Its around 40th day of lock down in India. Groceries and other essential items in my house are very less and I am not sure what should I do to order them. My area comes under red zone in India and hence apart from medical stores and milk, nothing is available in my area.
Thus, I thought of to order them through grocery stores that are offering online ordering and home delivery services. I tried DMart, Grofers, Big Bazaar and found that nothing is going to work for me. DMart being largest supplier, I made by cart ready and waiting for delivery time slot since last 7 days. But I am not able to get slot due to its unavailability of resources to deliver and even most of the times app has lots of traffic, which is so much that it doesn't even load on phone. Big Bazaar and Grofers are also same story. Having experienced this, I thought of what kind of customer relationship they are maintaining with their customers. This prompted me to write on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies in post COVID19 world.
Because major principle of business is "Acquire, Retain and Repeat". In order to get repeat orders, we must provide excellent customer service to customer. This can be only achieved through proper customer service. Apart from having standard CRM software, we have to start integration of certain features in CRM functionality to have a integrated marketing strategies. I have tried to cover different ways by which companies can maintain their relations with customer and get business from them.
Video conferencing tool
Long before lock down, banking industry in India has made use of tablet enabled online account opening. ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, IDFC Bank were ahead in this activity. Now in order to conduct these business activities smoothly, they have to adopt online account opening wherein verification of documents can be done via video call. Use of this feature was already made by Motilal Oswal for verification of documents since quite long period of time. Other industries can also make use of this technology. Integration of this service to your CRM will help businesses to track the cases. Not only verification, this tool can be also used for query resolution.
IVR and Mass e-mailers
Whenever you integrate Interactive voice response (IVR) to your CRM, you will be able to drive process oriented approach and can use the same as pre and post aspects of your business. Launch of toll free number working 24x7 will provide excellent support to your business. It will help as your marketing campaign and also for self-service and survey management.
Now a days, many mass emailing solutions are available. Leaders among them include Sendgrid and mailchimp. Integration of these with most of CRM software is also available. Mass mailing can be effectively used for running marketing campaigns, new product announcements, brand reminders, service related announcements, weekly or monthly newsletters. We can monitor reach, consumption of content, click rate, open rate, call to action clicks, etc. However, we need to have exact database of customer to get results out of this tool.
Chat bots and online customer service representatives
Earlier, companies used to have telephonic customer services, however, this is now getting replaced by online chat handling professionals who will reply to customers according to their queries. However, emergence of artificial intelligence has also transformed customer service.
Banking industries and many delivery based shopping sites have started chat bots. Use of this technology will boom further and may be customer service professionals have to shift their departments or lose their jobs due to this in near future. This is due to queries resolution done directly by AI based chat bot. Currently, Jivo Chat is one of the such company which has integrated chat bot applications across website, twitter, and Facebook. This means customer queries on any of these platforms can be handled by same backend software platform. Even from Jivo chat customer can call directly to your customer service helpline numbers. Integration of Google and Alexa in your customer service tool or CRM will help customers just to speak their query and get resolution from the backend, eliminating need of typing. Recently Whatsapp has made entry into customer service by starting business accounts and through which query resolution can be done by verified businesses.
Instagram and Facebook
Many small and large businesses have their facebook pages from the start. Facebook messenger can be used for query resolution and large number of positive facebook reviews will help us to build image of organization. But instagram is media wherein especially young customers are present. If your business page has more than 10,000 followers then your business swipe link page will start appearing to customers. Now a days, these businesses put images of their latest products or services on instagram and have swipe up link which gets them to product or service page of your website. Instagram messaging can be also next generation customer service tool.
Most popular professional networking site Linkedin also provides customer service experience channel. Linkedin has company business pages wherein company profile, jobs, news, products and services can be listed. This will serve as excellent marketing tool. They have sales navigator tool which helps companies to find right people and companies faster, keep track of lead and reach and engage with prospects.
Sales Navigator's CRM Integration creates a seamless experience across both Sales Navigator and your CRM, saving your reps valuable time while ensuring that the most relevant sales activities are properly captured and logged in CRM. Once all elements are implemented, Sales Navigator's CRM integration will help you understand what activities on LinkedIn and Sales Navigator are helping your team source and influences deals that you're capturing in your CRM. If you have Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, you will have the ability to implement LinkedIn’s CRM Integration suite.
Although used by many celebrities and government authorities, twitter provides businesses with a great way of interacting with your customers. Twitter allows you to build up customer loyalty. With use of twitter, you can answer questions from customers, turn complaints into customer satisfaction, keep customers updated, thank customers, welcoming new followers, keep track of your interactions, and also follow your prestigious customers. Integrating twitter in CRM tool will be of great help for your business.
Google My Business Listing
This is excellent way of communicating to the customers about your business hours, whether it is open or closed now. Customers now a days search on google reviews, location, photos, and phone number of business and then visit your store or business. You can also communicate to customers about holidays and even opening / closing hours if changed for these days. This is free service by Google.
SMS and Cold calling
Although old media, but sms and cold calling help improving customer service. If we have proper segmentation of customers in our CRM software, then these media will be effective in conveying messages to customers such as what is their loyalty status, birthday greetings, anniversary greetings, and renewals. Telephonic conversations provide them special treatment. This what relationship is.
Letters and Greetings
Oldest among all, this medium of communication can be used for continuing relationships with old age customers who are not techno savvy. Integrating the triggering letters and greetings automatically from CRM will be beneficial.
Need of integrating CRM with calendar, email, marketing platforms, and office systems
Many companies are using the above mentioned ways of connecting the customers but in separate ways and these operations are not integrated with CRM software. Therefore, CRM software could play a major role in integrating our official email, marketing platforms and office systems together with the ways mentioned above. e.g. Whenever we approach the potential customer through phone call, or he comes via website query, or through email campaign, his entry into CRM software should occur. His registration process and progress to conversion of lead will be entered in CRM and after he subscribes our service, post sales services should also get automatically triggered from CRM during renewals, greetings, or general information sharing events. Then only we can say that its 360 degree customer service transformation. Otherwise, if we neglect one of the ways, then this ruins image of company in business world.
Ultimately, we still have to face disturbed business environment due to COVID19 and many more challenges are ahead of us. However, I truly believe that as businesses will learn from this experience and by understanding value of CRM technologies we will be positioning our business to grow further and sustain in competitive environment in coming years.
Don't forget to comment, like and share this article !!
Peace !!
Great information