Tag Archive for: Customers

Top 3 Ways To Enhance Customer Experience

Customer expectations go beyond the product and service-demanding experiences that relate to the brand in more ways than before. An improved customer journey is at the core of Customer Experience.

With businesses increasingly moving to the cloud, customer experience is a fundamental requirement of every marketing strategy. It takes center stage in the fiercely competitive business world, and is expected to become the number one differential even over price and product. Customers have become very demanding, and loyalty is no longer a simple association with the name of a brand anymore.

Agility and speed are the qualities everyone is looking for, with no customer willing to wait long  for anything, be it information or solving a problem. To meet the renewed mindset of people, companies are going out of their way to deliver quick responses and quick solutions.

Latest business models revolve around acquiring and retaining customers to attract the market share of competitors. These companies are stopping short of nothing to ensure the customer receives the best value for money. The popular strategies include adopting new technologies such as voice assistants, Chatbots, drone deliveries, and more.

Chatbots

Chatbots benefit not just the brand but also customers in more ways than one. Their biggest benefit is saving on valuable time as most chatbots integrate with the company website or mobile apps. No need to spend time browsing for standard answers or FAQ’s as these are generally available with Chatbots.

In case you are in urgent need for specific information, chatbots can become the most reliable source as they usually work 24/7, unlike humans. Responses are simple, easy to understand and clear as these are in text form. Chatbots are masters at repetitive tasks, and tedium doesn’t bore them or reduce their efficiency.

Some surveys suggest that customers welcome the use of Chatbots to satisfy certain tasks that are currently in the human domain. Most felt that these bots could eliminate the problems they encountered when trying to get across customer support in call centers. IVR’s can be time-consuming and annoying, and with Chatbots, this step can be eliminated. A case in point is our very own Chatbot Ruby, from the Commercient Innovation team, who is always ready to help any visitor to our website. Simple and easy!

Other positives of leveraging Chatbots include quick resolution of issues and almost zero waiting time for replies, making the entire customer service process seamless and pleasant. Brands can put the versatile functionality of Chatbots to good use when trying to engage with customers.

Whether it is technical support, accounts or sales information, your Chatbots can be programmed to converse and take on different personalities that may fit in with the brand’s image or service needs.

To learn more about how Chatbots can help your business and enhance customer experience, please read this blog at Edgeware, a partner of Commercient’s, who can help you get started with Chatbots.

Predictive Analytics or Commerce

As the name suggests, predictive commerce is a study of the purchasing behaviors of the customer, with relation to product, place or channel. This allows you to understand your customer better, and involves a whole lot of analysis from next purchase to the next interaction date of the customer, to his or her preferred means of communication.

The process uses targeted advertising to promote products and improve sales. Lately, eCommerce giants have been successfully using predictive analysis for creating bundle offers, and also for cross-selling.

Some online film and media companies utilize such models to target the audience with movies and shows that match their tastes. Predictive analytics also comes with the capability to make the right offers at the right time, such as during major festivals. It’s impressive, and essential to a positive customer experience.

Payment methods have also transformed from complex and fraud-prone to seamless, easy and safe. This peace of mind has renewed the faith of the customer in making online purchases without stress. Commercient offers a secure way to take payments directly in your CRM with Sync2Pay, which you can learn more about here.

Cloud Platforms

In recent times, the Cloud has become the go-to choice in every area including improving communication with customers. We’ll help you understand how Cloud is the most favorable platform in this era of disruptive technologies.

A seamless customer experience across both digital and voice channels are a clear advantage of Cloud-based systems compared to traditional ones. Legacy systems weren’t designed to meet the high standards of customer service of the present day. Traditional call centers still function around telephones and voice communication and have not adapted well to delivering across other channels such as email and chat.

Cloud platforms integrate various technologies that deliver seamlessly across multiple channels such as voice, email, chat, mobile, social media, SMS, video, and outbound. It is highly likely that in the near future, all contact centers will run in the cloud, display efficiency, and offer affordability. The biggest advantage will be a heightened customer experience.

The use of the cloud as the infrastructure to meet the needs of a contact or call center will boost customer loyalty, and therefore your bottom line.

Check out our Cloud-based product Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for business. Important ERP data such as customer information invoicing, sales history, inventory, a bill to and ship to addresses, etc., can be integrated with the CRM. New sales, accounts, and invoices can be SYNC’d from CRM to ERP. With Commercient SYNC, you can gain efficiency, boost productivity and manage the customer in a positive way.

If you’d like to learn more about how to enhance your company’s customer experience, please contact Commercient today, and our partner, Edgeware, here.

SYNC Demo integrate CRM ERP

How Understanding Customer Experience Can Help Your Business

Customer experience is defined as a business interaction between a customer and an organization. It has become an important aspect of CRM (Customer Relationship Management software), as positive experiences mean happy customers, and happy customers are loyal customers. That should be enough reason for companies to invest in bringing only the best experiences to their clients.

Focusing on customers’ needs, and then delivering on those parameters is what adds value to the experience. One of the most effective ways to achieve a more wholesome and complete customer understanding is through effective data management.

Gathering crucial data at one single location makes it extremely easy for your employees to interact with the customer. Data management and analysis are the best methods to study customer behavior, choices, and buying patterns. Here are some benefits of efficient data management.

Understanding the Customer Better

Data can reveal valuable insights into your customers and their needs. Better organized data can present some surprising trends in behavior. You can clearly understand from past data their entire history, be it previous purchases, budgets, and preferred modes and times of communications.

This information can be utilized to enhance the product and service as well as revise parameters such as price points. You can also easily predict future consumption needs and offer those even before they ask. And the reward is improved business and profitability for your business.

Engagement

It’s not just the product they buy, but the interaction that matters most to a customer. This may be the reason why some very expensive products or services still have many more happy customers, although their product may be similar to cheaper versions on the market.

In this instance, the business that wins is the one that uses data available to add value, communicate better, and thereby ensuring a terrific customer experience.

In a streamlined process, you can automate marketing and sales campaigns and keep the customers updated with services that stroke their interests. CRM platforms such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Zoho CRM, and SugarCRM are just a few examples of excellent solutions that offer the capability for data organization and automation.

Customer Service

To expedite a timely resolution of complaints, replying to queries is the key to a successful business. By simply integrating customer data that is already available within your organization, you can create unforgettable experiences for the customer.

Organizing and integrating the data allows your customer service teams to shift focus from searching for information, to listening to customer issues and engaging with them in a positive way, be it over the phone, internet or in person (if applicable).

The resulting service that the customer receives is miles ahead of ordinary standards. This makes the customer feel connected and important, and lays the foundation for an emotional connection to your brand or service.

Decision Making

Data integration takes the tedium out of daily work processes especially those that need quick thinking and decision making. Staying connected and up-to-date with various systems brings valuable insight from that data, with speed and precision. The easily viewable data by sales and customer service teams, often in real-time, means improved knowledge allowing them to make better, more informed and quick decisions.

Data will also help come up with product and service enhancements and help tailor the product to meet individual needs, and therefore, bring down cost for the customer and increase his satisfaction level.

Therefore, utilizing the right tools to maximize customer experience is vital.
For example, Commercinet’s SYNC app integrates your ERP with your CRM, and brings real time ERP data into the CRM for sales and service staff who can then quickly manage any follow-ups or queries arising from either of the areas.

Personalization

Personalized service is what everyone wants, and data intelligence makes this possible. In service-oriented fields, companies can personalize pricing and other aspects of their product or service, by using the data and analysis of that customer.

When it comes to communication, a customer’s first point of contact with a company could be either in person, or via phone or email. With more details about every customer available with service agents, they can further personalize their interaction with the customer.

Highly successful strategies include the use of the latest technology such as mobile marketing. Who wouldn’t like that special discount sent to them for their birthday? That’s the power of personalization – it creates positive experiences and memories.

The Importance of Data Integration

Data comes from so many sources, and efficiency increases when integrated with existing customer accounting data. Seamless merging of ERP data with CRM gives you a 360-degree view of sales and operations. This is very important for companies looking to digitally transform their business.

Modern-day CRM solutions are easy to integrate with ERP software. Such a process prevents sales, marketing, and service data from getting siloed in different systems, promoting positive customer experiences.

Through Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for business, your sales and support teams can access important ERP data such as customer information, sales history, invoicing, terms, serial numbers, inventory, bill to and ship to addresses, and more, directly in the CRM. Plus, new sales, accounts, and invoices can be SYNC’d from CRM to ERP. These are known as our one-way and two-way SYNC options.

Take a look at our Commercient SYNC ERP and CRM data integrations here.

Commercient also offers the advanced IoT Pulse, which connects your ERP with a host of apps through internet integration, enabling automation, maximizing your customer engagement in minimal time.

For more information on Commercient SYNC and IoT Pulse, please contact us today.

SYNC Demo integrate CRM ERP

How To Win More Business With CRM Data

Winning and retaining customers is of paramount importance to the success of any business. To maximize your efforts in this battlefield, you need to have an accurate view of who your customers and prospects are and to understand their needs and desires. That’s where CRM data comes in.

CRM technology unlocks the true value of your customer data to drive effective sales and marketing strategies. In this blog, we will discuss the many benefits that CRM has to offer, to help win more business and boost sales.

What is CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a data-based approach that is used to manage interactions with current and potential customers. This can help to increase customer retention and boost sales.

CRM systems and applications are designed to streamline processes and store and analyze customer and prospect data to enable businesses better understand their customers needs and wants in order to increase sales and grow their business.

How CRM Data Can Maximize Your Success

The greatest value of a CRM does not lie in the capturing, storing or organizing of data. The ultimate value lies in how the data is understood and applied by a business to future customer interactions. Without a clear understanding of the history and current status of each customer or prospect, the ability of your sales team to win and retain business and customers is severely restricted.

CRM systems use data you already in several ways, including:

  1. Optimizing Marketing Strategy
    The performance of your marketing strategy can be substantially improved by using a CRM system. It helps businesses better understand their customers’ and prospects’ needs and behaviors. This enables a business to target the right leads at the right time to market and promote its products or services. A CRM system can also point out your most profitable customer groups. With this information, you can use your marketing resources efficiently to target similar prospective groups.
  2. Maximizing Upselling and Cross-Selling
    Bombarding your customers with random product offers will eventually leave them frustrated or annoyed. To get the best results, you need to anticipate your customers’ needs and wants, and offer them products or services they will most likely be interested in. By analyzing CRM and ERP data, such as what products your customers are viewing, what products they have not purchased, and what products similar customers have purchased, you can unlock the potential hidden among your existing customers. This can help you determine what they are likely to purchase based on their current and previous purchases, and existing requirements.
    Information such as customer order and purchase history can be retrieved from your ERP system. An efficient way of viewing all your customer data is to integrate your ERP data into your CRM system. Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for sales, can seamlessly integrate these two systems so you can create reports and dashboards to view and analyze all your customer and sales data in one place.
  3. Improving Customer Satisfaction
    Bad customer service translates to loss of revenue. Providing satisfactory support fosters loyal customers who will most likely recommend your products or services. This will in turn grow your customer base and increase revenue. With a CRM system, customer-related activities are streamlined, enabling your sales team to provide efficient and satisfactory services.
  4. Increasing Customer Retention
    Losing customers is not good for any business. By leveraging your CRM data, you can identify behavioral patterns and uncover insights that will help you retain your current customers. By comparing data between existing and lost customers, you can establish what works and what doesn’t. This valuable information can be used to effectively reduce your customer turnover rate.
  5. Identifying your Most Valuable Customers
    According to the Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule), 80% of your sales come from 20% of your customers. It would make sense than to focus on the 20% of customers that generate most of your revenue. A CRM system provides analytical tools that can be used to identify your most valuable customers as well as your time-wasters. With this information, you can effectively manage your workflow and assign resources to deliver appropriate service levels to your top customers, so they get the attention they need.
  6. Helping You Win and Close More Deals
    To know which sales tactics help advance a deal and which do not, you need to closely examine each step of your sales process. Every action taken and every document sent is logged in your CRM database. By observing every step taken in the last few deals that were closed, you can pinpoint tactics that generate a higher close rate and follow that same sales process to close a deal.

CRM and ERP Data Integration

A CRM system converts leads into customers, and an ERP system coordinates the process of manufacturing and delivering the products that have been sold. It also manages the financial information about those sales. When integrated, these two systems can enhance the success of your business even further.

Syncing your CRM with your ERP means that your teams can access data that is usually kept separate, from one central location. This will result in increased productivity, reduced costs, and a boost in profits.

Commercient SYNC integrates your ERP and CRM data, giving you a 360-degree view of your customers and sales in real-time. Your sales team won’t waste time jumping between systems to get the information they need. This will give them more time to focus on driving new business and improving your bottom line. Click on this video to watch how SYNC works.

A Final Word

There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ CRM software. Must-have features of a CRM system will vary from business to business. Each business should evaluate its own requirements and identify CRM software, such as Salesforce, Zoho CRM and Microsoft Dynamics 365, and included features, that can best meet its goals and objectives.

Without the support of a CRM solution to maximize your success, you could miss growth opportunities and your business will fall behind and out of touch.

If you’d like more information on choosing a CRM systems like Salesforce, please contact our partners at Edgeware; they are a Salesforce Silver Consulting Partner

To find out how Commercient can help you, please reach out to us today!

About the Author

Anna Kinnear is a Sage Financials Consultant at Edgeware, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa. She has always had a passion for reading and writing.

SYNC ERP and CRM

How Customer Success Stories Can Increase Your Sales

There can be no business without customers, and optimizing and retaining clients is crucial to customer success. Therefore, it is essential to build upon established relationships, and provide value to the customer. To stay competitive, simply acquiring customers is not the answer; you need long-term retention and repeat value.

Customer success is about creating solutions to potential problems of customers. It is essential to understand the customer’s needs, and have a thorough knowledge of the product backed by excellent people skills. These will help you guide a customer towards success.

Every customer that shares their positive experience as a testimonial is a success story. The next step is to share such stories with potential customers, as well as your team. Let’s understand why this is important.

Increase Sales

Customer success stories can nicely complement an advertising campaign. These stories are effective, because they feature real people with real issues and solutions.

The impact of a customer success story is much greater, as the people who are the lead characters in these stories are reliable reference points to potential clients, giving first-hand feedback. The results are instant as new customers can see the benefits of your products or services.

Take a look at some of the customer success stories about Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for sales. Each one tells a story about a customer’s need or issue, and how Commercient helped solve it by integrating their ERP and CRM. Click this video to watch how SYNC works.

Helps with Enhancement of a Product or Service

Customer success stories shared with Marketing or Sales can also help with enhancing the product or service that may have an issue or problem. The solutions can become part of the development or upgrading of the product or service.

Other team members of your business can benefit from such updated services and products, and saving time and effort. They also enhance the reputation of the provider.

Customers also save time on the lengthy process of making reference calls, looking for testimonials, reviews and other information through various sources.

Helpful with Marketing Campaigns

Sales and Marketing perform the all-important role of generating new leads, converting those leads, and retaining customers with strategies and support. Customer success stories, such as testimonials, case studies, and quotes, are interconnected with an effective marketing or sales strategy. They are excellent for adding to your marketing strategies.

Using more of these success stories within Marketing and Sales is certain to give you a competitive advantage. These stories can support your overall Sales and Marketing process as they provide positive feedback for your business.

Identify Common Problems

If you have clients across different industries with issues that you helped solve, and are typical to each industry, you must create individual success stories that address that particular business. These are great stories to share with prospective clients in the same industry.

Use your website or blog to talk about these common issues, and how you addressed them with your solutions. It’s always better to have a story with a focus on the buyer’s problems and how they were solved, and not just your product or brand.

Create Trust and Credibility

With so many companies out there offering similar products and services, what can you do to put you ahead in the race? Surveys suggest sharing customer success stories are a great way for businesses to prove their competitive edge to prospective buyers, and gain trust.

It is also prudent that you share your case studies and success stories as early as possible to effectively explain the benefits of your product over others. When you share your stories, you also reassure a prospective buyer of your knowledge and credibility in the industry.

By working through real client issues and then sharing these, you gain insightful knowledge and expertise which your competitors may be struggling with. These solutions are also the recipe for some great content which your team can use and share online and at events or conferences, and during potential interviews with the media.

Stories are Likely to be Retained

Who doesn’t like to weave stories? And who doesn’t like listening to a story? Data and stats are boring, whereas stories are interesting. People are much more likely to remember a good story than numbers.

The solutions are an intrinsic part of the story, and are much easier to visualize and keep the customers engaged. Just like with everything else, personalizing the story to match a prospective client’s needs is even more effective.

Incorporating stories into the sales process is most likely to win you the deal with the customer who is also free to add his own stories for the benefit of both them.

Commercient is a reliable name in the field of data integration for sales; our SYNC platform actively integrates ERP and CRM systems. Commercient has successfully worked with clients from a multitude of industries, and has happy customers whose businesses have been transformed.

We are proud to be associated with our clients and been a part of their success stories with our efforts. To read our customer success stories, please click here.

If you’d like to learn more about Commercient SYNC, please contact us today!

About the Author

Raj Adhi is a professional writer, editor and blogger. She has completed her Graduation in Chemistry and Masters in Journalism from University of Mumbai.

SYNC Demo integrate CRM ERP

Tips For Creating Valuable Customer Surveys

Do you sometimes wonder what your customers think of your brand, product(s), or service(s)? Surveying your customers from time to time is a vital part of running a successful business. Customer surveys are an opportunity to communicate and build personal relationships with customers.

Knowing what your customers think or need can help you improve customer satisfaction and provide them with the best customer experience.

Customer surveys can be used to collect data for various reasons such as measuring customer loyalty, customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction, collecting current product feedback, and even help determine new potential new products

There are survey apps that can help with facilitating a customer survey, plus they will assist with analysis and more. And with Commercient’s IoT Pulse, you can connect your survey software to your ERP and over 815 apps. Supported customer survey software includes SurveyMonkey, SmartSurvey, Survey Anyplace, and more.

In addition, you can connect your accounting system (ERP) to other powerful apps, like eCommerce solutions, marketing systems, and much more. Visit our IoT Pulse integrations page here, select your ERP, and check out all the compatible apps.

5 Tips for Creating Valuable Customer Surveys

Make use of images

Associating images with answer choices makes a question more compelling and increases engagement. You don’t want a survey that looks and reads like a restaurant menu. An engaging survey leads to a more willing participant, who will most likely provide reliable and valid answers. When deciding on images to use, opt for something visually appealing, and depending on the survey, possibly humorous.

Get to the point quickly

Your customers are busy people. Don’t waste their time by asking them to spend 45 minutes answering a questionnaire. Your customers will most likely abandon a survey that is too long. Keep your questions clear and simple, and your survey short and sweet.

Avoid asking loaded questions

Don’t ask loaded questions that could leave customers feeling overwhelmed, confused and annoyed. Don’t be vague and make respondents guess what you mean. It is advisable to refrain from using industry jargon and references. This could leave your respondents feeling frustrated and cause them to abandon the survey.

Ask one question at a time

Flooding a participant with multiple questions at once will cause them to lose focus, and will lead to half-hearted answers. If you want quality responses, ask one question at a time. Do not ask unnecessary questions. Stick to questions that are dependent on the purpose of the survey.

Use yes / no questions

Yes / no styled questions are your best option when ambiguity is present. These close-ended questions nudge a participant to arrive at a conclusion quickly and efficiently. Having a yes/no option as an answer is also useful for questions that require a one-word answer.

Customer surveys allow us to gather a substantial amount of data about our customers’ opinions in a short amount of time. This data can provide valuable insight about a company’s shortfalls, where improvements are needed, and can help a company make better business decisions, such as product or service offerings.

Being able to take the feedback obtained and effectively apply it to your business could mean the difference between a good year and a bad year.

If you’d like to learn more about connecting your customer survey software and other apps to Commercient’s IoT Pulse, please contact us today.

About the Author

Anna Kinnear is a Sage Financials Consultant at Edgeware, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa. She has always had a passion for reading and writing.

 

IoT Pulse connect ERP to the Internet

 

7 Ways To Deal With Difficult Customers

A critical part of running a successful business is managing customers. Even the most reputable business will, at some point, encounter a difficult customer. How you deal with this challenge could mean the difference between a client who is satisfied with a proposed resolution, and one who will never do business with you again.

Below are 7 tips on how to deal with difficult customers and still protect your company’s reputation. Plus we offer a bonus tip on how our data integration app, Commercient SYNC, can help your customer service team.

  1. Listen to the customer
    • An angry customer wants to vent, so start off by only listening.
    • Allow the client to talk and don’t interrupt or argue with them.
  2. Remain calm
    • If a customer is being rude or starts shouting, remain calm and keep your emotions under control.
    • Never get angry or upset.
    • De-escalate the situation by keeping your voice low.
  3. Don’t take it personally
    • Keep in mind that the customer is not angry with you. They are upset about the service provided or the performance of your product (or lack thereof).
    • Adopt a positive mental attitude and remain professional at all times.
  4. Mind your language
    • Be mindful of the words you use.
    • Avoid rambling in response to a customer’s distress. This just further aggravates the situation.
    • What you say (or don’t say) can affect the outcome of your interaction with the customer.
    • Refrain from using words that could incite defensive reactions from the customer.
    • Use phrases of courtesy. This shows the client that you respect them.
  5. Apologize
    • Apologize with sincerity and empathy, even if the client is being unreasonable. This helps to diffuse the situation.
    • Acknowledge any shortcomings from your side or that of your company.
    • Express sympathy for the customer’s unpleasant experience.
  6. Propose a solution
    • Communicate what you can and can’t do about the situation.
    • Offer an acceptable resolution to the customer.
    • Resolving the issue promptly also prevents the situation from escalating any further.
    • If you don’t have an immediate resolution, be transparent and clear about this.
    • Compensate the customer for any inconvenience caused if the fault or error is on your side.
  7. Prepare for uncomfortable situations
    • Set up training sessions so that team members can practice dealing with difficult customers.
    • Develop problem-solving policies and implement strategies to avoid conflict when dealing with difficult customers.

Bonus tip: Using Commercient SYNC, the #1 data integration platform for sales, can be of great help to your customer service team. With SYNC, customer service will have access to integrated data from both your accounting and sales systems. They’ll be able to monitor order information, plus check on bill to and ship to addresses, inventory supplies, serial numbers and more.

An upset client can hurt your bottom line. If you are unable to resolve a difficult customer’s issue efficiently, there is a chance you will ruin your relationship, and this could potentially lead to the loss of that customer.

Addressing a client’s concerns promptly could turn a negative experience into a positive one. If you prepare yourself, you can be better equipped to handle difficult customers tactfully and still maintain your company’s high standards.

To learn more about how Commercient SYNC can help not only your customer service team, but also your sales, please contact us today!

About the Author

Anna Kinnear is a Sage Financials Consultant at Edgeware, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting Science from the University of South Africa. She has always had a passion for reading and writing.

SYNC ERP and CRM

Tips To Your Customers Smiling All Through The Year

The best business is the one that can keep its customers smiling all throughout the year. After all, the customer can greatly determine the success or failure of a business. With that said, we’ve come up with some quick tips that you can do now to keep your clients smiling all throughout the year.

Tip #1: Use Technology To Assist Your Customers

Technology is very much important to connecting with your clients on a deeper level, and is a great way to keep them smiling throughout the year. Here are some technologies that you can use to better serve your customers and keep them happy.

  • Live chat: This allows the people that visit your site to engage with your company. For instance, if visitors want to ask you questions, need help with navigation or want to find valuable information, with live chat, you can answer questions on the spot and in real-time. This gives them the instant help they are looking for. At Commercient, we give all our clients the opportunity to communicate with us using live chat. Our highly skilled reps are available to help out with questions or support, Monday through Friday.
  • Social media: You can also make your clients smile through your engaging posts on social media. We engage with our customers on all our social media channels, including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. If you haven’t done so already, please add us.

Tip #2: Resolve Problems Quickly

If you still operate in a 9-to-5 time frame in delivering customer service, you are behind. They want timely and effective resolutions, and the option to contact you whenever and however they please. Whether it be through a social media channel or live chat.

LivePerson research found that 82% of consumers believe that getting their issues resolved quickly is the most important factor in a great customer service experience. Therefore, your reps must try to solve customer issues as soon as they are recognized. This means they must be available at all times, because if your clients don’t receive the support they need at the time they need it, there is a chance that they will find someone else who will. At Commercient, we serve our customers using live chat, social media, email, and phone, and our reps are available to help.

Tip #3: Keep Your Customers Updated

If you want to keep your customers smiling, one of your main goals should be to keep your clients and prospects engaged and updated. You should communicate company news, current events, special promotions, product updates and new products, address troubleshooting issues and FAQs, and much more.

By keeping them in the loop about what’s going on with your company, they will come to trust you more. At Commercient, we keep our customers up-to-date through not only our social media channels, but also through our company blog and newsletter.

Tip #4: Boast About Your Customers

Another way to keep you customers smiling is to boast about them. You can do this by featuring customer success stories and testimonials on your website. In essence, by showcasing the great experiences your existing clients have had, you’ll increase your chance of building trust with prospects and encouraging them to convert.

You will also keep your current customers happy, and make your prospects feel more excited about purchasing your products or services. See what our clientss are saying about us on our homepage.

Would you like to learn more about our data integration apps, Commercient SYNC and IoT Pulse, and how they can help you grow your business, and keep your customers smiling? Contact us today!

SYNC ERP and CRM

 

4 Ways To Gain The Trust Of Your Customers

Customers today are more skeptical and more careful than ever before, which means businesses must gain the trust of each of their clients. By earning their trust, you’ll be able to keep your customers for life and further grow your business. You should make it a top priority to gain the trust of every one of your customers. In this blog, we’ll uncover four ways you can do just that.

Get Testimonials From Satisfied Customers

Customer testimonials are a great way to earn the trust of your clients. When you share testimonials from genuinely satisfied customers, prospects who are skeptical and hesitant come to believe those testimonies. Good testimonials will not only help you build customer trust and establish credibility, but will also help you increase website conversions.

A 2014 study by invesp found that customers spend 31% more with businesses who have good client testimonials, and a great way to display testimonials is by showcasing them on your website. Want to see how we do it at Commercient? Check out our customer testimonials on the Commercient homepage.

Encourage Online Reviews

Reviews are rare, but they are beneficial because they influence purchasing decisions. For example, a study by Marketing Land shows that 90% of someone’s buying decisions are influenced by online reviews. This is due to prospects wanting to know about the experiences of others before they decide whether or not to invest in your product or service. Through online reviews, these clients can gather information that is relevant to them from like-minded customers, in situations similar to their own.

Fortunately, there are many ways that you can encourage reviews and get feedback from your customers. For example, you can gather honest feedback through emails and social media networks, customer interviews, or by setting up profiles on multiple review sites such as LinkedIn and Yelp. When you allow your customers to leave reviews, it can help you increase sales and build brand awareness. Be sure to check out our reviews on the Salesforce AppExchange.

Keep Customers Informed Proactively

Securing customer testimonials and encouraging online reviews is not the only way to gain the trust of your customers. You can also gain their trust by keeping them well informed about what’s going on with your services and products. In this way, they will be more likely to trust you, and you’ll build healthy customer relationships in the end.

Keeping your customers informed about company news, latest offers and even problems plaguing your business (and how you’re solving them) will show your clients that your business is active and it will help them to come to trust you. You can set up social media pages to update them regularly, and also inform them through blogging and sending out emails about your company, like we do for our customers at Commercient.

The more you remind your customers that you are there, the more likely they are to come back to you looking for more. Want to learn more about Commercient, feel free to sign up for our monthly Commercient newsletter, check out our weekly blog, and add us on social media (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn).

Provide Great Customer Service

Earning a customer’s trust starts with delivering great service. And because there is so much competition, you need to offer service your clients can’t find anywhere else. They need to know that you appreciate them.

One of the greatest ways to deliver great service to your customers is to always be available. For instance, if they run into a problem or issue, and then receive prompt, helpful and memorable customer service, they’ll always think of you as a reliable brand. Therefore, it’s important your support team is always available, whether it be through phone, email or live chat.

In fact, if your reps provide support through live chat, research from kissmetrics shows that it can instantly increase your conversion rate. Customers love it when they can seek and get help at any time they choose. If you ever run into any issues or problems with our apps, including Commercient SYNC and IoT Pulse, our support reps are always available to speak with you via live chat, phone, or email, whatever is more convenient for you.

The Best Things You Can Do To Prevent Customer Complaints

Customer complaints can be a big issue for any business, and they must be handled effectively in order to protect your company’s reputation. Luckily, there are several steps you can take to prevent customer complaints, and ensure that your customers feel happy and satisfied and will return to your business. Here are some of the best things you can do to prevent customers complaints.

#1 Deploy New Technology

When you improve the software in your business, you can create better experiences for both your sales reps and your customers. It makes it easier for your sales reps to do their job, which allows them to handle your customers better.

For example, if you are deploying a standalone ERP and CRM system, why not integrate the two, and get the best of both worlds? By integrating your accounting and sales systems using our SYNC data integration app, your sales team will be able to access critical information in real-time, and have easy-access to customer data when and where they need it. Without it, they will be less efficient and your customers could come to complain.

By upgrading and leveraging new technology, you can drive the speed of service to your customers, and escape having a clear bottleneck in your company’s operations.

#2 Share Information About Your Business

Since customers want information, you should provide them with it. Whether it be through your website, company blog, newsletter, or any other information resource for your business, you should share as many details as possible about your products and services.

One great thing you can do is write a blog post centering around what your current customers are saying about your products or services. You can also display positive customer reviews on your website or social media channels. You just need to use social proof to show your customers that others have bought into what you’re selling. In this way, they will come to trust your brand.

At Commercient, we share as many as detail as possible about our products and services through our blog, Commercient Newsletter, social media channels (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, etc.), products pages, and more.

#3 Use Social Media Channels

In addition to sharing information about your business, you should also use social media to interact with your customers. By being active on channels such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and more, you can predict problems before they escalate to complaints.

According to research by Sprout Social, if a company responds in a timely and useful manner to a complaint, 45% of people “would go back to social media, not to complain but to highlight the positive interaction,” and “a helpful response from a brand can quickly turn someone who started out complaining into a positive advocate.”

You can use social media to respond quickly and appropriately to negative social comments, which in return can help you increase customer loyalty and retention.

#4 Provide Quality Customer Service

Another way you can prevent customer complaints is by providing quality customer service. Never let a poor service experience push your customers to not only complain, but abandon you for the competition. Since happy customers are the key to ensure the successful continuation of any business, you need to make sure you provide them with an unparalleled level of customer service.

One great way you can do this is by offering support across multiple channels, including phone, email, and live chat. This is very helpful in diffusing any complaints, because it enables your customers to choose their preferred way to speak with you, ensuring they leave with a positive impression of your business.

Whenever you leverage any of our apps, you can reach us through, phone, email, live chat, or social media for support. Our representatives are always here to serve you, 24 hours a day, Monday through Friday.

 

SYNC ERP and CRM

 

3 Major Reasons Why Your Customers Might Leave You

We’re sure you want to retain your current customers, along with those who become your customers in the future. So we’ve created a list of three major reasons why your customers might leave you, and show you how to retain them.

Reason #1: You don’t want to upgrade your technology

Since technology is the backbone of every company, and having updated technology is essential to the customer experience. One reason why your customers might be leaving you is that your technology is slow and outdated, and you haven’t taken the time to upgrade it.

With upgraded technology, you can improve your customer experience and allow your customers to get information more reliably and quickly.

Our Commercient SYNC integration platform, for example, allows you to connect data automatically between your ERP and CRM. Without SYNC, you’d have to update each system manually.

In addition, our IoT Pulse app empowers you to connect your ERP system to thousands of other business applications, including Slack, Gmail, and MailChimp, IoT Pulse can help you automate processes, like sending out emails when customers input a new order or generate a new invoice.

Upgrading to cloud-based technologies like SYNC and IoT Pulse allows you to accommodate rapid growth and gives you a greater competitive advantage. And that’s not all, pricing for all our apps is based per user, per month, so you’ll be upgrading with technology that is affordable.

Reason #2: You don’t communicate with your customers regularly

If you do not communicate with your customers regularly, they will definitely end up leaving you. By not keeping in touch with them, you decrease the likelihood of your customers remembering your business, or even referring you to others. Fortunately, there are several ways you can keep in touch with your customers on a regular basis.

For instance, you can use newsletters to share personal milestones or experiences, and also include information about any promotions you’re running. You can also share your business’s success stories, so that your customers can connect with you on a deeper level.

At Commercient we also communicate regularly with our customers through weekly blog posts and social media channels. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, where we post information about new products and services, and general announcements about Commercient.

With social media and our blog, we can keep our customers up-to-date on what’s going at Commercient. This creates a level of trust and appreciation, opening the door for a much more loyal, mutually beneficial relationship between us and our customers.

Reason #3: You don’t provide multi-channel support

The telephone may have been one of the first options of providing customer support, but it’s certainly not the last. Nowadays, you have newer support channels like email, social media, live chat, and forums or knowledge bases, among others.

Providing multi-channel support gives your customers’ options to choose from based on their preferred channel or issue at hand. When they have multiple channels to choose from to meet their needs, they will walk away more satisfied, because it give them flexibility, which will help you boost customer loyalty and retention in the long-run.

So, although it may be more convenient or cheaper for your company to provide only one channel of support, it might end up hurting your business in the long-run. We provide our customers with round-the-clock support for any of our apps, including phone, email, live chat, and web meeting.

Are you ready to upgrade your business’s technology? Contact us today!