#customer nurturing

[transform2002-blog]

7 After-sales Support Mistakes Companies Make

New Post has been published on https://transformsolution.com/7-after-sales-support-mistakes-companies-make/

7 After-sales Support Mistakes Companies Make

If you thought you could forget about your customer after selling a product, you are very wrong. Whether you’ve sold a product or a service, after-sales support is something that no business can ever avoid. Usually, after-sales support consists of upgrade options, repairs, warranties, and guarantees. However, what is often ignored and missed is after-sales customer support. There are many ways to make a customer feel ignored and unwanted, and one of them is by not providing adequate after-sales support. In this article, let us take a look at the 7 after-sales support mistakes companies make, and how you can avoid making the same mistakes yourself.

1. Not explaining the product or service

Most businesses are just too pleased that they were able to clinch a deal or sell a difficult product. They often forget to explain the product or service that they’ve just sold. This leads to a situation where the customer feels they need further assistance and end up calling customer care. This can be avoided by making product demonstration and service explanations a part of your sales protocol. Make sure that you have a dedicated team to explain all the services and products you sell in detail, to your clients and customers. They shouldn’t leave your office or store without complete information. If you sell online, follow up with a call.

Knowledge Networks PDI found that in-store product demonstrations helped a product sales to shoot up by 475%

2. Not interacting consistently post-sales

A common mistake that businesses make is, they do not keep the conversation going. Just because a sale was closed doesn’t mean your relationship with the customer has come to an end. On the contrary, it is the beginning of a wonderful relationship which will not only satisfy your customer but will also help you build potential business and sales opportunities. Keep the conversation going, and communicate consistently via email, social media, etc. You can invite your customers to a members-only blog or fanzine, and make sure that fresh and relevant premium content is delivered to them.

93% of leads that convert do so by the 6th call attempt.

3. Providing incomplete information

Once a sale has been made, you need to make sure that your customer has all the information required regarding the product r service. However, most companies forget this crucial fact and rely upon brochures and websites to do that. Nothing replaces a one-to-one interaction between you and your customer regarding your products and services. Make sure that your sales team provides complete information about the product and service, and that they are always available to answer questions at any point in time after-sales.

4. Ignoring cross-selling and upselling opportunities

Previous clients and customers are wonderful opportunities for future sales. However, businesses simply forget their customers and try to look for new ones. Previous customers can be potential targets for cross-selling and up-selling opportunities. All you need to do is make sure that you inform your customers and clients of related or better products and services. Most likely, they will opt for it because they already trust your brand enough.

Up to 30% of sales could be attributed due to product recommendations and cross-selling, according to this Forrester report.

Source: Using Cross-sells and Upsells to Increase Revenue (Infographic)

5. Not handling complaints well

This is a no-brainer but a number of companies ignore post-sales customer support. They often do not handle complaints well, and no actions are taken when there are issues with the products or services. Always welcome feedback and if your customer or client has a complaint to make, show courtesy and earnestly attempt to fix the issue at hand. Usually, you will be able to fix the issue right away. If you are unable to do that, you can either offer discounts and apologies or come up with alternative solutions.

6. Not communicating with the customers on a regular basis

Interacting with customers on a consistent basis as previously discussed is vastly different from communicating with customers on a regular basis. If you have new products or services to sell, it is your previous customer who should be informed first. Unfortunately, many businesses often forget this fact and tend to focus on newer ones. Make sure that you always keep all communication channels open, and inform your customer of every relevant development that might help you cement the relationship.

Leads that are nurtured regularly make purchases that are 47% larger than leads that are not nurtured.

7. Not treating previous customers with the respect they deserve

Last but not the least, many companies forget that customers like to be treated with respect and dignity. They take post-sales communication a little too enthusiastically and end up spamming customers constantly. The opposite is true too, and many companies often simply ignore their previous customers or treat them unfavorably. This leads to losing business. To avoid this, treat every customer with respect and do not over-communicate with them. Also, make sure that you always remain in touch and ensure that you maintain a healthy relationship with them.

Seek professional help, if need be

As you can see, after-sales support is very crucial to building and growing a business. Make sure that you offer sales support and that your team understands the importance of sales management. If need be, you can outsource sales support customer service and IT sales support, especially if you are a small company and cannot handle or afford a sales support team of your own.

[kanikaschambach-blog]

How the "Internet of Things" (IoT) will change Customer Experience as we know it?

The globally accepted definition of IoT is the phenomenon of everyday devices connecting to the Internet via a unique IP relayed by tiny embedded sensors. It is one of the fastest growing technologies and one that impacts every industry, every product and each consumer. Probably you own some devices that can connect to the Internet through wireless functionalities and these devices form part of the Internet of Things, or IoT as it’s known. Just think about the newly developed smart home devices that learn to self-regulate the temperature depending on your daily schedule or cars that can self-connect to the Internet and can navigate and drive without a human driver. Washing machines could be programmed to launch a wash cycle with the help of Internet, and you can close your garage door with a click on your smart phone.

So, in essence, these self-regulating devices are actually using human behaviour as their triggers and collecting terabytes of data will give new meaning to customer behaviour data and prevent us, Marketers and analytics enthusiasts with an un-deniable opportunity to make customer experiences even more targeted and personalized.

Device Automation is inevitable and begs the question of Support automation

A few years back I remember getting hooked to a series called “Eureka” about a secret city of geniuses and of course they already had a concept AI governed “Smart Home” and Sarah, the voice of the house pretty much becomes part of the family. All I could think of since then is, wouldn’t it be nice to have my own “Sarah” who could make sure all the utilities work together, without my intervention?

With IoT it definitely seems to be a possibility in the near future but what technology leaders are already envisioning and pondering over is what happens when something goes wrong, would a human need to intervene and raise an “IT request”? Ok, not an IT request, but, well a request somewhere with someone.

Based on a study by Acquity Group, in 5 years from more than 50% of homes would at least have a connected security system, smart refrigerator and thermostat system. With such an adoption rate, it becomes imperative that we invest in support automation to realize the true potential of building smart devices and homes, with an entire army of machines that interact and work together, fix themselves and deliver a real “smart” customer experience.

Big data to Big insights

IoT opens up a world of possibilities with terabytes of sensory data collected across demographics via smart objects or devices.  According to CISCO, by 2020 we will have 20 billion devices connected with each of them producing a considerable amount of information.

Of course, for us marketers this is a gold mine since in theory it represents a culmination of digital marketing, customer relationship management and customer nurturing insights. It helps us in monitoring humungous data and identifying meaningful patterns helping us understand our user’s behavior patterns and predict their concerns. Used intelligently, it will help brands and product managers to anticipate their needs and proactively offer targeted solutions.  Imagine the impact on the product user experience or the wow factor in your service.

With the possibility of Event Stream Processing (ESP) and IoT joining forces lead to a realistic objective of being able to detect disturbances in large amounts of data and predict if an anomaly is going to arise or if something is out of place and the user can be immediately advised on an action. Transportation industry has heavily invested in this technology to help them minimize vehicle breakdowns and avoid major business disruption and revenue loss.

Overall in theory, IoT goes a step beyond Big Data or Analytics and delivers real-time consumable and actionable intelligence to enable a proactive customer support experience and an enhanced customer acquisition, nurturing and retention cycle. There is a lot of excitement around the IoT phenomenon and it’s implications in our daily lives but for now it stays to be seen if it takes us to life in the secret town of “Eureka” or opens up a Pandora’s box with no user privacy and data security.