S3 Blog

As the song goes “The times they are a changing” and never more so than in the current economic climate of the UK. Over the past 12 months or so the recession has hit thousands of businesses – both large and small, hard and as a result many have now gone bust. The times are changing and there has been a huge shift from the financially frivolous times of the 1990s and early 2000s to a time where millions are out of work and many cannot even afford to pay their mortgages. During the 1990s spending large amounts of money and actually being prod of this was very much the order of the day. Move forward 15 years and the UK is now experiences a credit crunch and those people who had racked up massive amounts of credit are now feeling the strain.

So, how are the times changing for businesses?

- Businesses are also suffering and many are now feeling the pinch as customers are now looking for cheaper deals on the internet and on the high street.

- Spending money recklessly is not seen as something to aspire to and this is forcing many retailers to drastically rethink their pricing plans.

- Business need to see the value of using good CRM (customer relationship management) software tools. Using such software can make all the difference to businesses that want to make the most out of every single customer contact that they have.

- Businesses need to recognise that they have to engage their customers to keep them returning to them time and time again. It is now no good to just market and sell goods or services, customers need to feel as though their thoughts and ideas are valid for a business and identify with the business. Feedback sections on websites and blogs are really useful for this to happen.

- Businesses now need to focus on new ways of reaching their customers. The internet has virtually limitless potential for businesses and there are plenty of methods that a business can choose to advertise which are diverse and attention grabbing.

- The recession has also taught business owners that nothing lasts forever and it will always pay to have a strategy in place for tough times. This can provide a business with the cushion that they need if the economic climate of their country changes.

- Businesses need to be flexible in their approach to their customers and their means of contacting them. With the advent of freely available mobile technology there is more scope to contact customers through email marketing, SMS messages and social networking sites. Smart businesses take notice of this and move with the times.

- No business can ever afford to rest on its laurels and assume that they will always have a strong customer base. This is foolhardy to say the least and all business owners should be constantly looking for ways in which to improve the service that they provide.

Customer engagement is a term that is given when customers engage with a brand or company and it is based on interactions that are repeated and enhance the psychological, physical and emotional investment on that brand or company. When a business gets it right customer engagement can work to create lifelong customers for that business and during a recession customer engagement is essential. Many companies traditionally believed that customer engagement stemmed from television-based advertising, but now thanks to the recession and the emergence of Web 2.0 technology companies are now seeing the usefulness of the Internet in increasing customer engagement.

For customer engagement to continue and survive the recession it is important that businesses realise they need to find cost-effective ways of engaging their customers with their brand. There are several different ways in which this can be done with massive success such as:

- Blogging - today most businesses which have their own website will also have a business blog through which it can inform its customers of any news relating to their products and services or are just fun for customers to read. Adding to this every few days means that the customer will return to a website time and time again and become further engaged with the brand or company.

- User generated content is also a great way to increase customer engagement as people like to have their views on their opinions up on websites for other customers to read and comment on. This method is customer engagement at its best and it encourages more customers to become engaged with the brand by creating their own content on websites.

- Social networking sites are also helping to increase customer engagement during the recession as millions of people all over the world are members of such sites. By joining these sites a business can engage frequently with their customers and at a fraction of the cost that advertising previously used. The use of social networking sites can also help a business to attract more investment from its backers as its potential is so huge.

- Customer feedback on websites is also a very useful form of customer engagement which helps customers to feel valued and as though their opinions are welcomed by a brand.

- Many companies also using smaller blog sites such as Twitter to increase customer engagement and for many this is a yet to be explored avenue which can help to increase customer engagement even further.

As shown, customer engagement during the recession is possible and it can even provide savings for any business who chooses to use the Internet to their advantage. Businesses that have not developed an Internet-based strategy for customer engagement during the recession (and to continue after it) will find that their customer engagement plummets. So any business that wants to raise customer engagement and help to increase their profits even ensuring a recession needs to get Internet savvy and start to utilise the potential of this huge marketplace.

There are always more things to do than time, so you need to prioritise your workload to ensure you are focusing on the correct things.  Some things to think of are:-

Customer Knowledge & Understanding

Update any missing data on customer records to fill in the gaps and provide them with a better service when you contact them. Often vital information is not recorded by businesses and this can be their downfall. For instance what happens if customer X is not contactable on certain days of the week and they have informed you of this, yet these are the days when one of your sales reps is trying to contact them? The answer is the customer gets frustrated at the number of missed calls they have regularly had from your reps even though they know they have informed you of their unavailability. This in turn makes the customer believe that you and your business do not listen to their needs and this will lead to lost custom. It is always vitally important to record such details even if they seem irrelevant at the time as it will lead to increase customer loyalty. S3 CRM also gives you the opportunity to add pictures of customers and employees to their records so that you will never forget a face again.

Workload & Office Productivity

See at a glance who is the user with the most outstanding tasks, if you spot someone who appears to be overloaded with work and has several deadlines approaching you can divert extra users to help out. This will prevent any missed deadlines and customer dissatisfaction, something that should be avoided at all times.

Employee Overview

With the fully integrated, business wide calendar you can easily see who has booked holidays and when, meaning that you can schedule meetings and launches when you have the maximum number of employees in work.

Regards

Dean

Reason No. 10

“S3 CRM is very reasonably priced – Why pay through the nose for CRM solutions that were created for someone else’s business, with S3 CRM you can customise your dashboard to show what you need to know in your business and change it when necessary.”

S3 CRM costs less than 21p per day and for that 21p you get everything included.

Can you afford not to be using S3 CRM?

Regards

Dean

Reason No. 8

“Fully integrated employee calendars – These can then be accessed by anyone to see who is in work, on holiday, off sick or on a business trip in order to provide a better service by utilising employees that are in work on any given day.”

Every had the issue where Sue in Accounts or John in the back-room has been ill or on holiday and they held an important piece of information that the customer wants right now?  With online calendaring and associated tools you wont ever have to be in this position again.

Regards

Dean

Blogs and blogging explained in the commoncraft animation format.

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Regards

Dean

Reason No. 7

“Project planning tools – If your business undertakes several projects at once and has various employees working on them deadlines can sometimes be missed. By using the project planning tools on S3 CRM you can see at a glance how many projects are open, which are approaching their deadlines and who is working on them. You can also set alerts to warn you or the employees working on projects that a deadline is looming so one is never missed again. This will put an end to missed deadlines and frustrated customers as you turn them into customers who rely on you as they know deadlines are met.”

Dont get de-focused when you have multiple projects / customers all expecting service in the same time period. Use best practise project management tools which link directly into your calendar and send out email / SMS alerts when you require the information.

Getting a customers is harder than keeping a customer - so focus on delivering that project on time every time and maintain that customer forever!

Regards

Dean

Reason No. 6

“S3 CRM has total accessibility for authorised persons from anywhere in the world – Many business owners take trips overseas or to other parts of the country and many feel as though they take their finger off the pulse of their business whilst they are away. As S3 CRM is a web based application it can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an internet connection, so you are never more than a click away from your business or your employees.”

You no longer need to be tethered to your computer or desk. You can get access to information from any internet connected computer (including the Apple iPhone) and read, add and update your business records immediatly.

Consumers expect quick turnaround and quality replies - and there is no better way of doing this than ensuring all of your activity is administered online - thereby removing unecessary duplication of work and ensuring timely responses.

Regards

Dean

RSS explained in the commoncraft animation format.

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Regards

Dean

Reason No. 9

“S3 CRM allows you to see your business at a glance – Simply log into your dashboard and see everything that is going on in your business on one screen from the number of outstanding invoices to projects that are drawing to a close. Say goodbye to opening endless screens just to find out what the total of paid invoices are that week.”

1 login, 1 dashboard screen, all of your information how you want to see it.

Couldn’t be simpler and couldn’t be more useful.

Regards

Dean