The technology behind customer engagement

Hold a customer-engagement summit

There are so many ways to learn today: books, blogs, articles, magazines, newspapers, journals, videos, podcasts, and multimedia.

However, attending a summit or conference will broaden your horizon, and upgrade your learning curve in a dramatic way. The benefits are enormous.

Adobe conducted a study on the impact of summit in attendees’ lives.

The company found that 98% of attendees met or exceeded their expectation. And 80% of them discovered new skills to impact their organization and their career.

If you’ve the resources, I encourage you to host a customer-engagement summit. You could collaborate with other businesses to make this a success.

It’s really not about the ambience, but the value you plan to bring to the table. What matters is the impact you’ll make in customers’ lives as they come.

According to the Academic Association of Contemporary European Studies, when you attend academic conferences, you’ll learn from others and dramatically improve your own skills and knowledge about your field.

As you engage with other people’s work, dare to ask questions.

In like manner, hosting a customer-engagement summit gives you the rare opportunity to meet face-to-face with your customers (especially the VIP customers).

That would make a lot more sense. And your brand will stand out in the crowd.

If you look around carefully, you’ll agree with me that successful digital companies that have loyal and engaged customers all have annual or semi-annual summits/conference.

For example, CEO of Digital Marketer, alongside his inspiring team organizes the Traffic & Conversion Summit yearly.

The summit is regarded as one of the largest conversion summit in North America. As I write this article, the company is about to launch a second flagship summit, which they call, “Content & Commerce Summit.

Remember that the focus of a customer-engagement summit isn’t necessarily to provide great customer support. Rather, it’s to cement the relationship that you already have with your customers.

Customer engagement goes beyond managing the initial touch points. It also cuts across understanding what your customers want and how they want it.

Yes, if your customers want you to create a digital product, have you determined the type of product that you’ll create?

You should got to find out.

And it’s through engagement that you become certain. Customer engagement is your responsibility – and you’ve got to do it now. By the way, it’s not a destination, though, but a journey that never ends.

Два пути изучения ожиданий

Как изучить ожидания клиента?

Первый путь – исследования. Качественные и количественные, с разбивкой по отраслям, географии и профилям клиентов. Например, в ходе серии глубинных интервью можно составить список сервисных атрибутов, задавая вопрос: «Из чего состоит сервис для вас?»

Самые популярные ответы от потребителей – это чистота, скорость, вежливость, широкий ассортимент, удобная локация, наличие скидок и акций, сервисов доставки и возврата и др. Зная ожидания клиентов, менеджмент может фокусно улучшать сервис.

Второй путь изучения ожиданий – знание трендов, тенденций, прогнозов и мнений лидеров отрасли. После сложного 2020-го, каждый бизнес пытается заглянуть в будущее.

Что же ждет нас в области клиентского сервиса в ближайшие годы? Не так уж много нового. То, что раньше было намечено пунктиром, сейчас написано жирным шрифтом.

Часть трендов приходит не только с Запада, но и со стороны Китая. На фоне кризиса в экономике многих стран руководители принимают решения о замене человеческого труда технологиями. Лучшим сотрудником 2021 года станет чат-бот. С другой стороны, особенно актуальными становятся гибридные формы работы: дом и офис соединяются, все ищут баланс между интересами клиентов, сотрудников и бизнеса.

Ниже мы хотим представить 2 группы трендов. Первая касается клиентского сервиса, вторая – опыта сотрудников. Клиент и тот, кто его обслуживает, – две руки здорового сервиса. Прямая взаимозависимость счастья сотрудника и клиента доказана. Потому тренды в сервисе и удовлетворенности сотрудников можно рассматривать только вместе.

Intercom

Intercom customer engagement platform admin panel. Source

Intercom features as a customer engagement platform

live chat and posts
chatbots
in-app surveys
banners
push notifications
email marketing (including surveys, dynamic content, and scheduling), and so on

Pricing

Free trial: available for free for 14 days, but you’ll have to give your credit card details.

There’s a Starter plan for very small businesses with a price of $74/month if billed annually.

Other pricing information is available by demand. Your paid plan will depend on the agents’ seats you need and the number of people you reach monthly with outbound messages using Intercom.

Pros and cons of Intercom as a customer engagement platform

Pros:

Easy to install and use.
The service provides in-depth data about clients.
Strong in-product feature set.

Cons:

The price is too high, and plans are complicated.
Customer support takes up to 24 hours to process your request.

Find out why Dashly is a more functional solution than Intercom

История

Выход из капитала разработчика ПО для ускорения сайтов Zaraz

В декабре 2021 года американская компания Cloudflare объявила о покупке Zaraz, но стоимость и другие условия сделки раскрывать не стала. Продажа Zaraz знаменует собой выход из капитала стартапа российского фонда Cabra VC. Подробнее здесь.

Инвестирование в сервис по распознаванию размера ноги Neasty

В конце октября 2021 года компания Neasty сообщила о привлечении $1 млн от фондов Cabra VC и Flyer One VC (ранее Genesis), а также бизнес-ангелов клубов United Investors Александра Горного и Around Capital и других инвесторов. Полученные средства стартап планирует потратить на расширение ассортимента поддерживаемой обуви (детский сегмент, ботинки), разработку функций определения плоскостопия и гиперпронации, запуск версии для web и Android, а также упрощение интеграции для партнеров и создание команды менеджеров Customer Success, которые отвечают за заботу о клиентах и следят за тем, чтобы продукт оставался ценным для покупателя. Подробнее здесь.

Инвестирование в сервис аутентификации по геометрии лица XIX

18 октября 2021 года стало известно об инвестировании $500 тыс. в XIX. В стартап вложились президент девелоперской группы RBI Эдуард Тиктинский и сооснователь стримингового сервиса Muzlab Виктор Христенко, ранее в стартап инвестировала компания Cabra VC. Подробнее здесь.

Инвестирование в разработчика ПО для медицинского биллинга Collectly

В середине сентября 2021 года стало известно об инвестировании $3 млн в Collectly. Основным инвестором в рамках раунда финансирования выступил венчурный фонд TMT Investments. Кроме того, в сделке участвовали фонд Cabra VC, инвестор компании с выпуска Y Combinator 2017 года и венчурные фонды S16 и Starta Capital. Подробнее здесь.

Запуск фонда на $32 млн для инвестирования в технологии роста продаж

Российская венчурная компания Cabra VC запустила новый фонд на $32 млн для инвестирования в технологии роста продаж. Об этом стало известно в апреле 2021 года.

О новом проекте в эфире в Clubhouse рассказал управляющий партнер венчурной компании Cabra VC Алексей Алексанов. По его словам, сначала компания инвестировала в стартапы на стадии идеи, затем — на Seed (стадия изучения рынка, составления и реализации технического задания, составления бизнес-плана, тестирование созданного проекта или продукта, подготовка к запуску проекта, переговоры с первыми потенциальными клиентами). Третий фонд сосредоточится на раундах финансирования Series А — это стартапы с product-market fit и выручкой на уровне $100 тысяч в месяц и выше, пояснил Алексанов.

Российская венчурная компания Cabra VC запустила новый фонд на $32 млн для инвестирования в технологии роста продаж

Сооснователь Cabra VC Шухрат Ибрагимов в разговоре с Rusbase сообщил, что третий венчурный фонд сделает акцент на инвестиции в проекты, развивающие технологии вовлечения клиентов (customer engagement technologies), способные увеличить конверсию продаж и сократить отток клиентов. Планируется выделение средств для 15 американских стартапов.

Мы любим инвестировать в США, там самый большой рынок M&A, — отметил Ибрагимов.

По его словам, в 2021 году Cabra VC намерена запустить отдельный фонд с фокусом на индийские финтех-стартапы. Результаты работы первых портфельных компаний инвестиционной компании подтверждают, что в Индии компания может пройти путь от раунда А до статуса «единорога» за три-четыре года.

Кроме того, в планах Cabra VC запускать по два-три узкоспециализированных фонда каждый год. Часть из них будут ориентированы на Азию, часть — на Латинскую Америку. В фокус интересов венчурной компании также войдут маркетплейсы, финтех, локальные и глобальные стратегии.

Who is Responsible for the Different Roles in the LAER Model?

While the LAER model will continue to evolve as more businesses begin to embrace it as part of their day-to-day operations, here is an example of an established LAER-based customer coverage model that breaks down the traditional roles and responsibilities between sales and services. Please note that we’ve reversed the Expand and Renew phases in these examples to make it easier to map roles to them.

Land: Landing the customer has historically been handled by your Sales team. Their sole responsibility is to engage prospects and turn them into customers, but don’t tend to focus on expand selling activities.

Create mobile apps

Have you created your first mobile app yet?

If no, what are you waiting for?

It’s easy to learn different programming languages.

You can drive growth easily with mobile apps. Take a look at the average number of apps used and time per person each month, from Q4 2012 to the Q4 2014.

Deep analytics combined with good psychology for user behavior are the defining factors that differentiates an app from a website or other software.

When it comes to customer engagement, we’ve seen firsthand how apps can turn a casual conversation into a bonded relationship that generates sales.

Having a unique app icon helps too.

If you’re looking to engage your customers, while providing unfeigned value that will remain fresh in their minds for years to come, then you should seriously consider creating mobile apps.

By the way, you can get started with your first mobile app in 15 minutes – Sign up with Buildfire.com

What is Customer Engagement?

The measure of a brand’s interaction with its customers across the website, social media platforms, and all other touchpoints throughout the product lifecycle is known as customer engagement. The solutions include consistent engagement with buyers on different channels to strengthen human-to-human connection and add value to the customer-buyer relationship.

We have moved from brick-and-mortar stores to online e-commerce websites, however, there’s one thing that has not changed- the belief in the mantra that customer is always right and the king. Big-commerce giants have taught us that its metrics should be closely managed and measured for high returns and loyal customers.

The definition is not limited to interaction, services, support, and sales. A full-proof customer engagement plan involves the on-going and consistent habit of corporate anticipating buyers’ needs. Keeping in touch with customers foster healthy relationships, thereby, resulting in business growth.

What are the advantages of customer engagement?

Brands that deliver excellence have the most engaged customers. It is not something that comes with experience. Your product’s quality, values, and online presence increase engaged customers. By implementing a customer engagement strategy, you will reap the following benefits:

· Increased efforts from the customers

Customers are on a constant hunt to buy the lowest-priced product. But, if you engage with customers rightly, they will go out of their way and buy from you as you have invested in them, emotionally.

· A great number of referrals

If they like it, they will mention it. Referral marketing is something that the brand does not control. However, customer engagement can score you a great number of referrals. Most customers recommend the product or the service if they had liked it. Nothing is better for your business than word of mouth and an honest peer referral. Speaking frankly, it’s free marketing.

How has customer engagement evolved?

As the customer purchase path evolves, brands also have to consider the evolution in customer engagement. Considering that customers engage through multiple channels, brands have to create a seamless experience. However, omnichannel engagement faces several challenges.

The information related to the customer profile is limited to an ID or a transaction with limited information about their preference and device type.
There is no cohesion between the offline and online avatars of the customer. So, it’s difficult for brands to map their offline and online identity and monitor the continuous data flow between the different platforms.
Using too many channels also leads to broken customer profiles as brands have a tough time mapping the various profiles and creating a seamless experience.
The lack of a complete customer profile could also lead the brands to create generic campaigns that fail to engage customers effectively.
Another challenge is that brands risk losing the engagement data if the customer changes the device or platform.

The only way to address these challenges is by building a 360-degree customer view. This will help the brands to create a consistent and seamless engagement with the customer.

Read more on how to build a seamless omnichannel engagement with customers, download our e-book.

Для начала нужен личный опыт

Моя история началась с того, что классе в восьмом тетя подарила мне диск со второй или третьей версией фотошопа. Поначалу я с ним просто баловался: вставлял голову тогдашнего президента на фотографию Black Sabbath и прочее. Чуть позже я разжился книжкой по HTML, что мгновенно сделало меня «невероятным экспертом», которому поручили создать сайт родной школы.

Моя первая настоящая работа была далека от информационных технологий. Я гордо назывался дизайнером, фотографировал микроволновки, делал плакаты, брошюры, этикетки со скидками. Очень ценный опыт, кстати говоря.

Мне кажется, что именно опыт — основа UX-дизайна. Ведь для того, чтобы дизайнить чей-то experience, нужно иметь свой. У молодых специалистов часто нет опыта ни в пользовании софтом, ни в разработке; они в целом не так много видели в жизни. Такие дизайнеры торопятся уйти за модной аббревиатурой, не зная основ.

В начале 2000-х считалось, что дизайнер — это человек, который может сделать все что угодно, отличное от математики: и кино, и озвучку, и статью написать. Термина User Experience Designer не существовало. Эта мультизадачность помогла мне многому научиться.

По моим ощущениям, становиться дизайнером User Experience, не будучи каким-то другим техническим специалистом, очень сложно. Станьте хорошим тестировщиком, поработайте несколько лет — вы будете тестировать софт, и вам будет на чем учиться. А когда узнаете, как бывает, тогда можете что-то дизайнить.

Нынешним дизайнерам-новичкам я бы посоветовал освоить визуальную графику. Многие говорят: «Я UX-дизайнер, делаю только UX, рисовать не умею». Знаю таких людей, но не верю в это. Хороший дизайнер должен уметь делать графику, хотя бы в теории. Знать, чем один пиксель отличается от трех, как цвета отображаются на разных устройствах, овладеть основами типографики. Люди, приходя в дизайн, узнают эти вещи уже потом. А лучше бы сначала.

Engage customers with In-Product messaging

When it comes to product messaging (i.e., notifying your customers about your new product), there are several key channels that you can use.

Out of these four channels, in-product messaging happens to generate the best conversion.

But you can improve your conversions, by sending in-product messages. Because, that’s what your intimate customers are desperately looking for.

According to Wikipedia, in-product messaging means:

“Content, and related media delivered directly to a user’s internet-connected device or software application, with the purpose of informing, gathering feedback from, engaging with, or marketing to that specific user or segment of users at often-higher engagement rates than other digital marketing and online marketing channels.”

The part of this definition that you should consider critically is:

“Marketing to that specific user or segment of users.”

From the definition, you can see that when you send targeted message to a segment of your users, you’ll get higher engagement rates.

Sadly, not everyone of your subscribers or ideal customers want your latest product or ebook.

The ideal approach is to message a specific segment of your customer base with the exact product/offer which they’ve indicated interest.

In-product messaging is a viable strategy to adopt, because there is a market fit, which is the direction correlation between product and market.

Not all CRM software are equipped with in-product messaging feature. If you find any marketing automation software that supports it, you should grab it with both arms.

How To Create a Retail Customer Engagement Strategy

Companies that focus on reactive customer service more than proactive engagement may be hurting themselves by leaving opportunities on the table. More than half of consumers believe companies need to change how they engage. This reinforces the significance of customer engagement and retention strategies, knowing a majority of customers take it that seriously.

Retail management/leadership should review how the brand is performing in all areas including:

Social optimization
Email workflows
Transactional emails
Onsite pop-ups
In-store signage
In-store customer communication

When onboarding strategies for customer engagement, look to brand leaders like Sephora for inspiration. The best retail customer engagement strategies focus on omnichannel interactions. Omnichannel engagement isn’t just reaching people on multiple channels — it reaches them across channels. Keep reading for ideas on how to kick-start the brainstorming process for effective company engagement.

Tip: if you want to learn more besides the retail industry, check out also some customer engagement strategies for the tourism industry.

Why customer engagement matters

There are more ways than ever to engage with customers today. This means lots of opportunities for brands to capture consumer attention and get them on board. It also means that competitors have the same opportunities…

In order to boost consumer engagement, brands must actively work to connect and interact with customers, at every possible opportunity. Ultimately whatever customer engagement strategies you employ, be consistent. Craft messages that are on-brand and suitable for the target audience, and create positive end-to-end customer experiences, from their very first interaction throughout the entire brand journey.

Give them a consistent (and exceptional) experience and you’ll be rewarded with their trust, loyalty – and engagement.

How can a customer engagement platform help modern teams?

Do you know 70% of customer experience professionals view silos as the most significant obstacle in customer service? Silos don’t just deteriorate trust between the teams but could also lead to critical decision-making delays. Despite knowing the shortcomings of silos, the sales and customer service teams work in siloes. They don’t collaborate, and as no one takes charge, the brand risks losing potential sales opportunities. The lack of accountability and transparency could impact the brand’s sales and revenue long-term. One way to resolve this problem is by using customer engagement platforms.

A customer engagement platform consolidates all the information about the customer in a single place. This enables the sales and customer service teams to understand customer behavior, improve segmentation, and send relevant content to boost conversions. It also provides the team with valuable insights into why drop-offs happen and improves engagement accordingly. It enables the teams to improve their efficiency across acquisition, retention, and up-sell/cross-sell.

Most importantly, as the customer engagement platform automates the repetitive tasks and streamlines the workflows, the teams can optimize customer engagement. It can help improve the team’s efficiency and boost customer engagement metrics.

Check out our blog on customer engagement for modern teams for more information.

21 ways to rekindle mobile app engagement

A discussion on customer engagement is incomplete without mentioning mobile app engagement. You may have built a best-in-class mobile app, but all your efforts could go in vain if you don’t focus on app engagement. Mobile app engagement gives your customer reasons to return to your app and perform the desired action. This is important because research shows that an app loses 77% of its daily customers within the first three days of installation and almost 95% of them within 90 days. So, what can brands do to improve mobile app engagement? We have listed 21 ideas to rekindle customer engagement.

Focus on customer engagement early
Make onboarding easy
Distinguish between the mobile app and web experience
Use push notifications smartly (preferably send event-based notifications)
Keep the messages natural and actionable
Communicate and be interactive
Focus on digital responsiveness
Leverage the right channels
Implement widgets
Incorporate chatbots
Provide location-based app ideas
Add spotlight indexing
Employ analytics
Re-engage your mobile app customers
Re-look and optimize the onboarding process
Deeplink to the relevant in-app location
Employ intelligent in-app analytics and insights
Offer rewards
Make social sharing easy
Increase app utility
Develop a seamless cross-channel experience

For more ideas on improving mobile customer engagement, read this article that discusses ways to improve mobile app engagement.

How is artificial intelligence impacting customer engagement and experience?

The first digital revolution in customer engagement arrived in the 1990s with the internet. It saw companies scrambling to establish online footprints so prospective buyers could engage with them. The second revolution was the advent of AI, which is looking to be just as influential as the internet was.

The shift brought about by the internet was scale—companies could now reach more people than ever before. But such reach was mostly generic; everybody went to the same website and got the same message. AI upped the ante by allowing companies to add a crucial ingredient to the mix—personalisation. Thanks to AI, businesses can now enable real-time, scalable, and intelligent personalisation. It has resulted in nothing less than a fundamental shift in the customer engagement process.

Jason Bloomberg

Jason Bloomberg is a leading IT industry analyst, Forbes contributor, keynote speaker, and globally recognized expert on multiple disruptive trends in enterprise technology and digital transformation. He is founder and president of Agile Digital Transformation analyst firm Intellyx. He is ranked #5 on Onalytica’s list of top Digital Transformation influencers for 2018 and #15 on Jax’s list of top DevOps influencers for 2017, the only person to appear on both lists. Mr. Bloomberg is the author or coauthor of four books, including The Agile Architecture Revolution (Wiley, 2013). His next book, Agile Digital Transformation, is due within the next year.

Engati

Engati customer engagement platform admin panel. Source

Engati is a live chat and chatbot platform for customer engagement increase. Using Engati, you can build a chatbot in just a few minutes and publish it across any of 15 integrated communication channels. The platform promises to help generate more leads, increase Conversion Rates, and boost customer support metrics.

According to some users’ reviews, the service might be too costly for startups, even though it eventually pays off. But the solution will perform the best for mid-market businesses.

Engati features as a customer engagement platform.

There are two key features: live chat and chatbot. But along with these, Engati provides:

pre-built and custom integrations (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Skype, Slack, and so on);
custom reports.

Pricing

Free trial: available, but gives access to limited functionality.

The pricing is available by request since it depends on the set of features you choose.

Pros and cons of Engati as a customer engagement platform

Pros:

Visual chatbot editor and pre-built templates.
Responsive customer support.

Cons:

Advanced integrations are available on the most expensive plan.
Small feature set.

How to choose a customer engagement platform

There are so many platforms and services that it may be very tricky to choose one for you. Needs differ from business to business, so pay attention to those customer engagement platform features that will meet your requirements and business goals.

We advise you to pay extra attention to the following tools:

Live chat is a must-have for customer support. When a user visits your website and explores your product, some questions might pop up. They may leave your website forever if they can’t find who to ask or where to do it. Don’t fence off the questions. It’s better when your live chat engagement is high — this shows that users are interested in your product.
Lots of companies use a chatbot as proactive customer support and engagement tool. Say a user visits your website. You send an “I’m here if needed” message via chatbot to engage them in conversation, and turn a website visitor into a prospect.

Video/audio calls are a kind of supplement to a live chat. Sometimes it’s more convenient to book a call than try to explain some complicated issue via message.
Analytics tools are a must-have in your tech stack to track the efficiency of your marketing and customer support activities. For convenient use, they better be embedded into a customer engagement platform.
The opportunity for omnichannel communication with customers. If a prospect starts communicating on Instagram/WhatsApp but finishes it in a live chat, you won’t lose a single message and stay in the context.
Pay attention to integrations — check if a customer engagement platform you chose integrates with other tools you already use.

Now, let’s explore what customer engagement platforms exist, what features they offer, and how suitable they are for your business. Platforms on this list suit companies of different sizes with different budget.

If you don’t have time to read, check out our hit parade of the best customer engagement platforms in this video

We know so much info might be overwhelming. So to help you make a decision, we’ve made a table with platforms’ pricing so you could find the most affordable one for your business.

	Trial	Free plan	Pricing	The price depends on
Dashly	7 days	Yes	From $39/mo	Number of website visitors and messages sentThe number of agents’ seats is unlimited
Zendesk	30 days	No	From $19/mo	Number of agents’ seats
Twilio	No	No	Custom price	The features you use
Bold360 (Genesys DX)	60 days for chatbot	Up to 12 months	From $75/mo	The features you need
Intercom	14 days	No	Price on demand	Number of website visitors and agents’ seats
Freshdesk	21 days	Yes	From $15/mo	Number of agents’ seats
Tidio	7 days	Yes	From $19/mo	Number of agents’ seats
Engati	Available	No	Price on demand	Features you choose
EngageBay	No	Yes	From $11,99	Number of agents’ seats
Userlike	14 days	Yes	From $90	Number of agents’ seats
Salesforce	30 days	No	From $400/mo	Number of agents’ seats
Pega	30 days	No	From $260/mo or $1.26/request	Number of agents’ seats and customer service requests
Zoho CRM	15 days	No	From $14	Number of agents’ seats
Eudata	No	No	Price on demand	Features you choose
LivePerson	No	No	Price on demand	Number of agents’ seats

But of course, pricing might not be enough to make up your mind. So we prepared a table with pricing and features of all customer engagement platforms mentioned in this article. Grab it here

Salesforce

Salesforce customer engagement platform admin panel. Source

Salesforce is a complex platform that combines products for sales, customer support, marketing, commerce, and so on. It also offers tools for customer engagement, personalization, and automation. In other words, there is everything for you to provide the best customer experience and boost customer engagement among website visitors.

This solution is the best for mid-market and enterprise companies that want to increase customer engagement.

Salesforce features as a customer engagement platform

email marketing
live chat
chatbot
content creation tools
integration with Salesforce Sales Cloud so that you can unite sales and marketing data
triggered responses and campaigns along a customer journey
SMS, MMS, push-notifications
A/B tests and analytics

Pricing

Free trial: available for 30 days.

Note that the billing is annual — you must contact Salesforce customer support to pay monthly.

Pros and cons of Salesforce as a customer engagement platform

Pros:

Easy to use, friendly interface.
Ability to customize everything.
You can track a lot of customer data.

Cons:

Chatbot and many other advanced features are only available as an add-on.
You need developers for additional functionality.
Many users find the license very expensive.

Советы тем, кто хочет стать Сustomer Engagement Manager

Разберитесь в особенностях сферы клиента

Если у вас есть хотя бы приблизительное понимание всех составляющих рабочего процесса, это будет вашим преимуществом. Большинство клиентов все-таки очень технические люди, им интересно разговаривать с точки зрения решений. Общаться на отвлеченные темы они не хотят, вы просто раздражаете их. Клиенту неинтересно с вами, потому что вы ничего полезного ему не рассказываете

Лучше обратите внимание на все особенности сферы клиента и на примерах из жизни доносите свою точку зрения

Изучите культурную среду собеседника

Самое важное — знать особенности культурной среды, в которой мы находимся. Культурные отсылки — это о примерах, метафорах, о том, как можно шутить, говорить, на какие фильмы и музыку ссылаться и т. д

Если убрать из разговора эту составляющую, то общение становится сухим и сводится к обмену фактами.

Помните, откуда вы родом

Изучайте чужую культуру, но не забывайте, кто вы. Если вы из Украины, то не пытайтесь не быть украинцем. Так не получится, а выглядеть будет смешно. Нужно разбираться в своей собственной культуре, понимать, что вы можете рассказать. При этом уметь делать это ненавязчиво. Например, не надо говорить вслух, что сгущенка лучше, чем кленовый сироп. Показывать особенности не значит давить.

Многие люди, которые выросли в 90-е, как и я, абсолютно не представляют, откуда они вообще, что такое украинская культура, где это, почему это важно. Когда другие видят, что вы не любите свою родину, у них это вызывает недоумение, они привыкли относиться к своей стране иначе

Поймите, чем больше у вас знаний о разных культурах, тем больше выгоды вы получите

Когда другие видят, что вы не любите свою родину, у них это вызывает недоумение, они привыкли относиться к своей стране иначе. Поймите, чем больше у вас знаний о разных культурах, тем больше выгоды вы получите.

Умейте поддержать разговор

К примеру, один из ваших клиентов внезапно захочет поговорить о гольфе. Вот надо ему. А вы или знаете, что сказать, или нет. А другой клиент хочет обсудить, как летают дроны. И точно так же: вы или знаете, что ответить, или нет. Но вы остаетесь одним человеком, а клиентов у вас 11.

Не стоит говорить о вещах, в которых вы не разбираетесь. И никогда не стоит затрагивать политику. С ней вообще очень интересная история в Америке. Это сильный аргумент, если вы угадали, кто демократ, кто республиканец. Но если вы не попали, то разговор для вас закончен навсегда.

Я бы посоветовал потренироваться реагировать на неудачи, учиться на ошибках, а не позволять им прибивать вас к земле.

Старайтесь по максимуму

Ваши ошибки стоят другим людям работы. Например, клиент пришел и говорит, что ему нужно 15 человек на такой-то проект, и просит подготовить ему предложение. Мы идем готовим и одновременно ищем людей. Выглядит так, будто все уже сделано. Однако приходим мы показать предложение, а оно плохое. Кто-то что-то не услышал и сделал не так, как клиент просил. Это наша ошибка. А эти 15 человек теряют работу.

Осознавайте ответственность

Меня очень расстраивает, когда я что-то пообещал, но из-за обстоятельств не смог выполнить обещание. В результате другие люди тоже вынуждены менять свои планы, кто-то больше, кто-то меньше. Я чувствую эту ответственность каждый день. И порекомендовал бы людям осознавать то, что они делают. Я не говорю, что не надо идти в эту сферу — просто знайте, что это вообще не о вас. Все, что вы делаете, не имеет к вам никакого отношения. Это имеет отношение к людям и их труду, это не просто имена и цифры.

Respond promptly to customer calls

How fast do you respond to customer calls?

Fast replies generate revenue. When an airline responded to a customer’s Tweet in less than 6 minutes, the customer was willing to pay almost $20 more for that airline in the future.

Companies like Dell, Xerox, Starbucks, Apple, and several the like are leading the way – because they respond promptly to customer calls.

In case you don’t know, here’s a shocker:

Customers are impatient.

It’s estimated that humans attention span is 8 seconds – which is 1 second lower than that of a goldfish.

You’ve got to understand that people are not ready to wait for 48 hours to get their questions answered, when another brand can answer within 24 hours.

Even if the question requires some technical know-how, it’s vital to up your game. You can achieve tremendous results if you have a technical team or department to handle these technical issues.

When it comes to responding to customer’s feedback quickly, don’t make excuses.

How fast you respond will help you gauge and understand the difference between customer service and customer experience. “Experience” is as a result of the service you provide.

If your service is awesome, but you are slow, customer experience will be negative.

On the other hand, if the service is great and the time it took to deliver it blends properly, customer experience will be high and positive.

Don’t wait for a customer to resend a question, or create a new support.

I agree that the company is good at what they do, but I can’t recommend them in terms of customer service.

Speed is critical.