We covered the importance of enhanced communications in technology in our first blog of the series, highlighting the opportunities available by speeding up business pace, making operational costs savings and empowering your people using cloud telephony solutions. In the second blog, we look at the opportunities gained by taking a different sales approach, which in turn can positively transform the customer experience.

The customer must be at the heart of everything you do, to stay ahead of the competition. When applied correctly, technologies like enterprise cloud telephony, Big Data, the Internet of Things and advanced analytics provide insights and opportunities that allow businesses to better understand – and fulfil – their customers’ needs.

Digital transformation is about changing your business to become more efficient, productive and profitable, all without compromising the quality of service offered to your clients.

4. Transform your sales approach

 Challenges

Today’s customers are better informed than ever before, but they are also time-poor and distracted, which means your business has to fight harder to win them over.

Up to 40% of the working week is lost to communications inefficiencies into and out of your company (SIS International Research)

A successful sale is often the result of a team effort, meaning your employees must have a way to work together seamlessly. Having the right information allows your staff to answer questions effectively and resolve service issues quickly.

Your sales process also needs to be flexible. Sales, like every other process, must be focused on the needs of the customer in a digitally-transformed world. By increasing efficiencies and information availability, you free up sales staff to focus on the actual sales process.

 Solution

There are other tools your team uses to identify and close deals, and these need to be integrated with communications for maximum effect. The smoother you can make the collection and transfer of data, the easier the sale becomes. Mobile and CRM integration ensures that information and the tools to contact customers are available anywhere, any time, from a salesperson’s smartphone or device.

Customers want products, services and assistance now.  Your sales staff must be able to answer questions immediately; even if they cannot provide solutions themselves, they will need real-time communications tools to contact someone who can. Unified communications allow you to connect with customers through channels of their choice and centralise every interaction into one console.

How do you select the right solution to transform your sales process?

• Give your sales team a full range of communications channels, from smartphones to tablets, as well as traditional desk phones
• Support all sales channels used by your customers
• Centralise all available communications channels into a single app
• Provide advanced mobility options, such as mobile VoIP apps with central switchboard integration, to support off-site sales teams
• Integrate with your CRM system to ensure the sales team always has relevant, up-to-date customer data
• Use intelligent call routing to ensure follow-up queries from customers are always routed to an available sales person
• Offer a range of communications channels such as video calling or audio conferencing, allowing the sales team to reinvent their sales pitches for greater effect

5. Create an amazing customer experience

 Challenges

Whilst technology is key to digital transformation projects, every investment and enhancement must be targeted at improving the overall customer experience. From lead generation to sales to ongoing service, every contact must be of consistently high quality at every touchpoint. Poor customer experience has serious consequences and customers will leave.

82% of people have stopped doing business with a company due to bad customer service (Zendesk)

8% loss in productivity is itself significant, but the true cost of customer dissatisfaction is surely much greater (SIS International Research)

 Solution

Availability is key to improving customer experiences and cloud-based platforms ensure that your team has 24/7 access to key applications and services. You can build a network of service agents to support a global customer base, for instance, by equipping them with exactly the same tools as those used by your team at the head office. This allows you to extend operating hours, reduce the time taken to solve customer issues and make the support process quicker, easier and more cost-effective.

By connecting key applications to your communications platform, you can ensure that sales and service reps in the field are just as informed as their office-based colleagues. Knowing your customers is crucial to delivering the high quality, personalised service they demand.

How do you select the right solution to create an exceptional customer experience?

• Provide automated routing so incoming calls are always directed to a real person
• Use cloud telephony to transparently route calls anywhere within the company
• Integrate with customer data applications so that agents and salespeople can provide a personalised service to every customer
• Support a full range of communication channels to match your customers’ preferences
• Scale according to demand so there is always enough capacity to keep up with customer demands
• Capture and record call data for analysis, allowing you to improve service delivery and direct training resources as required.

If you want to learn more about how cloud telephony and digital transformation technologies can enhance your business communications, call Blackstar Solutions on 0333 1232123.