Over the years we have seen a great deal of evolution in successfully running a business, one might go as far as to say, ‘it takes a village to build a businesses. There is a constant need to involve external parties for fresh insight and relief from having to directly handle the extra demands. In 2020, a huge crush hit businesses across the globe due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The vaccines have brought relief to a lot of companies as it has allowed them to re-open and continuing serving customers and selling their wares, there comes the greater question: “how does a business get back in the game with a more efficient and effective business model?” One of the solutions lies in the involvement of business process outsourcing companies, whose main job is to manage particular functions and processes on behalf of an organization. Some of these outsourced functions are discussed below:
Training
As Benjamin Franklin said “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest” Training should not be looked at as a “nice to have” but it is an important function within the organization. Investing in customer service training will definitely ensure a company’s security of profit margins through satisfied customers.. Training equips the employee with basic academic critical thinking tools and personal skills. A lot of successful companies have benefited from customer service training as it has increased the capacity of employees to be able to deal with customer s more effectively.. There is also an increase in job satisfaction and morale amongst the employees which results in a company registering a healthy bottom line as well as reduced employee turnover. For your company to have that increase in quality and quality of output, regular customer service training is the way to go.
Social Media Management (SMM)
Digital marketing services are the new best thing. Lead generation percentages have increased tremendously for a lot of businesses since engaging in online marketing. Statistics from 2020 on Wikipedia show that 3.96 billion people worldwide are actively using social media on a day-to-day basis.
Social media management helps a company to keep up with social engagement whilst managing multiple social pages. It is also a great tool for advertising and product marketing. It helps a company to know and understand what its customers are looking for, saying about a particular service or product as well as providing a wider reach for businesses. There is increase in social accountability and can be used as a tool to create a competitive advantage. SMM gives a company’s customers a direct channel to give feedback and be heard!
Zendesk, a customer service software company states that nearly 40% of customers already use social media for customer services and 42% of customer who reach out to brands on social media expect a response in under 60 minutes. Most brands are struggling to keep up with responding to all social media enquiries and comments. Outsourced marketing services are then the next best option. Appointing a business outsourcing company to manage services such as social media management can guarantee efficient responses to clients in the anticipated time frame. This can help marketers to save time, stay organized and optimize their efficiency. Social media management makes it easy to keep track of all conversations and it allows to search for conversations by keyword giving a company faster customer service.
Call Centre Services
When a company wishes to take up telemarketing, outsourced call center services are the number one option to be considered. Engaging a company that offers call center services to provide such services can assist with cost reduction as well as save time. There is the benefit of extensive telephone service hours as they can run on a 24/7/365 basis hence giving your company an improvement in customer engagement as well as improved quality of calls. Call center services can assist with the multilingual challenges a company may have as they may not be able to hire persons of different ethnicities. It is vital for companies to have a direct response call center to handle clients without any delays. Employing call center specialist companies ensures an immediate solution as they have professional training in handling a vast number of incoming and outgoing phone calls in a limited space of time.
Call center services can work hand in hand with virtual marketing. Often times when clients see an online advert and need to enquire more, they are bound to make a phone call given that it is fast and more direct than with the comments section. The client, therefore, has easier access to product information and there is improved communication within the company. Talking to customers over the phones allows more information to be given on the different solutions that a company can provide. It also helps a company to get to know the experience the customer is achieving with their products and services.
Promotions, Campaigns and Surveys
Promotions are a fun and improved way to inform, remind or persuade customers ns towards purchasing a company’s product or service. Promotions assist to differentiate the product or service by highlighting the brands/products/service’s unique features. In turn this creates and increases the product awareness which should cascade into product demand. Promotions help builds positive brand image and also help to outperform the competitors.
Campaigns put your company story and message in front of the audience by improving awareness and increasing equity in the mind of the potential customer. Campaigns are a means of controlling a brand’s narrative and public image. It also comes as a strategy to differentiate one’s organization from the competition.
Surveys are a means to find out how well a brand, product or service is well received by the target market. It is a fun and informative way a company can engage to understand how the public perceives and associates with their products and services. Surveys can be a means to measure brand awareness or customer satisfaction, the results obtained thereafter will then determine the next step to be taken. Surveys can also be run internally, for example employee engagement surveys.
Data Analysis
A process of transforming and modelling data to discover useful information for better decision making. Data analysis is important for business as it assists to decipher problems that an organization could potentially face. More and more organisations are outsourcing data analytics where an independent company can be appointed to analyse data in order to find out more about customer preferences, purchasing habits amongst other customer insights.
In some instances, data analysis can involve keeping tabs on a company’s competitors to find out who their customers are and their preferences also. Data analysis helps to ensure adequate stock and it therefor becomes a great planning tool. Clearer and accurate marketing strategies are developed as a result of data analysis as it helps to determine the right audience for a specific selection of product and services. Data analysis contributes as well to the innovation of a product and services line to meet the requirements of the market. Expansion is also another factor promoted by data analyses as it can determine whether a product or service is ready to be introduced into a new market.
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