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Achieving World Class Customer Feedback in Five Secret Steps

One of the hardest things to obtain, from the company's perspective, is the feedback of a customer. Yet, customers are often only too eager to provide it because they want to help you get better as a company. How often, do you actively seek out the suggestions and feedback from your customers? When polled, most companies suggest that they, in fact, always talk to their customers and get feedback. However, when polling those companies' customers, the results are different. There seems to be a disconnect. One way to get better is to actively seek out and record and review feedback from your customer, the best way to do is using a customer feedback software. Doing so will help you learn about yourself, learn about your customer, and openly reduce your customer can attrition. In addition, although these techniques are not truly secrets, so few companies do ask their customers for feedback that it might as well be. Companies that are in contact with their customers will reap the many benefits over those that do not. In the end, which one do you want to be?

 Have a Plan

Regardless of whether the customer is leaving and you are conducting an exit interview or is merely a routine opportunity for you to conduct feedback, you need to have a plan for collecting the data, analyzing the data, and completing the feedback loop with your customer. Too often companies with ask their customers how they did and will fail to follow-up and make sure that they acknowledged the change. In an ideal world, you should document the plan and should write the plan with some supporting tools and templates to help you carry out the feedback section.

 Say Thank You

It is amazing and frustrating to most customers that they will provide feedback or even purchase from a company, but the company will then take this feedback (remember this is the best gift a customer can give you) for granted. Unfortunately, there also seems to be a sense of entitlement on the company's part. Whenever you ask for your customer's opinion, whether it is as they are leaving, or during the normal course of business, make sure that you thank them for their business and thank them for their feedback. During this period, it is not the time and it is not the place to defend or argue against those ideas or feedback. You may be correct and they may be wrong but you want their feedback, so simply say "thank you”.

Conduct the Feedback

Remember that you asked your customer to take some time out of their busy day to provide feedback to you so that you can get better. Though they benefit from this, make sure that you respect their time and are quick to ask a few questions that are very important as opposed to many questions that are only somewhat important. You will serve the customer best by getting very focused on what you want to know and cutting to the chase by asking the questions. The best way to get their feedback and reviews about your product and/or service is to deploy an efficient customer feedback software.

 Analyze and Review the Data

When you get the feedback compiled, take time to review what you have received. Try to make sense of what you receive in context of your current situational assessment, operating principles, mission, or vision. In other words, when you get feedback, do the comments and responses confirm or surprise you based on what the customer told you? For example, if you are a banker and your bank is very concerned about losing money and credit losses, but you get feedback from customers that say your lending practices have gotten too tight and restrictive, ask yourself, "does this tell you something that you did not know previously" and "is it something that you want a change"? Quite simply in this situation, you may not want to make a change all. However, understand that doing nothing is, in fact, doing something. Once you make a decision and do something, be comfortable with your decision accepted, live with it, and move on.

Provide Feedback

Finally, once you have the feedback, once you have done the analysis, and once you have made a decision to pursue a particular path, you must go back to the customer and let them know what you course you will pursue. More than anything, customers do not want you to coddle them; however, they want to know that their vendors and suppliers (you) hear them and empathize. They also want to know that you have heard them. It makes no sense to listen to them and simply not acknowledge that you heard what they said. One of the best ways to do this is by getting a higher-level (read: senior management) official to make a phone call to the customer that provided feedback to thank them. Alternatively, you might want to send a letter that summarizes some of the key findings you found in your survey or feedback session as well as some of the actions that you are going to take. This is the ultimate way to close the feedback loop and the customer will know that you take their feedback and them seriously.

 Applying the principle of obtaining customer feedback is one of the easiest ways to help you, the company, and reduce your customer attrition. If you are able to be strategic discipline and focus in the feedback collection, you will reduce customer churn and attrition and make more money.

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Understanding Customer Engagement

The relative implosion of technology and social media into our everyday lives has changed everything from making a phone call to working out to buying a car. We are continually reliant upon technology and our smart-devices to help us organize, track and manage the details of our daily lives. Paper is slowly becoming less and less a factor as we can store nearly all documents in the cloud. It is no different for businesses and their practices are changing to keep pace. But there is still something to be said for the 'human touch'. So just how is customer engagement defined in this new virtual world vs. the world of brick and mortar?

Regardless of the customer engagement platform your business offers and your customer uses, customer engagement can be simply defined as customer and brand interaction via various means of communication. Advertising, whether online, in print, broadcast or any other medium is a primary form of customer engagement. Increasingly, as companies spend more marketing dollars on internet and social media campaigns, advertising is becoming interactive.

"Sign up for a coupon for a free sample." "Like us on Facebook and we'll send you a coupon for 50% off." "Go to Facebook to see our daily deals." The technology embedded in social media sites allows companies to track consumer behavior and tailor marketing programs by consumer type, creating a more interactive and genuine experience for the customer. The result is a customer who is more likely to return and interact with a specific brand.

By utilizing and defining customer engagement via social media and the internet, companies are able to better capture, track and analyze customer data including shopping habits, general trends, effective ad campaigns and manage their social reputation effectively. Not only does this create an opportunity for improved marketing, but also customer engagement. Our digital age has allowed businesses (brands, companies, products) and customers to truly interact with one another via customer engagement platforms and even to create communities of like-minded consumers.

One customer engagement trend that is seeing resurgence are loyalty card programs. These programs are 'clubs' that provide special perks, discounts, information and other opportunities for loyal customers of nearly any business type: restaurants, coffee shops, salons, drugstores, the list is endless. For many years these programs utilized plastic bar-coded cards that needed to be presented at the time of purchase. Now many companies are opting for programs that simply require customers register their credit or debit card. All purchases are then tracked and no extra cards or coupons are needed.

Loyalty programs create constant customer engagement by building an ongoing conversation between brand and customer. Brands are able to track buying behaviors and preferences and then build the next customer perk. Customers feel rewarded for their loyalty and with normal buying behaviors show their loyalty. In addition these customers are more likely to engage in marketing surveys, social media interaction and other campaigns.

Use of loyalty programs is often a low cost way for businesses to build new customers and retain existing customers. By using simple platforms such as registering a credit card, they increase the likelihood a customer will sign up, as there is no extra step to remember in order to obtain perks. Understanding your customer base, keeping them engaged and rewarded can be as simple as the swipe of a card at point of sale.

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Slack vs uShare – Which Team Collaboration Software is Best

Over the years since Slack launched in 2013, Slack was able to earn the reputation of the best tool for team collaboration, it is known to be the email killer, Slack announced its astonishing figure of 10 million active users and 8.5k paid customers. Companies moved to Slack without giving it a second thought, not because Slack was the best team collaboration software that ever existed, but mainly because it was just uncool to be an enterprise and not use Slack. This made every other company hop on the bandwagon despite the shortcomings of the tool. Visit this article to learn more about it Slack vs Ushare

COVID-19 Pandemic – The Productivity Struggle

As the majority of the firms has started their operation from work, companies have asked the employees to work remotely from home, there are many benefits of working from home but there is another side of this, people often struggle with productivity and being efficient while working from home because of many other distractions.

For sure slack has replaced your inbox, It becomes really hard to keep up with the pace of incoming messages, especially if you’re a part of multiple teams. This can seriously deteriorate your productivity as it is easy to lose track of time.

Why Slack? 

Slack has facilitated the employees to collaborate, share files, and stay up to date with the current happenings in the company.

Work + Social app

Quick and responsive compared to email

Powerful search feature

A single platform to access files, messages and project updates

1500+ app integrations

Partnership with tech giants like Google, Workday, and Salesforce

Why Look for Slack Alternatives?

As your firm grows, everything within grows too, Information overload is one of the critical issues associated with Slack when managing a large number of teams. Here are the reasons companies are looking for

A broken notification system

Noisy app with too much going on all the time

Asynchronous communication

Information overload

Limited storage

Work-life balance destroyer

Slack vs. uShare: Choose the Best

To make things easier we can say UShare is the mix of Slack and Zoom, With uShare, you can send messages to your team, initiate group conversations, share and receive files, host audio and video conference calls and create chat rooms for your teams, partners and customers, it has the compatibility with most of the latest devices available.

Slack vs. uShare: Integrations

uShare’s current integrations include Trello, OneDrive, Dropbox, box, eSignature, SIP, Salesforce, Google Drive, Hangouts, Google Calendar, and other industry-specific applications. Furthermore, our team is continuously increasing the number of external integrations, so more integrations will be available soon.

You can have a look at the article mentioned above for more details which gives you an overall picture of this tool called Ushare

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GroHawk – The Best Customer Engagement Platform

Tired of soaring customer churn rate?

Is it holding you back from focusing on other areas of your business?

We have just what you are looking for; Grohawk is a customer engagement platform (both internal and external) that helps you in creating a loyal and engaged clientele.

GroHawk makes use of the Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure the customer experience that your business is currently offering. Whereas, the smart AI algorithms segment users into relevant categories allowing them to service recovery, retain existing clients as well as create raving brand ambassadors and drive active referrals.

The concept of GroHawk is fairly simple, i.e. provide your business with a platform where you get to know what your customers think of you so that you can intervene and react in a more educate manner (drive referrals and manage churn) based on the feedback received.

With data-driven segmentation and real-time actionable insights, not only your business will be able to maintain healthy communication with your customers, but bolster customer retention simultaneously. The robust notification panel serves as a vanguard against all mantas arising. The business is immediately notified about negative feedbacks as it arises so that they can be taken care of in a timely manner to preserve the reputation of the brand. Knowing what people are talking about you in the market helps in raving brand loyalty.

The customer control panel feature offered by GroHawk serves as an added advantage when it comes to enhancing customer engagement. The data collected from various points of contact are then evaluated and tracked through multiple metrics to drive positive sentiments across various customer touchpoints. 

This was all about people who interact with your business in the external environment.

But what about the internal ones, your very own employees?

GrowHawk, also allows you to collect feedback from your employees and take corrective measures to improve your employee onboarding. With GroHawk, you will have every bit of detail about the onboarding processes that need to be improved to retain and hire correct talent without any guesswork.

Most importantly GroHawk is applicable to any business that is looking to drive more engagement with a specific client set be it B2B or B2C.

Features

Industry Tailored Surveys - GroHawk comes preloaded with survey questions     tailored specifically for your industry by leading retail professionals.

Customisable Surveys -     Add to core surveys with your own business-specific questions, which allow     you to capture feedback on any aspect of your offering.

Flexible Reporting and Analytics - Multiple report types can be     generated in the system for accurate analysis and a better understanding  of your customer behavior.

Instant Alert via Email and SMS - Our system will automatically send     an automated email and SMS to designated members of the management team     whenever a significant action occurs.

Encryption and Backup - All client data stored on our system is     fully encrypted to protect client confidentiality. All data is backed up     routinely on secure servers for peace of mind when using the platform.

Seamless Social Media Integration - GroHawk is     paired with all major social media networks allowing clients to amplify     their positive experiences at the press of a button when it matters most.

 Conclusion:

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt here at GroHawk, it’s that feedback should never be just a one off! Feedback is a long-term strategy for continuous improvement, and the same goes for ensuring all your employees are happy, engaged and passionate about their work. In fact, using a measuring metric such as NPS could be a turning point in driving productivity and engagement levels.

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4 Omnichannel Examples in Retail

How to win in an omnichannel world. Smart retailers know that consumers expect omnichannel experiences. Even smarter retailers understand that the omnichannel goal posts continue to move. Retailers must balance business objectives with the flexibility to adapt to new customer expectations and industry trends. Here are the key trends that define omnichannel experiences today and in the near future.

A few years ago, an omnichannel experience meant displaying the same deal across a brand’s website, app, and store and allowing customers to access their shopping cart through different channels and devices.  

But that’s no longer enough, says Liz Miller, SVP of marketing at the CMO Council. “The cornerstone of a true omnichannel experience is not a wholly connected customer journey that doesn’t differentiate between devices—it’s actually looking at how the consumer is using each device across touchpoints and delivering a relevant experience in the channel the customer chooses.”

Miller points to the Gap’s reserve-in-store option as an example of a brand aligning itself with customer behavior across channels. The Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta allow shoppers to reserve up to five items online that they can try on in a nearby store before purchasing. Nordstrom offers a similar service at its stores as well.

This approach plays to the combined strengths of each channel. Customers can shop online at their convenience, they don’t have to rummage through clothing racks, and they can be sure that the item is the correct size by trying it on.

What’s more, an SVP of stores and operations for Banana Republic told Forbes that customers are often “inspired by other items once they’re in our stores, and end up walking out with entire outfits based on the initial item they reserved.”

Delivering a connected consumer experience requires collaboration and synchronization across multiple fronts. Marketers, Miller notes, must “be in tune with in-store operations, supply chains, and have the technology to tie all the customer data points together.” What's Next

Fulfillment capabilities such as allowing customers to shop online and try on/pickup items in stores is quickly becoming table stakes. To stay ahead, retailers must upgrade their omnichannel capabilities to include the entire customer journey, Miller adds.

Forrester Research also observed this trend. “Retailers are developing omnichannel capabilities that extend far beyond fulfillment, spanning customer acquisition and engagement, inventory and order management, merchandising, and customer service,” writes Forrester Analyst Michelle Beeson.  “A truly omnichannel operation that spans the customer life cycle will optimize revenue, deliver capital efficiencies like cost savings, spawn operational efficiencies, and improve the customer experience overall.”

Here are four areas where retailers are expanding and enhancing their omnichannel capabilities:

Inventory visibility Instead of managing inventory by separate channels or stores, retailers are increasingly managing their inventory at an enterprise level to improve sales, slash waste, and move merchandise more efficiently and faster. Indeed, an eye-popping 98 percent of retailers cite inventory management across the enterprise as a “very important” capability driven by the IoT, reports RSR Research.  

Insights-driven product planning Retailers are keen to tap data about product returns, purchase patterns, and customer complaints for product and customer insights. The CMO Council reports that 36 percent of marketers point to smarter uses of customer data and shopper intelligence to differentiate their brand, but only 27 percent described their ability to source those insights as a key benefit, suggesting that many brands still lack the ability to reap the full benefits of their data.

Enhanced Marketplaces While Amazon still controls the lion’s share of marketplace sales, Walmart and eBay are looking to capture greater portions with investments in personalized tools and rich content. EBay’s Image Search and Find it on eBay let shoppers use pictures instead of words to search for items on the mobile app. And Walmart unveiled plans for a new delivery service that will let customers order goods online via text message for same day delivery. Its online marketplace also includes a growing stable of retail partners such as Lord & Taylor.

AI-powered customer service In addition to chatbots supporting associates in the background by serving up relevant information or handling simple customer requests, Google Duplex hints at the next level of an omnichannel service in which a virtual assistant can communicate with others on our behalf.

Not too long ago, the ability to order items online and pick them up in stores was an innovative omnichannel experience. But as customers come to expect that service, retailers must find new ways to differentiate their brand.

The key, Miller says, is to tailor the experience to the customer’s needs. “On omnichannel experience doesn’t mean trying to be everywhere with the same content all the time,” she says. “It means being relevant where your customer says relevance exists.”

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3 Reasons Why You Should Be Roadmapping For Product Development

In order to guarantee the success of product development and management, it is important for the product team to manage the complexities of having a series of products with the right features, at the right cost, in addition to the use of right technologies.

What is Roadmapping?

This is where roadmapping comes in to ensure that everything is workable. It is basically a strategic plan which helps product development and management teams to set a goal, along with defining all the major steps and milestones needed to achieve the set goal and/or outcomes.

For this, an effective roadmapping software can help make the process of roadmapping extremely easy. It is essential because roadmapping also serves as a communication tool which defines the “WHY” behind the goal and the plan to achieve that goal.

Top 3 reasons why you should use roadmapping:

Now that we have briefly touched what roadmapping is, here are the top three reasons why you should be doing it!

1. Good Planning is Important for the Success

Roadmapping, in its simplistic form, is just good planning. To be more specific, it is good planning for all the essential areas which play their roles to build a successful product line.

Using this good planning, the cross-functional planning team can fully examine the potential competitive strategies and various sufficient ways to implement those strategies.

Additionally, all the technology decisions are considered as an integral part of the plan, rather than merely an afterthought which can raise significant challenges in product development.

2. The Value of Time

Roadmapping helps incorporate the element of time in an explicit manner in your product management, and use a good roadmapping software takes it one step further.

It is important because the teams should be fully equipped with the right technologies and capabilities in terms of resources and talent at the right time so that the strategy can be put in execution without any hassle and delays.

3. The Bridge between Marketing and Product

Many roadmapping software help link the marketing strategy and data with the technology and product decisions, all thanks to the process of roadmapping. This helps to have the conformity between all the business and development decisions which helps in achieving the goals in a better way.

Roadmapping keeps all the teams to be specific with respect to the performance and features in concordance with the value of customers. This is another reason why product roadmapping is essential.

 Final Words:

These are the three biggest reasons why it is important for product management and development teams to start things off with proper roadmapping for which an effective tool can make things even easier and effective.

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Prioritization & Roadmapping Tool by airfocus

Identify your priorities and build/share beautiful roadmaps. Smart strategy scoring board for product managers, project managers and marketing strategists. Seamlessly integrates with JIRA, Trello, Asana and more. Try it free for 14 days.

Roadmapping software is important to prioritize your projects and features to build more effective organization.