Turning Crisis into Opportunity: 3 Keys for Success in 2021

When volatility is the new normal, how are marketers and brands adapting? Each and every crisis is an opportunity to start positive change and take actions to implement something new. Recent volatility has shaped the way we work, live, shop, and meet. It has also fundamentally changed the way a business operates and engages with their customers and staff.

Turning crisis into opportunity: During 2020, businesses accelerated their digital transformation strategy significantly in the space of a few months. Likewise, your customers also accelerated their own digital transformation. Many turned to new smart home devices, shifted more of their shopping online, and started relying less on traditional communication with a business such as phone calls or in-store, and migrated to live chats and instant messengers. They even embraced bots to solve their questions faster.

Businesses that adapted quickly in the face of crisis feared well. One business lost 80% of their clients, and then tripled pre-covid turnover in 6 months by adjusting their target audience and services. Our own Jerric Santinlo found out that shifting customer engagement online meant he could widen his audience while still re-creating the memorable in-store atmosphere his shop was known for. A luxury mall at the centre of an outbreak acted fast to assure the public of its standards, and launched an epic O2O campaign that filled the mall to capacity the day it re-opened.

Customers respect and reward brands that communicate well in times of crisis. But then what? Once you retain or regain the trust, what are customers expecting in this new norm? Now is the prime time to leverage the digital transformation of your business, and level up customer engagement to become your competitive advantage.

Turning crisis into opportunity: Here’s the 3 keys to unlocking success in 2021

Personalisation

The biggest customer expectation and selling point is personalisation – not only for 2021, but this has been a defining trend for the past few years, and has become the norm. Businesses that can’t personalise the customer journey for their customers could limit their customer base by 80%.

Customer experience needs to be personalised pre, during, and after purchase. Pre-covid, Air New Zealand personalised the customer journey, including adding custom greetings with the customer’s name on their seat screen, and automatically serving their favourite drink.

“We measure the value of this programme of work through our customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores. Our Insights team measure CSAT across all stages of the customer journey and we’re seeing these investments are helping to shift the dial…. We don’t just have one CSAT metric but have separate metrics measuring each of the 15 steps in the customer journey. “ – Air NZ

Build Deeper Connections with Customers

Personalisation also offers more intimate and humanised relationships with a business. Continuing to show your human-side is important, by being wherever your customers are. Retail brands and shopping malls quickly adapted to live video-powered experiences and consultations with expert staff when physical stores were out of action. Instead of hiding behind their websites and e-commerce sites, these businesses turned to innovative experiences that build strong bonds between customers and staff.

With CINNOX, these relationships become even deeper. Customers can be connected to staff that helped them in the past automatically no matter which channel they prefer to use for the chat or call. Whether or not the customer uses WhatsApp, Live Chat, or a phone call, they are having one conversation with a business and the staff can see the full communication history for context, instead of asking or repeating the same questions each time. If staff leave the company, another staff can pick up the conversation and continue to make sales without any effect on customer satisfaction or data loss.

Omnichannel – Customer-centricity

Only through omnichannel technology can the customer journey become seamless and customer-centric. 9 in every 10 customers demand a seamless experience from channel to channel – meaning they experience the same level of support, messaging, and quality on any channel they choose to engage the business on.

CINNOX is the best way to communicate with everyone. Run your business from a single platform with all the channels and tools you need to engage customers and communicate well during crisis.

• Talk to customers (and staff!) through instant messaging, video, SMS, phone, conferencing, and chat
• Supercharge sales and marketing with intelligent tools and customer intelligence
• Optimise the customer journey and customer support with smart and efficient enquiry handling tools and configurations
• Leverage detailed reports and analysis for the full scope of business communications – aggregated in one interface, one style

Turning crisis into opportunity for 2021

When selecting new tools and platforms to support your business through volatile times, make sure to choose technology that can deliver personalisation, deep human connections, and omnichannel features. You can get started for FREE with CINNOX today!