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Engage Your Customers

Last Updated on Monday, 26 July 2010 11:20 Written by admin Thursday, 3 June 2010 12:36

Whether completing an Ecommerce sale, sending a mobile promotion to a customer at a mall, or asking a citizen proactively if help is required, every customer interaction is about being engaging. A discerning organization knows that a drop down menu with leading questions about a problem isn’t nearly as helpful as a live chat; that a search engine that cannot intuit a customer’s intended entry when mis-spelt can easily get the customer frustrated. A city hall that cannot text reminders about an upcoming meeting is several steps away from building a forum. Just texting estimated wait times at the DMV goes a long way in keeping queued-up customers satisfied.

Whether you define your customer as a consumer, user, citizen or partner, SkillNet effectively uses technology and best practices to ensure that every customer touch point transforms to an interaction-continuum.

Our experience in molding processes and systems at over fifty retailers, telcos, and gov agencies to achieve customer-centricity has gained us insights into customer behavior. We believe there are several components that need to work in tandem to bring about customer engagement-

• Assimilating customer-engagement as a perpetual way of business- There is a potential at every customer touch-point, to interact meaningfully rather than just filing case numbers and queries. To enable a conversation with your customer, systems have to be capable of building an information map of her past behavior, likes, dislikes, and wishes. Empowering every system, be it at the call center, front, or back office with this arsenal will ensure that every staff-member, system, process, and machine that interacts with your customer is equipped to be responsive.

• Focusing on the right environments and mediums – A person in her young 20s would much rather shop, share, or access information online, a busy professional would rather transact via phone, a middle-aged person would rather research online and shop/ ask a question in person, a senior citizen would rather not deal with kiosks, an immigrant would rather choose the preferred language of communication. Discovering and putting into use the preferred environment and medium is critical. SkillNet extends every system in the customer interaction process to be capable of internationalization and adapting to customer preferences; via social networking, point-of-sale, websites, PDAs, and other desirable interactive environments.

• Transforming to a customer life-time model of interaction- There are technological innovations now that enable organizations to look at the big picture, to move away from handling a case/ query/ file number at disparate, seemingly un-related instances. And transition to connecting the dots between past and current interactions, and ultimately envisaging customer behavior through his life-time. SkillNet’s partnerships with leading vendors and experience with open-source technologies empowers us to move our clients from a looking-glass tactic of customer-management to life-time customer-engagement.

• Integrating your customer touch-points and channels- Every organization invests into multiple ways of being accessible. However, at times, especially seen from a customer’s point of view, the various channels of communication may manifest as just re-cycled information. Enhancing inherent functionality of every system in the interaction process to seamlessly integrate and pass-on relevant information with other systems is crucial to successfully engaging a customer.

• Choosing the right systems- Be it open source, freeware, cloud, proprietary, or COTS, the right system empowers you with agility and adaptability. SkillNet’s emphasis on understanding client needs guarantees a right match between technology and functional gap. Our partnerships with leading vendors such as Oracle, IBM, and Endeca further enrich our solutions.

No matter the industry, the bottom line to acquiring and retaining customers is actually curved- the smile on a customer’s face; made possible by business processes and technology systems working in tandem to get the customer to where she wants to go.