For the longest time, organizations have been constantly trying to balance and maximize ROI for all stakeholders, including customers. To make things more challenging, more changes in consumer behavior have been spurred by the pandemic. This triggered the sudden adoption of cloud communications and forced enterprises and brands to embrace digital transformation.
The fact that cloud-based communications is cheaper than maintaining on-premise communications is not a secret anymore. It allows businesses to save money without compromising on features. Cloud communications providers provide voice and data communications applications and services by hosting them on servers owned and maintained by the providers, granting their customers access to the cloud. Customers have a more cost-effective, reliable, and secure communications ecosystem as they only pay for the services or applications they use, without the headaches associated with more traditional system deployment.
The success of cloud-based providers similar to Google has indicated that a cloud-based platform delivers the same effectiveness as an on-premise infrastructure at a much lower cost. Enterprises are always relying on new-age technologies to optimize their workflows, boost productivity, improve business efficiency to deliver a superior customer experience, and keep costs in check. Cloud communications are changing the game by helping enterprises globally achieve these goals. Customers demand a continuous communications experience, with the ability to seamlessly switch between chat, messaging, and voice while roaming across multiple networks.
Some of the key areas of improvement to deepen the customer & enterprise relationship are:
Be there where your customers are (connecting with them on their channel of choice)
Effective communication is imperative to a thriving business, regardless of its size, and organizations are constantly trying to bridge the gap between effective communication with customers. It is important to improve the connection and collaboration seamlessly among employees, partners, and customers and communicate with them across the channel of their choice.
It is important to be on the right channels where your customers are for seamless communication that can improve business efficiency. Communicate with the customers on their preferred channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, SMS, Telegram, Messenger, Viber, Email, and many more. It can help with a continuous communication experience that increases productivity, reduces costs, and optimizes workflows.
Interact with your customers during their key moments
Interacting with customers during their key moments is important and can help strengthen customer relationships between your customers. There are multiple moments that you would want to capture with a conversation, and you can call someone after becoming a customer by thanking them for their purchase, which becomes highly appreciated. It is an extra step that goes a long way towards showing the customers that you are grateful forchoosing to do business with you.
Another key moment when you should speak to customers directly is when a complaint has not been dealt with properly. Customers who are dealing with a complaint will take some time out for their company to sort out the issue in order to get in touch with the customer directly and thank them for their patience.
As a higher-up, it is important to recognize that there is a problem and that there are steps that are being taken to make sure that it does not happen again. Customers always feel that they’ve been heard and understood, and you want to compensate them as well on the call.
If you want to turn a negative customer experience into a positive CX, you will need to speak to customers and ask them for feedback on how things can be made better. It is important to note that customer satisfaction will make the individual feel much more invested in the company.
Satisfied customers are more often than not going to have a greater impact on the company and the product that they have been using. It is important to be more loyal to implementing the feedback as your product will be far more suited to their needs. Whenever you’re thinking about iterating products, it is important to consider getting on the phone with your customers to get suggestions from them.
Customization and Personalization
Customers want to be treated by people and not numbers, as many customers in the business world are taking the whole sentiment to heart, which can help build and improve customer relationships. There is an increased focus on personalization, and sending out personalized emails, like true personalization, is great for interacting and reacting with customers on an individual level.
It is important to send out customized customer service emails, and it is also important to think about interactions on social media by sending personalized “thank yous” and creating custom offers for all individual customers. It is important to personalize the customer’s website experience by successfully tailoring the most relevant information that meets their interests.
Customers feel that they’re much more valued as long as they are seen as people and not numbers, making them more inclined to continue working on long-term relationships with businesses. Hence, a number of businesses are embracing digital transformation.
Here are some of the key benefits of cloud communications that have directly impacted new technologies:
Agility and flexibility
Cloud communication has been a key factor in improving CPaaS (Communication Platform as a Service) penetration using programmable communications and APIs. The aftermath of COVID-19 has had a massive impact, with companies embracing innovation and adopting the journey of digital transformation faster than ever using CPaaS and programmable communications. It has enhanced its capabilities by easily integrating with the existing infrastructure of brands and enterprises, giving rise to hybrid communications.
Greater Scalability
There is greater flexibility in upscaling and downscaling services according to demand, traffic, and seasonal spurts, as cloud communication provides greater scalability to e-commerce. Peak season traffic with the help of the medium has been a great challenge for both end-users and portals. Cloud communication tools have not been ironed out as most organizations are more efficient than they’ve ever been.
Enhanced Throughout
Brands can send large volumes of messages with high velocity, reach more customers with speed, promote their business, execute time-sensitive campaigns or deliver critical alerts with minimal latency. Route Mobile’s cloud-based delivery platform enables it to build and manage applications without having to create and maintain the underlying infrastructure for each client. It is, therefore, able to provide enterprises with solutions to operate applications without purchasing, configuring, or managing the underlying hardware and software. It currently operates at a throughput capacity of over 10,000 messages per second. Its six strategically located data centers provide its operations with the resilience required to meet the requirements of its clients.
Reduced Costs
Cloud communication infrastructure has helped to significantly reduce the costs and overall investment for installations and upgrades compared to hardware. Both maintenance and upgrades have become easier than ever before, and it is more economical in the long run for companies of all sizes. The integration is much simpler using communications and programmable APIs.
Improved stability and reliability
Due to the robust nature of cloud communication, it has become more stable, quick, and reliable than ever before. As businesses are run entirely on the web, there are non-negotiables and cloud communication, which delivers a greater solid punch.
Intertwining Communication and Commerce
World over, Commerce has already seen a movement from physical commerce to e-Commerce. We at Route Mobile see a movement from e-Commerce to c-Commerce (Communication Commerce). Communication channels have become richer and have easily integrable APIs for brands who are using a chatbot, LiveChat messaging channel, and voice assistance, along with UPIs and payments gateways, to create a next-gen commerce experience
Future-ready solutions
Cloud communications are the future, and sooner than later, more companies than ever before will need to adapt to it. The shift towards adopting communication solutions by enterprises will give you an advantage over other companies.
Summary
In conclusion, the cloud has significantly seen a massive evolution in the last decade, and the aforementioned key improvements can help any enterprise significantly improve their engagement with their customers.
Customers are expecting deeper and more personalized conversations with brands and enterprises. This creates a huge need for “Better CX” and ‘Communication Transformation’ in the entire customer journey that enterprises plan for. As digital adoption penetrates further, siloed communications solutions will be replaced by hybrid communications by using channels preferred by customers to create a deeper engagement and deliver an authentic experience. CPaaS has been a fantastic platform, especially during COVID times. With CPaaS, enterprises have finally been able to become agile and flexible by integrating multiple messaging channels like SMS, Voice, Email, WhatsApp, RCS, Viber, Telegram, etc. with payment gateways, targeting specific segments, delivering actionable insights, and delivering an end-to-end customer journey. It has opened up an ocean of possibilities for enterprises to transform their customer communications.
Written By
Tushar Agnihotri, Country Head India & Regional APAC, Route Mobile Ltd.
