Top-Notch Customer Experience in Post-Covid, and ESG-Centric Business World
The past four pandemic-infested years have changed lives and livelihoods worldwide and the world post-Covid will never be quite the same.
The imposition of lockdowns and social distancing measures saw businesses initiate if they hadn’t or accelerate if they had digital transformation efforts.
A McKinsey study showed the Covid-19 pandemic turbo-charged the E-commerce sector where “10 years of e-commerce growth happened in just 90 days”.
In China, Ping An Bank introduced new digital functionalities, resulting in millions of transactions within a short period.
Companies are responding by accelerating their digital offerings. Some are providing select digital services for free to assist existing customers and expand their reach.
Another notable example is how home delivery has transformed from a convenience to a necessity. Italy witnessed a doubling of online grocery home-delivery users within a month.
It is now more critical than ever for businesses to facilitate the process of reaching their customers from the comfort of their own homes to offer seamless services in getting their products and services.
Ease of interactions with a company plays a vital role in building customer loyalty, determining whether the customer stays loyal to the brand.
This has led to the prioritisation of customer experience (CX), and business leaders should seize this opportunity to ensure their companies adapt to the long-term changes in consumer behaviour in a post-pandemic world.
Organisations must have their finger on the pulse to track evolving customer preferences and swiftly innovate to remove the hoops and hurdles in customer journeys.
Below we will look at the importance of customer service in the post-Covid world and how the pandemic has enhanced the quality of customer service in every business across all sectors.
Integrating Top-notch CX Design with Back-office Systems
Better interactions with customers can be facilitated by top-notch CX designs that are also seamlessly integrated with your back-end systems.
For instance, if you are an e-commerce trader, having a smooth app with great CX helps.
However, you can elevate your services to a higher level by retrieving inventory information and offering accurate data for the stock count of your products.
This process can be facilitated by integrating your front-end customer systems with your back-office solutions, such as cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and customer relationship management systems.
Integrating your front-end systems with your back-end systems can aid the discovery phase by focusing on mapping the customer journey and identifying pain points through customer data analysis.
These systems also facilitate the incorporation of disciplines such as ethnography, psychology, and human factors to uncover the underlying motivations that shape consumer behaviour.
Customer Experience in ESG-centric Age
In recent years, there has been a rise in socially-conscious customers developing loyalty to brands that adhere to environmental, social, and governance standards.
According to McKinsey research, over 64% of customers choose to buy from socially responsible brands.
This means that the brands care not just for their customers’ well-being but also for their employees and the community in battling climate change and other current issues.
A variety of cloud solutions, such as ERPs, offer robust reporting capabilities that adhere to ESG requirements.
How a Cloud ERP Can Enhance Customer Experience
A cloud ERP system provides numerous advantages for businesses, including increased productivity, better inventory control, and faster delivery of products and services, leading to an improved customer experience.
Acting as a centralised data hub, an ERP system allows for the identification of trends and tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) related to customer experience, such as churn rate or time to resolution.
This empowers business leaders to promptly address factors that impact the buyer’s experience positively or negatively. Additionally, an ERP system simplifies the retrieval and analysis of survey data and other valuable customer information.
Within a cloud ERP system, CRM is a widely used module that tracks sales, services, and marketing data at an individual customer level.
Cloud ERP systems that either come with or provide integration with CRMs eliminate the problem of data from disparate sources.
All these, and the cloud architecture of modern-day ERPs enable real-time access to financial data for sales, customer service, finance, and C-Suite professionals which then
facilitate informed strategic decision-making.
By leveraging comprehensive customer data, businesses can monitor leads and sales opportunities throughout the customer journey, identifying areas of poor customer experience at each stage.
CRMs that come with or are integrated with a cloud ERP also helps companies measure the effectiveness of strategic changes implemented to address gaps in the customer journey.
Regardless of the approaches employed to enhance profitability, it is essential to prioritise customer interests and feedback. By doing so, businesses can optimise their operations in a manner that delights customers, encouraging their loyalty and as they share positive experiences with others, including friends, family, and colleagues.
Final Thoughts
Businesses that quickly adapt their delivery models, provide digital options, offer home delivery, and ensure touch-free operations will gain a significant advantage in meeting customer needs during the pandemic and beyond.
A volatile post-Covid business environment and the increasing scrutiny on the fulfilment, or the lack of, of a company’s ESG requirements, necessitates businesses to leverage cloud technology to deliver top-notch customer experience.
