Improving your overall Customer Experience In times of a Pandemic

The world (well, several parts of it) is still in the midst of the on-going Covid-19 crisis. But in order to help economies beat recession, now is the time for businesses across sectors to plan their reopening strategies. While sectors like travel and tourism that have been hard hit during the complete lockdowns imposed over the last two months need more to be done to pick up the pace of businesses again, segments like SaaS and Tech or ITES have been able to continue most business functions by imbibing a team wide remote work process during this time.

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It is not a new concept for tech sales teams to work remote; several SaaS based companies have had some of their teams on remote positions for years already.

However, while working remote has now become the new norm because of the Covid-19 pandemic, acquiring customers or ensuring a fair degree of customer satisfaction and success during this challenging time is still something teams are navigating their way through.

Here are a few ideas that can help technology sales teams and marketers improve their brand’s overall customer experience during these trying times.

• The Right Content, Shared Using a Seamless, Omnichannel Strategy

No B2B or tech customer is active on just one online platform today. Keeping in mind that communication is key to maintaining a good business relationship, now is the right time to focus on what your prospects and customers are more interested in and sharing that kind of information through different content formats (video, email, social media posts, etc) across multiple online channels. Ensuring that your audience sees a similar brand messaging across multiple channels will help in imbibing a good brand recall value as well.

The basis of this entire Covid-19 pandemic is that everyone in the workforce and otherwise is going through some kind of challenge on a daily basis, the lockdowns or partial restrictions, as the case may be have ensured that normal life of the pre Covid-19 days are a bygone era!

For tech sales teams who are eager to continue engaging with prospects during this downtime, focusing on creating a balanced customer experience will make it easier to start a sales conversation that has a higher chance of moving forward.

• Using Call Tracking Software for Better Engagement

The phone and the whole cold calling process will always be a good friend of sales. This step can also be used to create a more effective omnichannel messaging and strategy. AI-powered tools and call tracking software can be useful for sales teams during this time and even during the reopen phase to understand a prospect’s intent or projected interest in a product. The data extracted can also give sales teams a better understanding of their prospect’s location, preferred channel of communication and other key metrics that can be used to personalize a follow-up call and help move the prospect across the B2B buying journey.

A good customer experience doesn’t have to be a digital-only experience today. Even though most teams are still working from home with many choosing to adopt remote work until the end of 2020, now is the time to get creative with customer interactions to ensure your sales pitch and brand stands out, and a digital-only model might not prove to be the best fit.

Planning a cold call script that can help you build a better reputation in front of your prospect can be an effective starting point during this challenging time.

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• Predictive Analytics to meet Future and Expected Customer Needs

A big part of creating a balanced customer experience is anticipating what your customer needs before they show the need for it! Or, simply anticipating their next move or behavior.  Using predictive analytics to enhance your customer intelligence data and to predict your customer’s behavior will allow you to plan a better sales pitch and strategy based on what they are likely to do next or what product or feature they are likely to show interest in, next.

These fundamentals can also be used to segment your target list and provide a more exclusive hyper-personalized campaign that drives better sales results.

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• Building Trust

One of the biggest concerns the world has faced during the last few months and while in complete or partial lockdown mode has been cyber-security threats. While several prospects in B2B and tech know that sales and marketing teams are constantly collecting information about them based on their online behavior, there is a marked difference between collecting too much personal data and how you use the data you collected to build trust as a sales team and a brand.

Email attacks increased at the start of the Covid-19 lockdowns. In March, researchers detected over 400,000 spear phishing attacks.

Customers need to know that you respect their privacy and if you ensure that you a part of the solution and not the problem here, customers are more likely to trust you.

28% of Americans don’t think brands are doing enough to manage their personal data well, this in itself induces a feeling of apprehension when interacting with a sales rep of a new brand. When a customer knows that a brand is focused on protecting their data, they will be more interested in future interactions with them because there will be sense of trust at the base level.

Leading firms like Deloitte and KPMG have often advocated the importance of including cyber security and protection of customer data under the gamut of a customer experience strategy.

There is no set rule set in stone when it comes to customer experience and as the experts say, when it comes to sales and marketing, there is no one size fits all notion. To create a balanced customer experience, especially during a pandemic where business is slower than usual, it requires a little bit of creativity and better understanding of a customer’s needs.