In this exclusive MarTalk Buzz interview, Neil Hammerton, CEO, Natterbox discusses how the growth of remote work has made cloud telephonyOpens a new window relevant for sales and marketing leaders today. According to GartnerOpens a new window , cloud-based telephony and messaging services will witness 8.9% increase in spending globally due to the remote work environment.
Neil shares how businesses can ensure customer serviceOpens a new window quality and employee productivity remains robust during the lockdown. He discusses the role of AI and analytics in cloud telephony to create new possibilities for personalized customer engagement, and more.
Key takeaways from this Q&A on cloud telephony for customer service during remote work:
- Key lessons for marketers to embrace innovationOpens a new window in their CRM strategies
- Best practices to build digital marketing strategies around cloud telephony
- Insights into customer service trends for 2020 and beyond
Here are the highlights of our conversation with Neil Hammerton on cloud telephony for customer service during remote work:
1. Could you share your insights on why cloud telephony is relevant for sales and marketing leaders today? How can B2B marketers build their digital marketing strategies around this insight?
It has never been a more crucial time to pick up the phone and connect with both clients and colleagues. One should never hesitate to make that next phone call, but at a time when in-person meetings are simply not possible, telephony is absolutely vital. Traditional phones are great, but cloud telephony means that you can bring the office experience home using any device. With that technology at hand, working remotely is smoother and more seamless.
2. Has the growth of remote work redefined customer service for marketers today? What are the key lessons marketers can take away from this situation?
Our current situation is giving many companies an opportunity to see the power, potential and flexibility that remote working provides. The key takeaway here is that you don’t need to be in the office to provide high-quality service. The office is often perceived to be this magical place where work happens. In reality, an office has four walls and a ceiling – just like your home. If your customer service team is excelling at work, they can excel at home as well.
Learn More: How to Improve the Online Shopping Experience During COVID-19: Q&A With NetalicoOpens a new window
3. As companies strive to embrace innovation, especially in their customer relationship management (CRM) strategies, what role does AI and analytics play to create new possibilities for personalized customer engagement?
Artificial intelligence and analytics are more powerful than people realize. They can dominate headlines and inspire countless investments. AI, in particular, is thought to be a make-or-break technology. But their true power lies in transformation. For example, AI can completely change customer service by providing companies with unprecedented access to analytics. AI can automatically analyze phone calls, decipher the customer’s level of happiness and other tonal components, and share all of that information with the appropriate individuals. This technology can also streamline the call center process by directing inquiries to the right customer service agent.
Better still, AI’s impeccable memory allows enterprises to keep track of customer preferences, previous calls and prior purchases to ensure they provide a remarkable and highly personalized experience, each and every time.
4. With remote working becoming the norm, how can businesses make sure customer service quality and employee productivity remains robust?
Remote work is not for everyone. Some may have even been frustrated by the abrupt transition, wishing they were back in their familiar office environment. That said, remote work has become a desirable feature for many individuals. It has been known to increase morale and employee retention, which in turn can improve productivity. It has also become a priority for many applicants, who say they would turn down a job that doesn’t offer flexibility.
Even before our current situation, which will likely be temporary for most firms, overall remote working opportunities were on the rise. One studyOpens a new window showed that by 2028, nearly three-fourths (73 percent) of departments within a firm will have remote employees.
To ensure that your team maintains its level of productivity regardless of the work environment or location, it’s important to ensure they have the right collaboration tools and business apps. This includes Office 365 and/or Google Docs, Slack or Microsoft Teams, a strong email provider, Cloud Telephony, and Salesforce. With these tools and your same outstanding customer service team in place, there should be no issues in maintaining operations at the level your customers expect.
Learn More: Success with Collaboration Means Being Where the Work Gets DoneOpens a new window
5. How can companies ensure they create a highly personalized customer experience and build genuine relationships with their customers in a remote work set up?
Workplace location should have no bearing on the quality or strength of a relationship, nor should it impact how a relationship is built and maintained. Our current situation means that most of us are working from home. Advanced telephony technology makes this possible, allowing businesses to communicate with their customers even when they can’t meet in person.
More importantly, cloud telephony technology allows businesses to bring their office experience into the home. This means that the same tools they use at their normal workplace can now be taken anywhere and accessed from virtually any device. Thus, any personalized components can be carried over, creating a seamless and continuous customer experience that people will know they can count on.
That experience is extremely important. According to Salesforce’s third State of the Connected CustomerOpens a new window report, 84 percent of respondents said they believed the customer experience is just as important as a firm’s products or service. Even now, as we hunker down within our own four walls, few of us could say that we would be willing to let a bad experience slide given the circumstances. In fact, a bad experience might be more detrimental than ever during this time. Whether it’s a customer service team helping consumers resolve common issues or sales personnel communicating with clients, the experience between parties should not be overlooked.
Learn More: What SMBs Really Want With CollaborationOpens a new window
6. In 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, how should marketers modify their strategies towards concepts such as personas, target audience, and personalization?
The situation changes daily, and sometimes hourly, so the key is to be reviewing and adjusting your strategies as frequently as necessary. You need to think about where your audience is right now (at home) and what they are doing (relying on connectivity for entertainment, work, family/friends and to explore the outside world while sheltering in place). You are much less likely to reach customers in the same way you would have just a couple months ago.
For some industries, such as entertainment or packaged goods, the target audience might have expanded as consumers search for both amusement and nourishment with limited options. What’s vital to this group is to ensure that the brand experience is exceptional – everything from inventory to inbound calls. For other industries, such as restaurants, movie theaters and non-essential retail, the customer base has either been eliminated by default or significantly reduced. These businesses should keep engaging with their former customers, albeit in different ways, so they encourage them to return when business begins to return to normal. These businesses can use this time to engage via channels like social media and, when applicable, highlight ways they are assisting with the crisis.
Personalization is also important – reliability and authenticity are the key to showing customers that you value them – even at times when they can’t visit in person. Businesses should strive to be patient, compassionate and understanding of the situation. This will help them maintain a dialogue with consumers, who will be more likely to return to those brands when the time is right.
7. Which are the upcoming projects at Natterbox on customer service that you are excited about?
Natterbox has introduced Natterbox Insight to provide an in-depth analysis of agent calls. Combining voice transcription and call metrics, to provide unique insight into all areas of communication. From this you can track key phrases, derive relationship strength/health indicators, speech coherence, and talk time analysis.
Advanced search of this data delivers an easy way to find key information in all conversations, based on a wide range of criteria. This gives a Supervisor, for example, the ability to focus on important calls without having to listen to full recordings. At a basic level you can ensure that your agents are behaving in the way that you expect, and use the tool to feedback and identify training needs right through to tracking calls where customers are unhappy and being able to address those issues in a timely manner.
Companies usually have to go through a laborious process of listening back to their call recordings to try to pick out this sort of information, though Insight now automates this process to give Supervisors precious time back.
Learn More: A History of VoIP and What’s Changed NowOpens a new window
8. What’s shaping customer service trends in 2020?
There are three things shaping customer service in 2020:
1) We are currently at home . Being homebound means we are all living a little differently. Most of us can’t go into work, but some of us are lucky enough to work from home. None of us can go to movies or restaurants. Conferences and other major events are being cancelled. It’s a new world order with no clear end in sight. This will no doubt have an impact on the products and services we use and, thus, the level of customer service needed from the companies that produced them.
2) We have more time to reach out. Call centers are being overwhelmed these days, primarily because consumers actually have the time to reach out. They can now inquire about faulty services or broken items. And with many retailers barring returns for the time being, product manufacturers will serve as the first point of contact for most consumers. Call centers need to be prepared for this, all the while understanding the frustrations consumers feel during this difficult period.
3) We have a unique opportunity to connect. The brands that connect to consumers today will reap the benefits tomorrow. This goes back to what I was saying about movie theaters and other businesses that can’t currently serve their customers. They can still connect with them and should take the opportunity to do so as much as possible. It’s the smart thing to do, the right thing to do, and it means your enterprise will be top of mind when the crisis is over.
Thank you for sharing your insights on how cloud-based telephony will help enhance customer service for marketers and sales leaders. We hope to talk to you soon!
About Neil HammertonOpens a new window
Neil Hammerton is CEO of Natterbox. Neil’s career started with BT where he obtained an HND in electronics. A serial entrepreneur Neil has led four successful business ventures.
About NatterboxOpens a new window
Natterbox launched in 2010 to solve business telephony issues and bring voice into the digitized customer experience through a global cloud PBX service that captures and integrates voice into customer processes. Over 500 organizations around the world rely on Natterbox to set new standards in customer experience, drive measurable increases in sales efficiency, competitive advantage and organizational success. Natterbox is available on the Salesforce AppExchange, and customers include Groupon and Legal & General.
About MarTalk Buzz:
MarTalk Buzz is an interview series where marketing leaders and marketing technology companies that are making a difference, connect with us and share their stories. Join us as we talk to them about their product journeys, insights on the categories they serve, what works for them, and some bonus pro-tips.
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