MAIN INSIGHT 39
Olga Harvey
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, CHIEF OF STAFF
How are customer expectations changing as we emerge from the global pandemic?
It’s no secret that interactions between businesses and customers changed greatly during the global pandemic, as conducting business virtually became the normal way. But now that we are continuously transitioning back to face-to-face interactions, there has been a noticeable shift in customer expectations. As a result of becoming accustomed to self-serve tools like chatbots, customers now expect a response to any question within 24 hours, but also expect personalised, human interaction. If businesses can find the right balance between offering physical, face-to-face experiences alongside prompt levels of service then they have a far greater chance to win and retain customers.
To achieve this level of service, whether it’s in the process of winning a new customer or retaining an existing one, it is crucial that your sales and marketing departments are not working in silo. If they adhere to one, overarching strategy and have systems in place to ensure smooth transfers of knowledge across all team members then it becomes far easier to respond to a prospect or customer in an extremely timely manner.
Will enterprise sellers adopt a fully self-serve sales process in the near future?
For smaller business deals, it’s not uncommon for a buyer to go through their buying journey without needing to speak with somebody from the selling company. These buyers are comfortable consuming content from digital marketing channels and conducting their own online research in order to reach a decision. But when you look at enterprise deals, having that human connection and interaction still remains a crucial part of the deal, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. Many enterprise organisations will have existing systems and tools that any new product or service has to ‘play nicely’ with and add value on their own merit. Because this can be quite a complex question to answer, experienced consultants from the selling company will often need to spend time with their buying counterparts to establish what the onboarding and integration process is likely to look like before the buyer commits. This level of personal service can also be a valuable tool to help selling businesses differentiate themselves from their competitors within the market.
Experienced consultants from the selling company will often need to spend time with their buying counterparts to establish what the onboarding and integration process is likely to look like before the buyer commits.
Many people consider themselves to be exclusively digital marketers, but in reality they should consider themselves to be marketers in a digital world.
What does it mean to have a digital mindset?
Having a digital mindset shouldn’t only mean using new marketing methods to reach your audience, but rather to apply the power of digital marketing to traditional marketing techniques and boost their effectiveness. Brand building, advertising and events can all be delivered far quicker than before and at the same time reach a greater number of people, just by a slight change in attitude. Many people consider themselves to be exclusively digital marketers, but in reality they should consider themselves to be marketers in a digital world. It’s a subtle but important difference.
When harnessing digital marketing techniques, make sure you don’t get distracted by the shiny numbers - it’s critical to remember that at the other end of your marketing efforts, there is a human being on the receiving end. Make sure that whatever you broadcast via digital both resonates and adds value to the recipient. This will make it far more likely that they not only digest the content personally, but also are far more likely to then share it with other team members and departments within their business, thereby increasing your overall footprint.
Zendesk started the customer experience revolution in 2007 by enabling any business around the world to take their customer service online. Today, Zendesk is the champion of great service everywhere for everyone, and powers billions of conversations, connecting more than 100,000 brands with hundreds of millions of customers over telephony, chat, email, messaging, social channels, communities, review sites and help centers.
