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The prospect of networking can be stressful, especially when you’re a new founder, and especially if you’re not a naturally extroverted person. But building up your professional network is one of the most effective ways to spread awareness of your brand, make vital connections, and get access to the resources, expertise, and leadership you need to take your venture to the next level.

In today’s economy, entrepreneurs need every edge they can get. So how do you forge those important, authentic connections? It’s probably not as difficult as you think. Let’s go over some basic, proven strategies to build your network.

Don’t be openly transactional

This tip might sound counterintuitive. After all, the whole point of networking is to advance your professional prospects by creating mutually beneficial relationships with people in your field. The phrase “mutually beneficial” itself implies an exchange (i.e., a transaction.)

But people tend to react negatively if you make the transactional aspect of networking too obvious. The contemporary model of networking stresses relationships and helping, and downplays horse trading and asking, “What have you done for me lately?” Keep things casual and personal when you’re networking, at least initially. Networking is like any other social interaction: Downplaying what you want isn’t deceptive, it’s simple courtesy.

Be efficient, not overextended

Networking can feel like a burden, especially to the modern entrepreneur clocking 16-hour days. But networking can have such a galvanizing effect on your career that smart founders consider literally moving across the country just to get access to more valuable professional networks.

Many experts suggest allocating a set amount of time per day or week to maintaining and developing your network — for example, one hour a day when you just touch base with high-value professional contacts.

This approach has two big benefits. One, you’ll be consistently cultivating your network, and having a predetermined amount of time to devote to networking protects you from the possibility that it’ll encroach on your time. Two, you’ll be forced to concentrate on your most promising relationships, while phasing out less useful ones.

Hone a high-value presentation

As we mentioned above, effective networking involves forging mutually beneficial relationships. In today’s turbulent job market, people are especially eager to network if you have something to offer them. Make your value clear by stating your current credentials and expertise on sites like LinkedIn, since that’s where most networking contacts will check you out. 

Don’t make things too dry, though. A little personality will go a long way when it comes to making a favorable and memorable impression.

Be active on social media

Many professional contacts will make a point of checking your social media accounts. Use these accounts to convey your professional and personal selves. Offer updates, insights, commentary, humor, and even innocuous content like photos of your pet or lunch. Remember, you’re not just trying to impress people — you’re also trying to endear yourself to them.

Another tip when it comes to your social media accounts: Try to stay active on your main platforms by posting at least once per week. You want to present yourself as engaged and active — not mysterious and absent.

But face-to-face is still the gold standard

As engaging as social media and Zoom meetings can be, face-to-face networking is still the best way to make connections. So much of human communication is non-verbal, and things like body language and eye contact are as important, if not more important, than the words coming out of your mouth. It’s tough, if not impossible, to forge an authentic connection without face-to-face contact.

Have a game plan

Before you start networking, think hard about what you want to get out of it. Do you want to find a mentor or a collaborator? Are you trying to raise awareness of a new venture, expand the voice of an existing one, or consolidate your influence? 

Once you understand your “mission,” you can think about who can help you achieve these goals, and what kind of skills and experience those people might have. At that point, it’s just a matter of forging the relationships.

Cultivate mentorships — from both sides

Don’t forget, there are three “directions” you can network in: upwards (people further along their career paths than you), laterally (your peers), and downwards (people not as far along in their career paths). You shouldn’t neglect any of these levels!

One of the most effective ways to leverage the diverse talents of these groups is through mentorships. Seeking out mentors can get you valuable access to institutional knowledge, leadership, and specialized experience, while taking on mentees can give you valuable perspective, and cultivate contacts in the next generation.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help

One of the more confusing truths about networking is that people don’t like to be pestered or put upon, but they do, under the right circumstances, like to do things for people.

Why? There are a lot of reasons. Beyond the obvious benefit of reciprocity, doing a favor for someone also confers a feeling of virtuousness, and it provides an opportunity to demonstrate and exercise power. Asking someone to do something for you can actually be a great way to seal a new relationship. The trick, of course, is learning how to do it without imposing on them.

Don’t forget to follow up — and maintain

Once you’ve made some contacts, don’t neglect to follow up with them a few days later. Sending them a quick email or text, especially if it touches on something specific that you spoke about during your earlier interaction, is an incredibly effective way to cement your good impression. Social media is a great venue for this — a like or comment on one of their posts is an easy, low-maintenance way to create a moment of connection and awareness.

But don’t think that following up, or networking as a whole, is a “one-and-done” task. You should actively maintain and cultivate your network going forward. This means making regular contact, whether it’s a quick chat at a convention or industry meeting, or an email just to check in on how things are going. If you wait too long between contacts, those connections and relationships you worked so hard to forget will fade away, and you’ll be back at square one.

Featured Photo by Product School on Unsplash

The post Networking for the Modern Entrepreneur: Strategies for Building Your Professional Network appeared first on noupe.

OCR, or Optical Character Recognition, is a technology that can scan written or printed text (from files such as images or PDFs) and convert it into a machine-readable format. The word “machine-readable” here means editable or modifiable. So, in other words, OCR can extract data from unalterable files and convert it into changeable text. 

This raises the question, “What is the use of OCR in business?” Surprisingly, this technology has many applications in businesses of different natures. In this post, we are going to discuss these applications.

Benefits of OCR in Business

We have created a list of all the benefits that you can get if you integrate OCR into your business-related processes. For example, with the help of OCR, you can convert your physical documents into searchable digital files. The list of such benefits is very wide. 

Let’s explore some of these benefits.

1. Enhanced Document Storage

Hard copies of documents take up much physical space, making them difficult to organize. On the other hand, digital documents are much easier to store and manage.

Businesses around the world are in the process or have already gone paperless because of the immense benefits of digital storage. 

OCR can be used for this document digitization. All you have to do is scan your physical documents with the help of OCR software. The result generated will consist of copyable text that can be converted into a digital document. This document can be stored on hard drives or on cloud storage.

2. Advanced Document Security

OCR is very useful for document protection as it is much harder to breach digital documents as compared to physical ones. Similarly, physical documents are also prone to other hazards. For example, in case of a leak in the document storage room, crucial documents can get wet, and all the valuable data inside them will be lost.

Additionally, there are numberless other possibilities that can damage physical documents. OCR helps us digitize documents. Such computerized files can be easily secured with the help of passwords and other protective measures. 

This eliminates the risk of:

• Document Stealing
• Document Damage
• Document Leak

3. Improved File Accessibility

Some of you might think about why it is necessary to use OCR for the digitization of files when we can simply just take images of physical documents. Well, a machine cannot directly comprehend the data inside an image.

This is why there is a need for documents first to be converted into an editable text format. Such documents can easily be searched for. This improves document accessibility by a considerable amount.

According to online data, 77% of business owners want to be able to access files remotely. This shows how many people prefer digital documents over hard copies.

4. Ease in Document Editing

Smaller brands and businesses that are in the process of going digital in terms of documents usually have their files in the form of images or PDFs. These files can not be modified. Similarly, physical documents also have this issue that they cannot be altered.

OCR can fix this problem quite efficiently. Multiple tools are available that recognize these characters and extract text from image. These characters may include:

• Alphabets
• Numbers
• Mathematical symbols
• Special signs

And much more. When such data is in text form, it can easily be edited or modified. In this way, OCR makes the editing process for a business substantially more convenient.

5. Automated Data Entry

OCR is not only limited to data extraction. Other technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence, can be combined with OCR for new usages. These usages include data entry as well. OCR can be used to recognize data from files and enter it into relevant software.

This data may include:

• Invoices
• Bank Statements
• Receipts
• Bills

Similarly, a number of other unorganized documents are also a part of this list. This process of data entry automation saves companies tons of time and resources. 

Manual data entry takes up so much unnecessary effort and also comes with the risk of errors. This is the reason why the majority of businesses have started automating such processes with the help of OCR. 

Conclusion

To summarize, OCR is a stepping stone toward digitalizing your physical documents. Digital files clearly have the upper hand on physical documents in terms of storage, security, accessibility, and editing. In addition to the computerization of documents, OCR is also useful for the automation of various tasks. With so many benefits, it is clear that all businesses should integrate OCR into their business-related tasks to increase efficiency.

Featured image by PayPal.me/FelixMittermeier from Pixabay

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Many brands have started utilizing social media to understand customer issues and complaints. Most of their audiences are active on social media channels. This gives them direct access to customer insights and requirements. Brands can also reinforce their branding efforts by bringing in customer support services through social outlets. 

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube are some of the most popular social media platforms. These platforms are mostly used to promote the brand and its offerings. You can also use them to resolve customer issues. One of the most popular means of doing this is responding directly to customer comments and posts. 

What is social listening?

Social media listening platform means understanding customer issues and feedback through social media. Brands track customer feedback and opinions to improve their products or services.

The customer conversations give them insights into customer behavior and buying patterns. It also helps them get a clear idea of their angst, frustration, or issues. Social listening can also be used to keep a close eye on the evolving requirements of end users.

Here are some ways of improving customer service through social listening: 

1. Recognize the most popular social platforms 

Before using social listening to resolve customer queries/complaints, recognize the social platforms on which most of your customers gather.

• If you run a B2B type of business, most of your clients may be active on LinkedIn or Twitter.
• Instagram is the best place to address customer issues related to shopping brands. 

Finding the right content distribution will help you track industry-specific brands, customers, competitors, etc.

• Suppose that you sell SaaS products. In this case, most of your customers may be active on LinkedIn.

In this case, choose LinkedIn as your content distribution platform. 

Set alerts or notifications on these social media platforms so that you don’t miss out on important conversations. The alerts or notifications will also help you prioritize customer queries or complaints. Different social platforms have different ways of doing this.

For instance, you can use the communications tab to set up notifications on LinkedIn. 

Focus on popular social platforms to bring in customer engagement. It will help you build long-lasting relationships with your customers, which will ultimately boost your business. Be active on these social platforms to improve your customer response rate.

2. Use social listening tools 

Tracking customer conversations via several social media platforms can be a challenging and time-consuming task. Social listening tools can help automate some of these tasks. 

Social listening tools help you keep a close eye on customer conversations. These tools use brand mentions, tags, and keywords to track these conversations. You can also create a search query to fetch customer conversations without any issues. 

Smart use of social listening tools prevents you from missing out on a single customer conversation. These tools not only save you time but also enable you to send prompt responses to customer queries and complaints.

• You can also latch on to a comprehensive customer management suite like Konnect Insights.

It helps you understand what customers are saying about your brand and products. 

Also, it helps you track customer conversations and analyze them automatically. Based on the insights obtained through this social listening platform, you can make data-driven decisions. 

Konnect Insights is one of the best platforms that allows you to manage customer experiences. You can listen to their conversations and respond to them immediately using its tools and features. It is possible to integrate this platform with several apps that can help you manage customer data. 

The wide range of tools offered on this platform helps you enhance customer relationships. You can conduct surveys and evaluate customer feedback through these tools. It also comes with crisis management capabilities. With these capabilities, you can pre-empt a crisis and take prompt action to resolve it. 

3. Listen to what customers are saying through forums and communities 

Social media is not limited to social media accounts and pages. Countless forums and communities are active on social media. The audience uses these communities and forums to discuss their issues. They also use these social outlets to connect with like-minded people. You can target those communities that contain your target audiences. 

• For example, if you manufacture gaming phones and devices, you can focus on gaming communities and forums. 
• The communities like Quora and Reddit can also help you to discuss customer issues and complaints in detail.

These communities will provide you with in-depth insights into customer issues or pain points. By analyzing their pain points, you can make significant changes to your product and customer service. 

Leaving open threads on social media can leave your customers frustrated. Address customer issues through these threads. It will also help customers who are facing similar issues. It will help improve your customer service, which will in turn allow you to maintain customer loyalty. 

4. Convert frustrated users to loyal customers 

Listening to customer issues and complaints is just one part of the process. Many more efforts are required to provide a satisfactory experience for your customers.

• You can start by acknowledging the customer’s issues and apologizing for them. 
• Next, you must provide more clarity to the customers by discussing with them in private. If possible you can explain to them over a phone call or meet them in person. Faster response time makes customers feel like you understand their concerns. 

Make customers feel like you care for them. Small things like sending them an apology letter or giving them extra loyalty points for being patient can help your brand go a long way. Once you have resolved the issues or complaints of the customers, you can ask them to subscribe to the newsletters. 

• Create email newsletters that focus on discussing the product features in detail. Also, keep the customers in the loop about your latest offerings through these newsletters. 
• Addressing customer complaints is not enough. You must also acknowledge positive reviews and feedback. A simple thank you can be enough on most occasions. 

Social listening tools will ensure that you respond quickly to the appreciation notes of your customers. It will make your customers think that you feel good when they appreciate your offerings. Tiny efforts like these will strengthen your customer relationships.

5. Analyze the customer service problems faced by your competitor’s customers 

Social listening helps you analyze the strengths and shortcomings of your competitors. By using insightful social media tools, you can recognize the concerns that your competitors’ customers are facing. Using this, you can revamp your customer service strategies. 

Suppose that some of your competitor’s customers are not happy with the limited customer service options they offer. You can capitalize on this shortcoming and try to lure them in by offering more options. 

• For instance, you can offer customer support services through chat, email, telephone, etc. Keep your customers satisfied by providing them with more options to connect with your support executives.

It will not only give you a competitive edge but also help you expand your customer reach. 

Tips to improve customer service using social listening

These are some additional tips that can help you improve your customer service:

1. Be proactive 

Be proactive while addressing customer concerns and complaints via social media.

• By being proactive, you can notify a customer even before they have encountered a problem. 

Suppose that you sell software solutions and that your software is scheduled for maintenance activity due to a recent update. Now, it is better to inform all your customers in advance than respond to their complaints afterward. It will create a good impression on your customers. 

2. Merge content marketing apps with social listening tools 

The social listening tools help you track customer conversations in real-time.

• By merging content marketing apps with social listening tools, you can manage customer interactions.

Handling the customers in real-time can also help you avert a crisis. Choose social listening tools that are backed by powerful algorithms. You should be able to enter search queries, keywords, and brand names to monitor conversations. These tools should also be integrated with social media management apps to offer seamless customer service with advanced social media monitoring features. 

3. Discover brand influencers 

Discovering the influencers who have the maximum impact on your customers can also improve your customer service. You can track how these influencers deal with and manage end users. Adopt some of their strategies to make your customer service more impactful. 

• Influencers usually have knowledge of re-targeting groups based on their conversations. By using their insights, you can construct formidable marketing campaigns. Some of these insights can also be used to retain customers. 

Train your customer support executives to cross-sell your offerings. Suppose that a customer who uses your software is suffering an issue due to poor security measures. Now, if your support executives are fully trained in cross-selling, they can pitch your antivirus software smartly to the users. 

4. Conduct a market research

Thorough market research will help you find the best platforms to address customer issues. Once you shortlist the popular social platforms, start offering customer service through your social media accounts and pages. 

5. Find what to track and how to track

Just listening to everything that your customers are saying is not feasible. You must also decide what to track and how to track it. A clear plan can help you monitor the things that can affect your brand’s image and customer service. 

While using social listening tools, you can focus on these things:

• Brand mentions
• Industry buzzwords
• Customer complaints and feedback 
• Customer appreciation received through reviews and feedback 
• Hashtags relevant to your business 
• Hashtags related to your competitors
• Mention your industry influencers 
• Tracking how the influencers engage with your target audience

6. Collaborate with influencers

You can also collaborate with the influencers to keep a close eye on the customer’s issues and concerns. By working with them, you can create formidable customer acquisition and retention strategies. Learn how to pitch relevant products or services by analyzing customer service. 

Conclusion

Social listening is a much quicker and more cost-effective solution than traditional marketing tools. Use social listening tools to improve customer service and retain customers. You can also integrate these social listening tools for online crisis management. 

Identify the right channels for handling customer queries and complaints. After that, you can focus on picking the right social listening platform. Konnect Insights can help you manage the customer experience. Its myriad of features enables you to evaluate customer conversations. Finally, you can improve your existing customer service portals to integrate social listening activities seamlessly! 

Featured image by Thorsten Frenzel from Pixabay

The post Ways To Use Social Listening To Improve Your Customer Service appeared first on noupe.

Attaining a healthy work-life balance becomes a challenge for employees as they have to juggle multiple responsibilities at the workplace and at home while maintaining relationships with their family members. 

So, how can employers help their employees achieve a better work-life balance while being productive at work? 

From trying out different work schedules to doing away with unnecessary meetings, check out a few actionable steps employers can take to help employees find a healthy personal and professional balance.

What Is Work-Life Balance?

Work-life balance is all about creating a balanced environment for employees that allows them to accomplish their job duties efficiently while giving them ample time to prioritize their personal lives. A better work-life balance enables individuals to work productively while taking care of their well-being after office hours. 

However, due to the rising demand to achieve greater results, employees are struggling to strike the right balance between their personal and professional lives. This is the reason why business leaders and employers must step in to help employees achieve a state of equilibrium so that they can prioritize both lives equally.

Ways to Improve Work-Life Balance

Allow Adequate Paid Time Off

One of the best ways to help employees attain a work-life balance is by providing them with adequate paid time off. Many employers are, in fact, providing unlimited paid time off options to promote an employee-centric environment. Employees can take time offs whenever needed to recharge and refresh, spend more time with family, plan a vacation, or complete personal work. 

Besides, managers must encourage employees to use their PTO whenever they need it and make sure that employees don’t hesitate or feel guilty to request time off. Managers are supposed to set the tone of the workplace, therefore, they can lead by example by taking time off from work for a much-deserved rest. 

They can also demonstrate the significance of work-life balance by leaving the office on time, taking adequate breaks, and not mailing to employees when they are on time off.

In addition, employers can adopt simple practices to promote work-life balance, such as challenging employees to meet their friends and family at least once a week, whether on weekends or by using paid time off. 

Try Alternative Schedules Over Traditional 9 to 5 Approach

As the demand for more flexibility has surged, employers are experimenting with different work schedules that are way too versatile and flexible over the regular ones. For instance, in the flex schedule, employees can work at their own pace; that is, they can work during the time which is convenient to them and when they feel most productive. 

In other words, here, employers give their employees the freedom to do their work any time of the day or week. 

Similarly, compressed workweek schedules such as 9/80 and 4/10 are renowned for their different approaches, which squeeze the total work hours of a week into fewer days. For instance, in a 9/80 work schedule, the total 80 hours of two weeks are completed in 9 days rather than ten days, thus providing an additional day off every second week. 

In addition, companies nowadays are also opting for a 4-day work week to render their employees more flexibility and work-life balance. 

Adopt Remote and Hybrid Work Culture

Remote workers cite better work-life balance and overall wellness, as remote working provides employees with the freedom to organize their day at their convenience. As a result, they can do their job when they feel most productive and make sufficient time for other activities outside of work. 

Besides, many employers are switching to a hybrid work culture that enables employees to work 2 to 3 days from the workplace and other days from home. This schedule allows employees to interact with colleagues on a regular basis and gives them a break from the daily commute while offering more time to spend with their families.

Cut Down on Unnecessary Meetings

One of the major productivity killers is the time squandered on various meetings. With the work-from-home culture, the biggest disadvantage that appeared is that the meetings or discussions that could have been done within a few minutes have now taken the form of half an hour-long Zoom meetings. 

What’s more, in order to discuss a few things with multiple stakeholders and colleagues, employees may have to block their calendars for a certain time.  On top of that, some employees don’t need to attend certain meetings since they don’t have much to contribute, which ultimately wastes their time and reduces their productivity.

So, look into the calendar of employees; if they are loaded with multiple meeting slots, then there are chances that they may not be able to focus on their main work and may have to compensate for it by working extra hours outside the office.

Consider freeing up the employee’s calendar by discarding unnecessary conferences and meetings. Instead, establish a system of half an hour brainstorming sessions in which team members of a project can meet and discuss things in advance in order to clear any doubts or roadblocks.  This is a great way to eliminate time sinks.

Build an Employee-Centric Company That Supports Young Parents

All employees have a family to look after, and the best way an employer can improve employees’ morale is by supporting them with their responsibilities. For instance, many organizations are providing their employees with free backup childcare, workplace daycare, remote learning pods for kids, sabbaticals, and additional paid family leaves, so that young parents can pay attention to their young children while pursuing their jobs.

Employers should also consider providing perks and benefits such as maternity, paternity, or shared parental leaves to employees with young children so that they have sufficient time to complete their parenthood responsibilities. 

Avoid Glorifying Busy Work Culture and Overworking

One of the biggest reasons why employees in certain industries feel more burnout is due to the culture of staying super busy and working extra hard. Especially in organizations where it’s a norm that overworking and taking extra responsibilities is a measure of your dedication to your job, it is likely that employees will face burnout, stress, and ultimately experience work-life imbalance. 

Thus, it is crucial that employers should stop promoting a work culture where overworked employees are considered the epitome of ideal workers. Instead, they should spread a message that the ideal worker is someone who is efficient at the workplace but at the same time has a great life outside of their office. Furthermore, they should encourage employees to take ample rest and sleep every day as the well-rested employees are most productive and creative.

Encourage Employees to Take Sufficient Breaks

According to a published survey report from Tork, 9 out of 10 respondents revealed that they are more likely to stay in an organization where employers encourage their employees to take breaks in between work. Breaks are crucial as they help restore productivity and creativity levels when working long shifts. 

Besides, breaks give desk job workers some time to rest their eyes and the entire body. Taking breaks in between work not only helps in increasing productivity, but also makes employees feel more engaged, energized, and relaxed. 

To promote breaks in your organization, managers can leverage the Pomodoro technique method that follows the approach of taking a 5-minute break after every 25 minutes of work. Managers can also organize some fun activities or games to help employees disconnect from work for a while. Some employers are also establishing a dedicated space known as a nap area or nap pods, where employees can take a nap while at work to get refreshed. 

Communicate with Employees Regularly

If you want to create a better work-life balance for your employees, the foremost thing is to communicate with your employees regularly. For example, managers can book a monthly one-on-one meeting with their team members to ask them about their well-being and workload. Let them know if they can do anything to support their wellness or need help in prioritizing their work schedules. 

It is recommended that managers regularly assess the employees’ workload and productivity. Suppose they witness a sudden slip in performance or an excessive absenteeism pattern. In that case, they should try to communicate with employees if they are facing any challenge inside or outside the workplace and if they can help them sort it out. 

In addition, they can encourage them to avail of their PTO if they need a break from work or offer other such solutions. Besides, employers should have an open-door policy so that employees can reach out to management if they face any issues and express their concerns freely without any fear of repercussions.

Bottom Line

Striking the right balance between professional and personal lives is challenging for every employee. However, employers can help their employees find a better work-life balance by adopting the above-mentioned ways. Following these practices will not only make workers happier and more productive but also, your company will be known to promote a better work-life balance that will help you attract top talent and retain the best ones.

Featured image by mostafa meraji from Pixabay

The post Ways To Improve Work-Life Balance For Employees appeared first on noupe.

In today’s business landscape, creating a seamless and personalized customer experience across multiple channels is a necessity. A report states that businesses that use omnichannel strategies retain 89% of their customers compared to those that don’t.

This is where an email strategy comes in handy. By integrating email marketing into your omnichannel strategy, you can create consistent and nurturing experiences for customers. In this guide, we’ll explore the role of email marketing in boosting omnichannel customer experience.

Understanding Omnichannel Customer Experience

When it comes to serving customers, “all channels equal,” or “omnichannel,” is the gold standard. The components include physical stores, online/ecommerce platforms, social media, mobile apps, and email. 

Omnichannel ensures that customers can interact with your brand in the way that suits them best, and all channels work together cohesively to provide the customer with a consistent brand experience.

The Challenges of Creating an Omnichannel Experience

The main challenge of creating an omnichannel experience is to synchronize all channels, ensuring that they work in harmony. Poor integration can result in unstructured, disconnected communication with the customer. Other challenges of creating an omnichannel experience include:

• Integrating disparate systems and technologies
• Ensuring consistency across all channels
• Providing a unified customer view

For example, a customer has a different experience using the brand’s website versus their mobile app, and their purchase history does not carry over between channels.

Email marketing can play a critical role in overcoming these challenges. Using an omnichannel email strategy, you can connect with customers at every stage of their journey. By crafting effective email campaigns, you can deliver targeted and relevant messages, thereby promoting engagement and sales.

The Role of Email Strategy in Boosting Omnichannel Customer Experiences

Customers still prefer using email as a means of contact. According to the Global Messaging Engagement Report, email was cited as one of the top three communication channels by 18% of respondents. What’s more, 77% of respondents check their email inbox daily or even more often. If you’re looking to find a tech co-founder for your startup, email may be a great way to reach out and build a relationship.

Due to its effectiveness and high return on investment (ROI), email remains the backbone of most marketers’ omnichannel marketing campaigns. In fact, the average ROI for an email marketing campaign is $36 for every $1 spent.

Let’s take a look at how you can use the strengths of email marketing to build omnichannel client interaction. 

1. Adapt email targeting based on recipients’ actions on other channels.

You can boost your customer engagement and drive revenue to your brand by leveraging user data from various channels. The data can then be used to trigger automated email campaigns. For example, sending personalized and timely emails based on customer actions can significantly increase their interaction with your brand. Here are a few ideas:

• If a customer abandons their cart, send an email reminder to encourage them to complete their purchase.
  
• After a successful interaction with your web chat support team, follow up with an email asking for feedback and a review of the service.
  
• Show appreciation to customers who make a purchase by sending a personalized thank-you email and offering a coupon code for their next purchase.
  

By utilizing these automated email campaigns, you can efficiently nurture customer relationships and drive conversions for your products and services.

ALSO READ: Email analytics: What should you be tracking?

2. Gather customer data to supercharge your marketing.

Email and data go together like peanut butter and jelly, complementing each other perfectly. 

Acquiring first-party data is essential for building a robust customer profile, and email is one of the most effective methods for collecting such data. For instance, when a user joins your email list, you can start collecting information about them for behavior-based targeting. After they sign up, you can even ask for additional information by inviting them to finish their profile or change their email settings. 

Emails can then be tailored to each recipient based on this information and other data collected from customers across multiple channels. For instance, you can personalize the email based on the customer’s location, demographic information, the products they browsed on your site, and much more. 

3. Keep communication flowing between relevant channels. 

Customers may be unaware of the new channels you’ve added to your communication strategy. Use the following methods to invite subscribers to contact you in new ways by leveraging the widespread use of email: 

• Offer a special discount to consumers who sign up for both email and SMS at the same time. To do this, simply add a phone number input field to your email signup form. 

• Tell your email list subscribers to get the app so they may participate in the loyalty program and enjoy other benefits. 

• You can improve your customer service response time by including a link to live chat in your emails. 

ALSO READ: How To Use Recurring Emails to Bring Consistent Revenue

Best Practices for Using Email in Omnichannel Customer Experience

Get your customers out of the mobile maze! 

We live in a world where mobile devices have become an extension of our lives, and customers expect businesses to meet their mobile engagement needs. However, many businesses are falling short, leaving customers frustrated and disengaged. 

Recent research shows that over half of customers are deterred from doing business with a company if they have a poor mobile experience. That’s a lot of potential business lost!

So, what can businesses do to avoid losing customers? It’s simple: prioritize mobile. 

Ensure that your website is mobile-friendly in terms of viewing and navigation and that your customer service support is easily accessible on mobile. By providing a seamless mobile experience, you’ll not only keep your customers happy but also stand out from your competition.

Avoid keeping your clientele waiting.

While email may be perceived as a slower communication channel for customer service, it doesn’t diminish the importance of providing prompt resolutions. 

Email conversations may not have the real-time nature of phone calls or live chats, but customers still expect timely and satisfactory resolutions to their inquiries or issues. Failing to address customer concerns promptly can lead to frustration, dissatisfaction, and even negative word-of-mouth.

Toister Performance Solutions reports that 88% of clients expect an email response within an hour, with 30% expecting a reply within 15 minutes.  

Automation is one approach to fulfilling these requirements. By setting up automated email responses for common queries, businesses can acknowledge the customer’s message and provide relevant information within seconds, even outside regular business hours.

Maintain data across all platforms.

For a consumer, nothing is more frustrating than being passed around from platform to platform, only to have to rehash their story each time. Customer frustration can be reduced by enhancing knowledge management across all platforms and teams.

“Customer service, social media, chatbot Platform, and other channels must be coordinated with email to deliver a consistent experience.”

There’s a good chance you’ll lose a customer if they call and are routed around to a different channel just to be asked to repeat themselves. Instead, offer a direct line of contact, and make it such that the support staff may quickly access the customer’s previous messages when prompted with a reference (such as the customer’s name). With this in place, things should go more easily.

To have a place that collects all data from each channel, you can hire a Node.js developer, that will maintain the company server and will build algorithms that allow organizing and use of data appropriately.

Test, Test, Test…

Many companies who invest in an omnichannel customer service strategy forget the most crucial step: testing.

The omnichannel experience can be evaluated in terms of success and failure by using the customer service software you already have in place.

This paints a crucial big picture for you. However, there is no better way to find out if everything is operating smoothly than to start a live chat or tweet and wait to see the speed and quality of the answer.

Conclusion 

The future belongs to companies that implement omnichannel customer service.

To grow a robust email support system, it’s important to learn why your customers prefer email and to keep your cross-channel support standards at a high level.

Keep in mind that the human element is the glue that holds everything together.  The secret to offering excellent customer service is having well-trained personnel who can solve customer problems and make a good impression.

Ultimately, the goal of any customer service channel is to deliver a positive and trustworthy experience that will strengthen your bond with the people who use it.

Featured image by kirill_makes_pics from Pixabay

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