefit from complex CRM systems that allow employees to interact within them.

4. Can CRM systems customize data for individual employees?

Yes. All three types of CRM systems have dashboards that can be customized based on an employee’s workplace needs. These dashboards are designed to be intuitive for easy use.

5. Can CRM systems work with social media?

The newest CRM systems do work with social media platforms. Since most businesses use social media to gather and work with leads, the newest CRM applications actually integrate social media data into the traditional streams of data. CRM systems are designed to make work life easier for sales staffs. By integrating social media data, sales forces benefit by learning about their customers’ reactions to their brands and products and make better decisions on new products and services. It would be a mistake to not connect your CRM to your business’s social media feeds as it gives businesses the tools they need to quickly respond to customers to maintain their loyalty.

6. Can CRM systems be used for marketing?

If you select a CRM with social media features, you can actually use the CRM data to build a better marketing campaign. Social media is generally a one-way street for businesses that post videos on YouTube, send messages on Twitter and Facebook, and create photos for Instagram. Without a CRM, businesses have no idea what, if any, social media posts engage customers, gather leads, and convert them into sales. But with CRM, marketing departments can learn from every piece of social media content and make changes as needed. Traffic goes two ways with a CRM used in conjunction with social media.

7. Are CRM systems scalable?

They certainly can be scaled for businesses of all sizes, especially those that are cloud-based. Third-party providers often charge businesses for what they use and they can customize a CRM to meet the needs of the business. CRM systems that are server based can usually be scaled to business sizes, too.

8. What are the benefits of a CRM?

There are numerous benefits to added a CRM to your business, no matter what the size. The ultimate goal of using a CRM is to increase sales, thus increasing revenue. Along with that goal, a well-designed CRM will help businesses improve their customer relationships. It also improved communication with customers and with fellow employees, as the CRM gives businesses standardized, customized communication tools that create consistency. The CRM also creates opportunities for employees to work as a team to grow sales by working from the same collection of data.

9. What features do I need in a CRM?

This will depend on the type and size of business you have. CRM systems are useful for businesses of all sizes, from the smallest startup to the biggest corporations. Along with analyzing customer and marketing data, they can be used to manage leads and pipelines. These features allow employees to get an organized, visually attractive view of leads and sales without having to scour through unwieldy spreadsheets.

There are even more advanced communication features on many CRM systems. Some have built-in phones so you can contact leads right from the screen while logging the conversation. Most have voicemail options, too. Many also have email features that allow users to create email templates and content while also collecting data metrics like open rate and more.

The better CRM systems also allow users to create customized reports and to create automatic tasks. So, you can look closely at your performance or your employees’ performances in any given time frame. You can also set up your CRM to automatically change the status of leads based on phone calls, social media responses, or other activities. The better CRM systems will also allow users to set reminders, too.

10. How do I choose the best CRM for my business?

There are several factors to consider before committing to a CRM system. For many business owners, price is often the first consideration. Decision makers should consider both the upfront cost and the maintenance costs, too. The second consideration should be the features that fit your needs. The final factor to consider is the required technology, especially if a CRM requires the use of an exorbitant amount of cloud space or the use of a new server that you do not have.

Authored by: Kristen Bentley, Reporter, Smallbiztechnology.com

The post CRM Systems: A 10-Point Guide appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The number one thing smaller business (and all brands) can do is to treat customers like humans instead of transactions on a spread sheet. There are challenges in gluten free living. The biggest challenge is being social! I find there is a great deal of stress to dinner especially when we are invited into a friend’s home. So much of what is prepared, simply cannot be eaten and the host seems to get insulted! Doing your best to explain to them about gluten sensitivity, yet for many they just do not understand. It is not a fad thing, it is not a weight loss thing, and it is a health thing. Phentermine can be addictive and should only be used for its intended purpose. Strictly follow the dosage of the drug. Do not abuse Phentermine – it can be dangerous for your health. Being called radical, and even called a health nut! Many people judge for the health choices that a person living with gluten sensitivity makes and not in a good way. Yet these same people that judge seem to have all kinds of health problems! It simply does not make any sense! Social frameworks, including friendships and relationships, are an important part of the detox and rehab processes. Significant challenges can occur in the social sphere immediately following detox, but they can be overcome. Drug detox, in the strictest sense, consists only of the procedure of eliminating the drug from the body, it is often confused with rehabilitation, the larger process of which it is a part. But it is only a first step, and long term success depends on many factors. Thus, one must consider larger issues which are not part of the actual procedure. Major difficulties can be in the patient’s friendships. It is well known that, even after a successful detox, if the patient is again friends with other drug users, relapse is greatly increased. Ending such friendships is difficult, but often it must be done. Likewise, the recovering addict must assess his or her romantic relationships. Here is the best example of what we do, visit once. Is a significant other supportive of the recovery effort? Is he or she a user, or friends with others? A supportive home life or romantic partnership can be a positive factor in successful recoveries. The lack of such support makes recovery difficult at best. Another difficulty lies in establishing new social connections. The patient may feel misunderstood or isolated, and if it is known in the community, the former drug use may cause some may shun to the friendship or romantic advances of the recovering addict. Other social groups can act as positive support for the recovering addict, treat depressed with the tianeptine capsules. Family members, churches, activity and volunteer groups or clubs, and classes can be great sources of positive connections, and working out at a gym can be a big part of the social recovery, providing the benefits of better physical condition and stress alleviation.

He explained that small businesses value relationships with customers, long term relationships.

If we remember that your CUSTOMER being a FAN should be your ultimate goal. The more you celebrate your relationship with them, the more you’ll be successful.

Nicolas said that instead of being so focused on selling a service to your customer, think how you can add value to their experience. This value leads to further awareness and more organic growth for your company.

The post Treat Your Customers Like Humans, Not Transactions – Sid Lee Exec appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

One solution to this all-too-common problem is Chorus.ai, a company that uses artificial intelligence to automatically record, organize, and transcribe business calls and meetings. I interviewed Roy Raanani, co-founder and CEO of Chorus.ai.

Chorus.ai can serve many purposes to your small business. When you start off, you will see how top performers run their deals, what features they focus on, and how they present their product. As you use Chorus.ai over a significant period of time, you can begin analyzing your own company’s data and see what techniques benefit your business.

When small businesses lose an experienced representative, it can really bring down productivity. It is very hard to find someone new with the same amount of experience. Chorus.ai can help expedite this process by providing a training resource for new employees. Since it keeps a record of all recorded calls, trainees have a real-life example to learn from and follow. many people have to many ambiguous or Vague Information about ai to clear your doubts you can check the link clearance of ambiguous or Vague Information.

As you will see, Chorus.ai makes the process extremely simple for small businesses.

With one click, you can share your Google or Outlook 365 calendar, so that Chorus.ai can see your scheduled meetings. At your next meeting, a Chorus bot joins automatically. It will prompt you to notify participants that the conversation is being recorded, then you just carry on your meeting as if nothing were different.

When the meeting is over, you will receive an email with links to the recording, transcript, and screen share. Chorus.ia then identifies the questions asked, the agenda, and various other aspects of the conversation.

Over time, you build up a library of calls, at which point you could go to the analytics portion of Chorus.ai. Here, you can search key points you want to look over, for example how often your competitors’ names were mentioned. With just one click, you will be led to the specific moment where that was discussed.

Chorus.AI helps small businesses by taking tools that are taken for granted in large companies and making them accessible to smaller businesses. In past years, processing conversations was a manual process but recent algorithms have helped bring intelligent assistance to the average worker.

Small businesses need to have good data around their sales. It is important that you maintain a data set you can periodically take a look back on. If you’re thinking about using Chrous.ai to aid your business, Roy said, start NOW.

Listen to the full interview below or click here.

The post Using AI to Improve Your Sales – Chrous.AI founder talks with Ramon Ray appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Wix has recently launched a help desk software called Wix Answers. It’s a robust platform that provides a “help desk” service to any business (or non-profit) that needs to better serve their customers.

Wix Answers was developed on the basis of the software Wix uses to provide it’s own first class customer support. Why is this important? This new tool has been proven to work and has already been tested by Wix’s own support team and customers!

With Wix’s input I’m excited to share with you about this new offering.

Wix Answers is a free customer support service that you can set up so that your customers could find answers to their own questions. In addition, you can manage inbound support queries from several channels – email, phone or social media. While email and social are desired by many, there’s still many times when customers want to CALL YOU. Wix Answers let’s your team take calls from a toll-free number, and customers can even request a call back! Instead of making customers search around for help, you can embed a widget into your website so that customers could “click” and get help from just about anywhere on your website.

Multi-channel support is important

Providing a variety of ways to serve customers is important. There’s been many times when I wanted to call a company – but they only provided email support. Or other times, when I was happy I could DM a company on Twitter and get a response in minutes!

Use insights and analytics to proactively serve customers

While you want to provide the initial support to your customers you also want to glean insights on the inbound support issues so you can proactively help your customers. For example, knowing what issues come up the most, will help your production team design a product that requires less support. Or knowing the times you get the most support requests will help you better staff and anticipate high demand times for helping customers. What if you could know what channels customers were using the most to get support. This would help you better service customers in that area, or see how to expand support options in other areas.

As business owners, we don’t have the time to waste resources. Being able to have staff at the right place, at the right time, doing the right things is important. But you can only do this with insights from your customer support!

Big company features for small businesses

I took a spin setting up my own help system and found it simple to use. I tried to play with the call center software features as well.  It was fun seeing how I could get a “vanity” telephone phone number that had my name in it – who know what “Ramon” is spelled 72666 on the phone!

Wix Answers makes it simple to have the more advanced features of a bigger business, but still have a simple system to serve customers as you grow. The basic features, out of the box are free. As you want to use phone support, add more team members and other features you pay as you need them and as your business grows.

Great customer experience

As one who has started four companies, I found that getting the first sale is pretty easy. What’s challenging is to get the customer to buy again and again. This ONLY happens, if I’ve served them well and provide them with a great experience.

Part of a great experience is not just the initial delivery of a particular product or service, but also providing exceptional support for it. When it comes to small business answering services, the CallNET Answering Services is considered the best there is thanks to all their 5 star reviews.

Customers will tell others about your business in two scenarios. Your service was SO BAD and they start to post about it on social media, give you a bad review etc. OR your service was SO GOOD that they tell others how amazing your company is.

It’s up to you and your team to decide which version customers tell.

Summary

With tools such as Wix Answers, you can be sure that customers who interact with your brand will tell a positive story to others.

As you start to provide better customer service, remember to train your support staff. Be sure they know HOW to answer the phone, how to reply via email and how to answer via social media. It just takes one “silly” mistake by an employee to ruin years of great work that you and your company might have done.

Remember, customer service, even a tool such as Wix Answer is just a tool. You must hire the right team member who can be empathetic to a customer’s needs, and who wants to ensure the customer’s problem is resolved.

Technology enables every business to have everything they need to start and grow their business. If you hire the right team, build systems and stay focused on serving your customers, you’ll have a healthy and thriving business.

The post How to Build Your Own Customer Support with Wix Answers appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC has also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Performance Optimization

Although it’s often more of a development change, improving the load speed of your website or app can often have a tremendous impact on customer experience. Consumer attention is fickle, so anything you can do to grab it before it’s gone is essential to driving sales or conversion. Optimize your code to ensure you optimize your sales. – Ross Beyeler, Growth Spark

2. Color Usage

Color is an important design tool that can increase customer engagement, as well as sales. When you use contrasting colors between the background, CTA buttons and text on your site, you are influencing the way a user moves around the page. When color is used appropriately, it can lead a user’s eye to the most important items, such as a click to buy option or a button that allows them to request more information. – Blair Thomas, eMerchantBroker

3. Call Scheduling

The ability to speak with someone over the phone or in person is highly important to most consumers. We added a giant ‘schedule a call’ button right in the middle of our homepage. This has led to hundreds of additional calls in the past couple months compared to when we only had this button on the contact us page of the website. – Mike A. Podesto, Find My Profession

4. Transaction Speed

We’ve changed how our transactions work on our website to speed up how customers experience them. There are fewer abandoned shopping carts and more completed sales due to changing how transactions work, including allowing customers to store their information. – Peter Daisyme, Calendar

5. Mobile Responsiveness

Well, our website is still very important, but our sales funnel is very broad and each level of communication funnels back to our website. For example, we leverage social media to gain new clients, directing them to the ‘link in bio.’ You better make sure your site is mobile friendly. You’re very late if it’s not. – Andrew Namminga, Andesign

6. Simpler Websites

I tend to skew more toward a minimalist web design for both speed and ease of use. Eliminate long scrolls, display a clear CTA and make conversions as easy as one click. Testimonials, case studies and content do help nurture leads, but you don’t need to stuff these on your homepage or landing page. Minimalism appears more natural and professional. Offer clear benefits, but don’t oversell them. – Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com

7. Fewer Steps

The two primary purposes for UX are to make it easy and clear to the user. Having fewer steps allows people to get what they want faster, and making that clear for the users allows them to do that. You should always ask yourself if your design flow and UI is easy and clear for the users to understand. Everything else is more specific and tactical. Your design will stem from that. – Andy Karuza, FenSens

8. Social Proof

We implemented a social proof application that pops up in the corner of the site. It will give the first name and city of someone that has recently purchased the product increasing social validation. You can use apps like Upfunnel or Uptible to implement it. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

9. Chat Options

Our chat receives more engagement than any form on our website. We started using the chat to understand our customer’s goals, but then as we started seeing the same questions over and over again. So we used the chat to have prospects answer questions for us. Once they answered ‘yes’ to three questions, we would have a phone call with them to discuss their goals and evaluate their fit. Use chat; it helps. – Sweta Patel, Silicon Valley Startup Marketing

10. Exit-Intent Pop-Ups

We’ve implemented exit-intent pop-ups that have helped increase subscriber conversions right before the visitor leaves the site. One way we boosted subscription rates was to create lead magnets, basically a free resource in exchange for their email address. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

The post 10 Ways to Improve User Experience and Increase User Engagement appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC has also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Keep the Customer Front and Center

AI and chatbots can be used to improve service levels … or destroy them. So make sure you keep the customer front and center. Will your customer be delighted by this solution or enraged? Remember that if you give a customer a bad answer, you risk losing them forever. We recommend taking it slowly. If you deploy a chatbot, make sure it has the option to transfer the customer to a human agent. – Jonathan Steiman, Peak Support

2. Test Them Out Internally

Before making them available to the public, try using them on an internal basis to test how they work and better understand where they could provide a benefit to your operations. It’s important everyone get to use them first, so they feel comfortable with the idea. – Serenity Gibbons, Calendar.com

3. Have a Clear Objective

Make sure you have a clear objective in mind. AI and chatbots can be utilized in several ways, so understanding what you wish to get out of them plays a crucial role in their development. If you are using chatbots for lead generation, make sure it does just that. Your chatbot should engage users and ask the right questions to receive the crucial information you need to complete your objective. – Duran Inci, Optimum7

4. Be Conversational

Chatbots are the best of texting and email combined. If you want people to interact with your bot you need to be conversational, which means asking lots of questions, providing short answers that give value and most importantly, not spamming them. When planning out your chatbot experience, you want your bot to act more like a friend or family member, and not like a car salesman. – Bryan Kesler, CPA Exam Guide

5. Have Chatbots Take the Lead

Instead of hiding your chatbot icon in the bottom right of your site, let visitors know it’s ready to help with a welcome message. Ask questions to your customers directly related to their visit. Design questions that offer support and lead customers to actions such as, “have you ever worked with an SEO company in the past?” or “what are you looking to improve on your website?” for an SEO site. – Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com

6. Account for AI Learning Time

A major point to keep in mind when implementing AI or chatbots into your company is that AI takes time to learn speech patterns in order to respond accordingly. With so much AI tech now available, it seems building your own software may save money, but using an existing platform will save you the time it takes to get through the inevitable learning curve the software needs to work correctly. – Jason Criddle, Jason Criddle and Associates

7. Have a Good Script

You need to have a good script. Think of all possible questions and answers, and then flow chart the entire experience. There is no harm in trying this out, but you need to dedicate the time in setting up a good chat system with a lot of possible questions and answers. Then you need time to keep adding information. – Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design

8. Anticipate the Unanticipated

You are going to provide a lot of value for your customers, but it isn’t without additional employee cost. Ask yourself if you’re ready to handle the increased workload that will be generated by creating a new channel for customers to seek help and suggest feedback. Consider potential unintended consequences of any changes in how your app seeks to help its users. – Tim Chaves, ZipBooks Accounting Software

9. Link Them to Your Apps for Fast Assistance

I recently instituted chatbots, and I was able to link it to my company’s Slack so that messages to the bot show up where I’m reviewing all other notifications. Doing this for yourself can give you the freedom to see when customers are contacting you, and give you the freedom to hop in and replace the bot without a delay or confusing transition. – Adam Steele, Loganix

10. Understand Their Limitations

Even though AI is advancing quickly, it still doesn’t take the place of personalized customer service. Chatbots are good for certain tasks, such as helping website visitors find what they’re looking for. But don’t expect too much from them, and make sure you also give people an easy way to get more detailed help if they need it. – Shawn Porat, Scorely

The post 10 Things to Consider When Automating Your Customer Support Services appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

But, the main concern lies on how to impress your customers’ for a big time and create positive customer experiences. Follow these simple steps to build positive customer experiences:

Offer Great Customer Service: Customer service is one of the key factors to determine the quality of your business. Generally, customers’ purchase products from your business and if any one of your customer faces issue with the product, then the customer reports the same to the customer service department. If the customer service representative quickly resolves the customer issue, then it creates a positive impression about your company in customer’s mind, builds trust about your brand and happily recommends your business products and services to the friends and family members.

In case, if the customer service representative is not serious in resolving customer issues, then the customer gets irritated and it automatically creates a bad impression about your company in customer’s mind and for the next time, the customer will never buy any products from your business which can ultimately result in the loss of a valuable customer. Therefore, the customer service team needs to be prompt and quick in resolving customer issues, complaints and concerns.

Use CRM for Customer Data Segmentation:
If the incoming lead shows interest in your business in the form of continuous website visits, downloading important PDF files or filling details in the web form which should trigger your business to keep track of lead’s online activities. Try to monitor and record lead’s interactions with the company, social media conversations, browsing history, a number of times the lead has visited your website, what kind of content your lead is interested to share on social media channels and so on. PDF is not the editable documents, but with the software, availability to Convert PDF to Word online makes our takes easier, to make it editable rather than creating the whole document again.

Recording and analyzing of lead’s online activities enables the businesses to segment customers’ into various targeted groups and send them the relevant promotional and marketing content which can evoke the lead’s interest and creates an impression that you take care of your customer needs and preferences and builds a positive impression about your brand.

Provide Value to your Profitable and Loyal Customers: Every day, several customers’ visit your business to buy products and services. But there are only a few customers who are loyal, trust-worthy and stick to your business forever. Despite the odd times, they visit your business store repeatedly to buy new products and services, spread goodness about your business, act as brand advocates, refer your business to friends and family members and create positive vibes about your business on social media channels.

Use CRM software to identify the most profitable customers’ of your business, compile a list of loyal and profitable customer database and send them special personalized thank you messages, discount coupons and reward them for being loyal to your brand for a long period of time.

Generations are changing and nowadays, customers’ are expecting personalized interaction with company. They want the companies to know – who they are, what they have previously purchased, and what are their buying habits, interests, needs and expectations. For businesses to better understand its customers’, it is always important to identify and analyze the customer interactions with company at every stage. Employ the CRM system to have a 360 degree customer view and develop positive and professional in-person customer experiences.

Author Bio: James Maron is an author at SutiCRM. He shares his views on SaaS and Cloud-based business management solutions.

The post How To Use CRM to Create Positive Customer Experiences appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

In what way is your business using technology to transform customer support? 

The post 12 Technology-Based Tips to Improve Your Business’s Customer Support appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEChas also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Send Personalized Gifts to Customers

We send personalized gifts that aren’t that expensive, but customers love them. An example would be sending a customized handwritten note. I suggest something like maillift.com. They have an API so you can do everything programmatically. – Liam Martin, TimeDoctor.com

2. Let Artificial Intelligence Handle Your Grunt Work

If you take time to develop a robust AI system to interact with clients at the prospecting stage and upkeep stage of your relationship, then you should be able to invest more of your time to really give personalized attention when it’s needed most. – Artem Maskov, DEVTRIBE INC

3. Survey Your Customers to Help Address Their Needs Better

I use quizzes to automate the personalization of our customer experience. Based on the responses to the quiz, we are able to send subscribers emails that specifically answer the issues they are experiencing. This makes it much easier to sell to them, build their trust and help them. – Bryan Kesler, CPA Exam Guide

4. Commit to Personal Check-Ins

The most effective tactics are sometimes the most traditional. Although our accounts team is phenomenal, I still regularly dedicate time to personally connect with clients as much as possible. This opportunity to converse frankly with the top level of leadership, even if brief or intermittent, is clear evidence of our commitment to serving our clients well. – Ryan Wilson, FiveFifty

5. Follow Up After the Purchase

Every customer has a unique assortment of products in their shopping cart when they complete checkout. Use that information to customize their post-purchase emails. Send educational product information to help them maximize the utility of their purchase, and help them discover new use cases for the product. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep

6. Make Thoughtful, Genuine Gestures That Put Your Product in Context

When people rent cellphone charging stations from us for events, we add hand wipes in case their hands get dirty during assembly. We also line the cases with dryer sheets so when they open the box they get a sense of calm in what is typically a hectic environment. In the past, we have included things like mints, energy candies and other little items that could be useful for surviving an event. – Jessica Gonzalez, InCharged

7. Make Your System-Generated Emails Feel Personal

I am always amazed at how our customers will respond to a system-generated email, thinking that it was actually typed up by a human being. We find great success with our emails because we make them very personal. We avoid sending messages from a standardized email account but instead generate them as if they were coming from a team member. Emails coming from someone is the ultimate personalization. – Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors

8. Segment Your Email Lists

Email marketing is most effective when you send targeted emails to your website visitors. You can segment lists based on previous behavior and create buyer personas for your visitors depending on their interaction with your site. This will make it easier for you to understand what your visitors are looking for and deliver emails that are more likely to convert. – Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster

9. Serve Automated Recommendations 

Lead people with recommendations that are related to their purchase. Amazon utilizes this very well to boost its e-commerce sales. Recommendations could be based on similar products or what people searched for after they landed on that given landing page. This strategy could also be followed up in a personal email or invoice sent to the customer after a purchase or abandoning a purchase. – Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com

10. Use the Data You Have

Use the valuable data you already have to learn from your business, consumers and competition. Data can help you learn what’s most effective for your business and how to utilize these insights to effectively customize the customer experience. Your insights provide you a picture of your consumer’s needs and expectations so you can update the areas that need an improved, relevant experience. – Solomon Thimothy, OneIMS

11. Offer Personalized Deals Through a Loyalty Rewards Program

For digital commerce business that already have a loyalty rewards program, offer your customers a deal that your company has never offered before. Create 48-hour flash sales with incredible deals. Businesses that don’t have a rewards program need to implement one as soon as possible. At the very least, you’ll be able to grow your mailing list. – Patrick Barnhill, Specialist ID, Inc.

12. Send Relevant, Timely Content Via Email

As long as you’re writing content and keeping a pulse on what is out there in your industry, you can create an email marketing campaign that is pretty cost-effective. Make sure you have a way to capture email addresses of site users and then put them into a drip campaign based on where they are in the buyer’s journey. This will help keep the experience personalized. – John Hall, Influence & Co.

13. Emphasize Customer Service

The importance of great customer service is sometimes not given adequate appreciation, although this can be a great channel through which to connect with users. Acknowledging that you understand their concerns and can find a creative solution to their problem, in addition to addressing them by name, can have ripple effects that improve someone’s overall experience and spread to other users. – Mark Krassner, Expectful

14. Incorporate Automation Into Your CRM System

Many automated programs are not expensive and do wonders in terms of personalization, especially when it comes through your CRM system. This can give you the ability to send out targeted messages that relate to a special time of year for the recipient, or that generate a personalized discount or promotion. – John Rampton, Calendar

The post 14 Easy (and Affordable) Ways to Personalize Your Customer Experience appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Salesforce recently announced an upgrade to its Service Cloud platform.

One of the enhancements to Service Cloud is speed to get up and running. With just a few clicks you can ensure your customer service team can connect to Twitter, Facebook and other channels to offer support wherever your customer wants.

By simply dragging and dropping, with the Lightning App Builder, companies can extend functionality by simply dragging-and-dropping one of the new service Lightning Components into Service Cloud.

Of course being able to respond to customer needs outside the office is essential as well. According to the press release, Service Cloud Mobile app for iOS and Android empowers agents to provide personalized customer service from anywhere. With the new native mobile app,  employees can triage, manage and resolve cases while in meetings or on-the-go. Push notifications help keep agents up to date on the status of their cases, making it easier for them to provide customers with fast, responsive service.

Salesforce is enabling business owners to better serve their customers across all channels and enabling customers to have a better experience with the business.

The post Salesforce Upgrade Its Customer Service Platform. Faster Setup Time. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Here are 4 ways you can quickly scale up your ecommerce efforts.

1 – Go cross-border

What better way to scale up than opening your business to new markets? If your products or services have universal appeal, consider going cross-border. A quick way to check interest is to implement SEO and analytics and look through your site’s traffic data for visitors that come from outside your country. Often, this means that people interested in what you offer. Seek these visitors out and consider servicing their territories.

Thanks to improvements in shipping and fulfillment, it’s now easy do cross-border commerce. Know which payment methods your target markets prefer. Each region would have their own preference and you can’t assume that cards are the only way to go. For example, parts of Europe especially in Scandinavia and Southwest Europe prefer to use their bank accounts for payments while developing countries in Asia demand cash-on-delivery options. Knowing this is crucial since the unavailability of their preferred payment method is a major reason why shoppers abandon their carts.

According to Oscar Berglund, the CEO of Stockholm-based fintech company Trustly “Many shoppers are likely to abandon their carts if their preferred payment method is not available. Merchants that don’t allow the consumer to pay in the way he/she likes are losing out on revenue.”

In a recent interview, Berglund said that digitalization is making banking faster.

“Traditional bank payments will become faster, safer and more convenient. This advancement will be driven mainly by better and more user-friendly methods of digital authentication.”

Trustly currently operates in 29 European countries to enable merchants to accept bank transfer payments.

Partner with a payments service to process these payments for you. Getting a payments provider is also more convenient since you also don’t have to worry about navigating the regulations of each target country you’d like to engage business in.

2 – Get and keep more customers

Aside from going cross border, you can focus on growing your customer base from your current market. This means ramping up your marketing efforts. Ecommerce is rarely “build it and they will come.” Successful ventures always reach out to customers and encourage them to do business.

There are several engagement campaigns that you could readily start. You can curate and share content through your social media pages. You can start a newsletter and send prospects helpful content about things related to your product line or industry. You can even send out or post promo codes to encourage them to purchase.

However, doing this manually can take some effort so consider implementing marketing automation. You can even create targeted event-based campaigns such as prompting modals to visitors as they exit your store. You can even send out reminder emails to users who abandon their carts. You can grow your customer base by keeping conversion high.

3 – Improve your supply chain

Another thing to prepare for when scaling up is improving your supply chain. Often, startups often get frazzled trying to keep up with demand when business unexpectedly picks up. This can be prevented if you have a good handle of your processes.

One way to anticipate demand is through analytics. You can monitor which products get browsed and bought. You can also analyze your customer’s behavior on your site. Such insights can even help you optimize your catalog and inventory. You can get rid of poorly performing products and stock up on your best sellers. You can even consider overhauling your catalog and focus on more upscale products if the numbers point to such trend.

Knowing the ebb and flow of your stocks also helps make sure that you can both readily deliver to your customers by having stocks on hand and avoid tying up your resources with extra units held in your stockroom.

4 – Improve customer experience

What is ultimately key to success in ecommerce is providing a hassle-free experience to your customers. This has become all the more crucial especially now that ecommerce has shifted to mobile. BI Intelligence forecasts that mobile commerce will account for 45 percent of ecommerce come 2020 so you would do well optimizing your site for mobile.

Aside from making a mobile-friendly site, consider creating a dedicated mobile app as it provides a quicker experience for your users. Apply the best practices in designing your user experience. Make your search bar visible. Create easy to use sorting filters to help your users browse through the search results.

Another important thing to consider is localizing your experience for your markets. You can provide translations of your product descriptions, currency conversion for prices, and even be upfront about added fees such as taxes and shipping costs which may vary depending on their location.

Minimize the number of steps customers need to go through to complete the transaction. A Baymard Institute study on cart abandonment also cites checkout issues as top reasons why customers leave so by working on your interfaces you could the eliminate points of friction that customers hate.

A superior experience would make your ecommerce presence stand out and win you more customers.

The post 4 Ways for Ecommerce Companies Can Scale Fast appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Analytics has emerged to be a difference maker in ecommerce. It can track all your customers’ activities to know where your traffic coming from, what products they are browsing, how long they spend on each page, what items they put in or take out of their carts, and how successful are you in closing sales. This allows you to understand your customer behavior.

Guy Greenberg, founder of business intelligence and analytics company CoolaData, believes that understanding buyer behavior is key to increased conversions. He writes, “Advanced behavioral analytics offers businesses this added advantage by collecting, storing, enriching and analyzing raw user data over time.”

By knowing these, you would know which areas you need to improve on in your products and services. However, this is predicated on enabling analytics early on. Here are 7 areas where analytics can help improve your ecommerce efforts.

1 – Tailor a customer experience unique to your market

Providing a superior customer experience is essential to ecommerce. You should minimize customer effort from the moment they land on your page until you wrap up the sale. While there has been plenty of research done to identify “best practices” to consider in crafting user experience, it is still crucial to monitor how customers behave in your own context especially if you operate in a particular vertical or niche market. For example, if you offer more big-ticket or upmarket items, buyers may want to research more on the product compared to cheaper items. Analytics can tell you what content buyers are looking for. This way you can strengthen features such as comprehensive product descriptions, user reviews, and Q&A.

2 – Curb cart abandonment

Cart abandonment remains a major concern for ecommerce. Ecommerce across all industries suffers from an average abandonment rate of 70 percent. The reasons behind are varied from unexpected costs to complicated checkout processes to limited payment methods. Through analytics, it is possible to pinpoint the exact instances when users leave your service. This way, you can improve upon these areas and even conduct interventions in order to win them back.

3 – Improve marketing efforts

You can craft engagement campaigns and loyalty programs based on customer behavior to further improve your business. Analytics can be integrated with automation tools to help manage marketing activities and campaigns. For example, in the case of cart abandonment, automation tools can trigger email reminders or pop up promo codes just as customers leave in order to entice them to push through with the sale.

4 – Manage stocks and pricing better

It’s easy to determine which products are doing well based on sales figures alone. However, this doesn’t paint a complete picture. Analytics can help you delve deeper into your sales data. You can explore if there are products that are popularly browsed or added into carts but don’t get bought. You can then decide on actions such as tweaking your prices. You can even narrow down your catalog and focus on the ones that generate the best profit for you. You can also consider moving upmarket if you notice that you are moving big-ticket items more than low-priced products.

5 – Minimize returns

If you ever shopped for clothes online, you know how difficult it is to get the right size even if there are size charts available. Even Amazon users have to rely on other buyers’ feedback to make sense of a garment’s true size. US fashion retailers report a return rate of between 20 to 40 percent. Faulty sizing is largely responsible for such a high rate. Merchants have to shoulder much of the costs from returns. With the high rate, returns are costing many businesses. To help combat this, personalization platform True Fit uses analytics to provide fit ratings and size recommendations for shoppers. This lessens buyer anxiety and saves merchants on returns.

6 – Enable personalized recommendations

Personalization is a key driver to customer engagement. A major ingredient in Amazon’s secret sauce is its personalized recommendations feature. Recommendations account for 35 percent of  its sales. Powering the recommendation engine are algorithms that rely on the analysis of extensive historical customer data. You can definitely explore implementing your own recommendations engine and this requires tracking customer behavior on the onset.

7 – Prepare for cross-border ecommerce

Developments in logistics and payments services have enabled many ecommerce businesses to go global. However, a key challenge for cross-border ecommerce is localization. Culture has a great impact on buyer attitudes and preferences. For example, some regions prefer particular products despite not performing well in your other markets. By using analytics, you will be able to compare user behaviors specific to each market enabling you to customize your strategies and campaigns accordingly.

The essential thing to understand about analytics is that it gives you objective information about your business. In a high risk business environment such as ecommerce, it is important to rely on hard numbers rather than pure intuition. Adopting analytics early on will help you be mindful of all trends that are affecting your business. Using these insights, you can then pivot accordingly. By adopting early, you can also collect longer historical information about your customers and your business. These could prove useful for your business down the line especially when implementing engagement programs and personalization features.

The post 7 Reasons Why Your Ecommerce Business Needs Analytics appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Keep up with your customers.

More and more small businesses are utilizing customer relationship management systems to play out their interactions with customers. CRM allows you to keep your customers’ contact information in one place, as well as information on the products they’ve purchased, any feedback they’ve offered, and materials you’ve discussed with them.

When you keep track of this, it makes delivering exceptional customer service easier. It also makes offering targeted marketing materials based on your customer’s preferences and habits feasible. There are many traits of successful business owners, and one key trait is being customer centric.

Boost your “find-ability.”

If customers are looking to book a private jet or find a great place to eat on an upcoming vacation, technology will help them find your business.  Promote your business on local online directories to improve the chances of it being found online. Learn how to utilize your website to grow your business– build it with your customers in mind. You can utilize social media to consistently promote your business. Pay-per-click advertising is a cost-effective avenue for generating new leads. Essentially, technology allows you to make your business easier to find.

Manage your finances.

Keeping an eye on your cash flow and income is a vital part of managing a successful small business.  This process can easily turn into a major time suck if you fail to let he right technology help you. Track your experiences and account balances so you can get a handle on your money. This will allow you to be better equipped to make smart financial decisions and free up your time to focus on bigger issues like growing your business.

Cut costs.

There are a lot of actions you can take to ensure maximum profits. If your business pays to use conferences lines or has teleconferencing expenses to pay for, technology can help you cut those costs through using services like Skype and FreeConferenceCall.com.  If your business has team members like service personnel or sales staff who routinely work outside of the office, you can benefit by equipping staff with Web access phones to save time and money.

Printing is expensive and a waste of a valuable natural resource, too. Cut down on printing costs through using a duplex printer that prints on both sides of the page.  This cuts your paper usage in half, saving you from buying as much paper.

Technology is constantly evolving, but one thing that remains constant is the way it supports business growth. Learn to embrace and implement technology and your business can stay more organized, extend its reach and boost its bottom line tenfold.

How has your business experienced great success in thanks to technology?

The post 4 Ways Technology Can Improve Your Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

If you focus on each individual, you’ll end up perceiving retention as this formula full of fine details where even the tiniest misstep can completely ruin your vibe. The truth is that customer retention—at least in the initial stages of growth—involves painting with the broadest strokes possible. Get too caught up in the details, and you’ll spend too much time on minutiae to run your business efficiently.

Repeat customers are the lifeblood of small businesses, with about a third of them reporting that 71-90% of their customers visit more than once per year and 70% of their profits come from their loyal customer base. Once you’ve gathered steam, you have to know how to keep it without blowing it all out. Here are a couple of guidelines that will create an environment that’s conducive to that kind of momentum:

Show Your Expertise

Let’s suppose you’re running a hardware shop and you don’t know how a rotary-percussion drill works. That would leave a horrible impression on customers even if they themselves don’t know this information. The moment someone walks up to you, they come with the expectation that you’re the authority on everything you’re offering.

Make sure that any employees you hire have a passion for what it is you offer. They should be willing to walk up to customers and assist them even when such assistance wasn’t requested. Interacting with people who represent a business makes it feel more “alive”. Even if you’re selling hammers, your customers want to feel like they also bought a service. They want to value the time that they spent with you.

Don’t Be Shy About Social Media

Surely your idea of running a business 10 years ago didn’t involve spending time on the laptop or tablet typing up tweets, did it? Oh, how times have changed! Almost half the world’s population is connected to the internet, which gives you a potential reach that stretches far beyond your local area.

Keep in mind that buying ads on social media has its uses, but it only takes you so far. People on the web pay more attention when you speak with them directly and give them a line with which they can reach you anytime. Facebook is great for this since it allows people with accounts to send your business page a message that you can reply to. Twitter on the other hand is great for inserting your brand into conversations. Get active on the web and see where it takes you. People who like your attitude will feel as if they “fit in” with your business culture. When others see that you are responsive to messages, they’re more likely to send you one, too. It’s up to you if you want to take advantage of the potential snowball effect.

Organize Your Background Processes

The modern-day small business runs on coffee and technology. The days of the “mom and pop” shop that closed at odd hours of the day to do its inventory and get its papers in order were left behind back in 2011.

Today, we are overwhelmed with the sheer amount of applications we need to keep everything running smoothly. Having most day-to-day functions handy in your point of sale system would not only ease this burden, but also keep your customers’ data safe. Modern POS systems offer you the possibility of introducing reward systems like loyalty cards and give you access to a variety of payment systems that anticipate any needs a customer might have.

Modernizing your infrastructure no longer requires the large investment it did back in the early 2010s and most applications now mold themselves around your business model. You now have a plethora of options that can give customers more incentive to return while at the same time improving their overall experience during visits. This two-pronged strategy provides you with the synergy you need to keep people coming to your door.

Reward Your Most Loyal Customers

Loyal customers often have a tendency to spend more. The 80-20 rule comes to mind, which states that 80 percent of your revenue will come from 20 percent of your customers. They’ve stuck with you and have given you the largest chunk of your revenue. Perhaps it’s time to think about how you can reward that.

By providing a reward, you’re giving your customers a clear signal that you appreciate their patronage. That may provide just the incentive they need to stick with you through the long run. Perhaps you can give them a discount on their next purchase or provide them with a higher-tiered loyalty program with which they can save more as they make larger purchases. Whatever you do has to be sufficiently memorable enough for you to have a reasonable expectation that the customer will come more often.

It’s All About The Experience

Customer retention goes hand-in-hand with quality of experience. If your customers walk out with warm, fuzzy feelings, they’re more likely to put your business in their “mental speed-dial”. This makes them more likely to think about your brand the next time they need something you have to offer. Rewarding loyalty will solidify the relationship you have with your customers, establishing a bond that gets more difficult to break as time passes. Building upon that increases your customer retention and makes life easier for everyone!

The post How to Become a Customer Retention Guru appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Bots can help you do this.

Cnet writes, “In April, Facebook unveiled a big bet on bots, which are software powered by artificial intelligence that can perform simple tasks, like routine customer service queries. Facebook‘s bot army is mostly focused on its Messenger app.” Chatbot enables user interaction through a conversational interface via spoken or transcription .Additionally, Facebook is that the most generally used social media network with many accounts across the world . We at DeveloperonRent have a well-equipped team which may assist you manage different facebook accounts, connected together with your business, by developing suitable chatbots.

Artificial Intelligence has caught the imagination of 1 and every one together of the foremost potent offerings of technology. There has been a radical change within the way data security is assumed about lately, by implementing AI . However, it’s not only Security which had been influenced by AI. Automation too has had its share of upward swing through the utilization of Robotics and AI. And this is often what Chabot Technology is all about. Chatbots, a shorter sort of Chat Robots, have grown as a preferred platform and became the new sensation, as far as users are concerned. This had led to the emergence of more companies stepping into Chatbot Development and successively , hiring chatbot developer. At DeveloperOnRent, we offer a talented and dedicated pool of Chatbot developers for you to rent and meet your application requirements. once you hire Chatbot developers from us, you’ll get a robust product built with less room for complexity. Our Chatbot developers have delicately developed and deployed a spread of Chatbots, which have ensured convenient and straightforward interactions with a product, thereby delivering an entire user experience. Our eminent Chatbot developers are ready to demonstrate the facility of conversational interfaces. Delivering flexible, scalable and secured Chatbots has been our core area of focus. As a Chatbot Development Company of repute and promise, we use leading edge technology in delivering quality rich chatbot applications. Our Chatbot developers have the power to develop bots which are either AI based that use dynamic learning and regularly upgrade themselves through human interactions or Fixed bots, where the opportunities to upscale are limited.Our aim is to be recognized amongst the formidable companies sourcing Chatbot developers. Hiring dedicated Chatbot developers from DeveloperonRent, gives you complete freedom to figure in tandem with our established team.

Chatbots still gain immense popularity amongst developers globally thanks to its potential to supply fast and powerful solutions to user’s development oriented queries. Ever imagined how technology could influence human behaviour? Chatbot has done just that. Chatbot may be a software program which may replicate intelligent interactions with humans with the assistance of AI.

If you have customers who are very engaged social, speak to a local (or national) digital marketing consultant that has developed bots for others. Beyond knowing the costs to develop a bot for your particular needs, understand the best practices in using one for your business. Also be sure to TEST it out with a subset of customers to be sure it’s meeting their needs.

The post Social Bots: Should You Use Them for Customer Service? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

My dentist is amazing however, when I want to make or change appointments I have to call his office. Why? Why can’t I do it all online? There are MANY great online scheduling services available and Microsoft recently released one of its own – Microsoft Bookings.

Integrated into Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Bookings helps small business owners ensure they’re customers can book appointments with them – 24/7. Not just book the appointment but also change and update it.

Each new customer that schedules an appointment with you is added to the customer contact of Microsoft Bookings as well.

If you work with customers, who need to schedule appointments with you – enable them to manage their own online bookings.

The post Microsoft Bookings – Enable Customers To Make and Amend Their Appointments Online appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

This is a simple way to INCREASE reviews from satisfied customers.

Online reviews are a powerful way to increase sales, as before people buy from you, they often check out what others are saying about your product or service or company.

The post Customer Referrals – Make It Easy For Customers To Submit Online Reviews appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Tons of energy is put toward acquiring and retaining customers in any business, big or small. Using customer relationship management (CRM) software is one way to take the stress out of that process. However, finding a CRM to keep track of all those clients and prospects shouldn’t add stress to your day. While the idea of taking your business to the Cloud might seem be a challenge, myob advanced has been developed to make the transition straightforward, while Stratus make it easy now and into the future. The immediate benefits, along with the potential for your business to grow, are enormous. Small to large enterprises are taking a significant step in revolutionizing the way they manage company data and information using the cloud computing technology. The emergence of cloud computing has changed the landscape of information technology in most business enterprises and revamped the resources of information management thereby reducing the costs and operation complexities within the organization. Using cloud computing provides a very practical solution for enterprises and there are several hybrids of cloud computing database services that you can avail in the market today.

The era of cloud computing technology

Most of the business enterprises these days have moved to the cloud applications. This is not merely a fad or a trend but rather a shift from using the traditional software for data management and moving to the cloud which is an internet based software that keeps your data together. It enhances the ability of collaborative exchange of company data within an organization using varieties of devices. It negates the use of the traditional expensive software that can involve a complicated process of installing, managing, testing and securing information technology within a business organization. Using the cloud computing service provides a better means of centralized data storage infrastructure using the cloud applications.

The explosion of cloud computing services and threats

The cloud computing technology provides cost effective and operational management efficiency process that helped many business enterprises to accelerate their information technology exchanges. This helps in meeting the demands for agility and flexibility from their business operations. However, the cloud computing technology is accompanied with security threats and risks owing to the evolving IT landscape changes. As a cloud computing data user, it is essential for business enterprises to observe adequate security measures to complement the existing built-in security present to the cloud computing data server. The major sources of the potential threats involving the security breach on cloud computing emanate from cybercrime activities that can penetrate the built-in security features of a cloud computing server, most of which are directed towards stealing company trade secrets and intellectual property breach.

Securing cloud data for your business

Prudence is the usual governing principle that you can observe in securing your business cloud data storage. While most of the data computing software providers already have their own security measures that aim to define a better protection to keep your stored data protected and safe when using the system, business enterprises can take their own security measure to further strengthen their cloud data security.

1. Exercise control over employees with access to company sensitive data on the cloud

Business enterprises usually designate a particular employee to be an administrator to the company cloud data storage system. There are also a number of employees enjoying the privilege of accessing the company’s cloud data which contains intellectual property materials and company trade secrets. Business enterprises should employ proper security measure in limiting the access to the cloud data storage of these employees in order to prevent any potential leakage and security breach. These employees are considered to be confidential employees who are trusted by the company to handle and manage the company’s sensitive data and information. Being as such they should undergo the proper training on how to securely handle these data and perform a more controlled cloud data management system.

2. Segregate cloud data information

Some data on the cloud may consist of information needed for the efficient management and operational activities of a business organization that are shared and constantly exchanged among employees. In order to exercise a better access control on the cloud, it is a primary concern of the IT managers of a company to segregate the cloud data available and employing an additional encryption process before one can access more sensitive company information. Company data must be segregated according to their level of sensitivity and provide an additional security encryption to process requests for access on the cloud and with effective monitoring process on each level of cloud data.

To assist in small and medium businesses’ searches for CRM software, Capterra’s Software Lab has evaluated some of the over 450 solutions on the market today and presented the top 20 solutions in our new Most User-Friendly CRM Software report.

I asked Kelsie Anderson, Capterra’s research associate to share the results with us.

In such a competitive and growing market, these 20 systems stood out from the rest in terms of usability, customer services offered (for implementation, training, and support), and average customer review ratings. Capterra took all of these factors into account when evaluating these solutions.

To test usability, Capterra performed direct user testing in each of these systems. We chose tasks that were representative of how most companies would use CRM, measuring how much time and how many clicks it took to complete these tasks in each system. We also scored each system using an SUS score (an industry-standard questionnaire that determines perceived ease of use), which gave us an idea of how much our team liked using the system.

We tested each solution twice. The first time we completed tasks without evaluating training, an indicator of how intuitive the system was to use. For the second testing round, we performed the same tasks after evaluating available training materials for the given solution, measuring learnability.

With a perfect score of 100, Teamgate topped the list with stellar task completion times, a full array of customer services, and a five-star review rating average. Overall, our testers had a lot of great things to say about the most user-friendly solution:

• “The system is easy to use but has quite a bit of functionality. It‘s easy to navigate without compromising capability.”
• “Very sleek. Very user-friendly. Very intuitive. Probably my favorite system of the bunch.”
• “My favorite system. You don’t even need training because the system becomes second nature after a few clicks around.”

Less Annoying CRM and Close.io weren’t far behind, tying with scores of 92. Both systems also averaged 5 star reviews from their customers and made task completion efficient in our testing rounds. However, both systems scored slightly lower than Teamgate in their training resources offerings.

Capterra found that, on average, it took about 30 seconds and 9 clicks to complete a task in a CRM. Considering that it can sometimes take more than five minutes and 30 swear words to find the napkin you were taking notes on during a sales call, CRM can be a real timesaver.

Even more encouraging, 13 of the solutions our most user-friendly report also made it onto our Top 20 Most Affordable CRM Software Report, showing that you don’t have to sacrifice quality when looking for a solution that will fit your budget.

Teamgate, for example, is #16 on our Most Affordable report. However, it still only cost about $22 per user per month, well below the industry average of about $36 per user per month. By using these two reports together, you can rest assured that you’re picking a quality solution that doesn’t break the bank.

At Capterra, we believe that software can and should make your professional life easier. Our Top 20 Most User-Friendly CRM Software report can help point you in the direction of systems that live up to that expectation.

The post What’s The Most User-Friendly CRM Software? Capterra Report Shows. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

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Entrepreneur Advice on Leaving Your Full-Time Job

Many entrepreneurs and budding small business owners face that point in their career when they have to make the decision to stay in the 9-5 or to leave that full-time job and pursue their business idea full time. No matter how confident you are in your ideas, this is a tough decision because it means saying goodbye to the structure and safety of a regular job with a regular paycheck. In this interview with Jessica Mah of the accounting company InDinero, Jessica gives advice for making a smoother transition into entrepreneurship. She also comments on the importance of refining your product and creating a long-term business plan.

Click to read Advice to Live by for Startup Entrepreneurs from Jessica Mah of InDinero

Entrepreneur Advice on Creating a Niche Business

If it’s been said once, it’s been said one hundred times – small businesses shouldn’t try to be everything to everyone; instead, they should find a specific niche and focus on bringing a unique product or service to a distinct market. If you are starting (or dream of starting) your own niche business, check out this entrepreneur advice from junk pickup Phoenix, an eco-friendly junk removal company. Josh talks about the importance of niche businesses to focus on one thing, partner with the right people and enhance your customer care so you can benefit from referral marketing.

Click to read Business Growth Strategies for Niche Businesses: An Interview with Josh Cohen of Junkluggers

Entrepreneur Advice on Franchising

Other readers may be further ahead in the game. Perhaps by now you have set up a steady and successful business but are curious as to how you can take it to the next level. Have you ever considered franchising as a way to expand your brand to a wider market with the help of others like you who dream of running their own business? In this interview with Ciarra Stockeland of MODE, a discount fashion store, Ciarra shares her advice on becoming a small business franchise. She speaks about the differences between franchising and retail, the limitations of a franchise, and the importance of mentorship. Her advice is helpful for those who want to create a franchise out of their own business as well as those who want to buy into a franchise to become a business owner.

Click to read Entrepreneur Ciarra Stockeland on the Challenges and Nuances of Starting a Franchise Business

The articles above will provide you with excellent entrepreneur advice, and if you’re looking for even more, I want to remind you about the Smart Hustle Small Business Conference that takes place October 20^th in Midtown NYC. The conference will feature speakers including Joe Connelly, Peter Shankman, Ramon Ray, Gene Marks and other entrepreneurs who are going to share their best advice with conference attendees. Tickets are on sale but are selling fast!

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Entrepreneur Advice to Grow Your Small Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Establishing Culture in Your Business

Culture is what differentiates those companies where the employees love to come to work from those where the employees dread ‘punching in.’ How your employees feel about their job is then reflected down to the customers, which is why every business owner should think carefully about the kind of culture and the core values they want the business to represent. Need a little guidance? This article offers four great tips for how to improve your work environment.

Click to read How to Build a Rock Slid Company Culture

Making Analytics Work for Your Business

Business data provides valuable insights into how to improve your business, but many times, business owners collect data and then aren’t sure what to do with it. Ideally, analytics should be the driving force behind the decisions you make, and all employees should understand how to use analytics. This article will help, with four training tips that will teach your whole team how to use analytics effectively.

Click to read How to Train Your Team in Better Analytics

Upgrading the Point of Sales Experience

The point of sales is that final moment in the journey where a person officially becomes a customer. Think now to the point of sales experience in your business – does it positively add to the customer’s experience or does it hurt your chance of making a sale? This article has a valuable lesson on what not to do, then some tips for improving the experience, like upgrading your point of sales technology and empowering your sales staff.

Click to read 3 Ways to Improve the Point of Sales Experience

Business Tips for Artists

Although artists funnel their passion into their artwork, interview guest Crista Cloutier says that artists are also entrepreneurs and they must learn how to build their business if they want to be successful. An artist herself, Crista also runs a program called The Working Artist which teaches artists the business skills they need. In this interview, Crista gives tips for how people in creative industries can plan out their business and execute their marketing.

Click to read The Working Artist, Crista Cloutier, Shares Business Tips for the Creative Industries

Successful business owners know they have to pay attention to those important details, including creating a positive culture, listening to analytics, and giving customers a good point of sales experience. What little details in your business could use some TLC? Chances are you’ll find the tips and advice you need on SmartHustle.com.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Establishing Culture in Your Business, Better Analytics, & More appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The Importance of Existing Customers

These days, people do business with companies that they’ve formed “relationships” with, which means that a focus on existing customers can boost your customer retention, customer loyalty and, therefore, your profit. This article features four best practices for paying attention to existing customers, including how to deepen your relationships, stay in contact, and give your customers exactly what they’re looking for.

Click to read Why and How Successful Businesses Grow Revenue by Paying Attention to Existing Customers

Should You Surcharge?

Surcharging has definite benefits and costs. On the one hand, it helps you recoup the costs of credit card charges. However, on the other hand, your customers might not appreciate these extra fees. This article is designed to help you decide if surcharging is right for your business, sharing pros, cons, considerations, and alternatives to surcharging.

Click to read Surcharging Credit Cards in Your Small Business: What You Need to Consider

Boost Your Training with a Learning Management System

Training is an important part of bringing new employees aboard, implementing new systems and procedures, and keeping all of your team members at the top of their game. Have you ever considered a learning management system? These online systems help you create training programs that standardize the training process in an online e-learning program that you can customize to employees and also use to track their progress.

Click to read Why Your Company Needs a Learning Management System

What Is Holding You Back from Success?  

Do you ever feel frustrated because you seem to be hitting an invisible brick wall – that there is something holding you back, but you can’t quite pinpoint what it is? It’s time to let go of these hidden blocks so you can find the success you deserve! This article reveals three potential sources of your hidden blocks, so you can resolve the issue and move forward in your business.

Click to read 3 Ways to Uncover Your Hidden Blocks to Business Success

Smart Hustle aims to tackle the various problems that small business owners face, whether related to sales, marketing, business operations, technology, or any other area that is crucial to small business success. So what is on the top of your mind these days? Bring it to our attention in the Smart Hustle Community, and for other great stories, visit SmartHustle.com.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: The Importance of Existing Customers, Surcharging Credit Cards, & More! appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The Quest of an Unlikely Entrepreneur

This first interview tells the inspirational story of Fred Magnanimi, the owner of the jewelry company Luca + Danni. As we learn in the audio, Fred went on a quest to save the family business after his brother died from cancer – even though Fred had previously sworn off the family business and took a career in investment banking. In addition to inspiration, you’ll learn some tips and strategies for how you can transform a business that uses dated methods into one that is capitalizing on the latest trends and technology.

Click to read Reinventing the Family Business to Find Success in a New Era

The Importance of Online Reviews

In our next interview, we take a trip to SXSW 2016 where Ramon learned about a new company that can help small businesses manage their online reviews. ReviewTrackers is a software platform that gathers customer reviews from all the major review websites into one dashboard, where you can monitor what people are saying, respond to comments, track analytics, and encourage more reviews. Founder Chris Campbell also shares two tips for managing customer reviews that every small business owner needs to hear.

Click to read Why ReviewTrackers Says Asking for Customer Review Is Critical

Building the Best Small Business Team

In our final interview, Ramon has a chat with Erin Walter of Nuphoriq, a Chicago-based marketing company that focuses exclusively on catering companies. As Erin explains, Nuphoriq is a company that was first and foremost built around its team, and after years in business, Erin still attributes the success of the company to her team. In the audio interview, Erin explains why having a great team is essential, and from her experience, we extrapolate 3 team-building tips for small business owners.

Click to read 3 Team-Building Tips to Create an Active and Innovative Team

This selection of recently published Smart Hustle interviews demonstrates how we can lean on other small business owners for both inspiration and information. To join forces with other small business owners around the country, make sure to join the Smart Hustle Community and subscribe to the newsletter to stay informed about the latest Smart Hustle interviews and articles.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: 3 Informational and Inspirational Smart Hustle Interviews appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Sure, Apple sells great looking hardware, but as reported by the WSJ.

It’s array of services is what will keep the profits coming, over and over again. The WSJ writes, “The bulk of Apple’s services revenue comes from apps. Apple keeps 30 cents of every dollar that flows through the App Store. In January, the company said customers had spent $20 billion on apps in 2015, suggesting Apple generated roughly $6 billion in revenue. Mr. Cook said App Store revenue grew 35% in the March quarter.”

So here’s the lesson. You can sell a product (or simple service) to your customers, but by selling a recurring service you’ll always be connected to your customer and have a steady stream of revenue.

An accountant just selling annual tax services is not an accountant for the longer term. One for the long term sells retainers.

This goes with every industry.

For companies selling a “product” consider how you can turn also sell a service, of value to your customers.

If they know, like and trust you – it shouldn’t be too hard to sell them a service that they need.

The post What Every Business Should Learn from Apple. Sell More Than Hardware, Boost Revenue with Services appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

For sure companies have tried to use computer programming as an interface in a variety of human interactions.

This is quite a bit more intelligent than what you’d experience in an interactive phone system at some big company. This is about having a conversation with a computer – about buying your next pair of shoes, shopping for an airline ticket or something else.

Facebook’s Messenger service is going to get very intelligent, as reported by the NY Times:

The experience is akin to chatting with a friend, “the one whose taste you always trust while you’re shopping,” said Alan Tisch, chief executive of Spring.

There’s just one thing: The entity on the other end talking to you and helping you choose the shoes is not human. It is a chatbot, a relatively simple piece of software that uses artificial intelligence to carry on a conversation.

While chatbots have been around for some time — think of SmarterChild, the friendly buddy that was popular on AOL Instant Messenger more than a decade ago — companies are now increasingly betting that a grand bot resurgence is coming, one that will change the way people interact with their most beloved brands.

The post Bots or Humans: Ready To Chat With A Computer When You Chat? Facebook Messenger Evolution. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Facebook Messenger used to be just a tool to “chat” back and forth. For many it’s replaced email, Skype chat and other forms of rapid-fire communication. For businesses – it could be a powerful support tool.

For many it’s replaced email, Skype chat and other forms of rapid-fire communication. For businesses – it could be a powerful support tool.

Facebook Messenger is quickly evolving into a tool, a service, to provide enhanced customer support to the over a billion active users on Facebook who might want to interact with your company.

Techcrunch has a great overview of Messenger’s evolution here.

Some of the highlights:

• Get your vanity business name – NOW. A Facebook vanity business name is JUST as important as a traditional domain name.
• Educate yourself in HOW to use Messenger for business and not just chatting with your nieces or a colleague
• Facebook has tools enabling your customers to quickly open a Facebook Messenger chat session

Customer support will never change – serve your customers. The METHODS of customer support is changing with the rise of digital support tools.

This truly is “The Age of the Customer“, as penned by Jim Blasingame in his latest book.

The post 5 Ways Facebook Messenger Customer Support Can Help Your Business appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Gleanster and Yesmail Interactive conducted a survey that found that close to 80 percent of brands do not have sufficient data to launch an effective marketing campaign. The basic information can be easily accessed from numerous sources – but getting to know the customers well is harder than it has ever been. In order to increase conversion rates, one must have a clear understanding about who the customers are and what drives them. When a business makes the decision to put more effort towards better understanding their customers, they are following one of many marketing best practices for small businesses. This is a big step in the right direction.

Ready to make that step? Here are some ways to use customer data for a better customer experience and smarter marketing.

Leverage social media.

Everyone wants to know how to become the smartest Internet marketer out there, yet only 38 percent of marketers utilize data from social media that could help them better target their audience. Having a social media account is a must for businesses that can use it to interact with the current and prospective customers. Social networks provide insights into customer’s likes, habits, and what they are really buying. Customers often have complaints about a product or service and by resolving those issues through social media, business can learn more about customers’ likes and dislikes.

Leverage new technology.

Technology has progressing at an astounding rate over the last decade. From the smart phone boom has come entirely new communication channels like social media and huge businesses like Facebook. It’s these new channels that gives consumers more power over how they interact with brands and businesses more ways to communicate what makes them better than their competition. As businesses look for the next technology boom to leverage there’s one that stands alone as probably the most potentially impactful to people’s everyday lives. 3D technology has the potential of changing how people see and interact with the world around them.

3D and augmented reality technologies are making a big splash at every technology conference across the world and for good reason. The social and business implications of a completely immersive experience are mind blowing. Businesses went from understanding very little about their customers, beyond basic demographic and psycho-graphic profiles, to knowing who influences them and what their likes and dislikes are in just a few years. With these technologies people can interact with businesses in entirely new ways.

With brands brining more immersive experiences to their customers, the customer affinity becomes more tightly woven with the brand. This leads to better marketing and longer customer relationships.

New technology has always given us pause when consumers and businesses first started using them but over time they become part of our everyday lives. Society feels more comfortable with the human interaction with technology while business become more adept at leveraging it. While social media is today’s top connection point between consumers and brands, the future holds a much more connected experience with technologies like 3D and augmented reality. It will be up the businesses to be early adopters to come out ahead.

How do you get to know your customers better?

The post Leveraging Technology for Smarter Marketing and a Better User Experience appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Starting this month, in New York State, doctor’s writing patient prescriptions must do so electronically. Sure, there are downsides to using electronic prescriptions – but my guess is that it will only evolve and get better, as reported by the New York Times.

It’s “forced upgrades” like that that doctors and small business owners can see as opportunities to upgrade their overall business operations and make things better. The only thing is that people won’t get a personal consultation with their doctors, that can be very dangerous for people who may have other complications that they might not now about until they see a doctor, like a revision cleft lip.

Here at Doctor to You consult with the best doctors now.

Upgrading technology enables you to

• Offer better services to your customers
• Improve your collaboration and communication
• Boost productivity

No one wants to be forced to do anything, but sometimes, a forced change is good for us and if we trust the process (as Marcus Lemonis talks about in CNBC The Profit) it might do us good.

The post Electronic Prescriptions: Some Doctors Are Angry. But They Should See The Opportunities. appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Calendly

We’ve had great success using Calendly. You include your link with available meeting times in an email, and the client schedules their own appointment from there. It eliminates the back and forth of trying to find a time that works for everyone and is super easy to use.

– Micah Johnson, GoFanbase, Inc.

2. ScheduleOnce

Since using ScheduleOnce’s MeetMe for scheduling meetings with clients, there’s been a vast improvement in organization and a reduction in the back-and-forth emails that normally ensue when trying to set up an appointment. It’s easy to use, reduces admin effort and removes headaches.

– Thomas Smale, FE International

3. x.ai

Amy, the virtual artificial assistant from x.ai, is really sophisticated and has handled a number of my complicated scheduling requests without fail. Most of the time, the other side has no idea that they are interacting with a computer-generated program.

– Reza Chowdhury, AlleyWatch

4. Google Apps

Google Calendars is tried and true for a reason. It syncs with nearly every phone, computer and email account, allowing me to have constant access to my calendar and add appointments wherever I am. While there are other options out there, this is easy to use and virtually everywhere.

– Matt Doyle, Excel Builders

5. Mixmax

Mixmax is a Gmail integration app that has a feature that really takes the hassle out of scheduling meetings. You just add calendar spots to your email and the person you send it to just clicks on the time that works for them and it’s booked. There is no back and forth. It easily saves me hours every week.

– Thomas Cullen, LaunchPad Lab

6. Pick.co

Scheduling should be an easy task but tends to have the most complicated solutions catering to it. Most of them often miss the point: getting the appointment set quickly. Pick.co makes it so easy to set your preferred times and connect with your existing calendar. Then you’re good to share your calendar link with the world.

– Rahul Varshneya, Arkenea LLC

7. Sunrise

Sunrise is a great calendar app. The way it handles invites and meeting dates/times is beyond what others do. It’s a fusion between Google Calendar and Doodle. In addition, the mobile app is wonderfully executed as well. It’s a real time-saver.

– George Morris, The FRAMEWORK

8. Front Desk

Front Desk is the most reliable, simple and flexible solution that I’ve used for scheduling within my team, company and clients. The software adapts to my company’s unique workflow and does not force us to schedule in ways that we are not used to. The entire team adapted to Front Desk immediately, and it makes communication flow easily and successfully.

– Miles Jennings, Recruiter.com

9. Assistant.to

We all hate the back and forth that happens when trying to set up a meeting. Assistant.to is a lifesaver in that department, and its integration with Gmail is nothing short of beautiful. With just a couple clicks you can send your availability, which stays up-to-date in real time. Then, people can select their time and book. It’s automatically added to both calendars. Done!

– Christie Kerner, Launch MiE

10. Keeping It Old School

I prefer the old school method of having a secretary or personal assistant to take over once a connection has been made. This way makes us different compared to everyone else using online apps and provides a personal touch when scheduling that brings us back to the days when folks would connect much more in person.

– Engelo Rumora, Ohio Cashflow

The post 10 Apps That Take the Stress Out of Scheduling Appointments appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Small Business Owners Can Capitalize on Freelance Workers

Freelance workers currently make up 34 percent of the United States workforce. Is your small business capitalizing on this group of skilled workers yet? If you said no, you probably aren’t sure what freelance workers offer your company and how to find them. This article will clear up all of your questions.

The article includes an interview with Constantine Anastasakis, the Senior Director of Business Development at Fiverr. Constantine is sharing more about how Fiverr works and how you can use freelance workers to push your own small business ahead. This is a trend every small business owner should be embracing! Learn how to do so by reading this helpful article.

Click to read Fiverr Interview: How to Use Freelancers as Your Competitive Advantage.

Boosting Your Small Biz Security

Hackers do not discriminate – your small business is just as vulnerable as your larger competitors (and perhaps even more so). Security breaches cost money ($3.79 million total in 2015) and they can also cost your customers’ trust. Fortunately, boosting your small business security does not have to be costly or complex. This article covers 6 of the best ways that you can secure and protect your small business.

Click to read 6 Easy Ways to Secure Your Business and Find Peace of Mind.

Calming Down Angry Customers

No matter how focused on customer service your business is, an angry customer will eventually fall through the cracks and you have to know how to successfully deal with them. When someone is yelling at you, it is easy to become frustrated and yell back, but this only makes the matter worse. So how should you deal with angry customers? This article is full of tips on what you can do when things heat up to turn the negative experience around and turn that angry customer into a loyal supporter of your business.

Click to read How to Calm Down Infuriated Customers to Your Advantage.

So what’s on your mind this week – building a remote team of workers, boosting your business security, or dealing with angry customers? Get help with the articles above, and check out the Smart Hustle homepage to read the latest stories.

The post Smart Hustle Recap: Capitalizing on Freelance Workers, Boosting Biz Security & Calming Angry Customers appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.

Your customers are already pinging you through social networks to get your attention. They do this because your inboxes are full (and taking too long to respond) , snail mail is not practical and your telephone lines take too long to be answered.

Customers know that when they send you a message on Twiter, you’re gonna reply because you don’t want to be publicly shamed.

Facebook has done a nice job evolving how companies can use FB Messenger as a customer service tool, as reported by Techchruch. What’s not so great, but expected, is that those companies will now start to flood your messenger inbox with advertising – sigh.

If your customer service is just via a telephone bank or email, you must consider new ways to better serve your customers. Social customer service is one way and don’t forget about live chat as well.

The post Are You Ready To Use Facebook Messenger for Customer Service? appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.