In the contemporary digital landscape, businesses concept intricate provocations that demand efficient and streamlined operations. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have emerged as a game-changer, revolutionizing the way organizations manage their processes, data, and resources. By integrating diverse functions into a unified system, ERP plays a pivotal role in improving business operations, driving productivity, and fostering growth.

Nowadays, ERP performs a supreme vocation in evolving to address the changing needs of businesses and keep up with technological advancements leverage cloud computing, mobile technologies, advanced analytics, integration with emerging technologies, collaboration features, and enhanced security to meet the evolving needs of businesses and enable efficient, data-driven operations.

In this blog, we seek into the transformative power of ERP and its ramification on organizations.

Revolutionize Business: Embrace the Power of ERP: 

Embracing the power of ERP can revolutionize your business by streamlining operations, enabling data-driven decision-making, enhancing collaboration, improving customer experience, optimizing resource management, ensuring compliance, and providing a competitive advantage. ERP is a transformative tool that empowers organizations to achieve growth, innovation, and success in the modern business landscape.

In the ever-changing and fiercely competitive business landscape of today, embracing the transformative capabilities of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is crucial. By adopting ERP, organizations can unlock a plethora of benefits, attaining real-time insights and revolutionizing their operations.

1. Streamlined Processes for Operational Excellence: 

Efficient business processes are the foundation of operational excellence. ERP plays a pivotal role in streamlining processes across departments, eliminating redundancies, and improving overall efficiency. By automating repetitive tasks, standardizing workflows, and centralizing information, ERP simplifies operations and saves valuable time and resources.

• Integration of Functions: ERP integrates various business functions such as finance, sales, manufacturing, and supply chain management. This integration eliminates silos, ensures smooth information flow, and promotes cross-functional collaboration.
• Automation and Efficiency: ERP automates manual and repetitive tasks, reducing errors and saving valuable time. By streamlining workflows, organizations achieve operational efficiency, optimize resource utilization, and minimize costs.

2. Centralized Data Management for Informed Decision-Making:

Organizations often struggle with data scattered across disparate systems and departments. This decentralized approach hampers collaboration, creates data inconsistencies, and inhibits efficient decision-making. Centralized data management is the key to overcoming these challenges. This enables organizations to make informed, proactive, and strategic decisions that drive business success in today’s fast-paced and data-centric environment.

• Unified Data Repository: ERP provides a centralized database that consolidates data from different departments. This centralization eliminates data inconsistencies, enhances data accuracy, and enables real-time access to critical information.
• Reporting and Analytics: ERP’s reporting and analytics capabilities offer valuable insights into business performance. By analysing key performance indicators (KPIs) and trends, organizations gain actionable intelligence for informed decision-making and strategic planning.

3. Collaboration and Communication:

Collaboration and communication form the backbone of successful teamwork and efficient business operations. By breaking down silos and enabling effective information sharing, organizations can enhance productivity, accelerate decision-making, and foster a culture of innovation.

• Improved Collaboration: ERP fosters collaboration by providing a unified platform for employees to share information, collaborate on projects, and streamline workflows. Enhanced collaboration strengthens interdepartmental coordination and teamwork.
• Efficient Communication: With ERP, employees have access to real-time, accurate information, enabling effective communication and prompt decision-making.

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Integration:

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, with integrated best Customer Relationship Management (CRM) functionalities, provide organizations with a powerful tool such as Microsoft dynamic 365 to enhance customer engagement, improve satisfaction, and drive business growth. In this blog, we will explore the benefits of CRM integration within ERP and how it helps organizations build and maintain successful customer relationships.

• Personalized Customer Service: ERP with integrated CRM functionalities allows organizations to manage customer interactions, preferences, and purchase history. This data-driven approach enables personalized customer service, enhances customer satisfaction, and strengthens customer relationships.
• Streamlined Sales Processes: ERP simplifies the sales cycle by automating order management, tracking customer interactions, and streamlining sales operations. This results in faster order fulfilment, improved sales efficiency, and increased customer loyalty.

5. Supply Chain Optimization:

An optimized supply chain ensures efficient resource allocation, minimizes costs, reduces lead times, and enhances customer satisfaction. By optimizing supply chain operations, organizations can effectively manage inventory, logistics, and production, leading to improved efficiency and profitability.

• Efficient Inventory Management: ERP streamlines inventory control, demand planning, and procurement processes. Real-time visibility into inventory levels and demand enables organizations to optimize inventory, minimize stockouts, and reduce carrying costs.
• Enhanced Supply Chain Visibility: ERP provides end-to-end visibility into the supply chain, enabling proactive management of logistics, production, and distribution. Organizations can respond quickly to changes, improve lead times, and meet customer demands effectively.

6. Compliance and Risk Management:

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems play a crucial role in enabling organizations to navigate compliance challenges and mitigate risks effectively. Compliance with regulations, standards, and internal policies is essential for organizations to maintain trust, avoid legal repercussions, and protect their reputation. Effective risk management is equally critical in identifying and mitigating potential threats that could impact an organization’s operations, financial stability, or data security.

• Regulatory Compliance: ERP systems include built-in controls and workflows that ensure compliance with industry regulations and financial reporting standards. This reduces the risk of non-compliance, penalties, and reputational damage.
• Risk Mitigation: ERP aids in risk management by identifying potential risks, enhancing data security, and enabling proactive risk mitigation strategies. Organizations can monitor and manage risks efficiently within a centralized system.

Final Thoughts:

ERP is the catalyst that unlocks success in ever changing and fiercely competitive business arena. It empowers organizations to optimize operations, utilize resources efficiently, deliver exceptional customer experiences, and adapt to the ever-changing market dynamics. By embracing ERP, organizations position themselves as leaders, equipped with the tools and capabilities to thrive in the digital era. z

The transformative power of ERP propels organizations towards operational excellence and ensures they stay ahead of the curve in the relentless pursuit of success. Embracing ERP is not just a strategic move; it is the cornerstone of success in the digital era, setting organizations on a path of continuous growth, resilience, and unparalleled achievements.

So, take the leap and harness the transformative power of ERP. Witness the evolution of your business operations and embark on a journey towards unparalleled success!

The post How does ERP Helps to improve Business Operations? appeared first on ReadWrite.

Top startups today have no time for routine tasks related to data entry and administration. This is where sales automation comes into play for the best startups, which helps optimize your manual tiresome and time-consuming assignments. 

Marketing automation allows your sales assistants, managers, and CMOs to focus less on the organization of the whole marketing process and more on their direct function – selling.

Luckily, there is a wide choice of special tools that can help you automate lead lists building, send sales emails and follow-ups, schedule meetings and calls, and perform other tasks.

Why Is Sales Automation Important for Your Startup?

It Helps Save Effort and Time 

Marketing automation can help increase sales efficiency by 14.5% and decrease marketing expenditures by 12.2%. Besides, business owners, CEOs, and CMOs claim that the biggest advantage of sales automation for their company is saving time at 30%. 

With business administration getting tough these days, 68% of companies use marketing automation somehow. 

It Provides Insight Into the Effectiveness of the Sales Process

An increase in earnings (85%) and marketing productivity (69%) are the main reasons businesses want to implement automated lead nurturing. Moreover, 63% of companies are beating their rivals, thanks to sales automation.

It Helps Identify Sales-Ready Leads and Maintains Relationship with Leads

When used to nurture leads, marketing automation tools show an increase in qualified leads. The reason is simple – automated instruments give you detailed data about your prospects. This helps push every deal down the sales funnel and propose a personalized, data-driven offer so that your lead is more willing to make a buying decision.

It Helps Grow Revenue

As reported by 60% of users, implementing sales automation tools in their business has improved the number of leads that convert to deals. And this increase can be as high as 225%! Even just after one month of use, 3x more prospects can be converted to sales. 

Types of Sales Automation

Modern technologies and artificial intelligence can help you save way more time than you could imagine. If you automate routine tasks throughout each sales funnel stage, you will have enough freedom to focus on interesting and creative tasks. As a result, you will sell more.

You will be surprised at how much can be automated by software:

1. Automate Sales Prospecting

If you implement a dynamic CRM, you can use countless criteria to filter out the most suitable leads based on the required conditions. You can also get a personalized email, Slack notification, or in-app alert once a new lead matches your demands. Put differently; you will keep getting a prequalified list of contacts regularly without lifting a finger.

2. Streamline Processing and Enrich Your Lead Database

The more knowledge about the target audience and existing clients you have, the more powerful you are. Data about your lead’s job position, presence on social media, solutions their business provides, existing suppliers, etc., will help you successfully get in touch with them.

3. Stop Entering Data Into CRM Manually

Set up workflows in your marketing automation software to track records of your qualified leads automatically. For instance, you can determine all the contacts that have submitted the form or downloaded the price list as “qualified.”

4. Automate Your Email Campaigns

Do you still send each email manually to all your leads or copy and paste the same messages? Alternatively, try using email templates, personalize, and schedule letters for every client’s best conversion. You can try using tools like Snov.io for that purpose.

5. Manage Marketing Collateral

Sales reps spend tons of time searching for useful content or writing texts to send to their leads. Ensure your business has a сorporate shared Google Drive folder where you store valuable files. This way, it will be easier for you to access the most important marketing documents, saving time during every contact with prospects.

6. Schedule Calls, Meetings, Mailouts, etc.

Planning a meeting with a sales lead over email can take time and reminds us of a tennis game. You suggest one meeting time to your prospect; they propose another option, then you offer a third solution, etc. This is tiresome and can also destroy the impulse in your sales negotiations.

Instead, you can use one of many meeting-scheduling tools (like Calendar, for example). They give your contacts direct access to your calendar and enable them to plan the meeting in any free time span if you dd customized scheduling links 2020 to your email messages and signatures. Most such tools grant free trials, so it is easy to study and test them.

7. Use AI-Powered Analytics of Sales Conversations 

If you want to analyze your calls, check your campaigns’ efficiency, and improve your sales approaches, try using sales communication AI-software. It allows you to quickly check what topics you discussed in a call, what rivals you mentioned, and study the talk-to-listen portion. Tools like Gong and Chorus pull out key pieces of your talks and give you AI-powered insights.

8. Automate Lead Management 

If you spend hours managing your CRM instead of making calls and bringing contracts, try automating all the activities related to prospects and deals. The market offers plenty of instruments to record your conversations, schedule meetings, and plan emails for you. Check if your current CRM offers workflow automation and start implementing it.

9. Manage Deals and Papers

Today, most of the contracts and offers are mailed and signed over the internet. Tools like Hellosign or Adobe Sign offer solutions for e-signing, lots of impressive analytics features, and functions that can help boost your conversion rates. 

This is just a small part of the many marketing activities that can be automated. In the age of AI and robots, all types of routine organizational tasks can be automated, while a real live contact with the prospective or existing client should remain to be carried out in person.

How to Choose the Best Sales Automation Tool?

Selecting the best tool or several tools that suit your needs might take some time, as many options on the market claim to be the best. We hope these pieces of advice will help you choose the best instruments for your business.

Decide What Processes You Would Like to Automate

Check all marketing processes you have at the moment. Does lead qualification take much of your daily routine? How much time do you spend on lead nurturing, prospect engagement, and content marketing daily? Do you schedule follow-up calls or send reminders manually? How long does it take to organize bulk seasonal offerings? 

There can be dozens of similar questions. Analyze your answers and think about what processes should not take so much time or where you can avoid manual work from you or your team.

Make a List of Essential Functions

After you’ve chosen the main processes, try to create a list of specific features you’ll require, such as email marketing automation or mobile availability. If you do not select features and must-have’s your business needs, you might end up with a complex product you cannot use. Choose the required functions and, after that, compare several platforms according to the list of criteria.

Finally, Test the Product in Practice

Once you have specified the must-have functions, prioritize them and shorten the list to several most important items. After that, compare the software once again to see which tool you can start using right now. It would be great to test-drive each platform by getting a free trial or an interactive demo to get a more comprehensive vision and make a more prepared decision. 

This might look like a lot of work, particularly if you are working hard to help your company survive. Still, experience proves – a couple of hours invested now will pay off a dozen times in the future. 

Top Sales Automation Tools

Snov.i0

Snov.io is an integrated cold outreach automation platform used by sales departments, marketers, startups, and simply anyone who needs high-quality outbound research and outreach tools.

This all-in-one toolkit allows you to speed up creating and managing lists of prospects and bring your brilliant ideas directly to their inbox. It works for every stage of your marketing process:

• Non-stop lead gen and verification. You can automate your lead generation, pump up your funnel with targeted leads, and accelerate conversions with this solution. It boasts 98% email deliverability thanks to the high quality of new and existing leads guaranteed by the 7-tier verification.
• Nurture, engage, convert. Boost engagement with effective nurturing based on automated outreach. Personalized triggered email drip campaigns can help you easily convert leads and smoothly move them down the sales funnel. Schedule campaigns for existing clients, automate follow-ups and track email responses from your Gmail.
• Study market rivals. Snov.io research tools allow you to monitor what sets you apart from your competition and discover new ways to convert. You can check full company profiles and tech stack behind your rivals and leads. 
• Grow and scale your business. Keep your efficiency always in control – sync across platforms with over 2,000+ powerful integrations. 

Pricing: Snov.io offers unlimited freemium with credits that are renewed every month. Paid plans that start at $33 per month billed annually.

Moosend

This marketing automation platform comes with some features that promise to help users generate more clicks and sales. Surprisingly easy-to-use and with a short learning curve, Moosend allows you to create and send email campaigns designed to respond to the prospect’s needs.

From user onboarding to abandoned cart sequences, this platform allows you to design workflows that make sense for your audience and lead prospects further down the sales funnel. 

Users can select any event to trigger the automation, such as visitors browsing a specific page or viewing a product, and set it in motion in a simple manner. What is more, you can test one of the ready-made automation workflow recipes.

Pricing: Moosend offers a free forever program for up to 1,000 subscribers that includes most features. Paid plans start at $8 per month billed annually.

Juro

There is nothing worse than a sales team getting a prospect to commit before month-end, only for the deal to get stuck in the contracting phase. Word documents fly back and forth, versions go missing, data is lost, and visibility is non-existent. 

Sales teams at high-growth startups are turning to new, in-browser tools to end this manual process. Juro is a contract collaboration platform that enables your team to self-serve, agree, and manage routine contracts at scale from one unified workspace.

Salespeople use a natural language Q&A flow to spin up a contract in seconds, from a template over which legal has oversight. They can even generate contracts directly from Salesforce, with two-way data sync making sure versions are the same in both platforms. 

Parties negotiate in-browser in the sidebar and can then eSign securely on any device to help salespeople close deals on the move. Post-signature analytics help stakeholders spot bottlenecks and friction to keep deals moving fast and make contract management data-driven.

Juro is used predominantly by high-growth tech startups with lots of contract volume, like Deliveroo, Wolt, and Babylon Health. 

Pricing starts at free, with bespoke plans depending on the integrations required.

Paperform

Capturing leads is the first and most foundational step in the inbound-driven sales process. Paperform is a versatile form and page builder that might help you do just that: collect leads and kick off the conversation seamlessly and elegantly.

Paperform stands out among the alternatives thanks to its modern interface and customization features. It is easy to make forms and landing pages look unique and fit your company’s broader brand.

There are more than a hundred form templates available, so you will never have to start from scratch no matter what kind of form you are looking to build.

The built-in email automation feature makes Paperform even more useful. Your startup sales department is likely to have limited bandwidth, especially when responding to leads across different time zones.

You might leverage Paperform to send out automated yet highly-personalized emails to leads that submit your forms. Later, once the conversation is already ongoing, your sales reps can catch up quickly and take it further.

Pricing: Paid plans start at $15 per month.

Outfunnel

Outfunnel is an email marketing tool with deep CRM integration. Whether you are using Pipedrive, Mailchimp, or Copper, it has you covered. You’ll be able to create drip or one-off campaigns with defined segments for your sales team using lead-scoring while automating and reducing tasks that were previously done manually. 

With dynamic sender information and smart workflows, Outfunnel will help you stay on top of your leads while continuously allowing you to build up relationships with your current and future customers.

Pricing: Outfunnel offers a free two-week trial. Paid plans start at $19 per month.

HelpCrunch

As an all-in-one customer communication tool, HelpCrunch allows businesses to automate numerous aspects of the sales process. Once you sign up for the tool and install its live chat widget, you can put inbound lead generation on autopilot.

First, HelpCrunch helps businesses engage their visitors proactively with the help of automated chat messages. You can offer help in your website’s strategic places, such as product, pricing, or checkout pages, and initiate conversations on your terms.

People will see a quick and convenient way to contact you and will not hesitate. Simultaneously, you can use live chat to collect leads’ contact information and pre-qualify them on the go with pre-chat and offline forms. Visitors will specify their names and email addresses and choose a department that will better cater to their needs.

While the shared inbox will contain all incoming requests in chronological order, sales reps can create their custom inboxes to filter conversations by their tags, assignees, departments, etc. This way, they will be able to assist warm leads on a first-priority basis.

To keep the conversation going, your team can follow up on their leads with the help of automated email sequences and accelerate deal closure.

Pricing: The ‘Live chat’ subscription by HelpCrunch is available for $12 per month per team member billed annually. If you want to enjoy the ‘Live chat + Emails’ plan, its pricing starts from $23 per month per team member.

Zapier

Zapier is a tool that brings together all your favorite apps, such as Gmail, Slack, Mailchimp, and more. You can automate repetitive tasks, and you do not need to know coding, or rely on developers to build the integration.

Create thousands of different workflows (Zaps), e.g., schedule events in your Google Calendar directly from new Trello cards, save your Gmail attachments to Dropbox, or post tweets across multiple Twitter accounts. 

Zaps consist of a trigger and one or more subsequent actions. A trigger is an event that initiates your workflow. Zaps automate your processes in the background, allowing you to concentrate on more important tasks. 

Zapier counts every task you run through your Zap. To decide which Zapier plan suits you best, you should keep in mind the number of tasks your Zaps run. 

Pricing: The service offers a free trial so that you can study some popular Zap templates. Paid plans start at $19,99 per month billed annually.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is an SMM platform that supports social network integrations for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. The tool helps you boost your organic and paid ads’ effectiveness with the Hootsuite automated ad solution. 

Hootsuite allows you to advertise on social media easily. Manually or automatically, you can target key audience segments or market niches by age, location, and user interests. The tool can help you reach more of your social media audience, monitor feedback about your brand and rivals, and use social analytics to make data-driven business decisions.

Besides, its mobile apps allow you to manage your presence on social networks from any location. You can also connect your existing instruments with over 250+ apps and integrations in a single toolbox. 

Pricing: A 30-days free trial is available. Paid plans start at $19 per month.

Wrapping it up

Nowadays, more and more businesses realize the power of sales and marketing automation tools and implement them in their workflows. Accordingly, new instruments in this market niche are emerging a dime a dozen. 

Analyze your needs and select the best toolkit that will help you seamlessly automate your whole sales funnel: lead generation, nurturing, engagement, follow-ups, conversion, and growing a loyal audience.

Image Credit: Ola Dapo; Pexels

The post Top‌ ‌8‌ ‌Sales‌ ‌Automation‌ ‌Tools‌ ‌for‌ ‌Startups‌ ‌in‌ ‌2023 appeared first on ReadWrite.

Businesses today rely heavily on customer relationship management (CRM) software to streamline essential processes, boost team productivity, build better relationships with customers, and increase overall profitability. Unfortunately, CRM adoption is not always successful despite its success.

The most common challenges that often lead to CRM failure include lack of executive sponsorship and support, inadequate user training and preparation, poor system usability and user experience design, persistent data quality issues if data governance measures have not been implemented, as well as by resisting organizations difficulty in embracing change.

This guide was created to help businesses understand the potential obstacles and strategies they need to apply in order to prevent costly mistakes that could occur from implementation failures.

It will provide a comprehensive understanding of why organizations fail in completing the adoption process and an analysis of a variety of strategies businesses can take in order to be successful.

Having proper operational guidelines such as tools, policies, procedures, training initiatives, and support plans should be all accounted for in order for a company to succeed and reap the potential benefits from CRM implementation.

CRM Adoption Failure

Source

CRM adoption failure occurs when an organization implements a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system without enough prior preparation in order to ensure success. Defining CRM Adoption Failure specifically, is the lack of desired outcomes resulting from actions taken across people, processes, and technology over the course of implementing a CRM system.

This might manifest in various negative indicators for businesses such as decreased sales conversion, frustration among staff or customers due to poor usability, and low user engagement.

Therefore, organizations should identify potential barriers in advance and take preventive measures by focusing on proper education as well as training before carrying out any action concerning the implementation phase – that will help them avoid making common mistakes leading to CRM adoption failure.

Factors Contributing to CRM adoption failure

Source

1. Lack of executive sponsorship and support

Lack of executive sponsorship and support is one of the key factors contributing to CRM adoption failure.

Without a unified vision from leadership, it is difficult for stakeholders to agree on an ROI-driven pathway or objective for implementation. Those responsible for project management also lack clear roles and responsibilities with limited resources to deliver development and launch goals.

When organizational leaders are not supportive of CRM infrastructure, policies, and process changes can become stagnant, holding back successful outcomes.

By aligning teams around common goals provides guidance while actualizing objectives to gauge effectiveness for results-. Leadership sponsorship plays a critical role across the organization regardless of initiatives undertaken including CRM technology investments.

2. Insufficient user training and education

Insufficient user training and education is one of the major roadblocks to successful CRM adoption. It is essential for users to have a thorough understanding of how the system works. Without proper instruction, employees often get overwhelmed by having to learn about unfamiliar features.

Companies need clear training plans that include both initial setup instructions as well as ongoing refresher training when new versions or updates are released.

User manuals should also be intuitively designed and easily accessible during support so they can quickly reference necessary information and processes. Overall, providing adequate user training and education sets the foundation for successful CRM adoption going forward.

3. Poor system usability and user experience

Source

Poor system usability and user experience are very common reasons leading to CRM adoption failure. A successful CRM implementation requires the development of an intuitive, user-friendly interface that is fast, reliable, and capable of streamlining tasks for users.

Inadequate testing and faulty design can result in a CRM failure even when all other requirements are met. Poor interface design might create irritation or confusion among end-users that is extremely hard if not impossible to undo without significant development effort.

Furthermore, slow load times or overly complicated navigation elements will also lead to frustration and lower satisfaction with the software even further – leading to increased resistance amongst users.

To mitigate this risk it is essential to ensure from the start that tests have been completed on all applicable platforms (desktop, mobile phone, etc). Additionally, engagement and feedback from end-users should always be encouraged to inform the design process prior to conducting user acceptance tastings.

4. Inadequate data quality and integrity

Despite having a user-friendly front-end interface and necessary features, inadequate data quality and integrity can lead to CRM adoption failure.

Poor and unreliable data led down the ladder of poor-made decisions or occurrence of errors resulting in users rejecting the system alongside reducing its productivity. Proper routine data maintenance within the system will avoid both entries as well as output errors.

Strict implementing guidelines related to company protocols for record manipulation should be followed throughout the team members when dispensing with it thereby ensuring leveraging maximum utility out of CRM investment through regular audits of only genuine input sources for longevity amidst ever-updating industry scenarios.

5. Resistance to change within the organization

Changing from manual to automated processes can be difficult, and involves people throughout the company cooperating across departments. Employees are already used to their current routine, so creating adoption of a new system often creates resistance due in part to fear of the unknown, unfamiliarity with new technology, or expectations that change may involve more effort on their part.

As an organization introduces CRM usage as part of daily operations such as data tracking and customer relationship improvements, employees risk feeling like their duties have changed.

Minimizing behavior changes by ensuring smooth automation is essential for achieving successful adoption and providing adequate user education will help ensure positive responses upon launching the CRM program.

Executives should consider leveraging rewards for performance outcomes either pre-or post-launch implementation measures support stave off resistance to CRM until employees are confident working with the new system.

Establishing a Solid Foundation for CRM Success

Source

1. Define clear objectives and goals for CRM implementation

Establishing a solid foundation for CRM success is key to avoiding costly implementation failure. Defining clear objectives and goals for the CRM implementation sets a shared purpose among stakeholders and provides direction for future decisions.

The objectives and goals should be specific, measurable, achievable within a realistic timeline, relevant to addressing the business’s needs, and communicate clearly why change is necessary and appropriate rates of usage demanded from end users.

Taking the time upfront to define these in detail assists business teams throughout all stages CRM implementation process which improves chances of success as well as helps minimize disappointing outcomes arising later on.

2. Develop a well-defined CRM strategy and roadmap

Developing a well-defined CRM strategy and roadmap is an essential step to establishing a solid foundation for successful CRM adoption.

Organizations should start by clearly determining what they wish to achieve with the implementation of such a system, log the manpower and financial resources available, and decide upon an appropriate timeline.

They should then take these objectives into consideration as they create their strategy and develop key milestones in order for them to metrics measure success.

3. Secure executive sponsorship and support

In order to ensure successful CRM adoption, executive sponsorship, and support should be secured. Company leadership should feel invested in the CRM’s success by seeing the potential financial and operational benefits as a result of providing resources for the implementation and support process.

Setting aside these resources involves a commitment from executives which can consequently create enthusiasm throughout the company. By supporting this type of change-driven environment, corporate leaders must avail themselves of participation and drive results coming out of any meetings associated with CRM objectives through active participation.

Research ensures that such sponsorship will enhance employee engagement and system adoption; creating the ideal scenario for a well-implemented CRM.

4. Allocate adequate resources for CRM implementation

One of the most important elements to ensure a successful implementation is to allocate adequate resources for CRM implementation.

This includes both monetary and personnel. Carefully consider what needs to be provided holistically; including costs related to technology systems, software licensing, hardware/infrastructure, customer service or technical support, data analysis, and assessment.

It is also necessary that an appropriate budget for end-user training is established in order to ensure comprehensive information transfer throughout the organizational process. Adequate planning and funding are key components in setting the CRM team up for success.

Optimizing CRM Usability and User Experience

Source

1. Choose a CRM system with an intuitive and user-friendly interface

Choosing the right CRM system is essential when it comes to optimizing usability and user experience as part of a successful CRM adoption strategy.

Investing in an intuitive, user-friendly system eliminates any initial confusion so users can take up working with their new tools much faster. Functionality needs to be balanced with easy comprehension, effective customization options, and customer service as well.

It’s important that all parties involved from executives to IT personnel maintain a continuous dialogue about needs so every detail can be accounted for before signing up for a particular tool.

2. Customize the CRM to align with user workflows and preferences

To ensure maximum user adoption and satisfaction, proper attention should be paid to optimizing the usability of the CRM. Look for an intuitive and user-friendly CRM interface that supports customizable configurations.

This helps users save time as features can be configured in a way that is optimized to individual workflows. Adding custom fields, data views, and reports tailored specifically to line-of-business processes will make using the CRM revolve more naturally into their workflow and duties.

Personalizing notifications and granting access control will also allow users to customize environments and preferences.

3. Streamline and automate processes within the CRM

Streamlining and automating processes within the CRM can help improve usability and user experience. Automation eliminates manual tasks, reducing the number of steps required to complete a process or action, and streamlines existing functions thus minimizing the effort needed to retrieve data or take any other action.

Additionally, automation increases accuracy and consistency by providing consistent data across systems that can be trusted by users. Integrating automation into your CRM, businesses can increase user adoption of the system can enjoy improved productivity from users who are familiar with the standard of workflow.

3. Continuously evaluate and improve the CRM user experience

Continuous improvement of the user experience and usability within CRM systems is key to a successful implementation.

Regularly evaluating the system for areas of pain (such as responding to feedback from end users) can go a long way in managing adoption levels over time. Elevating user feedback for changes through effective prioritization of their requests and properly scheduling fixes can help maintain user engagement throughout the lifetime of use.

Through some combination of regression testing, A/B testing, build-measure feedback loops, product usage analysis, and user satisfaction surveys, organizations can stay on top of the system to identify areas for improvement.

Conclusion

The key to successful CRM adoption lies in creating a strong foundation for success and sustaining user engagement and buy-in along the way. This guide outlined several strategies that businesses can take to ensure their CRM project is successful and does not result in adoption failure.

From setting clear objectives and goals to fostering a culture of user adoption and engagement to ensuring data quality and integrity, to sustaining CRM adoption and continuous improvement, the strategies outlined in this guide can be instrumental in improving the chance of CRM success.

With a concerted effort and commitment to CRM adoption, businesses can reap the benefits of successful CRM adoption for effective customer relationship management and improved operational efficiency.

The post CRM Adoption Success: Strategies to Prevent Failure appeared first on ReadWrite.

As Hackernoon reports, “Over the past few years, software has transferred all-important life processes to the digital environment, which helps to solve problems in various industries efficiently and quickly.”

Most developers don’t just think about writing code but try to create practical applications to help people, animals, and the planet. To understand how digital technology has changed our lives, it is necessary to become familiar with real-world problems being solved with software.

Software that Solves People’s Problems

The IT industry is becoming more and more in demand, and app usage is growing every day without forecasts of slowing down in the future. According to Statista, there are over 6.3 billion smartphone users worldwide. In the app stores, you can find an application for almost any need:

• sports and nutrition;
• health and spiritual development;
• counting finance and online banks;
• taxi service and delivery;
• booking tickets, hotels, restaurants, etc.

They made a real revolution in the world and helped people separate time from routine tasks and do more valuable things. However, there is a special section of applications that solves serious problems for people. They positively influence our health and help monitor the body efficiently.

Software for Doctor Online Visiting

With the onset of a pandemic that has changed almost the world’s way of life, many services have moved online. Medical services were no exception; they offered patients two options for assistance: consultation with a doctor via audio or video communication and answering questions by specialists in chat or undergoing remote diagnostics using special devices (for example, measuring and controlling heartbeat).

Software for Online Psychological Therapy

It often happens that a solution in a difficult psychological situation is not always possible to find on your own, you do not want to discuss it with friends, and there is no time for a psychotherapist, and sometimes even money. To help a person cope with such problems, companies annually develop and improve virtual helper: applications that provide support and assistance. Conforming to MarketWatch, the top 20 mental health apps in the US were downloaded by 4 million users for the first time in April 2020. An online specialist will help relieve stress, sort out a relationship with a partner, find a common language with a child, and much more. For example, Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant, will call the rescue service if it recognizes a suicidal orientation in a question.

The application My Pocket Therapist brings together therapists from all over the UK and allows them to consult patients online.

It is a very convenient platform that helps you find the right therapist, make an appointment and conduct a video session in real-time. Patients can book sessions, pay, and leave reviews. Doctors create profiles, schedule appointments and receive payments with no effort.

Of course, apps won’t replace going to the hospital, making medical services more accessible. They can also relieve patient flows during a pandemic, screening out people with minimal symptoms. However, for services to truly help people, they must be functional, convenient, secure, and contain legal information.

Software for People with Disabilities

Simple actions such as talking on the smartphone, going downstairs, or even determining the expiration date of groceries in a store can become difficult for people with disabilities. However, some of these problems can be successfully dealt with using an app:

1. Roger Voice. It is software that deaf people can use to talk to their interlocutors on smartphones. This app uses speech recognition technology to convert voice to text so deaf people can read what the other person is telling them.
2. HearYouNow. With this application, deaf and hard-of-hearing users can adjust the sound according to their situation: public places, meetings, etc. To do this, they need to connect headphones to the smartphone, through which sound is supplied with appropriate settings to optimize the background or foreground. Developed by a Dutch hearing aid manufacturer, the app is intended for people who can use hearing aids but are not ready for it.
3. Be My Eyes. It is a crowdsourcing application that, using video chat, connects blind people and volunteers who are ready to help them in various everyday situations, for example, checking the expiration date of products or crossing the street.
4. Look At Me. The app developed by Samsung helps children with autism to socialize successfully. The app teaches them to make eye contact, recognize emotions, remember faces, and better express their feelings through game interaction.

Developers are constantly coming up with new software to help those in need. With these applications, anyone can feel like a full-fledged unit of society and not feel different.

Software for Online Workout

Most people know that workout is good for their health, but only a tiny fraction follows the doctors’ recommendations. In today’s world, you don’t have to go to a gym in bad weather – you can use apps on your phone. With the best trainers and personalized technology, a workout at home can be as effective as at the gym. The app store has strength training and cardio options, crossfit and stretching programs, yoga, meditation, and more.

For example, Nike has created an app that contains over 180 exercises from coaches in these categories. At Nike Training, anyone “can create a 4-week fitness program based on their personal goals. Whether you want to get lean or get stronger, you can choose your preferences, add your level of experience, and Nike Training takes care of the rest, choosing from a variety of workouts that fit.” You can train with your weight at home or with additional equipment in the gym.

But Seven has become a real discovery among healthy software. If you have seven minutes a day to do fitness anywhere without requiring any equipment, this app will help you see the first results. With research-based workouts, Seven is designed to get the most out of it in no time. “The 7-minute workout is a high-intensity interval training program. In total, you do 12 exercises, each for 30 seconds, with a break of 10 seconds. Activities include push-ups, triceps lifts, squats, and crunches. Just choose a goal: get in shape, lose weight or get strong and you can start.”

Software for Diets and Nutrition Improvement

As digital services spread to all segments of the population, the need for nutrition control applications has emerged. These mobile nutrition apps help you track your diet and manage food intolerance to boost energy, avoid mood swings and keep your day on track.

FatSecret is one of the most popular calorie counters for iOS and Android. This software is highly functional. The app has food and diet diaries, a diet calendar, Apple Watch integration, Apple Health, Google Fit, Samsung Health, a barcode scanner, reports, and the ability to set goals.

If you want to customize your food, then YAZIO software is a great solution. YAZIO offers customized plans for losing weight or building muscle. Standard functions are food diary, nutritional value calculator, and barcode scanner. The app evaluates the diet, allows you to add new goodies, and monitors proteins and fats.

Software for Delivery

It happens that, for various reasons, a person cannot leave the house and buy the necessary goods. It could be due to illness, busy schedule, or physical ability. In such moments, either close people or digital technologies can help. Food delivery software is popular right now. Fundera forecasts that delivery and online ordering will make $32 billion by 2024.

If you decide to spend time at home today, Glovo will save you. “It is a Spanish startup that delivers groceries, medicine, meals, and more within an hour from restaurants, cafes, shops, markets, and online stores.”

The service stands out from several sizable European delivery services because it offers to bring any small item on demand. The order can be made in the application or on the website. The Glovo platform connects three parties: the user, the business (shops, restaurants, etc.), and independent couriers. The application takes a commission from the cost of goods from partners and a delivery fee from users.

Nowadays, the delivery of goods by drones is gaining popularity. Most companies currently use drones with six or more propellers. The shipping container is placed in a compartment at the bottom of the drone or attached directly to the aircraft itself. The client receives the package by taking it from the drone compartment that has descended to the ground.

Amazon was one of the first to try drones delivering their packages. In December 2016, Amazon Prime Air successfully delivered the package to Cambridge — and as reported in June 2022, Amazon is doing delivery home testing in California.

Why Software Makes Life Easier

Modern software development aims to benefit people and save their time. To get to the doctor, you do not need to wait in line – you can contact them by phone. You don’t have to cook a lot of food because it can be ordered in the app with delivery. You also don’t need to go to the gym: do your workout at home by playing the video. Modern digital solutions allow everyone to live a fulfilling life even in isolation.

If you intend to create your own software, do not forget to implement functions that will be highly appreciated by the inhabitants of your country or even the planet. Thanks to this, you will increase awareness, attract users and tell the whole world about the product.

Image Credit: Photo by Mikhail Nilov; Pexels; Thank you!

The post How Software Solves the Modern-World Problems appeared first on ReadWrite.

The financial technology or Fintech market is expanding with new, innovative businesses improving banking and financial services like never before. According to the Market Data Forecast, by the year 2026, the fintech market will reach a market value of $324 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 23.41%.

As the industry continues to grow steadily, the fraudsters are also evolving at the same speed, making it difficult for financial institutions to implement the best tools and protect their company and customers.

Digital Trust and Safety on Fintech Platform

Due to the financial institutions not implementing tools quickly, customers remain skeptical.

As reported in the BIS survey of May 2021, US households state they trust traditional banking institutions more than Fintech to protect their data. Hence, it becomes essential for the FinTech industry to bridge the trust gap and secure people’s data.

Trust: FinTech’s Undeniable Asset

Thinking of Fintech, technologies like Big data, digital ID, and open banking are the first things that come to mind. These tools facilitate new opportunities for digital transformation in the financial sector. But getting people to try out the products designed using these innovations in Fintech requires their trust.

Besides, the trust gap can occur at any level in the digital banking ecosystem, i.e., between users and platform, platform and sectors, or sectors and tech providers. However, and as from the stat mentioned above, it is clear that consumers trust traditional banking more than fintech institutions, making it essential to approach Fintech solutions holistically.

Designing Your Solution in Fintech

Before designing a solution for your Fintech business, you must understand whether the user experience you are offering resonates with people on a rational and emotional level. If the fintech product you provide is meaningful, then how you ensure credibility and functionality, added by your technology partner, will signal trust.

To merge trust into Fintech products, each stage of product development, such as user experience, critical feature development, business analysis, etc., should have a trusted foundation.

Risks in Fintech for Consumers

There are many dangers for customers in the fintech industry. These dangers can be broadly be divided into compromised data security, and the use of non-transparent data to both regulators and consumers.

Undeniable is the loss of privacy, rising fraud and scam risks, discriminatory uses of data analytics, and consumer behavior manipulation.

These situations risk entering the financial regulatory space with bare minimum operational knowledge.

Fintech Development Trends that You Must Know About

One of the significant risks for consumers will be privacy and data security loss.

The loss of privacy and data security are intertwined and lead to different concerns based on the data that is being accessed and how sensitive the information is.

Banks are already at the risk of data breaches due to siloed IT systems.

The growth of these activities created the phase of “Crime as a Service” that playoff technology built based on SaaS.

Talking about risks in Fintech, apart from cyber-insecurity, some vulnerable consumers have also encountered fraud and scam risks. And the rate of online scams and fraud is increasing day by day and creating fake identities online—currently, fake I.Ds are much easier to do online than build your own real-life identity.

So what are the ways to gain consumers’ trust while providing safety on fintech platforms? Let’s find out.

Ways to Achieve Trust and Safety on Fintech Platform

Despite being the center of cyber criminals’ attention, the fintech industry has strongly opposed it. With the help of the new tools and technologies, Fintech organizations are working towards creating trustworthy foundations for their customers and indulging safety on the platform.

• AI Fraud Detection

Artificial Intelligence or AI is a broad range branch of information technology that aims to build smart machines to perform tasks that usually require human intelligence.

For example, in the Fintech industry, AI collects data, analyzes information, secures and facilitates transactions.

The comprehensive purpose of uses that AI has includes customer support, credit risk assessment, decision making, and most importantly, fraud detection.

Blockchain in Supply Chain: A Transparent Prospect for Products

AI and ML systems analyze customer and business data to help the Fintech industry flag vulnerabilities and rank client risks.

As AI can analyze a large volume of transactions, it can be used to reject or flag transactions altogether for further investigation. In addition, an ML model can be used to predict behavior at a granular level across all aspects of a transaction to predict any fraudulent activity.

That’s why FinTech leaders like Visa are advancing towards AI and machine learning strategies to foresee and control financial frauds.

• Smarter Cybersecurity

Failing to prioritize cybersecurity within the Fintech space can create critical risks. To build more robust cybersecurity, Fintech organizations should know their assets and implement a layered security strategy so that if one protocol fails, it doesn’t affect other protocols.

To achieve this, one can leverage cloud solutions, multi-factor authentications, and IAM (Identity and Access Management).

• Blockchain

Blockchain is a digitally decentralized and distributed ledger that exists across a network. It is a series of immutable blocks. Blockchain distributes transactions across different blocks or nodes that cannot be altered.

Any unauthorized access will change the hash links and create a mismatch between the nodes, making the Blockchain highly secured. Blockchain protects the data of a fintech organization and offers an additional bonus for them.

The decentralized nature of blockchain networks eliminates the costly, unnecessary workflows and processes. Needless to say, Blockchain can restrain data breaches or any other fraudulent activities from reducing fraud and cyber-attacks in fintech services.

• Regtech

Regtech or Regulatory Technology helps financial institutions to comply with regulatory requirements effectively. It relies on AI and ML to automate routine tasks like fraud and risk management, regulations reframing, real-time reporting, data analytics, and decision making.

This technology aims to ensure that Fintech remains compliant with the regulations. Regtech works by automating regulatory changes, monitoring transactions, generating reports, and sending alerts to the compliance staff about potentially fraudulent transactions.

Some of the critical characteristics of RegTech are speed, agility, integration, and analytics.

• SASE

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is a network architecture that converts SD-WAN into cloud service. Put simply, SASE combines the pros of software-defined wide-area networking (SD-WAN) with security to deliver them as a facility.

For fintech organizations, SASE simplifies authentication, increases scalability, supports zero-trust networking, security convergence, and simplified management.

In short, using SASE in the fintech industry can increase the security of their cloud-based infrastructure application and prevent unauthorized access or abuse of the customer’s sensitive data.

• Testing

Another important factor while developing fintech applications is testing throughout the development cycle.

To test the application security, you will need to build a security testing team that can come up with realistic scenarios of data breaches or other scams and improve the application’s security.

The fintech security testing team will also run penetration tests to detect the potential vulnerabilities and perform a security audit to detect flaws, verify the effectiveness of security measures, and evaluate regulatory compliance.

What’s the Role of Smart Contract in the Banking Industry?

Final Thoughts

Fintech can be made safer by keeping an eye on circumstances driving its adoption, breaking free from outdated security transactions that don’t fit its current direction, and taking a new approach to data security by being transparent.

If we learn suitable lessons, commerce, trust, and the digital economy will be even more resilient and trustworthy.

Analyzing user behavior to defeat fraud for Fintech or similar platforms becomes essential for the service in a crowded market. Therefore, it should be stated as transparently as possible for customers’ awareness and consideration.

The Challenges of a Fintech Industrialist

To overcome the challenges of Fintech industrialists, you can use security trends like Machine Learning and AI for faster fraud detection. In addition, use Blockchain to keep data transparent yet secured.

Don’t forget IoT for smarter cybersecurity to develop safe and reliable Fintech products and solutions.

Only after integrating these technologies for security will the Fintech industry show its true potential across the marketplace and win the trust of its customers.

The post Digital Trust and Safety on Fintech Platform appeared first on ReadWrite.

The pace of change and competition in today’s business environment is arguably faster than ever before. This situation has occurred, thanks in large part to the adoption of technology across virtually every aspect of business and culture — especially in light of the pandemic. Here is how your organization can get proactive about market erosion.

Be more flexible, adaptable and remote-friendly.

Businesses increasingly realize they need to be more flexible, remote-friendly, and adaptable. In many cases, technology is powering those changes.

The Problem with so Much Demand

In the short term, the influx of demand for technology is good. But over time, it brings more competition into markets.

As a result of technologies evolving rapidly and ideas spread more quickly than they once did — businesses using the same new technologies to deliver more modern services see increased competition in a short amount of time.

Prices then decrease, and the commodification of more and more products and services occurs.

Add to this the increasingly fickle nature of consumer demand and the ever-present possibility of another disruptive technology changing the entire landscape as we know it, and you have an environment perfectly set up for market erosion.

Is There a Solution?

How can companies prevent this? When even successful services quickly become commoditized or replaced, is it still possible to forecast future trends rapidly enough to avoid market erosion?

Absolutely.

The Three Horizons Model

One of the most effective ways to combat erosion and stay on top of future trends involves changing how you approach growth. The three horizons model is designed to help businesses do just that.

In its most basic form, the “three horizons model” is a strategy designed to help you manage and better understand growth by breaking it up into three distinct categories (called horizons).

The Horizons

1. Core business.

2. Emerging opportunities.

3. Cutting-edge business.

The horizons model enables businesses to maintain their current profitable services and best determine what customers will want next. It shows companies how to focus not only on their present successes but also on adapting to maintain market position.

How the Horizons Create Staying Power

Based on my digital marketing and advertising experience, different services come and go — and have been forced to adapt to those changes. Flash banner ads, campaign microsites, and Facebook apps are just a few of the technologies that seemed to be the next big thing one minute and then quickly faded away the next minute.

It’s telling that not every company that trafficked in these services is still around. In today’s world, businesses that keep track of supply and demand data while watching for the changes to forecast future trends will be the ones that stick around for the long haul.

Maximizing the Three Horizons Model

The three horizons model can help you develop the habits you need to confidently bet on growth and be ready to handle anything thrown your way. Here are four practical ways to maximize results with this growth management plan:

1. Take full advantage of your CRM.

This is one of your best weapons in the fight against market erosion, and it’s one that you’re likely not using to its fullest extent. Use your CRM to define funnel stages and probabilities that make sense for your business. Enter every deal into your CRM in the appropriate stage, being as clear as possible about what’s required for a deal to move from one stage to the next. This will give you the full, clear picture you need to keep everything moving forward.

2. Price and plan deals in your CRM, starting now.

Too many organizations don’t take the time to price and plan early deals because of the work involved. Making the effort up front means you can understand resource demand. Resource demand, in turn, lets you better predict potential project margins and points at which revenue might be recognized.

Understanding resource demand and projecting potential will give you insight into the evolution of your business that’s much more valuable than a simple revenue percentage. You’ll also get a better idea of your differentiated value proposition.

3. Treat the first and second horizon differently.

The three horizons model is designed to help you tackle separate revenue areas concurrently, but that doesn’t mean you should approach each horizon in the same way. This is especially true when it comes to how you handle your bread and butter (horizon one) and your emerging innovations (horizon two).

The first is all about extending the life of your foundational services and making them as profitable as possible; the second is about identifying the work that’s growing and how it’s influencing business.

4. Pay attention to culture.

To successfully forecast future trends and keep each horizon strong, you can’t just focus on your business. You have to pay attention to changes and trends in the world at large. What forces are at play in the broader culture? How might these forces change the demand for your services?

What new demands might be on the horizon? Ask yourself these questions regularly to prevent erosion. In the words of Ferris Bueller, a kid wise beyond his years: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

What is the Strategy?

The three horizons model is neither an innovation strategy nor some sort of miracle plan that will insulate you from market changes. It’s simply a model designed to help you manage growth and prevent market erosion — and a model that works.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to put in the work to ensure each product area is where it needs to be. Pay attention to supply and demand data, cultivating each horizon in the unique way it requires. That effort will be rewarded with sustained growth and a real chance at staying on the cutting edge for years to come.

Image Credit: cottonbro; pexels

The post How Your Organization Can Get Proactive About Market Erosion appeared first on ReadWrite.

There are a glut of software tools, mobile applications, websites and learning portals.

The quality spectrum of these tools is as broad as the tools themselves and the industries they serve. It could be safe to say that the Pareto Principle applies to software applications as much as it does to business in general.

In fact, studies show that the average smartphone user only really uses about 30 apps per month. From my personal experience, even that statistic sounds high.

The overabundance can be overwhelming and cause more than attention overload, it can create counterproductivity that flies in the face of most apps’ intended creation (Facebook, Instagram & Tiktok excluded, of course).

The best and most sticky software products have a few things in common.

Features of the Most Prevalent (& Sticky) Software Tools

I chose this title carefully. There is a reason the most prevalent (& sticky) tools also include the best features (or is it the other way around?). Having great features (and perhaps the right marketing for ample market penetration) typically produces greater market acceptance, which helps provide the revenue to add more features–and the cycle repeats. Here are

• First (or early) mover advantage. I’ve been told many times before that “first mover advantage” is a misnomer. It is often NOT the first mover that has the advantage, but the first mover combined with several other gritty features can be very helpful. If not the first mover, it certainly helps to be early. Do you think Microsoft Excel was the first spreadsheet. Hardly, but they were still early in computing (and they owned the platform for distribution). Were they the best at first? No, but they were good enough and they came included, which means it was hard for others to compete. Could you imagine trying to create your own “me too” spreadsheet company today with the likes of Google and Microsoft as your competitors. Early movers enjoy the advantage of market penetration and entrenchment, which is difficult to surmount even for a subsequently superior product.
• Industry agnosticism. The best tools can be used across industries. Spreadsheets (can you tell I like them?) are used by churches and financiers alike. Every company has projects and therefore could possibly use project management software. Most larger organizations include a sales team and customer accounts that need to be tracked, charted and reported and hence need a CRM. The most prevalent software products are used across industries.
• Pain points prevented! The best and most prevalent products prevent pain points (alliteration unintended). Does it save an organization ample money (not just in the cost of the product directly by in the product’s indirect association to productivity increases)? Today’s up-and-coming software products provide money saving related to disintermediating human intervention through automation. Massive productivity gains equate to large increases in revenue or decreases in overall cost structure. In most cases, such productivity gains help free up time for the higher-functioning tasks that make organizations flourish.
• Developers unite! Yes, all the great platforms include a community where new ideas and opportunities are created to bring fresh ideas and better ways of doing things. Kanban operations are built on the idea that quality comes from continuous improvement. Nowhere is this more true than in the software market. Things are always in a state of flux and change. The best platforms are truly platforms where outside developers can create an actual community of contributors where existing models and methods are questioned and where new practices help to push a growing ship of ideas and code forward. Platforms are just one of the reasons why the future of software development is not customization in the true sense.

My Most Frequented Tools & Apps

What follows is likely atypical from most mobile and internet users. I deleted the Facebook, Instagram and a handful of other apps on my phone several years ago, so my most frequented apps may sound more like those of a boring, bean-counting accountant than most. However, I try to stick to applications, websites and tools that include features that add value and time-saving to my life. With kids, family and other healthier distractions than work, I can’t afford to waste time on the trivial.

ExcelTraining

I’m a big fan and regular user of all things Microsoft Excel. As such, I need a regular quick reference for things like hotkeys, functions and other quick-fixes for all things Microsoft Excel. While I have several websites I frequent for reference, my one bookmarked site that garners the most attention is ExcelTraining.com. The site includes things like an easy to navigate list of keyboard shortcuts, an exhaustive list of Excel functions and a complete list of Excel formulas. As my proficiency has increased I find myself referencing it less frequently, but my desire to stay current in Excel keeps me coming back for the simple list that is easily referenced.

The site also has paid options which I have never used. I’ve found that the more ubiquitous the product, the more easily free information is available to you on YouTube or elsewhere. Excel is something even the basest of individuals working in business should have a keen awareness of. Hence, a good reference for the basics is always a great help and a must.

Asana

When it comes to remaining productive, Asana is my hands-down favorite app for project management amount teams. It works for nearly any project. I have personally used it in managing content marketing projects, preparation for raising growth capital, software development, website development and even personal project management where a larger project can be broken down into discrete chunks. It’s been especially great at managing projects run by remote teams (both before and after COVID-19).

I also don’t call out Asana lightly. I have used other project tools like Basecamp, Jira and even hybrid-communications tools like Slack. I just find Asana to be my personal favorite.

SalesForce

If there’s one software tool that have a good proficient and overabundant understanding of it’s customer relationship management (CRM) tools. I’ve worked with numerous other paid and open source CRMs. Some of the open source ones like SugarCRM and X2CRM include very customizable fields and sections, marketing automation tools and email/calendar integration. However, the downside is the lack of commercial support, backups and overall integration with other applications. In one of my businesses, we also use Outreach.io, an email and contact automation tool that ties directly into SalesForce. It is a productivity game changer for our sales and marketing team whose equal is not yet available on any of the open source platforms.

Salesforce also includes added applications (some free, some paid) and the ability to develop, enhance and customize to a company’s individual needs.

Quickbooks

I’m a finance guy at heart. I like the numbers and thrive off the analyzation of how to improve them. Quickbooks collates all our companies’ financial data including accounts payable, accounts receivable, credit cards, Paypal, bank accounts, etc. Not only does it bring together all of our financial data. Netsuite needs an honorable mention here as well as it can combine more ERP management into the financial side of a business–something entirely lost on the SMB audience with Quickbooks. As such, the financial tools used for financial accounting and reporting are heavily dependent on the size of the organization and the ultimate goals of the data you need to make critical business decisions.

Conclusion

The features that may be important to one may be entirely lost on another. Some may be more interested in marketing tools, while others are drawn toward finance, the arts and even mobile games. I have always gauged the stickiness of a software product with the following queries:

1. Does the product have a real commercial need?
2. Does it add value to the user?
3. Does it delight (or better yet, entertain) while doing 1 & 2?

If you get the first two, you have a winner. If you are able to nail all three then you have yourself a market leader and a sticky product that is not going away anytime soon.

The post Attention Overload: What Makes Some Software Tools So Sticky [+Some Examples] appeared first on ReadWrite.

The achievement of any business organization is highly dependent on its customer relationship strategies. Client experience is exceptionally organized in any business. Consumer loyalty is profoundly impacted by the change brought about by the dynamic technologies. With the progression of technological advances, such as AI (artificial intelligence), NLP (natural language processing), Intelligent Chatbot, and ML (machine learning), intelligent automation of client care administrations has become a need for all the organizations. Here is how artificial intelligence is transforming the customer service industry.

Many businesses have incorporated simulated intelligence for smooth day to day operations. By 2022, banks can utilize chatbots to automate up to 90% of their client connection, as per Lauren Foye.

The History of Chatbot

A review appointed in 2014 by One Reach, a market research firm, investigated US buyers’ behavior to the utilization of messaging in client assistance applications. As per the study, 64% of buyers with messaging abilities would like to utilize messaging over voice as a client assistance channel, and 77% of shoppers with messaging capacities matured 18–34 are likely to have a positive view of an organization that offers text ability.

According to research, by 2021, 4.5 billion dollars will be put to resources into chatbots. While chatbots have existed for quite a long time without going mainstream, few worldwide patterns have made it possible to convey that this is the time of chatbots:

• Domination of the mobile messenger.
• Application fatigue.
• Backing for chatbots by Facebook, Microsoft, and other pioneers.
• A dramatic decrease in chatbot improvement costs.

The Current Situation of the Industry

There are sure some issues with the regular client care framework that is followed, which can be settled with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence. Investigate the current circumstance.

1.   Now and again, the human delegate noting a client call doesn’t have a  response to the inquiry and needs to require the client to be postponed or put on hold. Even though they discover the answer for the issue and advise the client, it occupies additional time bringing about more expense to the organization.
2.   The client’s call is transferred a few times before the query is addressed. Although it is fundamental for certain circumstances, it negatively impacts the organization.
3.   Because of the set number of client assistance administrators in B2C organizations like telecommunication, the calls are often on a considerable delay/wait time for clients.

In 2019, chatbots became more AI-driven, equipped for dealing with complex human communication effortlessly, and presently taking over conventional conversational administrations.

Chatbot in the Customer Care Industry:

The chatbot market size is expected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion by 2024 at a compound yearly growth rate (CAGR) of 29.7%. The client care industry is fundamentally growing with the influx of chatbot assistance to consider and cater to customer needs.

To improvise on their CRM, most associations are endeavoring to automate their client care framework using Artificial Intelligence. One such splendid model is the AI Chatbot. Chatbots haven’t been an obscure idea since ELIZA was released in 1966. Salesforce propelled an SMS chatbot in 2014 that has extended to become Facebook Messenger. The association likewise offers Live Agent Chat, a product that completes human connections by carrying out human interactions.

As indicated by Grand View Research, 45% of end clients lean toward chatbots as an essential communication method for questions regarding client care.  Let us explore further as to how Artificial Intelligence Chatbot is altering the client care industry.

1. Upgraded Accessibility of Big Data

To augment the profits of a business organization using AI in big data, it is basic for any entrepreneur to gather valuable data about clients and examine it in a manner and to such an extent that it demonstrates helpful for the company. Insights drawn by Artificial Intelligence help in investigating a lot of information proficiently and produce reports that can be easily grasped. Along these lines, entrepreneurs and business owners can increase their targeted customer groups’ nitty-gritty knowledge and use their time to approach a new procedure or strategy based on the collected data.

2. Revolutionization in Resolving Customer Queries

When a doubt/query arises in the client’s psyche, they couldn’t care less whether a human or a bot settles it. A large portion of the queries don’t require human collaboration and can be settled by the chatbot itself. A study has stated that 48% of individuals say that they couldn’t care less as long as it fathoms their issue. (Source: BI Intelligence)

However, if a query ends up being excessively unpredictable for the bot, it chooses to fit an appropriate agent/representative of the organization depends on the data gathered from the client. Moving forward, the agent/representative can legitimately address the concerned client to take care and address that issue/query

3. Upgraded Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Gone are those occasions when people needed to trust that their call would be sent through a chain of customer care representatives before resolving their inquiries! There are numerous manners by which RPA (robotic process automation) within the organization has emphatically changed how client connections are managed. With AI chatbots’ assistance, customized services can be conveyed to any place in a problem-free manner based on CRM information. Organizations are addressing client queries on a website with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence Chatbot, sparing a call to customer care representative.

One such splendid model is the Eva – HDFC Bank Artificial Intelligence chatbot. HDFC Bank has stated that it has effectively tended to 2.7 million client inquiries on a site in just 6 months.

It spares a great deal of time by enhancing hold up/wait times and the easy accessibility of representatives. The progressed chatbots can impersonate human activities and comprehend human dialects using NLP, i.e., Natural Language Processing.

Portable envoys – Mobile Messengers, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, WeChat, and others, have become the preferred means of communication. WhatsApp has arrived at more than a billion dynamic clients monthly, Facebook Messenger — 900 million, WeChat — right around 700 million (source: statista.com).

About a year prior, the best four mobile messengers outperformed informal communities with worldwide popularity (source: BI Intelligence).

Website Chatbot

Chatbots are not constrained to messaging channels. The off chance that we take the conversational interfaces to a website or a portable (mobile) application will offer ascent to Native Chatbot Development.

Utilization of a site chatbot

1.   It brings about progressively dependable/reliable information because of intuitive surveying experience.
2.   Unlike the regular informing channels, communication between clients is anonymized on a website. This aids in lessening contact from the client’s end about the disclosure of his/her identity. A site chatbot also diminishes contact by tackling the client’s request immediately without changing the correspondence channel. 
3.   For organizations with a commercial center webpage/ marketplace website or a SaaS stage, a web bot, as a rule, assembles all the client information and along these lines provide a customized client experience and offers a superior and better setting.

 Importance of Chatbots in customer care systems

Numerous CRM frameworks are not easy to understand. A poorly designed UX configuration prompts low performance while at work. Rather than providing client assistance, representatives who are left with ineffectively structured CRM frameworks sit around idly attempting to manage that framework. Since a client care specialist can receive more than one hundred tickets every hour, each resolution’s reaction time is urgent and of great importance.

To take care of these issues, it is more convenient to automate client support components with a CRM chatbot. Once in a while, CRM chatbots can deal with the whole client discussion, and on different occasions, there will be a handoff to a human agent/representative. Indeed, even in situations where the discussion is passed on, they can at present catch and record fundamental client information.

Basically, they do the hard work with the information section and let your client care representatives focus on including genuine worth.

 Utilization of CRM data

Since you have important data on hand, how would you follow up on it? A typical test with CRM frameworks encompasses following up on new leads and effectively utilizing information. The early phases of a fresh client relationship are crucial for automation. Now, you may have numerous leads that won’t wind up changing over.

This is the place you can depend on automation to help qualify your leads. Utilizing chatbots, you can begin discussions with individuals at scale. AI-backed CRM chatbot knows which specific bit of substance/content an individual needs next. Hence, they’re well prepared to move the lead to the following stage in the sales funnel. An all-around assembled chatbot likewise accumulates insights from a lot of data to help make target profiles.

Why should a chatbot be adopted for your CRM?

• Chatbots incredibly improve connections and interactions with the customers. Customers have queries, and chatbots can offer a ton of responses.
• The chatbot can be integrated into flag-bearer (messenger) applications, where individuals invest the greater part of their energy online these days.
• Chatbots spare extensive time for your client representatives. Also, can comprehend basic tasks that require a speedy reaction, allowing client care representatives the chance to deal with progressively complex customer requests;
•  It can enable your business to scale in an eased manner. As your client base builds, chatbots can enable help to your client care representatives, field an ever-increasing number of queries without expanding the size of your staff exponentially.
• They offer customers prompt reactions and resolutions.
• They can be accessible all day, every day.
• It permits you to reduce your costs by recruiting fewer individuals to client care centers.

Conclusion

The best thing about utilizing a chatbot is that it never rests and is accessible 24 x 7! This robotic process automation is, in reality, a gigantic advance forward in the field of technology & innovation and building better client connections. Chatbot essentially lessens the resolution time bringing about a decrease in cost and upgraded client experience.

As the acknowledgment of RPA innovation builds, client care will render to be perfect all around. Intelligent Automation appears to have a long way ahead in the client care industry.

The post How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Customer Service Industry appeared first on ReadWrite.

Are you in the process of bootstrapping a startup? Or, are you perhaps down the business growth and development road heading towards a mature SME? Are you using CRM software to manage your customers? What is Customer Relationship Management software? Here is: customer relationships — the benefits of using CRM software for startups.

At the outset of the article, it’s essential to note that the world as we know it will never be the same again. Hence, if customer relationships were meaningful before 2020, they are now critical.

“There is only one boss. The customer – and he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” – Sam Walton

By way of answering the “why” asked above, let’s take a brief look at the current global economic, health, and social circumstances.

The world as we know it: Setting the scene

News of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, broke towards the end of 2019 when China alerted the World Health Organization to the fact that it was dealing with a rapidly spreading viral infection on the unknown origin.

China first reported it as a “cluster of cases of pneumonia.” But, soon determined that it was caused by a new coronavirus. And, because of the fact that the world is a global village — the virus has spread around the world and continues to spread like wildfire.

The World Health Organization has stated, in conjunction with experienced medical personal and researchers, based on China’s experience that one of the only ways to prevent the virus’s person-to-person transmission is social isolation or social distancing.

Therefore, more than 50% of the world’s population is under some form of a lockdown or stay at home order.

We likely cannot imagine the far reaches of what COVID is doing to the global economy.

The world has moved into a recession that is predicted to be worse than the 1929 Great Recession. The World Economic Forum expects over 4 million people in the USA to file for unemployment benefits by the time this is over.

All non-essential businesses have been closed in most countries across the globe, and people have either been sent home or furloughed. And, all companies that have been able to pivot the processes and operations online have done so. Even with the reopening — slow in some places — and not slow enough in others — we are in trouble.

It is remarkable at this time in history that so many employees in companies — who have been sent home — are fortunate enough to be able to work remotely and at least keep business operations running.

Kimberly Amadeo noted in her article titled, “How does the 2020 stock market crash compare with others,” that the US 2020 stock market crash began on 9 March 2020, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) lost the most point in living history.

And, then it dropped again on 12 March 2020 and 16 March 2020, leaving it at an all-time low of 20.3% less than its 12 February 2020 high. Here we are in July — up and down.

Stock Market

The reason for these drops in the stock market is that there was, and continues to be, global panic about the rampant spread of the coronavirus and its devastating effects on the world’s population.

To date, there have been 11.5 million active infections — with more than 535,759 deaths. The infection and mortality rate is more deadly than the annual seasonal influenza that kills circa 0.01% of the global population annually.

The Stress

The emotional stress on the global population is being documented. The journal article published in the Brain, Behavior, and Immunity journal, titled “The emotional impact of COVID-19: From medical staff to common people,” notes the following:

“Infectious disease outbreaks such as COVID-19, as well as other public health events, can cause emotional distress and anxiety.”

The author, Nicola Montemurro, goes on to state that these feelings of distress and anxiety can occur in people who are not high-risk.

She also highlights the fact that “previous research has revealed a profound and wide spectrum of psychological impact that outbreaks can inflict on people.”

And, new “psychiatric symptoms in people without mental illness can occur or aggravate the condition of those with pre-existing mental illness.”

Thus, while the details of how to take care of yourself in these stressful and anxious times are not relevant to this discussion, it is essential to implement self-care measures to ensure that you survive these challenging global conditions.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Looking towards the future

The question that begs is, what does the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR or Industry 4.0) have to do with COVID-19 and surviving the economic, physical, and mental impact of the world we currently live?

This question is valid and deserves a considered answer.

Klaus Schwab, the founder, and chief executive officer of the World Economic Forum coined the phrase “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” in 2016. And, he had the following to say:

“We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another.”

Some of these technologies impacted by 4IR include Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), WIFI and networking, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.

Four years later, these technologies have indeed happened. However, the reason for the impact of this revolution is not technology-driven, but think — all this tech has offered a solution to people in lockdown.

We can communicate with family members and friends, seek medical help via apps like Zoom and Skype, and work remotely because of the high tech that allows us to link to work colleagues and clients across the globe.

Managing customer relationships

The good news is that within every crisis there is an opportunity. Albert Einstein acknowledged this with the following statement:

“In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity.”

While acknowledging the stresses of the current global pandemic, it’s equally important to find opportunities in the midst of the crisis.

Let’s take this statement to heart and consider a simple case study that describes how to use CRM software (appvizer dot com, client relationship), to bootstrap and grow your startup into a robust business.

You want a business that has the ability to weather current financial storms and come out on the other side as a healthy, thriving company.

What is CRM software?

In order to utilize the full functionality of a CRM application, let us consider a succinct definition:

Wikipedia.com defines Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as an “approach to managing a company’s interaction with current and potential customers.”

A CRM is an end-to-end customer management methodology that combines the analysis of the company’s customer sales history to forecast trends and improve customer relationships.

Its fundamental aim is to help the company retain customers and drive sales growth. For, as the quotation by Sam Walton highlighted above states, the customer is boss. And, without customers, the business cannot exist.

CRM Management: A case study

Now that we have an understanding of the primary function of customer management and the core role it plays in running a successful business, let’s consider our case study:

Let’s assume for a moment — you own an online content marketing business known as Firecrab Words. Although you are an experienced content writer and have worked as a freelancer for several years now, you’ve decided that now is the right time to register a company.

You are now going to position your brand to take advantage of the increase in the potential for digital marketing opportunities when the global economy reboots itself.

Let’s also suppose you have completed all the business development documentation. You’ve included the necessary financial and business process models. You have cobbled together a website. You know your website is not great — but it is functional. It will do for now.

The only thing left to do, apart from marketing, is to find a system to manage your clients. You have existing clients that you need to move onto the CRM application.

And, you need to analyze historical data to forecast trends and patterns to determine how to improve your customer management model.

Choosing a CRM

There are a number of different CRM software applications available for you to choose from with different features and benefits. Therefore, the first step is to decide what features you need to successfully manage your customers and potential customers to leverage long-term, consistent sales growth.

Also, because it’s highly likely that you will have to pay a monthly or annual subscription fee, it’s doubly important to ensure that you choose the right fit for your startup.

Once you have decided which features you need, the next step is to consult an online CRM review site like Appvizer that states the benefits of each software application, and it provides a comparison between the apps whose benefits are listed.

As an aside, I used Appvizer to choose a CRM application for my eCommerce business that sells handmade items like bed quilts, clothing made from West African fabric, as well as leather bags and wallets.

However — it’s worth looking at a review site to determine which CRM application is the best for your own business requirements. Be sure to ask around a little — don’t go with the first one. Get some recommendations from someone who has used the service.

CRM: The benefits described as statistics

One of the best ways to describe the benefits of an application is to look at the numbers. Thus, let’s consider the following statistics (financesonline dot com – crm stats analysis of trends).

•  The CRM market currently has a value of $120 billion (USD).
• Its annual growth is forecast at 12% per year reaching 82% billion in 2025.
•  A CRM system that is implemented correctly can yield a Return on Investment (ROI) of circa 45% on every dollar invested.
• 48% of sales teams rely heavily on their CRM software to manage their clients and improve business operations.
•  The CRM business model or customer relationship management is considered the most important aspect of a company next to lead generation and engagement.

These are just a few of the numerous CRM-related statistics available for consumption. However, they describe the value of implementing a CRM system to manage your clients and grow your business.

Customer relationship management as it applies to the case study

By way of explaining the essential CRM functionality, let’s consider each function within the case study stated above.

Contact management

One of the stated aims in the case study described above is to formalize your content marketing business processes, including the onboarding of existing clients. Therefore, contact management is a vital part of a successful CRM system.

What is contact management?

Concisely stated, contact management is essentially the addition or recording of customer contact details into the CRM system. Secondly, this aspect of the CRM tracks the interactions between the customer and the business, including emails sent, phone calls made, and purchases made by the customer.

Apart from keeping track of client-business interactions, this module has the capacity to generate statistical data that allows the business to improve customer relations; thereby, increasing sales figures.

Therefore, when considered in relation to the Firecrab Words case study, you need to enter all of your current client data into the CRM system. If you have historical sales figures and a record of all customer interactions, it is probably a good idea to add them to the new system as well.

Otherwise, you can start tracking customer interactions from the time you have onboarded all your existing clients.

Sales team management

Contact management and sales team management are two sides of the same coin. Both need to be tracked and managed. Without a sales team — you will not have any customers and without customers, you won’t need to hire a sales team.

At this juncture, it is important to note that because Firecrab Words is a startup, you, as the business owner are also the sales team.

What are the sales team and customer opportunity management?

As stated above, the interactions between the sales team and the customers are measured. It also measures the opportunities that the sales team has to convert visitors to your business’s online presence into returning customers.

The process is also known as lead scoring, and it identifies the clients that are most likely to convert.

Final thoughts

The importance of maintaining positive customer relationships cannot be underestimated For, without customers, the business will not make money, and therefore, cannot exist.

Consequently, it is essential to ensure that you not only maintain good relationships with your clients, but you constantly work at improving them.

In this manner, your business will grow from a small startup to a robust, stable business, capable of weathering all storms.

Image Credit:  emre keshavarz; Pexals

The post Customer Relationships: The Benefits of Using CRM Software for Startups appeared first on ReadWrite.

Technology is GREAT — and it has changed the game. Tech has given us new ways to manage the businesses that are fine as they are — maybe — but it’s important to adapt. Now, managing the business workloads becomes efficient and less time-consuming. Here are ten of the best business management apps.

As a business owner, you have to complete many business operations at one time.

There are employee issues, payrolls, customer’s appointments, managing finances, marketing, and all that pop-ups. Indeed, you might be searching for new ways to streamline your business operations and to enhance productivity. Above all, to make your position in this competitive market.

The world is mobile.

Everyone likes to execute their tasks on mobile, it is because of the convenience factor it offers. Most of the companies have adopted agile working, which gives rise to mobile apps. It is the best tool that you can get to manage all of your important projects concurrently and can keep your business game on the top.

The market has many leading business management apps that are best to keep up the work efficiently.

These management apps permit the business team to share ideas, collaborate, and help in workload management. As a business owner, you can have an idea about your team activities and of course, their work status. While looking out for a business management app, consider the below measures:

• Affordable.
• Easy to use.
• No commitment plans.
• Can scale with your business.
• Exceptional customer service if you need support.
• It should have an immediate influence on investment.

So, after getting an outline of how these apps are important, know the best business management apps below.

Leading Business Management Apps you should know:

Streak

Qwaiting

Insightly

Salonist

Nimble

Zendesk Sell

Bitrix24

HRMWage

Salesforce

Freshsales

Leading Business Management Apps you should know

Qwaiting

Qwaiting allows you easy and effective management of queues and doesn’t allow your valuable customers to wait in the queue. As a leading business management app, it improves your business efficiency, profits, and thoroughly, changes the manner of handling the customers.

The Qwaiting apps don’t allow you to work manually and operate every necessary business activity by itself. From providing the ticket system, managing the customer details, employee management, appointment scheduling, sales funnel information, the screen with queue numbers, to provide real-time analytics, it covers everything.

Qwaiting allows the customers to follow the virtual queue online from the app, on-site kiosk, or from the mobile. It permits you to set up, manage, and configure the agent calendar and resource availability. With this app, you can easily check-in and manage the appointments. It provides notification to the customers about their turn and when they have to show their presence.

Also, from Qwaiting, you can have regular feedback from the customers. These reviews are quite helpful in giving you insights about where you are lagging and where the improvement is required. Accordingly, you can improve your marketing strategy.

Streak

Streak is a Content Relationship Management (CRM) app that offers everything that as a business owner you require. For those businesses who use Google and Gmail Apps, Streak is the best option. In addition to customer management, it allows you to track business analytics.

Like, in the case when you are just pitching or are about to crack one of the best deals, then, Streak enables you to check all the emails linked with every customer. Also, the newsfeed is there to update every team member about the current status of business analytics.

The streak has add-ons, from where you can integrate the appointments directly in the calendar to get more transparent experience. As the basic use of this app is meant for customer support, recruiting and sales, but, it can also be productive for everything from Fundraising to Project management.

We can say that, with Streaks, you can eradicate any possibility of time waste, and regular email drudgery with the mail merge and snippets. Manage the important emails and keep the tracking intact to communicate regularly with the customers.

Insightly

As a CRM app, Insightly incorporates many business management features that are the basic requirement of every business type. From this app, you can easily characterize the contact with tags, incorporate that with the social network profiles and then, manage the leads.

Insightly allows you to make the tasks for the team members, setting the pipelines and then track the status of the assigned tasks. Also, it sends email reminders to all-time to time. The app has an easily navigable and understandable user interface. For those who are new to it, will find it more engaging with the customer-oriented features. For the integrations, projects, and relationships, this app works best.

Salonist

As one of the best Salon apps, Salonist tops in the race. With the cloud-based ability, it allows all the Salon owners to streamline their daily operations without any hassles. It integrates all those features that are required to operate the Salon activities effectively. By allowing a Salonist to handle all of your work, you can utilize all of your productive time in generating more Salon productivity.

The synchronization of the calendar part with Outlook, Google calendar, and Apple, allows the customers to schedule, reschedule, and cancel their appointments easily. It includes email and SMS marketing, from where you can notify the customers regarding important events and activities.

Also, you can get the correct figure of your inventory from the report and analytics it provides. And, accordingly, you can refill your stocks and sell them continuously.

Nimble

For those businesses, who have a great social media presence, should choose Nimble. The Nimble app is a Content Management System that gathers the information of customers from their social media profiles. Then, it updates it all in the database and consequently, saves a lot of time of yours. Also, it examines the shared interests and combines that with Outlook, Hootsuite, and Gmail and with more services.

In addition, it examines the relationships you more valued and interacted with. And, accordingly, it offers more future opportunities with them. From Nimble, you can make quality relationships, nourish the customer relationships, approach faster and smarter, secure more deals, and work easily from the inbox. Give Nimble a try, it is worth spending the additional time.

Zendesk Sell

Zendesk Sell, a name behind customizing the sales pipeline effectively is deserving to be on this list. Primarily, it was termed as Base CRM. As all the leads cannot be created equal, so, this mobile app gives more priority to the leads and opportunities for your business.

Particularly, the Zendek Sell selects only those leads that are more important and worth spending time. It links that leads to the business first. The business management part allows you to centralize the attention to the deals and leads from the automated scoring rules from Zendesk Sell’s full-funnel analytics. Hence, those businesses whose aim is only to capture the leads can go with this app.

Bitrix24

Bitrix24 is here to give you the best experience for your potential customer and business. It provides a free version that at least 12 users can use with 12 gigs of storage space. At the next level, the pricing table is fair and incorporates the plans that are available for all businesses.

This content management system is quite broad and provides several customer management and collaboration tools. Sign up with this business management app and experience effective customer management, projects, customer support, tasks, eCommerce, and internal communication. Get this all-in-one business management tool if you really want to have beneficial results.

HRMWage

HRMWage is the preeminent business management and cloud-based human resource management app. It includes wage management, payroll management, and attendance tracking. This Human resource management tool makes every task feasible and streamlines every issue faced by HR’s for their day to day activities. The salary calculation, interviews of various job aspirants, leave management, employee performance tracking, and many more are covered.

You can easily track the employee details at any time with the management app. HRMwage also assures security and does not allow any data breach. It also eradicates the process of leaves whether it is a short day, half-day, or full-day, and makes the handling process easy.

The employee can apply for the leaves directly from the HRM only. Also, it allows easy tracking of employees and makes the hiring process smooth. From the right document management, HR can know which sessions or courses the employee can adapt to the company culture.

Salesforce

You must have come across the word, Salesforce, even if you have not known any CRM tools. It is one of the most utilized business management apps for small businesses, particularly. Salesforce incorporates every single feature on the dashboard itself. Now, you can sell all of the customer details in one place, this app gives you access to the database whenever it is required.

It offers great in-app assistance by providing access to several tutorials and guided set-ups. Salesforce holds the capability to include more business apps, also, this app offers you everything your business might require. This is how this management app keeps your business ahead from all the competitors.

Freshsales

Freshsales gives you a powerful CRM system, with an activity capture, Artificial Intelligence leads scoring, built-in phone, etc. Freshsales admits that it has 15,000 customers to assure it, customers, that they have a large and solid base.

It offers outstanding reviews with exceptional features, such as; sales leads, Built-In Phone & Email, Associated Conversions, Intuitive Sales Pipeline, etc. FreshSales has four economical plans that fit perfectly for all business sizes.

Concluding Remarks

Gone are the days when managing business is a tough or impossible task. Technology has given us many ways that you can adapt and streamline every business operation. Business management apps are one of the best ways to get ahead.

Choose an app that fits your business size, and watch how your streamlining efforts change your brand position in the market.

Image Credit: Lukas Rodriguez; Pexels

The post Best 10 Business Management Apps appeared first on ReadWrite.

It’s no secret that inside sales have exploded over the last 5 years. Every day, more and more companies are moving away from the typical method of knocking on doors and playing golf to make connections, and more towards picking up the phone and doing it all via the internet with the help of sales technology and tools. New automated tech tools, CRM systems, smart assistants, and more are all helping to lead the way in this era of sales transformation.

Sales veterans probably didn’t imagine a world like this. You can work in Munich, Germany, and make sales in the U.S., Japan, Russia, South Africa, and more. Sales expanded to more than just your local neighborhood, even beyond your country of operation. It is now a global activity.

Many people have adopted this evolution and rolled with the punches. Even the introduction of the CRM system has made a huge impact in recent years. Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, for example, said in an article that “as a former salesperson who began in the profession before the internet or the idea of CRM came into being, I whole-heartedly welcomed the software announcement. The comparison of before and after is light-years apart. Most of all, the new efficiencies were almost startling.”

Can you even remember what life was like before the CRM in your sales tech stack existed?

An important driving factor in the explosion of inside sales is the connectivity of sales tools. A dialer wouldn’t work if it wasn’t connected to a CRM system and vice-versa. Then, there is a content management system, a sequencing tool, conversation guidance, and more. The ability of these tools to work together is key in helping grow the capabilities of inside sales teams.

Many sales teams have a plethora of tools. It’ll be the teams that can get these tools to work together that will succeed. Although many of these are connected or integrated, many don’t work or have inherent data discrepancies.

The ability to make everything work harmoniously will be the real test of the longevity and success of sales tools and teams everywhere. It also affects the productivity of a sales rep.

How inside sales will look in 5 years

Now that we reflected a bit on what sales looked like in the past, and into today’s day and age, and let’s look to the future. First, there was a shift from offline to online sales. Then, sales teams incorporated interconnected sales tools. So, what comes next? 

Better, smarter, efficient, and connected digital tools for inside sales teams. They will need to ensure that their sales tech stacks are efficient, lean, and do exactly what they need them to do – help them sell more and close more deals, faster.

It isn’t sufficient anymore to just have a CRM system and Google Drive. Sales teams can also no longer just throw new sales reps into the job unprepared and expect results. The stakes are higher now, and the game is harder.

Even with those known challenges, Ciara found in a recent survey that 54 percent of salespeople/respondents said they suffered from a lack of training, 57 percent said it was difficult to onboard a new employee, and 1 in 2 said they were overwhelmed with tools. 

The goal is sales technology today, and for the next 5 years, to continue to become smarter, more developed, and more helpful.

There are many reasons for this, but for us at Ciara, we see three main change agents  influencing inside sales that include:

1. More guidance on what to do and say next
2. The automatic capturing of data
3. Higher level of automation in sales processes

Let’s dive into these three areas more. 

More guidance on what to do and say next

Many companies are equipping their sales reps with tools and playbooks that guide them on what to say next. Sequences, for example, are one method of doing this. A sales rep can pre-define a list of tasks to complete and assign specific prospects to these lists. 

Another example is using digital playbooks to help structure sales calls. Historically, playbooks have been a large PowerPoint document or binder of papers with sales motions buried in them. Now, you can access playbooks interactively online, so sales reps can tailor their pitch in real-time on sales calls.

Imagine taking a sales call and not knowing what your product is capable of, or even how to start the conversation. Lack of product knowledge is the reality for many new sales representatives. A sales tool that can guide them on what to say and how to say it will be essential in the future of inside sales. Customers are more knowledgeable than ever before, and it’s the job of the sales rep to be one step ahead of them. Guidance will help them get there.

The automatic capturing of data

Before, it was entirely up to the sales rep to record notes and capture any information discussed during a sales call. The sales-call process is quickly changing. We now have functions like transcription, note-taking directly within a call, and historical call data directly recorded in a CRM system under a specific contact person.

With all this data handy, sales reps can easily analyze their calls, understanding better what leads to success. With transcripts, it’s easy to remember what step a particular contact is on or what they personally like to talk about (sports? coffee?). The automatic capturing of data allows sales reps to work more hands-off and save time. 

These kinds of tools (think Gong, Chorus, or Ciara) are becoming more and more available. It won’t be long before every sales rep has their information and data automatically captured and stored. The storage will make processes like onboarding and training sales reps much more comfortable, as they will be able to learn and practice based on real data from previous conversations.

Higher level of automation in sales processes

The last area that will influence inside sales in the coming years is automation. Sales reps have thousands of mundane tasks to complete and spend hours working on these tasks that don’t add value to their day. Adding value is where automation comes in.

Programs and software that can listen to understand and complete administrative tasks without manual input from the sales rep will soon become the norm. Some examples of tasks that can be automated are writing emails, scheduling appointments, and generating call summaries. All of this will be able to be done in real-time, giving sales reps more time actually to talk to prospects and close more deals.

The ability to close more deals is already starting to happen with some sales tools. For example, when you create an email in Gmail, Google can already suggest what you should start typing.  These kinds of automated recommendations will be the future of inside sales integrated within smart sales tools. The future is bright for inside sales reps! 

The world changes at a fast pace.

Inside sales are no different. These next five years will not look like the past 5, or for the next 10, 15, and 20 years. With every year comes innovation, new tools, and new ways. Remember that your tools work better when they are connected and work together. 

It’s important to stay on top of new technology and use it to your advantage. Always make the most of the opportunities available to you, they may disappear before you know it.

Image Credit: freestocks-org; Unsplash

The post What the Interconnected Inside Sales Landscape Will Look Like in 5 Years appeared first on ReadWrite.

Did you know that, on average, 51% of companies are currently using marketing automation, and more than half of B2B companies (58%) plan to adopt the technology? The statistic may be mind-boggling, but it is very much justified. Companies and marketers are always in search of ways that make things easy and convenient for them. Automating the daily repetitive tasks is definitely at the top of the list of making things effortless. 

How can offering 24*7 customer service be automated? Is it possible? If yes, then how? Are there any obstacles to automation? Analyzing and segregating tasks that need a human touch, which do not automate, can be tricky. Here is where a proper marketing automation strategy is required, but before diving in deep waters, let us brief ourselves with the basics.    

Marketing Automation Theory

Marketing automation is actually an integral part of “customer relationship management.” Defining, segmenting, tracking and personalizing marketing campaigns is the core of customer relationship management. This gives us an idea of how closely marketing automation and customer service are linked. 

The idea behind using marketing automation is to increase the efficiency of the regular repetitive tasks which are a part of your marketing campaigns. Automating tasks that would otherwise be performed manually gives you the extra traction on your marketing efforts. It also allows you to market more effectively on different channels such as email, websites, social media, etc. 

What is a Marketing Automation Platform?

Marketing automation platforms can be defined as tools or software which allow marketers to create, implement, and automate marketing workflows for multiple channels from a single source. They ease out understanding customer behavior and panning out marketing strategies accordingly. 

Marketing automation platforms are used to carry out some key tasks which include lead scoring, lead management, lead generation, converting leads to customers, managing and analyzing marketing campaigns. 

Replacing the manual workload with automated solutions is what a marketing automation platform delivers. Tips to automate your marketing are brought to life and implemented here.    

When it comes to customer service, marketing automation services and marketing automation platforms have a big role to play. These platforms make sure that the customers are satisfied and they have a joyful ride in the buyer journey as well. 

Having said that, you may want to have a look at some of the best customer service automation platforms by Bloominari.

Relation Between CRM and Customer Service

Source

To serve customers with excellence requires dedicated efforts. To bridge the gap between your customers and your brand, you need to step into the customer’s shoes. After understanding their needs, you need to act. 

In the past, we used to jot everything down. From reminding customers about offers to making them aware of their purchases, we were dependent on pen and paper. Though the method is still useful, it became obsolete over time. 

Businesses suffered great losses, and competitors took advantage because their systems were not able to cope up with the changing customer behaviors. The long-term customers shifted their focus to other companies who could study and anticipate their needs better. Where did these other companies take the edge?

They used automated marketing and marketing platforms to good effect. Analyzing consumer behavior and presenting the consumers with what they needed before they could even guess. 

How Marketing Automation Helps You Serve Customers Better   

We will take a more practical approach to understand this. Say you sold your customer a software package with 6 months of support. Now, automation steps in:

• Recommending other related products to the customer
• Reminding the customer when his license and support expires
• Software update notifications
• If the customer changes his framework in the future, suggesting other software

On top of this, over the course of 6 months, answering customer queries and doubts can also be automated. Nowadays, automated messages on social media have made life easier for marketers. 

Customers like to engage on social media and find it relatively easy to connect with businesses there. For 45% of consumers, social media is one of the first channels they go to in case they have any questions or issues.

All of the above may not have been possible 30 years ago but is definitely a doable thing now. 

Marketing Automation Boosts Customer Satisfaction 

Source

Anticipation is the key here. Excellent customer service is one where the company reaches out to the customer beforehand. When this happens, the customer feels elated. They will then shower more love on your business. But how do I know which customer wants what and when?

Data and anticipation.

There is a big difference between assumption and anticipation. We need to focus on the latter. When you have consumer data, you can work wonders with it. You need to make sure that all your working departments are on the same page. 

For example:

Your sales team has the expiration dates of all the software packages sold out. This data can be shared with the customer service team. The service team can then use this data to serve the customer better. 

The more we engage with our customers, the more they feel connected with us. Connection makes the customer more comfortable when dealing with businesses. With automation, you engage more and satisfy more with more efficiency as well. Ecommerce businesses should take full leverage of marketing automation in customer service and get fruitful results. 

Common Customer Pain Points With Their Automated Solutions

Marketing automation is a must-have for modern marketing teams because understanding customer behavior and the issues they face is not a piece of cake. Even if you are aware of their pain points, solving them takes time and effort. 

What do we have here with us? Marketing automation. Will it help? Certainly.

Here is how marketing automation can ease out the complications in common customer issues.

Pain Point #1: “I am not interested in the regular emails your company pitches me. I am blocking you!”

An increased email bounce rate and customers not even bothering to open your emails can hurt a lot. Customers that have no interest in the subject — trash the emails or they end up in spam. 

Resolution: With customer segmentation in marketing automation, you have a head start. You already know what interests your prospects have, and what are they fond of. 

Now, you can prepare customized emails to send to your clients. 

The customized emails will increase your email open rates, clicks, and conversions. You will take better care of your customers by not spamming them with content they don’t want. 

Pain Point #2: “There has not been any follow-up, even after contacting you for a new purchase. Are you neglecting me?”

There are so many options available for customers. If you miss out on the opportunity of converting a lead(especially when they have approached you first), you are doomed. They will find some better alternatives. 

Resolution: Real-time customer tracking and behavior study have become a lot easier with marketing automation. The top pages they visit, the sections they browse the most, and the products they are interested in the most are all invaluable insights. 

Automatic prioritization of customer support requests helps in solving issues in a suitable timespan. Quick notifications allow you to follow up instantly. 

Pain Point #3: “I have an issue with your product and need assistance, but nobody is responding to my request.”

If you fail to answer the post-purchase queries, it dents your company’s reputation. 

Putting a ding in your company’s reputation should be avoided at all costs, or else you will lose out on a lot of revenue. 

Resolution: Effective communication between its team members is the key to any business. If you get a question which you don’t have an answer to, you should be able to connect the customer with someone who can help. 

Be it any platform; communication is the key to satisfying the customer. Marketing automation helps in a quicker response rate and better assistance by automatically routing the support chats, calls, etc. to the right person. 

All this will let you provide an amazing customer experience to your users.  

How to Design a Marketing Automation Strategy for Customer Retention

Crafting out and deploying a marketing strategy that works is easier said than done. Converting prospects into potential customers and making loyal customers into brand advocates is a big deal. Expectations of marketing automation are increasing day by day.

But here is the kicker: If we are prepared to take on the challenge, we can surely succeed. 

Below are some considerable marketing automation ideas for your marketing automation strategy:  

Personalize the Interaction

Source

Whenever we talk about connecting with our audience, personalization is vital. Everyone likes content and products crafted for them exclusively. When they get it, they feel elated. Even if we call someone by their name, they feel more valued and respected.  

Consumer data is like gold dust and should be used wisely. When we have insights with us, we can use it to good effect. 

There are proven ways which you can use to personalize your automated marketing campaigns:

• Super personalized homepage for your users
• Segmentation of customers and segmented campaigns
• Personalized email marketing with fresh content 

Every marketing strategy must include personalization as its core. The results will follow.  

Offer Incentives and Discounts

Everyone likes surprises, and your customers are no different. Presenting lucrative offers can do the trick more often than not. You may offer your loyal customers extra benefits and discounts. Benefits are expected and will kill two birds with one stone. 

Firstly, they will feel valued and secondly, they will buy more from you. It’s a win-win situation. 

The above example is a perfect illustration of the tactic that we discussed. Marketers need to understand the significance of incentives and offers. Marketing automation can also help brands make a name for themselves during the festive season. It is just one of the many benefits that marketing automation has on offer.  

Automated incentives might be the missing piece of your marketing puzzle. Incentives will bring additional customers.

Re-Engagement and Encouraging Repeat Purchases

Closing out deals and selling products is not the end of the story. It is the beginning of a new story. Compelling your customers to keep coming back should be prioritized. 

Established buyers make up 40% revenue for an eCommerce Store – Adobe Study.

As compared to acquiring new customers, re-engaging existing customers is an easier task. Marketing automation helps you in doing that. 

Asking customers to buy more and encouraging repeat purchases is an excellent sale-booster. With marketing automation at your service, this is a must-try tactic and should be a part of your strategy. 

Upsell and Cross-Sell

What is upselling?

Asking your customers to buy a comparatively better and costlier product along with the one they are interested in is called upselling.

What is cross-selling?

The practice of suggesting complementary and related products to the customers is known as cross-selling.  

A sound marketing automation strategy will always incorporate upselling and cross-selling.

A marketing automation platform and lots of consumer data will allow you to both cross-sell and upsell. Shooting customized messages to your buyers regarding upsells and cross-sell can be done efficiently using marketing automation. 

With marketing automation, you can extract extra value from your customers and push them to spend more. 

Another one: 

A/B Test   

A/B Testing is indispensable for any marketing tactic we implement. When we A/B test our efforts, we know what is working for us and what is not. 

What is A/B Testing?

Using and comparing two variants of an entity (like webpage, ad, application) to check which one performs better is known as A/B Testing.

Understanding the performances of both the variants one by one will make sure we opt for the right choice. 

The understanding can be achieved by statistical analysis of consumer data.

Here is an example from Microsoft:

Variant 1

 Variant 2

Marketing automation can easily and quickly help you set up multiple tests and can automatically administer those tests so you can focus your attention wherever else it is needed. You can maximize your response rate and test elements on multiple campaigns simultaneously, saving you time. 

You will quickly be able to draw out the best combination which works for you. From the results obtained, you can also look at a few landing page examples. Choose the best and optimize the rest.  

Quiz Yourself Before Planning a Strategy

Not everything you discuss or read about will work for you. Nobody knows your business better than you. You will need to ask yourselves some questions before panning out a strategy. Discuss it with your team members, gain feedback, check your highs and lows, and then move forward. 

If you don’t have much experience with automation, it would be better to go easy and slow. If you have a lot of experience in the field, you will have to carve out new ways to serve the customer better and explore other dimensions of the strategy. 

Few questions you need to ask yourself “right now” about automating your efforts:

1. What should I automate, and I shouldn’t?

Big one. Simply automating your social media responses is not advised. And even if you do it, be cautious. Users on social media can behave in various ways, and your bots need to be intelligent to handle them. 

The emails that you automate must also be checked once in a while and refreshed. You need to be sure about what needs a human touch.

    2. How can I serve customers better with marketing automation?

This one needs a lot of attention as well. If you can serve your customers well, all other woes won’t count. Following up with clients, routing support chats to experts, post-purchase queries, sending reminders and promotions to loyal customers, etc. should be automated, but with care. 

 You should know your customers well and serve them accordingly.     

    3. What will I do to track my efforts?

You should have a clear-cut idea of how to answer this. You should prioritize your area of importance and then work on the same. Even if you run a single email marketing campaign, you should be able to track it.  

Did it work? To how much extent? Impact on your business objectives? Answer every question. Accumulate satisfactory answers. Then proceed further. 

Conclusion 

Marketing automation may come across as intimidating but isn’t. Marketers around the world need to understand this and explore automation. The sooner they do it, the better it will be. Ecommerce marketing automation is being used neatly to increase profits and conversions.   

No one can know each and everything about you. Brands nowadays use marketing automation software and integrations smartly to study your behavior and suggest things accordingly. We may be missing out on a lot, which can be achieved through marketing automation. 

Our toughest problem may easily be solved via marketing automation.

Our biggest weakness may become our greatest strength. We at least need to try.  The goal is to connect with the audience base in more engaging ways and automation does just that. Going past the barriers of implementing marketing automation should be prioritized.

So, in case you have not included marketing automation in your marketing strategy yet, it’s high time that you do so. It is not only for marketing, and sales but also for customer service. 

The post Marketing Automation and Customer Service: How are they Connected? appeared first on ReadWrite.

Think about a time where you had amazing customer service. Chances are it was something small, something unexpected that made that experience memorable. When it comes to a better customer experience, you need to know why little things matter.

In business, customer experience is everything.

The way you deliver, it can either pave the path for your company’s success or set the stage for failure. 64%of buyers find customer experience more important than price when making purchasing decisions. Another 86% agreed that they would be willing to pay more for a better brand experience.

Companies used to use only one-way communication to advertise and sell their products.

Not much consideration was given to customer feedback and satisfaction. The primary motivating factor was higher sales. With the rise of social media, marketing tactics began to change. Companies started shifting towards a more customer-driven marketing. Why? Because the internet empowered consumers to speak up and share their honest opinion on companies.

Bad online reviews now have the power to ruin a business. As a result, one-way communication was replaced by a two-sided dialogue. In today’s marketing world, the main motivating factor for brands is able to cater directly to their customers’ needs and ensure their satisfaction.

The advantages of providing a great customer experience are beyond leaving your buyers satisfied. Some of the main benefits are:

• A steady stream of new buyers.

  Did you know that 77% of customers would recommend a brand to a friend after having a single positive experience? People trust people, not companies. When you offer excellent customer care, you increase your chances of bringing new customers through your doors.

  In today’s flooded advertising landscape, word-of-mouth marketing has more power than any other marketing effort. Why? Because 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all forms of advertising.

• Higher profits.

  An outstanding customer experience is your main key to increasing customer retention, which per se will lead to higher profits. It has been recorded that if you increase customer retention by just 5%, your profits will grow by 25% to 95%.

• Competitive advantage.

  Standing out in a crowd of competitors is not an easy task. When you deliver outstanding customer service, you gain a significant competitive advantage. It has been recorded that while 80% of companies believe they deliver “super experiences,” but only 8% of customers agree. You can use this data to your advantage.

  If you invest in an outstanding customer experience strategy, you will not only impress your customers but also give them a reason to stay loyal to your brand. In a recent survey, consumers were asked what impacted their level of trust with a company; offering excellent customer service was ranked number one.

Undoubtedly, offering a great customer experience is vital to your brand and in helping to create lifelong customers. But what are some ways to make it more personal and customized?

Thank you notes.

Let your customers know that you appreciate their loyalty. Something as simple as a handwritten thank you note goes miles. It could be from the CEO, a sales rep, a customer support rep, or even the person who packs and ships the order. It creates a personal connection between the company and the customer. Make it something that isn’t scripted that feels genuine.

Add something extra.

People love freebies, and so do companies. They are an excellent way to not only make your customers happy but also encourage them to try other products that you offer.

When you expand your shoppers’ knowledge about the products you offer and allow them to try them, you open the door to more sales. As a matter of fact, free samples can boost sales by as much as 2,000%.

According to another exciting statistics, 66% of consumers want free samples. This marketing strategy will not only improve your customer experience and profitability but also satisfy your buyers’ needs.

Follow-Up.

Once you deliver your product or service to the customer, your relationship isn’t over. It’s just beginning because most likely, everything that follows will determine whether you’re a one-time purchase or a regular investment.

Give your customer time to experience your product and then do a follow-up. Now, the question is whether you should call them or send an email. If you have established that one-on-one relationship with your customers, follow-up calls are appropriate.

Other customers will feel more comfortable with an email or survey follow-up. But you can do both. Email your customer to let them know you’ll be giving them a call in a few days to find out how everything is going. Then if you can’t connect with them, send the email survey.

Going above and beyond when correcting a mistake.

Mistakes happen. They are frustrating for everyone involved. If you want your customers to continue doing business with you, you need to fix your mistakes effectively. One way to do so is by being transparent with your customers.

People can sense authenticity. If you show genuine interest in correcting your mistakes, your customers will give you another chance.

How Can Digital Technologies Help You Improve Customer Experience?

While it is essential to make your customer experience more personal, it is also essential to consistently optimize your customer service strategies. Miscommunication is one of the biggest problems companies face when dealing with customers.

You can improve customer interaction using the right digital tools, such as CloudApp. This video collaboration software offers visual communication features that will help you:

• Optimize customer support workflows
• Provide customers with detailed answers, using GIFs, screenshots, and videos.
• Track and process bugs faster and document problems

Summary

Stellar customer experience is all about prioritizing your buyers and finding little things that will make your business stand out from the competition. Show some love and appreciation to your customers, and they will stay dedicated to your brand.

Most importantly, remember that all businesses make mistakes. What matters is how you handle these errors, how quickly you resolve the problem, and if you exceed your customers’ expectations.

Make your customers feel truly valued by handling problems as fast and efficiently as you can. Go the extra mile for greater success!

The post A Better Customer Experience — Why Little Things Matter appeared first on ReadWrite.

My business partner Konstantin Krauss and I are both longtime SaaS entrepreneurs. In our careers so far, we founded, led, and sold technology companies, witnessing companies both thrive and fail. The one thing that rings true for most of these companies is that sales are the heartbeat of the company. Naturally, the entire company must be reliable for sales to be effective. Connected digital assistants will change the way we work and sell.

The sales team is responsible for ensuring that the bottom line is healthy.

Based on our sales experience and after talking with hundreds of seasoned professionals over the years, we noticed that smart, connected technology is missing from the workplace. Most sales and marketing teams use a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) program.

While using this tool, they develop a love/hate relationship with it. However, the hole we are talking about goes much deeper than just implementing a smart CRM. Over the past couple of years, smart assistants take the consumer market by storm. You couldn’t visit a park without hearing five people say, “Hey, Siri.”

Now when you walk into a home, more likely than not, you’ll find more than one connected device. Whether it be a smart thermostat, a fitness tracker, wearables, a personal assistant, they’re everywhere. Amazon even gave away smart devices with the purchase of a select product on Prime Day.

It is this kind of technology that helps more and more people every day be increasingly productive. People across the globe are using connected, digital devices to simplify everyday tasks and to streamline their lives. But, why aren’t more businesses using digital assistants and connected devices the same way consumers are?

Our “A-Ha” Moment.

The business market ripe with opportunity for new SaaS products. Our computers understand us better, so they can help in real-time business situations. We created the digital, connected assistant, designed for the workplace and, more specifically, inside sales representatives.

These assistants and personal connected devices have the potential to make the everyday lives of millions of workers more comfortable. The adaptation rate will be fast, as a result of previous advancements in technology. Virtual assistant technology has already been developed and tested through consumer devices and supports this new business software category.

Sales and SaaS Teams are Booming, but Struggle With Support 

• SaaS sales teams are growing by the day. The SaaS market is anticipated to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.20% from 2018 to 2023.
• Inside sales is also a massively growing field. Today, most B2B products and services are sold over the phone or via screen share.
• Sales tools have become overwhelmingly focused on sales control (e.g., CRM for the most part). As previously stated, most salespeople have a love/hate relationship with their CRM. They are ready for an all-encompassing solution.
• While most sales reps want and receive training (usually expensive training), few agree on its effectiveness.
• When in a conversation, most sales reps have no support at all besides their notes and scribbles. Scaling sales organizations, even in large corporations, is like a game of telephone with apparent shortcomings. Conversation support will be a game-changer for sales teams.

CRM Should Not be the Only Sales Tool

A well-managed CRM can be a gold mine. However, a correctly managed CRM is like a unicorn that no one can ever find. A CRM tool is typically full of “buried” information, which is hard to find and hard to manage. For example, salespeople spend just one-third of their day talking to prospects.

The salesperson then spends the rest of their day writing emails, prospecting, and researching leads, going to internal meetings. Between all of those tasks, it’s hard to manage and keep a CRM system up-to-date.

It’s time for the workplace to adopt a productivity tool that allows them to get more out of their days. This new software will save significant time for professionals, especially when synced with their CRM. It houses all necessary data, and assists with critical processes like on-boarding, training, playbook, and suggested language. Not to mention, it ensures consistency across all teams and locations.

The Next Addition to Your Team: “Digital Assistant” 

There is so much knowledge that needs to be shared: sales frameworks, training, FAQs, and product roadmaps. Not to mention all the advice on how to have the best and most productive conversations. Most of the time, this information is either floating around on a server or intranet site, or in someone’s head.

However, the most logical place to manage all that knowledge is in a connected device. It’s accessed instantly or brought up based on conversation tracking, providing it way faster than humans can search for it. The connected personal assistant is an entirely new way for humans to work with computers.

A personal digital assistant for business will support the following functions:

• Emerging Technology

  Previously developed voice technology allows real-time support; think of the talk-to-text and voice-search functions on cell phones. We believe that the role of a digital assistant for business has various advantages. For example, it can offer real-time support by listening to phone calls, providing advice, and transcribing call notes.

• IT Integration

  Existing siloed enterprise software tools commonly have open APIs. An open API allows for new business models, such as a digital assistant, to work on top of them.

• Share-ability
  

  Sales teams have sales frameworks, that is a fact. And with a digital assistant, sales teams can finally sync their daily operations with the company’s existing framworks. Then, sales conversations become a science rather than an art.

When you take all of this into consideration, the workplace is ready for digital, personal support. The assistant is a natural next addition to the “virtual team.”

What’s Next 

A new category of enterprise software is entering the marketplace. A digital, personal assistant that integrates all kinds of tools and provides collective experiences of various experts. With this rollout, we are combining two of the biggest markets – CRM a $193.6 billion global market with training an $87.6 billion global market. All fueled by intelligent software, augmenting human interaction in business.

People benefit from connected devices and virtual assistants, and the same trend stays true for businesses. Productivity leaps will take place, and the use of virtual assistants will become as normal as having a computer.

Although Ciara is the first dedicated digital sales assistant, we expect this category to grow as adoption happens within companies. If you’d like to learn more about Ciara, visit GetCiara.com to sign up for free and access your own personal assistant within minutes.

Try Out Productivity Tools We Are Using

The post Connected Digital Assistants will Change the Way We Work appeared first on ReadWrite.

Business practices are changing every day. Nowadays, companies and startups are interested in increasing market share maximization with the use of new technology like email marketing. Today digital marketing tools practice helping those companies in attaining its position by targeting niche audience of like-minded interest which those companies product can offer to them. The can-spam act is necessary and painful for email marketers.

The myth of Email Marketing Without Considering CAN-SPAM ACT

We come across many situations where we become the victim of these “trap” technologies. Have you ever asked why most of the times when you visit any trade expo, your business cards were asked to be given at the venue, or a form is asked to be filled?

Taking business cards at an event is a modern advent business practice which is done deliberately. Companies participating in the event can shoot emails to you with the product advertisement directly in your inbox. After a couple of weeks, you figure out that your inbox is bombarded with email of different business verticals. Most of them were participants and prospective clients.

Your email account is flooded with the mail which has of no use to you.

The person at the event beliefed you could be a prospect. They have added your email in their mailing list without seeking permission from you. With a firm belief that you like their business email, they start sending an email directly in your inbox.

The other worst hookup situation is when the email received has no “unsubscribe” or opt out option. However, it is a law in the U.S. that a company must provide you with an unsubscribe — so look harder (usually at the very bottom of the site).

CAN-SPAM ACT Nightmare

You have two options left with you, either to write them to stop sending mails or put that email in spam. Though their strategy is to draw attention to the various services they offer — it can become a CAN-SPAM nightmare for you. Those senders had no idea that they violated the law and can be heavily penalized for such activity.

Such activity can lead to loss of potential business they can render in the future either directly by the prospective buyer or through referral by violating email marketing regulations. You might have come across with this kind of situation when you exchange card without knowing that you are welcoming unwanted emails in your inbox. The sender hardly bothers that the sent mail is sent whether you have an interest or not.

Email marketing and digital marketing are fantastic ways for businesses to flourish and boost sales.

The marketing also keeps their customers up to date on company information. It’s fast, it’s relatively simple to set up, and it’s one of the most cost effective ways to market your business and drive customers to your website. Many startups prefer this medium of marketing as the cost effective way of communication to get connected with the potential customer.

Sending emails and digital messages can only be done if it’s done properly. The following guidelines of CAN-SPAM ACT.

Email marketing is also one of the quickest ways to irritate your customers and make them stop buying your products without getting permission to send emails. And it’s an easy way to break the law. Email marketing is regulated and governed by Federal law of the US.

In 2003, President George W. Bush signed the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) Act bill into law to stop the onslaught of spam that was landing in everyone’s inbox. The US law was subsequently updated in 2008. Businesses, get up-to-date now so that you are in compliance.

In brief, it means you CAN’T SPAM.

The penalties for not following CAN-SPAM regulations are very high. The sender of commercial email charged up to $16,000 for every email sent. As marketers, this makes our job more difficult, but it affects us, so we’ve got to pay attention. Here’s a quick guide that gives a breakdown of the Act in layman terms, and it focuses on the main parts you need to be concerned with. Here it goes:

• Tell your subscribers where you’re located.

  – You need to include your physical mailing address on every email bottom you send. It can be your current street address, an office address, or a private commercial mailbox.

• Tell readers where your email is coming from.

  – The law focuses on transparency of email. The “From” “To” and “Reply to” labels marked on email need to tell the recipient where the email comes from. In other words, these fields should contain the sender’s name or the business name.

• Write an honest subject line of email.

  – Your subject line should reflect what’s in the email. You can’t be deceptive here. Using False Or Even Misleading Information Is A Strict No-No. In other words, don’t write “Claim your $200 gift card” in the subject line to get people to open an email that’s really about a new product.

• Honor opt-out requests within 10 days of unsubscribe.

  – If someone wanted to opt-out from the mailing list, you must remove that person within 10 days of their request. At the bottom of the commercial email, you can provide a link to unsubscribe. Email service providers like MailChimp will automatically remove a subscriber from your list when someone makes an opt-out request.

  If you use one, you’re all set. You can’t charge any fees for this service or ask for any personal information or sell the person’s contact information to another company.

• Email As Advertisement.

  – Admit it. Most emails that marketers send to their subscribers and customers are an advertisement in some form or the other. So, identify it as an ad. Provide full disclosure that you are advertising, and the law will be by your side.

• Monitor what others do for you on your behalf.

  – If you have virtual assistants or you hire another company to manage your email list, supervise all email activities. You are still responsible if the company breaks any of these rules.

Bottom Line:

Use good and sensible judgment and respect your email subscribers. When you set up your next email campaign, it worth to check it against this list of rules to make sure everything is legit. Don’t become a CAN-SPAM nightmare. When you follow these simple regulations passed by the government, you’ll make your prospects happier and steer clear of email-related legal problems.

The post CAN-SPAM Act is Important and Painful for Email Marketers appeared first on ReadWrite.

Do you want to save time and money for workforce tasks? Are you getting annoyed with the unmanaged environment? Of course, being a businessperson, it is tough to manage customers, patients, clients, and it takes a lot of effort to maintain a calendar and execute the plan.  So, to optimally operate the business, it is necessary to adopt: The Best Appointment Scheduling software.

To manage the emergency bookings, rescheduling an appointment on short notice and cutting down on loses for no shows is more complicated. It is not required to execute all this work manually because Online Appointment Scheduling can do this for you without hassles.

If in any case, someone wants to book an appointment with you, they only have to visit the business website, a social networking site, or some other technology they have mentioned and with the available time and date, they can easily book an appointment.

The businessperson who cannot hire a dedicated administrative executive because of less budget can handle tedious tasks with excellence with an Appointment Booking Software.

This article aims to list the top 10 appointment scheduling software for small businesses. With this software, you can instantly book the appointment without any botheration. These appointments scheduling software are very appropriate and resulted in being beneficial for business experts and their customers. So, let’s get started with the best appointment scheduling software.

Best appointment scheduling software for small business.

Appointment

As a powerful, robust platform for appointments and scheduling, Appointment delivers a wide range of features to effectively manage your business whether it is a small business or enterprise with multiple locations.

First, customers can schedule an appointment whenever they want thanks to the interactive software. It can handle appointments for multiple departments, locations, and categories within your business. Second, all customer appointments are secured through SSL encryption. There are also fine-grained access controls so access to certain information is limited or denied.

Other scheduling features include extensive reporting capabilities, including the ability to export reports to CSV format. Customization gives you the ability to add a logo or company color scheme to the appointment booking site. Other languages are also available. Payments can be taken in advance or when the service is complete thanks to integration with PayPal. There are also powerful API capabilities, gift certifications and discount cards, reminders and waitlists, and calendar syncing with Outlook, Google, and iCal.

Monthly rates are $29 for 300 bookings (Bronze), $39 for 600 bookings (Silver), $49 for 1,000 bookings (Gold), and $74 for 1,500 bookings (Platinum). They offer a 30-day free trial to try the appointment solution out.

Calendar

Calendar is a desktop platform and app (iOS and Android) that simplifies scheduling and meeting tasks by providing a dashboard view of your calendar, including connecting and syncing other calendars you might use like Google, Apple, and Outlook.

The appointment tool gives you the power of machine learning algorithms that learn your schedule and begin taking over the process for you by doing the appointments and invites on your behalf. You’ll also be able to share your calendar with others so they can add or edit events.

There are numerous customization tools and features included in the free version of this appointment software. Other plan levels, which start at $10, add features like meeting transcription and analytics.

AppointEze

As cloud-based software, AppointEze assists the customers to book the appointment online in a manageable and convenient manner. This CRM based appointment scheduling software is designed specifically for small enterprises.  With an approach to deliver the best services to the customers, AppointEze provides optimized features for a businessperson to save money and time.

It accepts payments from reliable payment gateways, such as PayPal and Stripe. Google Calendar Sync is used to abstain the twice booking. It permits customers to schedule appointments straight from the website. It came up with the features, such as appointment management, track leads, set activities, e-mail tracking, Calendar Integrations, and many more.

Its pricing starts from $9.00/Per User Per Month (Economy) and $15.00/Per User Per Month (Premium).

Square Appointments

Square is a leading appointment scheduling software in small businesses for payment processing solutions. It has a small and individual team of service providers with perspective and smooth technology. It includes plenty of features. It automatically sends the notification in the form of texts and emails to the customers.

Customers can only book the appointments online in that particular time frame you have set. The business person can check the employee schedules from anywhere. Customer history can also be verified with the purchasing history as well. You can include a booking widget to your social platforms and website.

It is free for individuals, and it gets paid for a businessperson. Its price starts from $50 per month for the enterprise including 2 to 5 employees and 6 to 10 employee; it charges $90 per month.

SetMore

It makes itself different from the other applications/software because of the two offers it gives.

• First, it lets you check the appointments if you are offline with the desktop applications.
• Second, it has access to a massive list of business software, such as Quick Books, MailChimp, Zendesk, Zoho CRM, and Salesforce. It offers the right codes to copy and paste to the websites (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Wix, and Weebly) for permitting the clients to book their appointment online.

Its starting price is $25.00 per month per user. It provides a free version as well. It can be deployed to Web, SaaS and cloud platforms, mobile-iOS native, Mobile -an android native. It provides customer support 24X7 (in business hours as well).

Appointy

As an online appointment scheduling software, it lets you schedule appointments for workshops, classes, rides, events, and tours. It allows the clients to schedule their appointment by themselves. It came up with large customization options that increase with every plan.

It accepts the payments via PayPal, stripe and from Authorize.net. It can be integrated with your websites and with social media accounts as well.

It offers the free plan which is appropriate for small businesses with a plan of 100 appointments in a month. The paid plans are $19.99 per month (growth plan), $49.99 per month (professional plan), $ 79.99 per month (an organization with different locations).

10to8

Being a cloud-based appointment scheduling software, it makes transparency between the businessperson and the customers. It makes a trust-oriented and smooth relationship which is also necessary for long-time sustainability. It offers one or more channels for attaining valuable customer feedback.

It has an option to send notifications for reminders; clients can revert to the notifications to cancel, confirm, and rescheduling of the appointments. The messages can be sent via Facebook, Slack, SMS, and from the chat features on the dashboard. It accepts the payments from SagePay, PayPal, and Stripe with no extra fee.

This software lets customers track the growth from the custom reports. If offers a paid plan of $9.6  per month, users can also get 100 bookings per month free by the mentioned payment gateways.

Acuity

This is the Best Appointment Scheduling Application because of its extensive usage in enterprises. Acuity software assists the users in scheduling and managing different time zones for small business. As it has an option of self-booking, which helps in accelerating the speed in providing the convenience for scheduling.

Acuity has a real-time booking system to evade double booking and overlapping. It accepts the payment via Square, Authorize. Net, Braintree, PayPal, and Stripe. It can be integrated with approximately 500+applications via Zapier.

It offers reasonable pricing. It is free for one-person businesses with fewer capabilities.  Its pricing starts for $15 per month for solopreneurs, $ 25 per month for calendar management and $50 per month for managing 36 calendars.

Genbook

Easy manageable and fully-functional capabilities, Genbook appointment scheduling software, can operate the small business conveniently. It permits the customers to book the appointments either from desktop or from mobile devices, and they can customize the appointments accordingly.

You can manage your business from anywhere with android and iOS applications. It has a scheduling webpage that has google maps, business logo and details, real-time booking, and customer reviews.

It also offers special promotions that attract clients with online discounts and special deals and coupons. The customers will be notified by SMS or email for any updating regarding appointment scheduling.

 SimplyBook.me

With a professional outline, SimplyBook.me is an inclusive appointment scheduling software in the web world. It accepts the payment online, provides the service add-ons and packs, membership, detailed statistics of business. This software is available in English, Chinese, german, french, Japanese, Russian, Korean, Spanish, Taiwanese and Portuguese languages.

It has an integration with the payment gateways that are easily accessible by the customers. Its price starts at $10.00 per month. It can be deployed to Web, SaaS and Cloud platforms, Mobile-android native and mobile-iOS native.

Effective Appointment Management

We have mentioned the top 10 scheduling software for small businesses that would help manage the appointments smoothly. To find the best scheduling software for small businesses is a complex task, but a correct solution can give your business the heights. Choose the one that is entirely related to your business requirements.

The post Top 10 Appointment Scheduling Software for Small Business appeared first on ReadWrite.

“Sell me this pen.”

That’s the famous quote from Martin Scorsese’s film, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” based on the debaucherous life of Jordan Belfort, a penny stockbroker. Belfort made a huge fortune before he was jailed for his shady business practices. In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jordan Belfort who challenges his colleagues to sell him a pen. With human vs. artificial intelligence, who wins at sales?

Can AI step up to the challenge and do better than humans in selling an everyday object like a pen? While it may not seem like a tough task, it actually takes experienced salesperson years of practice to sell anything to anyone. Who needs another pen anyway? With the advancement of AI and its ever-expanding role in sales, some people think AI can do better than humans in sales.

The jury is still out, so let’s compare AI and humans over 5 critical skills that separate a successful salesperson from the rest of the pact: empathy, listening, agility, critical thinking, and persistence.

Empathy

Empathy is defined as the “ability to walk a mile in another person’s shoes.” My favorite example is from Barter King, a TV show where people trade stuff without using cash.

In an episode, professional trader, Antonio, is trading a $200 handbag for fishing gear worth $1000. Despite the big price difference, the woman really wants the handbag and has little use for the fishing gear. But she hesitates because of her sentimental attachment to the fishing gear, which belonged to her grandfather who passed away. 

Antonio empathizes with her and tells her that he used to fish with his dad and assures her the fishing gear is going to a good home where it’s going to get used to catching fish instead of collecting dust in her garage. By walking in her shoes, Antonio successfully closes the deal. 

Emotion AI – emotional intelligence – has improved tremendously at detecting human emotions through facial expressions, tone or volume of voice, and so on. Shockingly, AI can tell if a person is a criminal simply by looking at their facial features, with an accuracy of up to 90%. While machines could detect human emotions, they will always be unable to walk a mile in another person’s shoes.

Winner: Human

Active Listening

Great salespeople are like journalists: they actively ask questions to discern what’s on a customer’s mind. 

In another episode of Barter King, Antonio is trading a $100 massage table for a $500 set of golf clubs. The owner of the golf clubs is reluctant to make the trade, again because of the dollar value gap. When Antonio probes her on why she’s looking for a massage table, she explains that she wants to start a home massage business and that the golf clubs belongs to her ex-husband. Antonio discerns her needs and convinces her that the massage table will bring her joy and make her money while the golf club will serve as a reminder of her ex and failed marriage.

Can AI be a better listener? You bet, Crisis Text Line, an AI that uses natural language processing to help people suffering from anxiety or suicidal thoughts, has exchanged more than 83 million text messages to date. What’s surprising is that 86% of those who exchanged text messages reported feeling better afterward despite the fact that they knew that they were not even interacting with another human being! Plus, AI is always there to listen, never zones out, and does not have to sleep, and has millions of data points to know when and how to ask the right question. 

Winner: Machine

Agility

Agility is about thinking quickly on your feet and outside the box. In “The Wolf of Wall Street,” when a salesman boasts that he can sell anything, Belfort pulls out a pen and challenges him to sell the pen. He takes the pen and tells Belfort to write his name on a napkin. Belfort can’t because he doesn’t have a pen! “Exactly, supply and demand my friend,” the salesman says to Belfort.

Still not convinced that humans are better at thinking outside the box? In 2016, Google’s AlphaGo played against the world’s undefeated Go champion, Lee Sedol, in the ancient and enormously complex Chinese game. AlphaGo, an AI system trained through millions of simulations, won the first three games. But in game four, Lee made a transcendent and beautiful move (dubbed as God’s Touch) that was completely outside the box and allowed a human to strike back.

Winner: Human

Critical Thinking 

Sales is becoming more science than art, and the best salespeople leverage data to move the needle. 

While humans can analyze hundreds or thousands of data points, machines can quickly analyze and find patterns through millions of data. Want proof? It’s all around us in our everyday lives. Google Maps calculates the fastest route. Amazon recommends the best products. Netflix suggests the best content. And Babylon, an AI doctor, diagnoses diseases more accurately than human doctors. 

Winner: Machine

Persistence

Our human side gifts us to be empathetic, but that also makes us susceptible to the negative effects of rejections. At Birdnest, we work with amazing real estate brokers and have seen even the most persistent ones get dejected after rejections. As a founder, I have tasted the bitterness of rejection from hundreds of investors and it can take an emotional toll.

But machines have the power to reject rejections. They don’t need to bounce back. They don’t need a mental health day. They don’t need a pep talk. They just keep going at it relentlessly without ever giving up or feeling dejected. Email automation tools always follow up with prospects and never takes any email filled with profanity personally. Chatbots are always on, eager to greet and chat no matter how late it is and how rude you are. 

Winner: Machine

Conclusion

So the next time you get the, “Sell me this pen” challenge at that tough job interview, make the interviewer’s jaw drop with this perfect answer instead of fumbling over words trying to sell a pen. According to Jordan Belfort, the perfect answer is to ask a question. Maybe something like this: “So tell me, how long have you been in the market for a pen?”  You can then identify the customer’s needs and what they’re looking for so you can turn it around on them. 

The jury may still be out on whether AI or humans are better at selling, but based on the five critical traits of a successful salesperson, looks like the machine has a slight edge over humans 3:2 in this best of five.

The post Human vs Artificial Intelligence: Who Wins at Sales? appeared first on ReadWrite.

In the past few years, voice has become a core part of the consumer journey. It’s a utility that a growing number of people have come to count on throughout the course of their days. Voice-enabled assistants like Alexa (Amazon), Cortana (Microsoft) and Siri (Apple) perform tasks as varied as adding dates to calendars, turning on lights, setting reminders, playing music, and performing online searches.

To be sure, voice is transforming the way we experience the internet.

As a result, organizations have begun connecting their voice-communications systems to their customer-relationship strategies. They’ve realized that when it comes to resolving an issue or building a relationship, there’s nothing like the power of voice to help drive digital customer engagement.

Advances in voice that will shape CX.

In 2018, voice-enabled device sales reached 1 billion, meaning voice technology is already shaping consumer experiences, regardless of whether the consumers themselves realize it. For example, artificial intelligence-powered voice technology is fast becoming indispensable, with 71% of smart speaker owners using them daily. Nearly half of users perform product research using voice, with 43% using them for creating shopping lists.

In time, this technology will become even smarter, as chatbots and virtual assistants become a more familiar part of the customer experience — even to the point of being able to understand the tone and cadence of one’s voice.

With the rise of voice marketing, improved audio marketing will allow businesses to communicate with their audiences without having to actually visualize anything. 

These voice ads are highly contextual, creating “micro-moments” in which consumers can, say, order pizza for the big game or find a last-minute wedding shower gift.

How voice impacts consumer interaction

Today, in 2019, research shows that more than 40% of smart-speaker owners use them to search for products, further proving that voice technology is no longer a niche product. How does this affect a brand’s marketing? Well, the basics of ad copy have always been the same: Keep the message simple, direct, and short.

Why? We can’t count on consumers — who want information fast — to read reams and reams of copy.

The rise of voice will only reinforce this, making consumers even more reluctant to read long articles, how-to guides, or reviews. A brand that doesn’t provide consumers with the succinct information they want (via voice and audio) will quickly fall behind its competitors that do.

Your content marketing strategy should guide you in deciding how to leverage voice response and how deeply to invest in it. To find out, ask yourself:

• Who is your target audience? Is it composed of cutting-edge early adopters? Smart-home enthusiasts? What else about them may make them likelier to engage with your brand using voice versus other platforms?
• Do you know how to ensure your content experience is valuable and relevant to these demographics?
• Do you know what results to expect?
• How will you determine how well you have succeeded?

So is your brand voice-friendly? Below is a handful of ways to approach voice so that your brand is ready for the future:

1. Have an active SEO voice strategy. Your website needs to hone its SEO efforts in the context of how people actually speak when they seek out information. People search differently when they pose their questions vocally.

Voice queries are usually slightly longer than text searches and posed in the form of full questions, such as “where can I buy an umbrella nearby?” As such, it’s wise to incorporate some longer and more relevant keyword phrases.

Because consumers are taken to the first result rather than to a results page, you should aim to be the top hit for each of your search terms, rather than just on the top page. This is starkly different from the traditional SEO strategy, in which you aim to be on the first page. With voice, you aren’t being heard if you aren’t number one.

2. Consider your content. With the rise of voice comes the rise of audio, so it’s important that brands package up content for audio purposes — whether it’s website copy, newsletters, or anything else — and make it an integral part of your content management strategy.

Create a Google action or Alexa skill, which allow voice assistants to react to user queries. For example, Nestlé created a skill called GoodNes that lets consumers, instead of reading a recipe, get cooking instructions provided to them via audio in addition to a visual guide.

3. Focus on customer experience. Because Alexa and Google Assistant can differentiate between voices, they can provide insights about each user, ultimately giving you the chance to provide them with more personalized messages and content. Capital One, for example, has included a feature that allows consumers to pay their balances and track their spending using Alexa.

The future of online commerce is here, and it has a voice. 

Brands that listen and work to incorporate audio elements into their marketing efforts will position themselves well for whatever developments come next. What say you?

The post Voice Will Penetrate CRM in the Coming Years appeared first on ReadWrite.

Perhaps, the most common mistake made by retail companies in planning and executing digital transformation is to treat technology acquisition as a goal in itself. You will find that the code of “people first” as the golden rule of retail digital transformation will make great sense if you start to follow this rule.

Organizations that make this mistake are laboring under the slightly blinkered belief that technology is disrupting retail, but that’s simply not the case. People are the agents of disruption, while digital technology is merely an instrument that aids them in the role.

Similarly, it is people (and the way they live) who are impacted by the changes arising from technologies. Companies that understand and embrace this reality have a more effective approach to their custom web application development projects as part of digital transformation efforts, and this way can secure better results through people-oriented design. At the same time, operators putting technology first also put themselves at a disadvantage.

5 Principles of “People First.”

The journey toward retail digital transformation, when guided by the ‘people first’ principle, is one in which retail companies adopt people-oriented objectives, with the ‘people’ element made up of customers, employees, and business partners.

People-first is not just one principle but a set of at least five codes of conduct — which collectively provide the direction in the quest for digital transformation. The five principles can be defined as follows:

1. Digital transformation is a journey with the sole objective of helping people to live, work, and play in smarter and better ways.

2. Digital transformation is about adapting to what people want and need, not vice versa.

3. Digital transformation should connect people seamlessly and support real-time information sharing and collaboration.

4. Mobility is not a technology or a device but a state of human existence supported by technologies and devices.

5. People need to know that technology is transparent, and helps them to stay safe and secure, while also enhancing human abilities and experiences.

People-first Objectives for Retail Digital Transformation.

If your enterprise understands the collective principles of putting people first, it’s already ahead of the curve in how prepared it is for digital transformation, even if the transformation itself has not even started. Certainly, you are ahead of less enlightened competitors, even those that are busily investing money and effort into hi-tech solutions but not keeping the people-first principles in mind.

However, it’s not always easy to determine the objectives of such human-centric projects. Of course, much depends on your company’s general course, but needless to say, digital transformation should be focused on your customers, business partners, employees, or all the three groups at once.

In taking the people-first approach to digital transformation, you can adopt any of the following objectives:

• Equip sales staff with technology enabling them to be proactively insightful.
• Improve customer experience through the use of intelligent automation.
• Leverage digital technology to improve workforce agility.
• Develop continuous learning capabilities to accelerate employee development.
• Improve cross-functional and inter-company collaboration.
• Augment retail product sales with a portfolio of value-adding services.
• Increase customer trust and confidence through improved data security and governance.

These are purely examples and as such are not precise objectives. Yet, they are intended to represent the angles from which your executive team might approach the use of digital technology to transform the enterprise while keeping people at the front and center of this transition.

Now, let’s take a look at some of these objectives in a little more detail, and explore how you might deploy digital technology in order to meet them.

Employee-centric Objectives

The recent research by PwC suggests that there is a gap in how executive managers and their subordinates view the technology at work. While 90% of the surveyed executives believe they prioritize their staff’s needs when introducing new work-aiding tech, only 53% of employees agree with this.

To bridge this gap, retailers need to think in terms of their sales staff’s daily challenges that could be alleviated, not obstructed, with technology.

The first step would probably be to equip staff on the sales floor with tablets, enabling them to check product availability and prices while attending to customers.

The next step might be to provide mobile enterprise apps linked to the CRM platform. With the aid of advanced analytics, these apps could push out cross-sell and upsell suggestions to sales associates, perhaps triggered by some electronic cue from customers’ mobile devices transmitted via in-store retail beacons.

By now, you may be wondering if the deployment of mobile solutions is really about helping employees or simply about making more sales—and of course the answer is both. However, there’s nothing wrong with a win-win situation.

Customer-centric Objectives

Any objectives aimed at business partners and employees are ultimately customer-centric, but the magic of digital technology is that it can be applied directly to interactions between your enterprise and your customers, whether with the goal of improving customer care, generally enhancing customer experience, or stimulating purchasing activity.

Most retail companies begin their digital transformation by developing mobile apps for customers to download. They might then go on to increase engagement with the aid of beacons or other location-sensing technology.

One of the examples is Nike Connected Jersey. This innovative mobile and IoT campaign allows the brand’s NikeConnect App users to scan specially designed jersey tags to unlock multiple extras such as courtside game tickets, exclusive products, game highlights, and more. This is the power of connected retail technologies in action, which propagates customers’ engagement through playful experiences.

Get in Touch with the “Why.”

The most exciting part in projects like Nike’s is not the innovative technology itself, but what the technology does for the customer. Of course, for every front-runner, there will be a raft of retail companies that see what these pioneers are doing and then emulate it — but with little thought as to why.

This is the technology trap that awaits unwary retailers and can leave them technology-rich but progress-poor. To avoid falling into this trap, prepare for your company’s digital transformation by asking yourself and your executive team the following questions:

• Which customer touchpoints can be made faster, more efficient, or better integrated?
• Which digital technologies can bring about the desired touchpoint improvements?
• How well does our company collaborate across internal functions and with external partners?
• Can digital technology make a meaningful difference to collaboration in our organization?
• How can technology aid our sales associates to work with more agility, efficiency, and effectiveness?

Soft Skills Trump Technological Talent

While this article is heavily oriented toward people as the subjects of retail digital transformation, it’s important to keep in mind the fact that people — not technology — are also the agents of transformation. To that end, your company should ensure the necessary talent exists to apply transformative technologies.

Surprising as it may seem, this doesn’t mean your organization must be densely populated with technological masterminds, even though you are embarking on a ‘digital’ transformation. In reality, you should be able to field project teams with appropriate soft skills to mobilize and drive digital initiatives.

It’s important to prioritize soft skills, in particular leadership, when going through changes induced by digital transformation. That’s what was highlighted in a recent interview by Adobe’s Director of Talent Development Danielle Clark, who made a case for extra training and guidance to reduce employees’ anxiety about current technological disruptions in the workplace.

After all, technology doesn’t need to be driven — but people do. Keep in mind that no amount of technological genius will inspire the cultural changes necessary for successful digital transformation.

Make People Your Digital Prerogative

When considering digital transformation in your retail enterprise, make it all about the “who,” and the “what, why, how, and where” will naturally follow. Various technologies available to you are all powerful tools, but their potential means little without people-oriented objectives to drive technology implementation and use.

The post People First: The Golden Rule of Retail Digital Transformation appeared first on ReadWrite.

Breakthroughs in digital technology continue to transform and shape how, why and where consumers shop. Increasingly, they favor conducting commerce that does not require a human touchpoint. Practically every industry is spawning digital marketplaces – think Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Uber. The disruptions they trigger are fundamentally changing the industries themselves and the organizations within them. The consumer behavior’s are shifting business models and industries are adapting.

How consumer behavior has shifted in retail.

Simply consider the new retail shopping concept introduced by AmazonGo, where shoppers use an app with advanced technology when taking the products they want and depart without enduring checkout lines. It mirrors Uber and Lyft for ease of use and payment.

This type of dramatic shift raises the question of why one industry in particular – the insurance sector – has been slow to alter its business model to fit today’s needs. The industry offers many lines of coverage, from home, health and life insurance, to very specialized coverage, such as prize indemnification should a golfer snag a hefty prize in a charity event for scoring a hole in one.

Quite a few of these lines of coverage almost certainly can benefit from a simple, on-demand approach to personalized coverage with little, if any, human interaction. And while digital insurers certainly exist, they don’t embrace the “new” digital reality of having on-demand access at your fingertips.

For the most part, they still have lengthy applications to fill out and complicated processes to go through. Plus, they base their online insurance quotes on common driver demographics and actuarial history that’s often decades old.

What traditional insurers seem to forget is the speed at which consumers have changed and the swift arrival of digital natives.

Simply consider: Of consumers born in the age of digital technology, 95 percent own a smartphone, 75 percent have a social network profile and 60 percent rely on the internet for their information. And they often overlook what consumers seek: on-demand service, digital guidance, access to information across all channels, more personalization and predictability, improved affordability and simplicity.

Insurers are experimenting with various digital approaches via innovation labs and corporate venture funds.

Many insurers most are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward moving quickly to adopt inventive new digital technologies. In their defense, insurers contend that digital transformation is tricky and difficult. They cite heavy regulation, large capital requirements, complex policies and middlemen in the distribution chain, such as brokers.

Reflecting that belief, a 2017 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that nearly three-in-four insurers consider digital innovation a challenge, and only 28 percent had explored partnerships with fintech firms.  

Still, disruption is the name of the game, and that applies to insurance as well as every other industry.

Take the fast-evolving world of self-driving and semi-autonomous vehicles, which will significantly change the nature of auto insurance. Traditionally, auto insurers base their premium on human error, which causes the vast majority of car accidents, and the demographics of the insurance applicant. But with self-driving cars, auto insurers must use other approaches to determine their premiums, and motorists may expect that they will see lower premiums because the human factor is reduced.

Since self-driving and semi-autonomous vehicles are still in their infancy, manufacturers are having to buy insurance to reflect the possibility of accidents, and carmakers such as Tesla are factoring in insurance costs in pricing their autos. Also, securing self-driving vehicles against hacking is a challenge, so buyers of those cars may also have to purchase cyber insurance.

Startups and entrepreneurs may want to take a look at the business possibilities — in insurance.

McKinsey management consultants have studied digital strategy and insurance and, while noting the industry’s challenges, they wonder how the industry will respond should, say, an innovative powerhouse like Amazon enter the insurance business. Or, should a data aggregator develop more accurate pricing models and partner with an insurtech start-up, which soon sparks strong profitable growth.

“How would these disruptions affect premiums and profitability?” asks McKinsey. “How quickly would insurers feel the impact? How could they respond? And what other digital innovations lie in store?”

Increasingly, lasting success requires innovating at least two of a business model’s four dimensions, as Jiahua Xu of the London-based Institute of Insurance Economics sees it. She describes the distinctive dimensions of a “pay-per-use” business model as:

•      What do you offer to the customer?
•      How is the value proposition created?
•      Why does it work?
•      Who are your target customers?

In this digital age, allowing consumer behavior to inform the business model promises significant benefits for insurers. Here are several of the advantages.

Better understanding of your customers:

A comprehensive grasp of consumers and your customers generates invaluable insights and proves essential to accomplishing your core business goals. This can be easily achieved by engaging with them in real-time through digital channels that let you chat with your customers as they browse your website, for instance.

Such insights also occur when you engage with them online or elsewhere to gain their impartial feedback on a specific area of customer experience, so you can then act upon it. With advanced analytics, stronger customer touchpoints and other behavioral aids, insurers can quickly and better understand customer attitudes and behavior.

It’s also critical to better understand multicultural customers. As multicultural consumers have accounted for the vast majority of our population growth in recent years, it is important to know how they differ in their attitudes and behaviors about insurance and financial matters in general.

Ability to deliver more flexible offerings with ease and speed:

With consumers demanding speed and on-demand response, and also clearly in control in today’s buying environment, it becomes ever more important to develop and market products and offerings that capture this customer-centricity. Going digital can help provide anytime, anywhere services and determine more quickly what customers seek or don’t favor with products to help gain or retain their business.

Digital third-party administrator services can also help insurers launch products quicker and with a lower cost through combined technology advances, operational expertise, and flexible customer engagement models.

Opportunity to build long-term relationships and customer loyalty:

Digital technology enables insurers to deliver personalized service to customers that, if handled well, can instill customer loyalty and long-lasting ties by delivering convenience to customers’ lives. These tech advances give insurers much more frequent and proactive contact with customers instead of merely sending a bill, renewal notice or a claim.

The conveniences that digital tech can generate to enhance the customer experience cannot be stressed enough.

Digital presents the opportunity to maximize the value of every customer interaction – and with that can improve the value an insurer provides, in addition to customer satisfaction, trust and allegiance. At a time when research indicates consumer trust in insurance hasn’t risen above 50 percent in a decade, insurers can only benefit by providing customers with innovations that make their lives easier and simpler.  

Conclusion:

Prompted by the continuous evolution of digital technology, we’re seeing major shifts in consumer behavior across the board. To gain a competitive edge in this new age, businesses across all industries should consider reevaluating their business model from a customer-centric lens.

The post Consumer Behavior is Shifting Business Models; How Industries Are Adapting appeared first on ReadWrite.