7 minute read
Software & IT
Insight Data Operations Director, Jade Greenhow highlights the role of technology in customer relations and explains how to use digital tools to encourage closer business relationships.
When it comes to customers it’s all about the personal touch. We all like to feel valued. Demonstrating that you appreciate your customers is a sure-fire way to develop relationships that will benefit your business. This is now fact in all industries – whether it’s B2C or B2B. Why is it important to show your customers that you care about them? It’s simple. Customer relations play a key role in the success or failure of a business. Strong relationships build brand loyalty and encourage repeat business, while poor customer service can push potential buyers to your competitors. If you want to get better, high quality leads for your business use technology to nurture strong business relationships. Technological innovations have made it much easier for businesses to interact with customers. This is particularly relevant for smaller businesses that may not have big marketing and advertising budgets to burn through.
HERE ARE 4 WAYS TO USE TECH TO BUILD BETTER CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS
KEEP CUSTOMERS CLOSE WITH EFFECTIVE EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
Build better customer relationships with emails. Email campaigns allow a business to keep in touch with their customers. Think about how you maintain close relationships with friends and family. The strength of those relationships comes from close communication. If you never talk to them, you may drift apart. It’s the same with your customers. Email campaigns, e-shots and even text messages allow you to maintain and nurture better business to customer relationships. Get your email strategy right and your customers will feel valued by your brand. Use your emails to communicate new deals, broadcast breaking news, answer FAQs and much more.
ANSWER QUESTIONS AND GET VALUABLE FEEDBACK WITH SOCIAL MEDIA
The fact that most of your customers will have social media accounts should not be ignored. Why? A Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other SM platforms allows consumers to reach a company at a time that’s convenient for them, not just during business hours. Messaging your company on twitter or through Facebook is normally the way consumers interact with brands - whether they are reviewing a customer experience with you or asking a question. Engage in that two-way conversation with timely responses that help the customer. Providing value is a great way to build trust. This, in-turn will start to cement your relationship with them. These free to use platforms allow businesses with limited budgets to reach further and at a deeper level into better customer relations without major investment.
DELIVER PERSONAL EXPERIENCES USING CUSTOMER DATA
In a crisis, companies normally cut costs. How do they do that? Remove human
Jade Greenhow Operations Director, Insight Data
workers and replace them with automation. A huge problem with self-service checkouts and automated phone lines is that they treat customers like numbers. They’re also notorious for being unreliable too – not great for building trust. Nobody wants to feel like a statistic. Although automation is designed to simplify processes, the connection between customers and brand can suffer. However, that doesn’t mean that technology is the enemy of great customer experiences. Technology can be harnessed to support customer relations rather than get in the way. If you want to really get to know your customers use their behavioural data to personalise your brand experience for them. What do they want? What do they need? How can your product or service help them to be successful? All of those insights and much more can be learnt from studying behavioural data that can be found on a variety of analytics websites. Using this data, companies can be better equipped to deliver products and services that consumers want and market them more effectively.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Customer relationship management software programs enable businesses to keep a record of valuable customer details. This information can range from basic contact details to more sophisticated marketing campaign information. The best CRM systems overlay marketing information on to segmented lists of customers so that companies can keep track of where a customer is in their purchasing journey with the brand. Some CRM’s can also send smart reminders when it’s time to contact your customers. Very helpful!
Insight Data are experts at helping businesses to nurture long lasting and fruitful relationships with their customers. We offer digital data solutions that improve customer connections and add value to our client’s businesses. We’d love to talk to you now! Hello@insightdata.co.uk
WORKING WONDERS FOR WINDOW WIDGETS
Two years after it created the original Superhero website for Window Widgets, The Consultancy has worked wonders once again with the addition of a new Trade Counter search tool.
Visitors to the site can now just type in their postcode to see a full list of all their nearest stockists of Window Widget products, complete with contact details and opening hours. It’s all part of the ancillary specialist’s mission to make its www.windowwidgets.co.uk website as useful and user-friendly as possible.
As the software sector becomes just a little more crowded than it used to be,
Business Micros is reminding the market that it remains the industry’s favourite provider – by far.
Not only does Business Micros work with 78% of the UK’s PVC-U fabricators, it continues to win praise from many of the leading systems companies as well for the quality of the service it provides. The Consultancy designed, created and launched the tool within just a couple of weeks of receiving the request from Window Widgets, demonstrating once again just how quickly it can deliver client projects. Sarah Hitchings, Sales and Marketing Director at Window Widgets, was impressed: “No sooner had I come up with the idea and discussed it with the team at The Consultancy, than it was designed, created and live on the website. It’s a great addition to the site and supports not only our customers but our stockists as well.” The Consultancy began working with Window Widgets in 2018 and have impressed them throughout with their technical and design expertise and vast amounts of industry knowledge and experience. When Business Micros helped Profine set up a new customer with its Evolution software recently, Technical Manager Steve Holloway was so impressed that he left this review: “Great customer service. BM offer a professional service and are always available to assist.” And that followed this review from Carl Buckley in Liniar’s Technical Support department who said previously: “I Sarah Hitchings added: “What’s good about working with The Consultancy is that they know exactly what works for this market and how best to engage our audience online. They created our cloud based online ordering function last year as well, which has transformed the way we generate and process orders, and continues to get positive feedback from customers based on all the clever features which have been built in.” always find Business Micros so helpful and professional; they are only at the end of the phone if we require any additional support.” Business Micros’ Business Development Manager Nick Bailey says: “These comments are typical of the feedback we get from all the leading systems companies. “For most of them, we’ve been by their side throughout their journeys in the UK and we continue to be a valued and trusted partner after three or even four decades. “Our installations and support teams work directly with the systems companies to set up software for fabricators who are starting up or switching over, and routinely install new software modules and options as fabricators add new products to their ranges. “Kommerling, Liniar and all the big names trust us to do a good job for their customers on their behalf and of course rely on us to help their own teams with Richie Thornton, Director at The Consultancy, added: “By partnering with us and constantly improving and updating the website, Window Widgets are getting the very best value from their online investment. We are already looking at ways to develop the e-commerce function on the site even further and keep the website at the very forefront of the market.” More details at: www.theconsultancy.co.uk
BUSINESS MICROS STRENGTHENS SYSTEMS COMPANY PARTNERSHIPS
and www.windowwidgets.co.uk. any advice they need on any aspect of our software.” Business Micros holds what it says is the most comprehensive set of product databases for all the leading systems companies and has a dedicated team based in Penpont, Dumfriesshire which ensures that these are kept continually up to date. Nick Bailey adds: “We are never complacent about our position in the market and continue to commit significant resources to supporting systems companies directly and via their customers.” Business Micros is preparing to launch its brand-new TOUCH software platform shortly. This, it says, will deliver even more benefits to systems companies, with a complete end to end, integrated solution from consumer enquiry all the way through to quoting, ordering, manufacturing and delivery. More details are at: www.bm-touch.co.uk.
