MAIN INSIGHT 27
Phil Reynolds
SALES DIRECTOR EMEAI
What are some changes you’re noticing across the B2B landscape in the post-pandemic period and what should organisations be doing differently to improve customer acquisition?
Right from the beginning of the pandemic, we sat down as a sales organisation to discuss what we were going to do next. And I think the most important thing we agreed on was to have more empathy and a personal integration with customers. The pandemic was affecting everybody, so we decided to reach out to all our partners across all levels, just to let them know we were there for them. We kept in contact with them and in some cases, it was just a personal conversation while others were invited to supply medical cards, Covid cards, and vaccination records; that's where we scored most of our business wins.
We did very well during the pandemic because we kept our personal engagement at a high, especially in the after-sales service. We have exceptional people here in the industry and they stepped up and came out of their normal comfort zones to talk to people on a personal level. So, the customer engagement part really came to the forefront for our business.
In my opinion, what organisations need to change, and what we’ve certainly changed, was the amount of effort we put into personalisation of customer care and retention. And because of it we've come out much stronger. The loyalty of the partners and the customers on all levels has really grown for us. We've experienced record business on unit sales, on turnover, on profit and that has a lot to do with the way we conducted ourselves. We went above and beyond in reaching out to our customers to make sure that they knew that we were there to help them and we benefited from it.
Can you give some examples of how that approach benefited your company?
Thanks to this approach, when the pandemic really took hold, we were one of the only manufacturers that had a steady supply of products. This meant that we could facilitate the emergency hospitals that needed staff membership printers. And that was critical, because there were doctors and nurses coming in from all over and there were retired doctors and nurses being called upon. Even after the pandemic, whatever resellers or even the end-users needed we were able to provide it quickly and easily. That gave the customers who were struggling, because there was no business out there, a little bit of business.
Also, after the pandemic, we encouraged and helped many resellers to diversify to markets that they didn't diversify into before. For example, we created safe, antibacterial food labels that you can put into bakeries, supermarkets, and so on. Because people couldn’t come in, they were served at the door and these became really prevalent as people were looking into the shop wanting to see the information on the labels. Accordingly, we made the cards bigger, and we developed a product that could print on bigger cards. And that created a new line of business. It created sales and business for companies that were struggling through the pandemic.
We encouraged and helped many resellers to diversify to markets that they didn't diversify into before.
There will always be a place for good people who care about their partners and their customers, and those are the ones that are going to be successful. So right now, we really want to focus on that 20% customer engagement on a human level.
A recent Gartner report predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur in digital channels. The author suggests that to meet customers’ new buying preferences sales leaders must adopt a digital mindset. What are your thoughts on this?
The digital mindset is definitely important, and during the pandemic and in the post-pandemic period, it allowed buyers to engage with a source of products and services they need much easier. But for us, this means that we still have to work hard on human engagement because there's still that need for people to talk to each other, there's still that need for people to be guided towards a certain solution which they require.
So, while we welcome the digital mindset in a lot of areas, because it makes life a lot easier, when it comes to customer retention and customer acquisition, human involvement is still needed. There will always be a place for good people who care about their partners and their customers, and those are the ones that are going to be successful. So right now, we really want to focus on that 20% customer engagement on a human level.
Founded in 1992, Magicard is a pioneer of ID card printing with a full range of desktop devices for every secure ID card issuance requirement. Magicard printers are renowned for their built-in security features, including the HoloKote® secure watermark and digital shredding. Tens of thousands of Magicard printers are shipped from its UK manufacturing centre to more than 100 countries around the World each year. Magicard printers are trusted to print millions of secure ID cards annually, including Drivers Licences and National ID cards.
