Let’s be real, the sales pitch has evolved. It’s no longer just a pitch, it’s a fastball. You have about 30 seconds to hook your audience. In those 30 seconds, you have to connect, persuade and provide value to a complete stranger — it’s no easy feat.Your potential customers today are more informed (and skeptical) than they’ve ever been. Our latest State of Sales Report shows 81% of sales reps say buyers increasingly conduct research before they reach out. Pitching with information your prospective customers already know shows apathy — and a lack of awareness.That’s why the work you put in before you deliver your pitch, and the follow-up once you’ve aced it, are so critical to closing the deal. We have some tips to ace the pitch — before, during, and after those critical 30 seconds.Why the sales pitch is still so importantA report from research firm G2 revealed 68% of buyers don’t involve sales until they’re ready to make a purchase. That means your sales pitch is likely to be a prospect’s first interaction with your company —so make it count. It’s an opportunity to expand their understanding of your company and create a valuable exchange in the process. And of course, it’s still an opportunity for sellers to learn more about the customer’s pain points, requirements, and expectations.Customers may be showing up more informed, but that doesn’t mean using the pitch to educate them is no longer useful. An effective sales pitch should be a two-way street that adds value for both parties. By showcasing your expertise and sharing information they can’t find on their own, you can validate their reasons for reaching out.The components of a perfect sales pitchA common mistake new salespeople often make is launching straight into their sales pitch without asking any questions.A good sales pitch is more about understanding — and it starts long before your first engagement with a potential customer. Effective sales pitches require a bit of homework to understand your prospect well enough to personalise your presentation instead of sticking to a canned script.“Salespeople are under the impression that pitching their product is what makes deals,” said speaker and author Jill Konrath. “Anybody who is a victim of the pitch has their defense mechanisms up in full steam whenever they’re talking to somebody. They don’t trust them because they feel that they’re going to be pounced on.”Considering this, here are nine tips to put you on the path to the perfect sales pitch.1. Prioritise your sales pitch with dataHow are you prioritising the deals you’re chasing? A recent study shows that top-performing sales teams are 1.6 times more likely to prioritise leads based on data analysis — and half as likely to prioritise based on intuition. Data can be the guidepost in your pitch prioritisation. Where it used to be enough to pursue the deals you “had a good feeling” about, you can use real data insights, like scored leads that indicate likeliness to close, to help make sure your focus is in the right place.2. Personalise your pitch based on researchYour product isn’t going to sell itself. According to the latest State of Sales Report, 87% of business buyers expect reps to approach sales conversations as trusted advisors. Craft a pitch that shows you understand their business and delivers information beyond what they can find on their own. Do your homework and research before your first conversation to maximise your chances of closing the deal. Conduct thorough research on their company, their industry, and competitors. During your initial contact, be sure to ask the right questions so you can tailor your message to address their specific needs and ease the deal to the next step.Personalise your sales pitch to the company and role you’re pitching to, based on your research. Are you pitching the chief marketing officer, service vice president, chief operating officer, or the head of legal? Knowing the role of your buyer (or buyers, more likely) will help shape how you personalise your pitch. Understanding common pain points of your buyer’s role is a great place to start. If you come in with the story that’s only from your perspective, how will the buyer see what’s in it for them? AI tools built into your CRM can help you create personalised messaging, but it’s not a replacement for the work that needs to go into building the right pitch for your customer.Before presenting your pitch to the buyer, conducting research will also eliminate unnecessary noise distracting them from the sale. For example, show them you care enough to understand their business with a relevant message highlighting product features that could benefit them the most.Get articles selected just for you, in your inboxSign up now3. Get access to the actual decision-makersAll the research and customer information in the world won’t help your pitch if you aren’t in touch with the actual decision-makers who can approve the purchase. This point poses a growing challenge, as research from Gartner shows the six to 10 people are involved in B2B purchase decisions.Essentially, you have three roles to consider: those who will assess the logistics, those who will implement the solution and those who will have final approval. Before the actual sales pitch, ensure that you’re talking to the person who not only truly understands the business, but is also a decision-maker. This is easier said than done. Oftentimes, getting access to the actual decision-maker in a deal is a primary hurdle that salespeople face, and requires building trust with a more value-based relationship over time.4. Paint the picture for your buyerBeing a storyteller is a skill not often discussed on sales teams, but it can be the secret that sets a good sales pitch apart from the best sales pitch. Tell the story of where they are now and the vision of where they could be.To borrow advice from author and storytelling expert Nancy Duarte, “The audience does not need to tune themselves to you — you need to tune your message to them. Skilled presenting requires you to understand their hearts and minds and create a message to resonate with what’s already there.”Inspiring change and getting buyers to think differently is a way to stand out among your competition. If you can paint the picture of how the buyer will feel with your product or service, you can show them value in a whole new light.5. Share your insightsYou’ve done your homework and listened to what the buyer has to say — now it’s time to share the solution to their problem. You can do this by adding value at each touchpoint. Give them more than they can find on their own online or otherwise — for example, share insights, customer testimonials, or case study results from other customers to help them see the value in your solution.Again, this is a good case for data. Showcasing data points like customer satisfaction, overall engagement with your product, or positive responses are all ways to reinforce trust with your buyer. After all, proof is in the pudding, right?6. Stay on messageIt’s no easy feat to get in front of a potential customer, so don’t waste their time or yours with a long-winded, boring sales pitch that isn’t relevant to the unique problems your potential customer faces.Keep the pitch on-message by being clear, and you’ll keep your buyer’s attention. Review it until it’s as concise as possible without losing the intent. For instance, remove unnecessary buzzwords, like “synergy” and “best practice” — you won’t need these if you know your customer’s needs. And, whenever you get stuck, always go back to your brand’s values.7. Fearlessly overcome common sales objectionsAs you’re perfecting your sales pitch, be sure to include thorough research that solves their problem, and addresses potential objections that may arise.The most common sales objections fall into four buckets: budget, authority, need, and time (also known as BANT). You may not need to have a detailed response to all of these, but be prepared to discuss each. The key here is to show you understand their concern, and offer possible ways to overcome those hurdles, together.For instance, if a competing product is brought up during your pitch, highlight the features that differentiate your product, connecting it back to them. Or, if they don’t have budget secured, turn the conversation towards investing back into their team, and how much money your product can save them in the future.Over time, you’ll hone your objection-response based on the feedback you receive in sales meetings. In the meantime, leverage customer and product research and use that knowledge in handling objections without fear.8. Listen to understand, not just to replyAccording to the latest State of Sales Report, sellers say active listening is one of their top tactics to build good relationships with prospects. Listen to the tone, speed, and volume of their voices to give clues about how they’re feeling. Use “tell me about” statements to prompt them to share their experiences.If you’re on a script, don’t be overzealous or overconfident — instead, go into the pitch with an open mind and let the buyer do most of the talking. If you can’t narrow down your buyer’s pain points, you won’t be able to figure out the best way to help them.Periodically check in with the buyer during your pitch, taking the time to hear their views and respond with thoughtful follow-up questions. This is a critical step to really understanding their business needs and ultimately closing the deal. If you’re responding by asking the right questions, you can adjust your pitch to sound more attractive to the buyer. If you have your ears open, it will feel less like a business presentation and more like a healthy conversation about their business needs.9. Outline options for next stepsWhile listening to your buyer is critical, don’t just pack up after your pitch. Be ready to share what’s next for the customer. Every sales pitch should end with a call to action. Even if the customer isn’t ready to complete the sale, be sure to keep the prospect on the journey and move forward with a follow-up meeting or next steps.Pro tip: Never wait for the customer to make the call to action. Failing to be proactive could result in the meeting or relationship ending before you have a chance to continue the conversation and seal the deal.The perfect sales pitch does existWith these tips, you’re ready for the perfect sales pitch. Be confident because you’ve put real thought and effort into your pitch; you know your product, you know your buyer, you’re listening to their needs, you’re solving the real problem, and you’re ready for any objection. Game on!

Indonesia is the largest digital economy in ASEAN, and is emerging as a digital leader on the global stage. Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance estimates technological adoption will grow the economy by as much as$2.8 trillion by 2040, with an eightfold increase in the size of the digital economy over the next 10 years. Many Indonesian businesses will require support to capture this opportunity and unlock the benefits of digitisation. That’s why LIKE.TG, the global leader in customer relationship management (CRM), is proud to announce that we are deepening our commitment to Indonesia with the launch of our Indonesian entity, the general availability ofHyperforce, and a new partnership to address the digital skills imperative in the region. The new Indonesian entity will bring LIKE.TG’s team and decision-making closer to our customers and partners in the market and enable LIKE.TG to tap into the local talent pool. The efforts aim to create greater impact and support growth of businesses in Indonesia. “We’re launching our new entity at a very exciting time for Indonesia and the broader region in ASEAN,” said Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager, LIKE.TG ASEAN. “Embracing digitisation unlocks the potential for Indonesian companies to cultivate stronger customer connections and establish an adaptable workforce. LIKE.TG also benefits the ecosystem, such as the budding entrepreneurial developer community in Indonesia who can build on, extend and monetise from the LIKE.TG platform.” Bringing the power of secured Public Cloud to Indonesia The evolving global landscape presents new challenges in terms of innovation, trust and safety. This requires businesses to enhance the way they scale operations globally, while ensuring they meet local data security and privacy requirements. Hyperforcereimagines LIKE.TG’s platform architecture for the public cloud, placing greater emphasis on rapidly and reliably delivering LIKE.TG applications to global locations. Indonesian companies can now useHyperforceto quickly and securely deploy the majority of the LIKE.TG Customer 360 products – including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, Platform, and Industry Clouds such as Financial Services Cloud – by leveraging the scale and agility of public cloud computing. Hyperforcewill empower more Indonesian businesses to capitalise on the value of LIKE.TG while streamlining adherence to local data residency regulations – an imperative for regional and global organisations in regulated industries such as financial services, telcos, government-linked businesses and more. “As the world shifts and reshapes, the pillar of trust stands firm. At LIKE.TG, we champion the security and privacy of your data,” says Matthew Parin, Product Director ofHyperforce. “Hyperforce’s path-breaking innovation embodies this value – providing customers across dozens of countries a world-class, scalable foundation for the LIKE.TG platform with security, privacy, data residency, and agility across clouds.” Accelerating Indonesian innovation with Hyperforce To thrive in the digital economy, Indonesian businesses need to develop and deploy innovative solutions at speed and scale. “The local launch of Hyperforce allows Indonesian organisations to harness the scalability of the public cloud to facilitate growth and the pursuit of innovation.” said Abraham. WithHyperforce, resources can be quickly and easily deployed in the public cloud to reduce implementation time from months to weeks or days, and deliver performance at B2B and B2C scale with built-in trust and local data storage. Hyperforce also gives Indonesian businesses backwards compatibility, ensuring that every LIKE.TG app, customisation and integration will run on Hyperforce. Addressing Indonesia’s digital skills imperative As well as product innovation, LIKE.TG recognises the imperative to build digital skills in Indonesia to help drive growth in its digital economy. That’s why LIKE.TG has engaged in a new skills partnership with The Ministry of Communication and Informatics (KOMINFO) in Indonesia. “LIKE.TG is continuing our commitment to addressing the skills imperative in Indonesia by equipping local talent with the tools and skills to improve their job prospects in the digital economy,” Abraham said. Under the KOMINFO Digital Talent Scholarship Program, participants will be supported to develop the skills required for roles as LIKE.TG Administrators, Developers and App Builders. Nokentech will support the delivery of training to participants, which will be delivered viaTrailhead– LIKE.TG’s free online learning platform – and through expert-led workshops. This builds on LIKE.TG’s existing partnership with Nokentech to train up to 100,000 students in Indonesia in customer relationship management (CRM). Delivered over three years, the training will be delivered to a student base made up of 50 percent of women in order to address gender inequity in access to digital skills. “Today’s announcement of our Indonesian entity, the launch of Hyperforce and our local skilling initiatives underscore LIKE.TG’s ever-growing commitment to the Indonesian market. We look forward to working more closely with our customers and partners to help more businesses in Indonesia leverage AI, data and CRM to capture the digital opportunity today,” said Abraham. How Hyperforce can empower your business future Want to learn more on how to take your business to the next level with Hyperforce? We are excited to invite you to join us on 5 October, 10.00am Jakarta time. Our leading experts, Matthew Parin, Product Management Senior Director, LIKE.TG Hyperforce and Eric Suwandhi, Principal Solution Engineer, LIKE.TG Indonesia will delve into these comprehensive benefits as well as cover the migration process. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear how Hyperforce can empower your organisation and drive your business forward with the next-generation hyperscalable and hypersecure cloud infrastructure. Register now to find out more.

Social commerce is a boon for brands all over the world. With more than half the global population on social media, channels likeTikTok, Instagram, and Facebook represent a huge opportunity for ecommerce growth — and a huge pool of potential customers. For businesses, navigating the ever-changing world of social commerce requires a clear vision, a strong connection to values, and a plan for responding to feedback. Once you have that strategy in place, you can create shoppable content that differentiates your brand, connects with customers, and, best of all, converts. Here’s how to do it. What is a social commerce strategy? A social commerce strategy is an approach used by businesses to buy and sell products and services through social media. A successful strategy involves finding the right social channels for your audience, building connections with customers, and showcasing your values. This will help you create impactful experiences that turn shoppers into lifetime customers. What is shoppable content and how does it work? Thanks tosocial media marketing, customers can discover products as they scroll through their social feeds. Closing the deal is much easier, though, if they never have to leave their social media platform. Enter shoppable content: digital assets, such as social media posts, images, videos, or ads, that shoppers can click to make a direct purchase — without interrupting their scroll session. Shoppable content pairs marketing and social commerce strategies to turn a browsing moment into a purchase. Here are three tips to get your shoppable content to convert. 1. Lead with your values Cat videos. Memes. DIY home renovation stories. Photos from your cousin’s tropical vacation. Social media is a noisy place, so how do you create shoppable content that gains the honor of a deeper look? To stand out, it’s critical to know what motivates your shoppers. Now more than ever, customers make decisions based on their values. In fact,66% of customershave stopped buying from a company whose values didn’t align with theirs — up from 62% in 2020. Where’s the connection between your brand and your customer? The answer is found in your “why.” Whether you’re creating an image, video, or ad, focus on your values to drive awareness, sales, and loyalty. For example: Do you donate a percentage of profits to a specific cause? Show shoppers how they can be part of your initiatives with their purchase. Is your brand focused on sustainability? Tell shoppers how a highlighted product is a part of your efforts. Does your brand showcase diversity and inclusion? Let your shoppers know that all are welcome. Take a look at howTimberlandleads with its values by showcasing its sustainable materials in imagery and captions: A vast majority of customers (88%) expect companies to clearly state their values, but only 50% say they do. That’s a big opportunity to build trust, and shoppable content is a great place to start. 2. Use social listening Social listening is the process of identifying and assessing what’s being said about your company, product, or service on social media. One way to do that is to ask for reviews. Nearly all customers (97%) say that reviews factor into their buying decisions. And 92% of consumers hesitate to make a purchase when there are no customer reviews.Social media reviewsare the linchpin of a strong feedback loop, and an invaluable part of your social commerce strategy. (Yes, even negative reviews.) And they benefit more than just your customers. Whenever you post shoppable content, reviews help you gauge interest, guide product development, and improve the customer experience. Philipp Plein, a global luxury fashion and lifestyle brand, uses social listening to get a deeper understanding of its audience to drive growth. Here’s how founder Philipp Plein sees it: “Some brands just want to set trends, but we listen to what people are saying and try to gauge what our customers want to wear. For example, sports luxe has gone from being nowhere to everywhere. We tweaked the design of our sneakers in line with feedback on social media, and now 30% of sales come from our sporty couture range.” Monitoring and responding to customer reviews in a timely manner is key to a successful social commerce strategy. For small companies, the business owner might want to handle this task. Other companies might delegate review responses to a social media manager, customer service agents, or sales reps. For larger companies, this can be a job in itself. No matter what, you’ll want someone at the helm who understands your brand mission, vision, and values — and can communicate them well in written form. The better your feedback loop, the better your shoppable content will be. 3. Stay relevant, but stay on brand Relevancy is crucial to any social media presence. The content that resonates this month might not work the next. That’s the nature of social media: The landscape changes quickly and trends seem momentary. Keeping up with it can be a full-time job (literally). What’s the key to creating relevant, shoppable content that feels authentic? Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Stay on top of trends, but keep in mind that not every trend will lend itself to your brand’s message. Find and create moments that blend your brand’s purpose with trending topics and formats. Here are a few ways to help you stay on top of your game: Scroll, scroll, scroll.Immerse yourself in social media trends daily. For instance, the For You and Explore pages on TikTok and Instagram, respectively, are great places to start if you want to quickly discover what content is trending. Follow industry influencers.What big names affect buying decisions in your market? Find those accounts and give them a like, comment, or follow. Engagement is a two-way street. Ask your customers.Want to know what content resonates most with your customers? Go straight to the source. Customer expectations change rapidly, so poll shoppers regularly to keep a pulse on their preferences. Keep an eye on the competition.Find out what’s working for your key competitors, and then implement your own version of their moves. (As they say, imitation is the highest form of flattery.) Delegate social commerce tasks.Decide who’s responsible for carrying out your social commerce strategy. Make sure your teams know who’s in charge of everything from developing your overall strategy to smaller tasks like social listening, responding to comments, and writing captions. Let data lead the way.By usinggenerative AI, your social, merchandising, and marketing teams can work smarter, not harder. Creating shoppable moments that resonate is more important than ever. That’s especially true for TikTok, which launched its game-changing Shop feature — a “Buy Now” button that lets you purchase directly in the app — in March. Today, social commerce makes upmore than half (56%)of retail sales in the U.S. By 2025, that number is expected to jump to 80%. Relevant shoppable content with a unique brand view will help differentiate your business, and turn social scrolls into shopping sprees. Ready to create shoppable content that converts? To find social commerce success and create shoppable content that resonates, you need an authentic edge. It all comes down to telling your story and differentiating your brand with values-driven, relevant messaging and listening to your customers to create an optimal experience. Your relationship with your customers is a two-way street, and social commerce offers a great way to connect, listen, and add value to the conversation.

Indonesia is the largest digital economy in ASEAN, and is emerging as a digital leader on the global stage. Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance estimates technological adoption will grow the economy by as much as$2.8 trillion by 2040, with an eightfold increase in the size of the digital economy over the next 10 years. Many Indonesian businesses will require support to capture this opportunity and unlock the benefits of digitisation. That’s why LIKE.TG, the global leader in customer relationship management (CRM), is proud to announce that we are deepening our commitment to Indonesia with the launch of our Indonesian entity, the general availability ofHyperforce, and a new partnership to address the digital skills imperative in the region. The new Indonesian entity will bring LIKE.TG’s team and decision-making closer to our customers and partners in the market and enable LIKE.TG to tap into the local talent pool. The efforts aim to create greater impact and support growth of businesses in Indonesia. “We’re launching our new entity at a very exciting time for Indonesia and the broader region in ASEAN,” said Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager, LIKE.TG ASEAN. “Embracing digitisation unlocks the potential for Indonesian companies to cultivate stronger customer connections and establish an adaptable workforce. LIKE.TG also benefits the ecosystem, such as the budding entrepreneurial developer community in Indonesia who can build on, extend and monetise from the LIKE.TG platform.” Bringing the power of secured Public Cloud to Indonesia The evolving global landscape presents new challenges in terms of innovation, trust and safety. This requires businesses to enhance the way they scale operations globally, while ensuring they meet local data security and privacy requirements. Hyperforcereimagines LIKE.TG’s platform architecture for the public cloud, placing greater emphasis on rapidly and reliably delivering LIKE.TG applications to global locations. Indonesian companies can now useHyperforceto quickly and securely deploy the majority of the LIKE.TG Customer 360 products – including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, Platform, and Industry Clouds such as Financial Services Cloud – by leveraging the scale and agility of public cloud computing. Hyperforcewill empower more Indonesian businesses to capitalise on the value of LIKE.TG while streamlining adherence to local data residency regulations – an imperative for regional and global organisations in regulated industries such as financial services, telcos, government-linked businesses and more. “As the world shifts and reshapes, the pillar of trust stands firm. At LIKE.TG, we champion the security and privacy of your data,” says Matthew Parin, Product Director ofHyperforce. “Hyperforce’s path-breaking innovation embodies this value – providing customers across dozens of countries a world-class, scalable foundation for the LIKE.TG platform with security, privacy, data residency, and agility across clouds.” Accelerating Indonesian innovation with Hyperforce To thrive in the digital economy, Indonesian businesses need to develop and deploy innovative solutions at speed and scale. “The local launch of Hyperforce allows Indonesian organisations to harness the scalability of the public cloud to facilitate growth and the pursuit of innovation.” said Abraham. WithHyperforce, resources can be quickly and easily deployed in the public cloud to reduce implementation time from months to weeks or days, and deliver performance at B2B and B2C scale with built-in trust and local data storage. Hyperforce also gives Indonesian businesses backwards compatibility, ensuring that every LIKE.TG app, customisation and integration will run on Hyperforce. Addressing Indonesia’s digital skills imperative As well as product innovation, LIKE.TG recognises the imperative to build digital skills in Indonesia to help drive growth in its digital economy. That’s why LIKE.TG has engaged in a new skills partnership with The Ministry of Communication and Informatics (KOMINFO) in Indonesia. “LIKE.TG is continuing our commitment to addressing the skills imperative in Indonesia by equipping local talent with the tools and skills to improve their job prospects in the digital economy,” Abraham said. Under the KOMINFO Digital Talent Scholarship Program, participants will be supported to develop the skills required for roles as LIKE.TG Administrators, Developers and App Builders. Nokentech will support the delivery of training to participants, which will be delivered viaTrailhead– LIKE.TG’s free online learning platform – and through expert-led workshops. This builds on LIKE.TG’s existing partnership with Nokentech to train up to 100,000 students in Indonesia in customer relationship management (CRM). Delivered over three years, the training will be delivered to a student base made up of 50 percent of women in order to address gender inequity in access to digital skills. “Today’s announcement of our Indonesian entity, the launch of Hyperforce and our local skilling initiatives underscore LIKE.TG’s ever-growing commitment to the Indonesian market. We look forward to working more closely with our customers and partners to help more businesses in Indonesia leverage AI, data and CRM to capture the digital opportunity today,” said Abraham. How Hyperforce can empower your business future Want to learn more on how to take your business to the next level with Hyperforce? We are excited to invite you to join us on 5 October, 10.00am Jakarta time. Our leading experts, Matthew Parin, Product Management Senior Director, LIKE.TG Hyperforce and Eric Suwandhi, Principal Solution Engineer, LIKE.TG Indonesia will delve into these comprehensive benefits as well as cover the migration process. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear how Hyperforce can empower your organisation and drive your business forward with the next-generation hyperscalable and hypersecure cloud infrastructure. Register now to find out more.

Does it seem like everyone around you is casually tossing around terms like “generative AI,” “large language models,” or “deep learning”? Feeling a little lost on the details? We’ve created a primer on everything you need to know to understand the newest, most impactful technology that’s come along in decades. Let’s dive into the world of generative AI. We’ve put together a list of the most essential terms that will help everyone in your company — no matter their technical background – understand the power of generative AI. Each term is defined based on how it impacts both your customers and your team.” And to highlight the real-world applications of generative AI, we put it to work for this article. Our experts weighed in on the key terms, and we let a generative AI tool lay the groundwork for this glossary. Each definition needed a human touch to get it ready for publication, but it saved loads of time. Generative AI Terms by Topic AI CORE TERMS Artificial intelligence (AI) Artificial neural network Augmented intelligence CRM with AI Deep learning Generative AI Generator GPT Machine learning NLP Transformer AI TRAINING LEARNING Discriminator (in GAN) GAN Hallucination LLM Model Prompt engineering Sentiment analysis Supervised learning Unsupervised learning Validation ZPD AI ETHICS Ethical AI Maturity Model Explainable AI (XAI) Machine learning bias Artificial intelligence (AI) AI is the broad concept of having machines think and act like humans. Generative AI is a specific type of AI (more on that below). What it means for customers:AI can help your customers by predicting what they’re likely to want next, based on what they’ve done in the past. It gives them more relevant communications and product recommendations, and can remind them of important upcoming tasks (example: It’s time to reorder). It makes everything about their experience with your organisation more helpful, personalised, efficient, and friction-free. What it means for teams:AI helps your teams work smarter and faster by automating routine tasks. This saves employees time, offers customers faster service, and provides more personalised interactions, all of which improves customer retention to drive the business. Artificial neural network (ANN) An ANN is a computer program that mimics the way human brains process information. Our brains have billions of neurons connected together, and an ANN (also referred to as a “neural network”) has lots of tiny processing units working together. It’s like a team all working to solve the same problem. Every team member does their part, then passes their results on. At the end, you get the answer you need. With humans and computers, it’s all about the power of teamwork. What it means for customers:Customers benefit in all sorts of ways when ANNs are solving problems and making accurate predictions – like highly personalised recommendations that result in a more tailored, intuitive, and ultimately more satisfying customer experience. Neural networks are excellent at recognising patterns, which makes them a key tool in detecting unusual behaviour that may indicate fraud. This helps protect customers’ personal information and financial transactions. What it means for teams:Teams benefit, too. They can forecast customer churn, which prompts proactive ways to improve customer retention. ANNs can also help in customer segmentation, allowing for more targeted and effective marketing efforts. In a CRM system, neural networks could be used to predict customer behaviour, understand customer feedback, or personalise product recommendations. Augmented intelligence Think of augmented intelligence as a melding of people and computers to get the best of both worlds. Computers are great at handling lots of data and doing complex calculations quickly. Humans are great at understanding context, finding connections between things even with incomplete data, and making decisions on instinct. Augmented intelligence combines these two skill sets. It’s not about computers replacing people or doing all the work for us. It’s more like hiring a really smart, well-organised assistant. What it means for customers:Augmented intelligence lets a computer crunch the numbers, but then humans can decide what actions to take based on that information. This leads to better service, marketing, and product recommendations for your customers. What it means for teams:Augmented intelligence can help you make better and more strategic decisions. For example, a CRM system could analyse customer data and suggest the best time for sales or marketing teams to reach out to a prospect, or recommend products a customer might be interested in. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) with generative AI CRMis a technology that keeps customer records in one place to serve as the single source of truth for every department, which helps companies manage current and potential customer relationships. Generative AI can make CRM even more powerful — think personalised emails pre-written for sales teams, ecommerce product descriptions written based on images alone, marketing campaign landing pages, contextual customer service ticket replies, and more. What it means for customers:A CRM gives customers a consistent experience across all channels of engagement, from marketing to sales to customer service and more. While customers don’t see a CRM, they feel the connection during every interaction with a brand. What it means for teams:A CRM helps companies stay connected to customers, streamline processes, and improve profitability. It lets your teams store customer and prospect contact information, identify sales opportunities, record service issues, and manage marketing campaigns, all in one central location. For example, it makes information about every customer interaction available to anyone who might need it. Generative AI amplifies CRM by making it faster and easier to connect to customers at scale – think marketing lead-gen campaigns automatically translated to reach your top markets across the globe, or recommended customer service responses that help agents solve problems quickly and identify opportunities for future sales. Deep learning Deep learning is an advanced form of AI that helps computers become really good at recognising complex patterns in data. It mimics the way our brain works by using what’s called layered neural networks, where each layer is a pattern (like features of an animal) that then lets you make predictions based on the patterns you’ve learned before (ex: identifying new animals based on recognised features). It’s really useful for things like image recognition, speech processing, and natural-language understanding. What it means for customers:Deep learning-powered CRMs create opportunities for proactive engagement. They can enhance security, make customer service more efficient, and personalise experiences. For example, if you have a tradition of buying new fan gear before each football season, deep learning connected to a CRM could show you ads or marketing emails with your favourite team gear a month before the season starts so you’ll be ready on game day. What it means for teams:In a CRM system, deep learning can be used to predict customer behaviour, understand customer feedback, and personalise product recommendations. For example, if there’s a boom in sales among a particular customer segment, a deep learning-powered CRM could recognise the pattern and recommend increasing marketing spend to reach more of that audience pool. Discriminator (in a GAN) In a Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), the discriminator is like a detective. When it’s shown pictures (or other data), it has to guess which are real and which are fake. The “real” pictures are from a dataset, while the “fake” ones are created by the other part of the GAN, called the generator. The discriminator’s job is to get better at telling real from fake, while the generator tries to get better at creating fakes. This is the software version of continuously building a better mousetrap. What it means for customers:Discriminators in GANs are an important part of fraud detection, so their use leads to a more secure customer experience. What it means for teams:Discriminators in GANs help your team evaluate the quality of synthetic data or content. They aid in fraud detection and personalised marketing. Ethical AI maturity model An Ethical AI maturity model is a framework that helps organisations assess and enhance their ethical practices in using AI technologies. It maps out the ways organisations can evaluate their current ethical AI practices, then progress toward more responsible and trustworthy AI usage. It covers issues related to transparency, fairness, data privacy, accountability, and bias in predictions. What it means for customers:Having an ethical AI model in place, and being open about how you use AI, helps build trust and assures your customers that you are using their data in responsible ways. What it means for teams:Regularly evaluating your AI practices and staying transparent about how you use AI can help you stay aligned to your company’s ethical considerations and societal values. Explainable AI (XAI) Remember being asked to show your work in maths class? That’s what we’re asking AI to do. Explainable AI (XAI) should provide insight into what influenced the AI’s results, which will help users to interpret (and trust!) its outputs. This kind of transparency is important when dealing with sensitive systems like healthcare or finance, where explanations are required to ensure fairness, accountability, and in some cases, regulatory compliance. What it means for customers:If an AI system can explain its decisions in a way that customers understand, it increases reliability and credibility. It also increases user trust, particularly in sensitive areas like healthcare or finance. What it means for teams:XAI can help employees understand why a model made a certain prediction. Not only does this increase their trust in the system, it also supports better decision-making and can help refine the system. Generative AI Generative AIis the field of artificial intelligence that focuses on creating new content based on existing data. For a CRM system, generative AI can be used to create a range of helpful things, from writing personalised marketing content, to generating synthetic data to test new features or strategies. What it means for customers:Better and more targeted marketing content, which helps them get exactly the information they need and no more. What it means for teams:Faster builds for marketing campaigns and sales motions, plus the ability to test out multiple strategies across synthetic data sets and optimise them before anything goes live. Generative adversarial network (GAN) One of twodeep learningmodels, GANs are made up of two neural networks: ageneratorand adiscriminator. The two networks compete with each other, with the generator creating an output based on some input, and the discriminator trying to determine if the output is real or fake. The generator then fine-tunes its output based on the discriminator’s feedback, and the cycle continues until it stumps the discriminator. What it means for customers:They allow for highly customised marketing that uses personalised images or text – like custom promotional imagery for every customer. What it means for teams:They can help your development team generate synthetic data when there is a lack of customer data. Especially useful when privacy concerns arise around using real customer data. Generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) GPT is a neural network family that is trained to generate content. GPT models are pre-trained on a large amount of text data, which lets them generate clear and relevant text based on user prompts or queries. What it means for customers:Customers have more personalised interactions with your company that focus on their specific needs. What it means for teams:GPT could be used to automate the creation of customer-facing content, or to analyse customer feedback and extract insights. Generator A generator is an AI-based software tool that creates new content from a request or input. It will learn from any supplied training data, then create new information that mimics those patterns and characteristics. ChatGPT by OpenAI is a well-known example of a text-based generator. What it means for customers:Using generators, it’s possible to train AI chatbots that learn from real customer interactions, and continuously create better and more helpful content. What it means for teams:Generators can be used to create realistic datasets for testing or training purposes. This can help your team find any bugs in a system before it goes live, and let new hires get up to speed in your system without impacting real data. Hallucination A hallucination happens when generative AI analyses the content we give it, but comes to an erroneous conclusion and produces new content that doesn’t correspond to reality. An example would be an AI model that’s been trained on thousands of photos of animals. When asked to generate a new image of an “animal,” it might combine the head of a giraffe with the trunk of an elephant. While they can be interesting, hallucinations are undesirable outcomes and indicate a problem in the generative model’s outputs. What it means for customers:When companies monitor for and address this issue in their software, the customer experience is better and more reliable. What it means for teams:Quality assurance will still be an important part of an AI team. Monitoring for and addressing hallucinations helps ensure the accuracy and reliability of AI systems. Large language model (LLM) An LLM is a type of artificial intelligence that has been trained on a lot of text data. It’s like a really smart conversation partner that can create human-sounding text based on a given prompt. Some LLMs can answer questions, write essays, create poetry, and even generate code. What it means for customers:personalised chatbots that offer human-sounding interactions, allowing customers quick and easy solutions to common problems in ways that still feel authentic. What it means for teams:Teams can automate the creation of customer-facing content, analyse customer feedback, and answer customer inquiries. Machine learning Machine learning is how computers can learn new things without being programmed to do them. For example, when teaching a child to identify animals, you show them pictures and provide feedback. As they see more examples and receive feedback, they learn to classify animals based on unique characteristics. Similarly, machine learning models learn from labelled data to make accurate predictions and decisions. They generalise and apply their knowledge to new examples, just as humans do. What it means for customers:When a company better understands what customers value and want, it leads to enhancements in current products or services, or even the development of new ones that better meet customer needs. What it means for teams:Machine learning can be used to predict customer behaviour, personalise marketing content, or automate routine tasks. Machine learning bias We’ve all heard the phrase “garbage in, garbage out,” right? Machine learning bias is just a turbocharged AI version of that. When computers are fed biassed information, they make biassed decisions. This can be the result of a deliberate decision by the humans feeding the computer data, by accidentally incorporating biassed data, or when the algorithm makes wrong assumptions during the learning process, leading to biassed results. Example:If a loan approval model is trained on historical data that shows a trend of approving loans for certain demographics (like gender or race), it may learn and perpetuate those biases. This isn’t because of a prejudice in the system, but a bias in the training data. It will have huge implications for the accuracy and effectiveness of the system, and help build equality and trust among customers. What it means for customers:Working with companies that actively engage in overcoming bias leads to more equitable experiences, and builds trust. What it means for teams:It’s important to check for and address bias to ensure that all customers are treated fairly and accurately. Understanding machine learning bias and knowing your organisation’s controls for it helps your team have confidence in your processes. Model This is a program that’s been trained to recognise patterns in data. You could have a model that predicts the weather, translates languages, identifies pictures of cats, etc. Just like a model aeroplane is a smaller, simpler version of a real aeroplane, an AI model is a mathematical version of a real-world process. What it means for customers:The model can help customers get much more accurate product recommendations. What it means for teams:This can help teams to predict customer behaviour, and segment customers into groups. Natural language processing (NLP) NLP is a field of artificial intelligence that focuses on how computers can understand, interpret, and generate human language. It’s the technology behind things like voice-activated virtual assistants, language translation apps, and chatbots. What it means for customers:NLP allows customers to interact with systems using normal human language rather than complex commands. Voice-activated assistants are prime examples of this. This makes technology more accessible and easier to use, improving user experiences. What it means for teams:NLP can be used to analyse customer feedback, power chatbots, or automate the creation of customer-facing content. Prompt engineering You don’t need an engineering degree for this one. Prompt engineering means figuring out how to ask a question to get exactly the answer you need. It’s carefully crafting or choosing the input (prompt) that you give to a machine learning model to get the best possible output. What it means for customers:When your generative AI tool gets a strong prompt, it’s able to deliver a strong output. The stronger, more relevant the prompt, the better the end user experience. What it means for teams:Can be used to ask a large language model to generate a personalised email to a customer, or to analyse customer feedback and extract key insights. Sentiment analysis Sentiment analysis involves determining the emotional tone behind words to gain an understanding of the attitudes, opinions, and emotions of a speaker or writer. It is commonly used in CRM to understand customer feedback or social media conversation about a brand or product. What it means for customers:Customers can offer feedback through new channels, leading to more informed decisions from the companies they interact with. What it means for teams:Sentiment analysis can be used to understand how customers feel about a product or brand, based on their feedback or social media posts, which can inform many aspects of brand or product reputation and management. Supervised learning Supervised learning is when a model learns from examples. It’s like a teacher-student scenario: the teacher provides the student (the model) with questions and the correct answers. The student studies these, and over time, learns to answer similar questions on their own. It’s really helpful to train systems that will recognise images, translate languages, or predict likely outcomes. (Check outunsupervised learningbelow). What it means for customers:Increased efficiency and systems that learn to understand their needs via past interactions. What it means for teams:Can be used to predict customer behaviour or segment customers into groups, based on past data. Transformer Transformers are a type ofdeep learningmodel, and are especially useful for processing language. They’re really good at understanding the context of words in a sentence because they create their outputs based on sequential data (like an ongoing conversation), not just individual data points (like a sentence without context). The name “transformer” comes from the way they can transform input data (like a sentence) into output data (like a translation of the sentence). What it means for customers:Businesses can enhance the customer service experience with personalised AI chatbots. These can analyse past behaviour and provide personalised product recommendations. They also generate automated (but human-feeling) responses, supporting a more engaging form of communication with customers. What it means for teams:Transformers help your team generate customer-facing content, and power chatbots that can handle basic customer interactions. Transformers can also perform sophisticated sentiment analysis on customer feedback, helping you respond to customer needs. Unsupervised learning Unsupervised learning is letting AI find hidden patterns in your data without any guidance. This is all about allowing the computer to explore and discover interesting things on its own. Imagine you have a big bag of mixed-up puzzle pieces, but you don’t have the picture on the box to refer to, so you don’t know what you’re making. Unsupervised learning is like figuring out how the pieces fit together, looking for similarities or groups without knowing what the final picture will be. What it means for customers:When we uncover hidden patterns or segments in customer data, it enables us to deliver completely personalised experiences. Customers will get the most relevant offers and recommendations, enhancing customer satisfaction. What it means for teams:Teams get valuable insights and a new understanding of complex data. It enables teams to discover new patterns, trends, or anomalies that may have been overlooked, leading to better decision-making and strategic planning. This enhances productivity and drives innovation within the organisation. Validation In machine learning, validation is a step used to check how well a model is doing during or after the training process. The model is tested on a subset of data (the validation set) that it hasn’t seen during training, to ensure it’s actually learning and not just memorising answers. It’s like a pop quiz for AI in the middle of the semester. What it means for customers:Better-trained models create more usable programs, improving the overall user experience. What it means for teams:Can be used to ensure that a model predicting customer behaviour or segmenting customers will work as intended. Zone of proximal development (ZPD) The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is an education concept. For example, each year students progress their maths skills from adding and subtracting, to multiplication and division, and even up to complex algebra and calculus equations. The key to advancing is progressively learning those skills. In machine learning, ZPD is when models are trained on progressively more difficult tasks, so they will improve their ability to learn. What it means for customers:When your generative AI is trained properly, it’s more likely to produce accurate results. What it means for teams:Can be applied to employee training so an employee could learn to perform more complex tasks or make better use of the CRM’s features. Take the next step with generative AI Generative AI has the power to help all of your teams connect more closely with your customers, unlock creativity, and increase productivity. From a business perspective, there’s almost no part of your organisation that AI can’t make more efficient. Sales, service, marketing, and commerce applications are all able to use the power of generative AI to deliver better, more tailored solutions to your customers, and to do so quickly. By letting AI assist us with the more routine tasks of helping our customers thrive, we’ll be able to free our human teams to do what they do best — come up with new ideas and new ways to collaborate, all while building those unique connections that only humans can. Now that you’re up to speed on Generative AI for CRM,see it in action.

Generative AI hasraised considerable buzz lately, but with this hype comes a lot of misconceptions and confusion onhow it can help marketers. With customer expectations rising and personalisation now an expectation, marketers can use generative AI to help maintain customer loyalty and gain insights in a post-cookie world. We’ve already seenhow AI can help marketers, commerce teams, salespeople, and more make informed decisions. This merely scratches the surface on how brands can useAI in their marketingto become more efficient and productive. Werecently asked marketershow this technology will help, with 60% saying it will transform their role. More than half (51%) are already experimenting with generative AI or using it at work already. In our survey, marketers estimated that generative AI could save them 5 hours per week — that adds up to over one month a year. Imagine how much more you could do with that time back. Thoughgenerative AIis still in its early stages, here are three ways marketers can use it today to better connect with customers. What generative AI for marketing could look like Generative AI can help with drafting marketing materials or providingquick answers to customer responses. But that’s just the start of what businesses can do with this technology. Combining generative AI with an intuitive customer data platform can arm companies with the tools to take action onreal-time insights. This can help you deliverpersonalisation at scale, such as product recommendations, tailored to individual customers based on their browsing and purchase history. Consumers also expect brands to use their data to offer more relevant services. We found that over60% of customers expect that companiesinstantly react with the most up-to-date information when transferring across departments. Generative AI can satisfy this customer need by giving agents suggested responses generated right in the moment, based on real-time data. The next step for brands? Education. In our latest research, 54% of marketers told us that generative AI training programs are essential to them successfully using this technology. And 72% expect that their employers will provide them with the opportunities to learn how to use generative AI. The last mile of personalisation Today’s customers expect personalisation at every step. Recently, we found65% of customerssay they will stay loyal if the company offers a more tailored experience. Combining the power of generative AI with your CRM data gives marketers the ability to create those kinds of digital experiences for their customers. Altogether, this results in more efficient marketing journeys that are better tailored to their audience across content generation, design, and targeting. 3rd-party cookie replacement Third-party cookie deprecation andaccess to high-quality data— data that’s well-structured and useful — is a growing challenge for marketing organisations. We discovered that41% of business leaderscite a lack of understanding of data because it’s too complex or not accessible enough. As data becomes increasingly difficult to collect, store, and analyse, marketers can now turn to AI tools to help analyse the data they do have and make the right decision. AI will help marketers process their existing, perhaps limited, first-party data and provide them with rich insights. That trusted first-party data is important for generative AI to work well, 63% of marketers told us. Marketers themselves also play a pivotal role in generative AI’s success, with 66% saying that human oversight is necessary to make sure a brand’s voice stays authentic. Letting you focus on the customer This shift in focus and conversation around generative AI is imperative, not a nice-to-have. By eliminating the confusion and delay in analysing data, generative AI takes the heavy lifting out of content creation. This technology can generate product descriptions that are accurate, compelling, and optimised for search engines. With generative AI handling lower-level tasks, marketers are able to focus on strategic campaigns, executing on creative, and creating connections with customers. Generative AI can fundamentally change how marketing departments operate, allowing teams to place more focus where it belongs — on the customer.

Prospects — the potential customers you want to sell to — are the fuel for the sales pipeline. Every prospect represents a possible deal. So growing your base of prospects and working to nurture them will grow your revenue. Even though prospecting is important, it may sometimes feel like you’re just wishing and hoping the right people will come. Let’s see how to make prospecting a science instead — less like drilling for oil and more like filling up on gas. What is sales prospecting? Prospects are possible customers, and prospecting is finding possible customers. Sales reps use prospecting to expand the size of their potential customer base. They’ll reach out to leads (potential sales contacts) and nurture them into “opportunities” (leads who have been warmed up over time). There are various sales prospecting techniques, from making calls to sending direct mail, attending networking events, and connecting on social platforms like LinkedIn. The stages of the sales prospecting process The sales process goes from cold leads to warm opportunities to red-hot deals. Prospecting is what happens in between: From leads … Sales and marketing source leads. Leads are unqualified prospects. Leads can come from marketing (think a webinar that requires a form fill) or sales (think cold outreach). … to opportunities … Sales qualifies leads into prospects. Sales gets to know leads and decides whether they’re a good fit for the product. If they are, the lead is “qualified” to become a prospect. Sales nurtures prospects into opportunities. As sales works to make prospects more and more interested in the sale, these prospects become “opportunities” who are more and more likely to buy. … to customers Sales closes opportunities into deals. In the end, after many conversations, there will be two kinds of opportunities: “closed-lost” (boo) or “closed-won” (yay!). How do I find new sales prospects? We could talk about all the different platforms out there, but let’s be real. “When it comes to sourcing prospects online, LinkedIn is the biggest game in town,” says Stephanie Svanfeldt, a strategic account executive at LIKE.TG. Here are tips to get going: 1. Follow the prospect before you connect Unless you’re sending InMail, which is a sponsored message, you’ll need to get connected with prospects before you can message them on LinkedIn. Start by following them. From there, you can begin to comment on, like, and share their status updates and work your way into their world. If they think you’re providing value, they’ll be more likely to respond to a connection request. 2. Find them in groups Joining a group where your prospect is active can give you a shortcut to getting connected. Look for the groups they belong to on their profile and see if there’s one that also makes sense to join. Then you can chime in on the group’s posts. Even if you can’t respond to them directly, they might get email alerts about the best comments left in the group, which is a great way to end up directly in their inbox. 3. Hype them up Everyone wants to go viral. Follow the prospect’s activity and help drum up engagement. This is a great way to show that you’re interested in your prospect’s ideas. You can also look at the information they highlight on their profile — like courses, presentations, and thought leadership — and “endorse” them for skills that matter most to them. How has the sales prospect changed? Prospecting used to be a volume play. Salespeople could make 200 calls a day and send out blasts of emails and know that enough of them would stick to be worth it. Cold outreach is still an important piece of the puzzle, but sales development representatives (SDRs) and sales reps will need to balance broad quantity outreach with targeted quality outreach. Here’s why: The new prospect isn’t waiting by the phone like they used to Prospects are spread out across digital platforms — mainly LinkedIn, but also Twitter, Facebook, and messaging apps — and they have strong opinions about where they like to communicate. The new prospect is flooded with more messages than ever. Our inboxes have never been more crowded. First, in a trend The Economist calls, “It could have been an email,” meetings are getting shorter — by 20%, according to this Harvard Business School study. Conversations that used to happen in meetings are happening in emails instead. Second, that same study shows that more emails are being sent in the pandemic (by 5%) — with more recipients on average (by 3%), and more frequently after hours (by 8%). The question becomes: How can you capture people’s attention as their inboxes overflow? The new prospect wants more out of their interactions. The intense, shared experience of the pandemic has taught us all to go beyond the superficial layer. To get a prospect’s attention now, you have to be authentic and relevant. Get articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now How can I approach this new sales prospect? Account-based marketing made a splash when companies began to personalise marketing campaigns to individual companies. Now this trend of personalisation is coming to sales. Here’s Stephanie Svanfeldt again: “Everyone talks about account-based marketing, but it’s also about account-based sales. We need to study the individual and be relevant when we reach out.” What are the prospect’s preferred channels? How can you stand out from the crowd? How can you find an authentic common ground that gives the relationship traction? Here are the steps to take: Lean on customer relationship management (CRM) Sales prospecting is harder than it used to be, now that we need to be more relevant and personalised with every approach. It takes more time and more care, and it’s harder to scale. We need technology to close the gap. CRM gives you a control room for all your interactions with our prospects — the last email you sent, notes from all of your meetings, and the pitch deck you presented —so all the information you need is at your fingertips. Research your way into their world Research is the groundwork. If it’s a publicly traded company, read their investor reports. If it’s a small or medium business (SMB), then set up Google alerts to learn about their press, and devour everything they put out there about themselves. Insights about opportunities and accounts (at LIKE.TG, we use Opportunity Management) help you bring more value to the table. You’re trying to learn about problems and people, so by the time you reach out, you’re not only saying the right things — you’re also saying them to the right person. Find the channel that sticks Everyone is different. Every approach needs to be different too. Some of us are old school and like to talk on the phone. Some of us live in our inboxes. Some of us really love getting gifts in the mail. How can you find the right channel? The answer is to leave no stone unturned. If the prospect doesn’t pick up the phone, try connecting on LinkedIn. Still no luck? Reach out again and be as relevant as you can. Craft an email that grabs them. Keep working on the interaction until you see a spark. Earn the right to ask them what their favourite communication channel is — and meet them there. How do I qualify a sales prospect? Qualifying a prospect is an important piece of the puzzle, but don’t mistake “qualifying” for “deciding whether someone is important.” Everyone you talk to is important — because if they’re not the right person to talk to, then they can point you to the person who is. Here are questions to help you qualify whether a prospect is a good fit: Is this the right person? Does the prospect match your ideal customer profile? Are they already interested in your product? Can they influence the deal, or even decide to buy it? Is this the right company? Is it in your territory? Is the industry a good fit? What’s the size of their organisation? (Don’t just think of how many employees they have. If you’re selling a subscription or usage-based service, then also think about the size of their consumption.) Is this the right project? Is the department funded to pay your price? Will the project be a priority this year for the company? Will the team be using the product for the right use case — in a way that will create an impact? How can I move sales prospects to the next stage in the sales cycle? Research is important, but you’ll need more than that to take the conversation to the next level. After all, it’s just as easy for prospects to research us as it is for us to research them. We won’t get anywhere with them by repeating the same general information on your company’s website. How can you go deep, and bring them an insight that no one else has? You’ll need to learn their accent — not just their language — and become knowledgeable about their lives at work. That means learning about specific trends in their industries, their companies, and even their lives. Ready to take your very best practices for prospecting, and set them into motion at scale? Sales Cadences lets sales managers set steps for sellers to follow — things like: when to email versus call, what call script to use, and what material to send if they say no. Keep the conversation moving. Don’t just think about closing the deal. Think about closing every step of the deal. It can be easy to get carried away in your excitement to move the conversation along. Here’s how: Obsess over the next step Don’t forget to end every conversation with a question. “Can we connect for five minutes after you’ve taken a look?” “Is there someone on your team I could work with on that?” “If you’re not the right person to ask, can you tell me who is?” Advance but qualify Prospecting is all about marching onward. But don’t over-focus on a deal that won’t be worth the effort. As you move the conversation forward, you need to keep qualifying at the same time. At every stage, ask whether the prospect is still a fit. Qualification also means making sure that they’re ready to move onto the next step. You won’t have all the answers, but someone else will Selling is a team sport. You need to lean on everyone you can to get the information you need. Ask subject matter experts at your company to teach you about a new domain. Reach out to technical and digital advisors to help you map out a solution. Ask marketing for help with a new pitch. You don’t have to do this alone. Head over to Trailhead and learn how to prospect for better sales. You’ll discover why prospecting is important, how to develop a contact strategy, and when it’s best to reach out.

What is First Party Data? First party data refers to the data collected directly by your company from your audience, including customers, website visitors, and social media followers. As the first party, your business gathers unique information about your audience without any intermediary involved. First party data encompasses various types of data, such as: Demographic information Behavioral data from website, app, or product interactions Data stored in your CRM Social media conversations Subscriptions and email engagement Survey responses Customer feedback Purchase history Online chat transcripts Why is first party data important? First party data holds significant value as it is collected directly from your own audience, enabling you to understand and engage with them effectively. It allows you to retarget and nurture your audience based on their preferences and behaviours, leading to improved marketing and decision-making processes. According to Think With Google and Boston Consulting Group, brands that leverage first party data in their marketing functions achieved a 2.9X revenue lift and a 1.5X increase in cost savings. How is first party data collected? First party data is collected by implementing tracking pixels on your website, product, or social media profiles. These pixels track user behaviours and actions, storing the data in your CRM or customer data platform (CDP). For example, when visitors land on your website, view products, or interact with social media posts, the tracking pixel records those actions. You can also gather first party data through customer surveys, direct conversations, or any shared information about their experiences with your business. It’s important to note that aggregating customer product reviews from platforms like Amazon would not be considered first party data. How is first party data used? First party data serves various purposes, including retargeting through advertisements, nurturing leads and informing the sales process. It also helps identify the characteristics of your ideal customers, enabling more targeted outreach and marketing efforts. For instance, if you have ever viewed a product online and later encountered ads for that same product, it demonstrates the effectiveness of first party data retargeting. You might also be familiar with second or third party data — here’s a breakdown of the differences. Second Party Data Second-party data refers to information that you obtain from a source other than your own direct data collection. In other words, it is data collected by someone else, but you have a trusted relationship with the data provider. This type of data exchange occurs between businesses that mutually benefit from sharing audience insights. For instance, let’s consider a software company collaborating with an agency partner to resell its products. The software company may share its first party data with the agency, allowing the agency to use it as second-party data to target and attract new clients. How is second party data collected? Second-party data is acquired from sources outside your own business and not directly through actions taken by your organisation, such as conducting product satisfaction surveys. One way to obtain second-party data is by purchasing it from a reliable source that possesses the data you require. However, while this method is faster than collecting the data yourself, it carries some risk, as you may spend money on data that is not relevant or useful to your specific needs. It is advisable to request a preview or summary of the data before making a purchase to ensure its relevance and suitability for your company. How is second party data used? First party and second-party data are used in similar ways, such as creating targeted ads, nurturing leads, and streamlining the sales process. The distinction lies in the perspective that second-party data offers, providing you with insights and perspectives on your customers that you may have overlooked or not included in your own research. By leveraging second-party data, you can uncover trends, patterns, and customer needs that supplement your existing knowledge. It offers a fresh viewpoint and can help enhance your business processes and product offerings. However, it’s important to note that second-party data should not be considered the most trustworthy or valuable source of information since it originates from an entity without a direct relationship with your customers. Instead, it serves as a valuable supplemental source of insights. Third Party Data Third-party data refers to data collected by a business that has no direct connection to your own business or audience. Its scope is broader compared to first and second-party data. Third-party data is often gathered from multiple sources and is sold or purchased by companies to gain insights into audiences. However, since it is not directly collected from your own paying customers and is also accessible to your competitors, its usefulness may be limited compared to first or second-party data. Nevertheless, third-party data can provide a broader perspective on audiences that your own data might not capture. How is third party data collected? The collection process for third-party data is similar to that of first and second-party data. Researchers employ methods such as surveys, interviews, feedback forms, and more to gather information about a large audience. Organisations can then acquire this data for their own use, much like second-party data. One distinction is that third-party research often involves random sample sizes, with participation open to anyone willing to fill out the forms. As a result, the results are not directly derived from your own customers. While this approach yields a larger number of participants and responses, the information may not always be highly relevant or useful for your specific business needs. How is third party data used? While it may be tempting to rely solely on third-party data in place of conducting your own research, it is best used as a complement to your first party data. Remember that having more results does not necessarily mean it is more applicable to your business. Instead, start by analysing your first party data to identify trends and patterns in customer behaviour. Then, compare your findings with the third-party data, specifically targeting respondents who align with your buyer personas. This allows you to determine if the behaviours you observed align with the majority of your target market. By combining both sources of data, you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of your audience and make informed business decisions. FAQs What is first party data? First party data, also referred to as 1P data, pertains to the data that a company directly acquires from its customers and has legal ownership of. This data serves as a valuable piece in the pool of information that marketers can utilise. It has the potential to complement, augment, or even replace other types of data. What is 1st, 2nd and 3rd party data? In summary, first party data is the most trustworthy and distinctive information, as it originates from your own sources. Second-party data is shared with different partners, which may result in reduced accuracy. Conversely, third-party data is a collection of information from relatively obscure sources.

It’s not a stretch to saygenerative AIin email marketing is a hot-button topic. You’ve probably heard some version of the following about how the tool is transforming the field: “Welcome to the future of email marketing.” “Where creativity meets innovation and personalization takes center stage.” “Say hello to generative AI, the game-changing technology redefining how brands connect with their audiences through email campaigns.” But what do marketers want to know about generative AI and email marketing? We asked the best and coolest experts we know: ourMarketing Trailblazer Community. They told us how they plan to use generative AI for email marketing and the impact they believe the technology will have on efficiency and effectiveness, job security, and more. Now let’s turn it over to our Trailblazers! How will generative AI impact email marketing in the next 2-5 years? “Increased productivity and saving time are the two major values of generative AI. In the next two to five years, generative AI will help create content quickly — in the form of text, video, and images. It can also create multiple variations of this content and speed up A/B testing to target different customer groups. Email marketing is most impactful when we can deliver 1-on-1 personalized messages.”Buyan Thyagarajan, Principal, Eigen X “In the next two to five years, the tool will help businesses make better decisions for their email marketing campaigns. I believe most of the campaign process, from lead generation to final customer message, will be led by generative AI.”Lumbet Bitini, Senior Marketing Cloud Consultant, Merkle DACH “I think generative AI is already having an impact on the ability to create content for A/B testing. In the next 2-5 years, I expect to see it go beyond generating first-draft copy and become a strategic tool for high-level campaign planning based on accumulated performance and industry data. But, there will always be a need for human creativity to cut through the noise.”Ed Gray, Delivery Team Manager Marketing Practice Lead, Arkus, Inc. “People who adapt and adopt generative AI can create content on many more topics. Even if the tool isn’t being used verbatim, the current versions do a good job. It can increase personalization at scale, improve engagement, reduce costs, and improve ROI. However, there could be consequences too if we aren’t careful. The fundamentals of email marketing may be less understood as we start to skip the sweat, tears, and hard learnings.”Mike Creuzer, Pardot Partnerships API Integrations Lead, Sercante Are you already using generative AI? If so, how? Can you give us some examples? “My A/B testing improved 10x using generative AI in my email marketing. Instead of testing only subject lines, I can also test user behavior, allowing me to be more strategic with every send. Along with content, I also use AI in the design process. It helps me select images and colors that best resonate with my target audience. Finally, AI also optimizes my send time, ensuring these audiences receive my messages at the time they are most likely to open.”Taylor Baker, Marketing Consultant/Owner, Resilient Innovation “I’ve used generative AI as an assistant, not as a copywriter. In practice, I use it to outline the message I want to write — then I add my personal touch to the content. It’s a great way to get a “second opinion” and ensure all key angles are covered. For example, I recently wrote an article about building a MarTech stack. I asked ChatGPT to give me a list of subcategories and their definitions. This gave me a good wireframe to write my content.”Timo Kovala, Managing Marketing Architect, Capgemini Finland “Right now, we’re testing it in the background as it is too early to adopt it into our daily processes officially. We are actively building up use cases, examples, and studies on it so we can fully embrace it in the future.”Greg Gifford, Director, DM Engineering, Merkle “Our team tested a few tools.” We used it to write subject lines for email nurture paths. The results were okay, but I’m sure they’ve improved since then. I will say it was helpful to have those suggestions to lean on. We have also done some test pilots with social media using some tone options.”Shonica Mitchell, Global Marketing Automation Community Manager, BrightDrop How can this technology improve your job as an email marketer? “Generative AI could help me move faster, create more personalization, and push out more content. Today, this process is lengthy and requires multiple layers of approval. I could see a decrease in our turnaround time.”Shonica Mitchell, Global Marketing Automation Community Manager, BrightDrop “Using detailed prompts generated by AI that include the appropriate data about the lead or customer I am trying to target can positively impact my KPIs — including higher open rates, improved click-through rates, and increased conversion rates. Email marketers can create more engaging and impactful campaigns, ultimately driving better results, fostering stronger relationships, and sharing personal impact with stakeholders.”Sadaf Sabet, Marketing Automation Specialist, Gallagher “I see this as an opportunity to drive marketers toward more empathetic and thoughtful content. In this sense, generative AI can help us be more efficient and drive us to become better at what we do.”Timo Kovala, Lead Marketing Consultant, Twoday Biit What needs to happen for generative AI to achieve its full potential in email marketing? What still needs to improve? “The biggest gap in AI is lack of training and trust in verifying content.” We need human interventions to verify content, governance, and regulation to prevent misuse. This will make AI more trustworthy.”Buyan Thyagarajan, Principal, Eigen X “There is a disconnect in generative AI adoption. Right now, I feel there is either fanatical love or irrational fear toward AI in the workplace. AI is replacing mindsets, not jobs — but training still needs to improve. It feels as if you use AI in your job, you are “cheating.” Instead, education on how it enhances and increases your role’s impact toward company growth should be showcased.”Taylor Baker, Marketing Consultant/Owner, Resilient Innovation “Accuracy and trust are imperative for email marketing to realize its full potential. Marketers need to be able to rely on AI’s accuracy of data, information, and content and trust that there is no bias in the data or content being served up by the tool.”Shonica Mitchell, Global Marketing Automation Community Manager, BrightDrop LIKE.TG’s viewpoint on the future of email marketing We’re very excited about the potential forgenerative AI to transform marketing, in particular email marketing. Think of the tool as your new best friend —saving you time and money, supporting you in your role, and putting your big-picture goals in focus. Looking to take the manual out of your next campaign and gain instant data analysis for high-level planning? Say hello toAI as your digital assistant. Want to find a reliable way to test youremail send timesand content selection — includingcatchy subject lines, images, and colors — to improve engagement and conversion rates? AI takes the guesswork out. Trying to connect with your customers and deliver a unique experience that makes them feel understood? Yep, you guessed it. AI deliverspersonalization at scalebased on customer behavior and preferences. Your new best friend has you covered. But, we know friendship takes time, and there are still a lot of questions about AI. Whether it’s ensuring ethical action, verifying content, training with the tool, or trusting the accuracy of data, we’re committed to learning as much as we can and helping others navigate as the technology evolves and becomes mainstream. And of course, our Trailblazer Community will be there every step of the way.

Ah — that sometimes elusive, but always thrilling moment of closing deals. That’s why we’re all here. We love to help customers, chase new challenges, and in the process, hit those numbers. But sales is an art, and like art, its style changes over time. That’s why we’ll move past outdated and ineffective sales closing strategies and techniques in this article and talk to sales experts to get the nitty-gritty of what it means to close like a boss in today’s world.What is sales closing?Sales closing, or getting a prospect to agree to a deal and sign a contract, is how reps make their quota and how businesses grow revenue.It represents the culmination of all your efforts. Identifying and addressing the prospect’s pain points is crucial in making a strong case for why your solution can alleviate these challenges. Now that you’ve popped the question with a (sales) proposal, it’s time to find out if this prospect is ready to commit.Getting to that yes takes a lot of patience and persistence. Prospects will often say no before they get to a yes. The problem is, many salespeople give up before they reach that yes.As we’ll explain further, sales closing isn’t the only stage of the pipeline that matters, but it is absolute. You either close or you don’t. The make-or-break nature of sales closing can make it one of the most stressful aspects of the selling process, but it doesn’t have to be.“Fundamentally, closing a deal should be the easiest part of a sales cycle,” said Jay Camp, a strategic account director for large enterprises at LIKE.TG. “There are a series of key milestones you have to hit in order to be in a position to close a deal. If those key milestones are done well, closing is the easy part because the work’s already been done.”What are the most common sales closing techniques?There’s no one way to close a sale. Your approach will shift based on the prospect with whom you’re engaging and what their needs are. Incorporating effective sales closing phrases and refining your sales technique are crucial steps in mastering these closing techniques. But this curated list of tried-and-true methods provides a template of what strategies to deploy and when.Assumptive CloseThis is a true power move that requires confidence in yourself and your product. In the assumptive sales close, you move forward under the assumption that the prospect wants to buy and that the deal is pretty much done. Instead of asking them if they’re ready to buy, you’ll ask how many products they would like or when the solution could be implemented. The key here is to be assertive without being aggressive, which can ruin the rapport and scare the prospect off. It’s also important to make sure the assumptive close happens right after you’ve driven home the benefits of your offer so it’s fresh in the prospect’s mind.Puppy Dog CloseThis sales closing technique comes from the idea that if a pet store offered to let you “test a puppy out” and take it home for a few days, you would fall in love with it and never return it. In a puppy dog close, offer a free trial of your product with no strings attached. The hope is that the prospect finds your product so indispensable that after their little test drive, they can’t bear to part with it.Scale CloseThis is also referred to as the gauge close. You take the prospect’s temperature by simply asking them point-blank how interested they are in your product. (Ex: “On a scale of one to 10, with one being ‘Let’s end this conversation now’ and 10 being ‘Let’s get this solution implemented on Monday,’ how likely are you to move forward with purchasing?”) The scale close does two things: It lets you know if you’ve been effectively communicating the value of your product to encourage prospects, and also gives you an opportunity to address any objections they might not have shared with you.“I would say that curiosity is key. You need to always be asking questions,” said Francois Carle, a strategic account executive at Schneider Electric who has worked in sales for more than 20 years. “You need to be curious about what they’re trying to achieve and drill down into what their challenges are. The risk of a conversation going nowhere is strong if you aren’t listening.”Scarcity CloseAlso known as the now-or-never close, the scarcity sales close leverages good old-fashioned FOMO (fear of missing out) to get a prospect to buy. You sweeten the deal with a discount or an added benefit to the prospect, but only if they act now and make a purchase. This mainly works when the prospect is sincerely interested in buying, but needs a small nudge to get to yes.Takeaway CloseThis technique capitalises on people’s desire for things that they can’t have, also known as reverse psychology. Note that your solution “might not be a good fit” for them or that their company “may not qualify for your solution like other companies have.” The takeaway close is effective because you’re doing the opposite of what a salesperson typically does, which is sell, so the prospect doesn’t expect it. Similar to the scarcity close, this tactic only works if the prospect has already established interest in your product but hasn’t pulled the trigger on buying.Summary CloseSales cycles can be long, especially for B2B selling. A prospect who’s juggling conversations with different vendors about different products might not remember all the great things your solution has to offer. In a summary sales close, you review the features of the product and how it will help the potential client meet their needs. It gives the prospect one more time to really envision what your product might accomplish for them before making a decision.Get articles selected just for you, in your inboxSign up nowHow do you improve at closing?Okay, so you know a lot of the proven techniques. How do you build on this foundation and get better at sales closing? A key player in this process is the sales rep, who must master these techniques and apply them effectively. Sales reps face the challenge of not only meeting their revenue targets but also engaging with prospects in a way that makes them feel valued and understood. This involves asking for the prospect’s opinion on the product, a technique that not only sways the client towards a yes but also uncovers any potential issues with the product or service. Here are a few pointers to keep top of mind when you’re trying to reel in the deal, ensuring that sales reps are equipped to overcome these challenges and close sales successfully.✅ Know the customerSelling shouldn’t feel like selling. It should feel like helping, because that’s ultimately what you’re doing. The consultative approach will always beat the transactional approach, especially in B2B selling. Use discovery calls and your own research to know the customer inside and out. What are their pain points? How does your solution address them? Are they an ideal fit for your solution? This personalised approach builds trust, and at the end of the day, successful selling is all about relationships.✅ Know their objectionsPreparation is half the battle. Your prospect will naturally have objections about why this isn’t the right time for them to buy. A very common one is pricing. What’s the competitive advantage of your tool that offsets the cost? Be ready to go with solid answers to whatever pushback they might have. This makes you look more knowledgeable about the prospect and the product.✅ Know the decision makerAre you talking to the right person? If not, how do you get to the right person? So much of sales closing requires getting the correct people in the room who have the power to call shots. You’ll want to suss this out earlier on in the sales process when you’re qualifying leads. Don’t spend too much time communicating the value of your tool to the marketing manager if the person holding the purse strings is the vice president of marketing.✅ Know when to fold ‘emSales representatives don’t close every single opportunity in their sales pipeline. That means a lot of the prospects that come your way may not become customers. It’s also possible a small percentage of leads could bring in a lot of your revenue, which means you don’t have to pursue those unlikely to close. Knowing when to move on is critical. Don’t dwell on prospects that have shown no interest in closing. You’ll lose sight of more promising opportunities.“Every deal, whether it’s a win or loss, has something you can learn from. It’s an opportunity to reflect on how you can evolve both in process and strategy,” said Kelly Myers, an account executive at LIKE.TG who specialises in enterprise-level deals.✅ Know you’re part of a teamCombined expertise will outweigh one person’s expertise every time. When you’re facing hurdles, lean on your collaborative tools like Slack to connect with your fellow reps or your sales managers in real-time so you can decide your next move as a team. We recommend even creating deal-specific channels in Slack that can act as a repository of knowledge and support for high-level opportunities.“You’re going to win 10 times more as a team than you are as an individual,” said Myers. “There will be a lot of times when you don’t have the answers, and that’s okay. It’s important to know you have a team that will do everything in their power to help you deliver what the customer needs.”What sales closing mistakes should you avoid?Experience can be the best teacher when it comes to knowing what not to do. Here are common pitfalls that the smartest salespeople have learned to overcome.❌ Going in for the hard closePressure selling is out, empathy selling is in. When you come out early with an ask for the sale and then keep aggressively asking before you’ve even truly established your product’s value, it shows little consideration for the buyer. It makes it appear as though you’re speeding through the sale to meet your quota, and it’s off-putting. After all, selling isn’t about you, it’s about them.“I don’t think the hard sale has any place in today’s market. I always tell people sales is not about ‘selling’ or convincing anybody of anything. It’s about helping people solve problems or achieve goals,” said John Barrows, the CEO of JB Sales, a sales training firm.❌ Not asking for the saleAn important thing to remember when closing? Ask for the sale. Inertia can be a difficult thing to overcome when working with prospects. Many waffle when faced with multiple vendors and put off making a final purchase decision. If you tell them to “take some time to think about it and circle back,” you may never hear from that person again. After you’ve effectively communicated why your product is a fit and they’ve reciprocated interest, sometimes it’s powerful to simply ask if they’re ready to buy. If they balk, that’s your cue to ask more questions about their needs.❌ Only closing at the endHow do you know when it’s the right time to close? How do you avoid closing too early? Too late? This is a bit of a trick question. There is no singular moment when you go in for the close because, if you’re wise, sales closing is something that happens throughout the sales process. The prospect signing on the dotted line is more of a natural conclusion, not an event.“Closing should happen at every stage of the sales process. You’re closing for the next steps, you’re closing for meetings. It’s ongoing,” said Barrows.Sales closing techniques: next steps“Always be closing” used to be a common saying in sales. That’s shifted to “Always be connecting.” You should always be studying your prospects and adapting your approach to match their expectations and their needs. Understanding and refining sales techniques is crucial for successfully closing a sales deal. Similar to chess, your first moves often determine your final ones. When the rest of the sales process has been strategic and focused, sales closing becomes less of a conquest and more of a collaboration between you and the buyer.

LIKE.TG helps more than 150,000 customers in every industry connect with their customers. People worldwide and in APAC rely on our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform and Salesforce Customer 360 to keep their businesses running effectively and efficiently. Here, we’re talking about all the developers who work with LIKE.TG technologies to build solutions for our customers and partners. LIKE.TG, of course,employsa lot of developers who build our products. If that sounds more like you, check out ourengineering blog. But since LIKE.TG runs LIKE.TG on LIKE.TG, much of what you read here may still apply. How developers work in the world of LIKE.TG With LIKE.TG, you can build solutions using a combination of no-code tools and code. The right tools for the right task. We call this low-code development. Through no-code customisations, developers solve some requirements without coding. This means when they do code, they end up writing less repetitive or boilerplate code. LIKE.TG productsare expansive, covering sales, service, marketing, analytics, commerce, and more. Every part of LIKE.TG exposesAPIs. Developers use these to create web apps onHeroku, supercharge their integration withMuleSoft, or even customise one of the standard applications. It’s fair to say that any developer can be aLIKE.TG Developer. What does a developer do with LIKE.TG? Most developers who work with LIKE.TG technologies build custom business apps and solutions. They do this either with theLIKE.TG Platform(including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Experience Cloud communities) or with Heroku. While some developers specialise, most fit the description of full-stack developers working with both back-end logic and front-end experiences. Beyond the LIKE.TG Platform, there are many other opportunities for developers in the world of LIKE.TG. Some build custom marketing experiences onMarketing Cloud. Others plumb the depths of data and expose new insights withTableau. There are developers building engaging commerce experiences withCommerce Cloud’s PWA kit. Others craft their company’sdigital HQwith custom Slack apps. LIKE.TG technologies offer opportunities for developers to work with every aspect of business applications. Build Your Developer Career on LIKE.TG New to LIKE.TG development? Here's a quick tour of how you can quickly build apps and integrations with LIKE.TG. Hit the Trails +9,700 points Trailmix Build Your LIKE.TG Developer Career Follow this path to get the skills you need to become a LIKE.TG Platform Developer. Which skills does a developer need to work with LIKE.TG? Code is the stock-in-trade of every developer, so you may wonder which programming languages you might use. A lot depends on which part of the LIKE.TG world you choose to work in. The two most prominent languages in the LIKE.TG world areJavaScriptandApex. JavaScript is, of course, the language used for front-end customisations as surfaced throughLightning Web Components. Apex is the most widely adopted back-end language in the LIKE.TG ecosystem. The LIKE.TG Platform also has two domain-specific query languages. LIKE.TG Object Query Language (SOQL) is a SQL-like query language for accessing data in the LIKE.TG multi-tenant database. LIKE.TG Object Search Language (SOSL) is a text-based search language that can be used to find both data and documents stored on the platform. In addition to the LIKE.TG Platform, certain products support other languages. Both Python and JavaScript are supported languages for theSlack Bolt SDK. For customised marketing experiences, you may useAMPscriptfor Marketing Cloud. If you build integrations with MuleSoft, your data transformations can be written in DataWeave. If you work with dashboards in LIKE.TG CRM Analytics, you might use the LIKE.TG Analytics Query Language (SAQL) to fine-tune visualisations. And, most recently, Data Cloud gives access to its data usingSQL. The technology and language landscape for LIKE.TG is rich and broad. No matter your interests, you can find a niche to master. Since LIKE.TG offers no-code customisations, every developer working in the LIKE.TG ecosystem will end up learning how to use the no-code tools that support their work, too. For instance, certain features that can be complex to implement, like wizards, data security rules, and basic user interface (UI) customisations, can all be can be accomplished without coding at all. Developers with previous experience in enterprise software tend to make the easiest transition to working in the world of LIKE.TG. But this is by no means a requirement. Again, any developer can become a LIKE.TG Developer. Many have joined directly from college or moved over from other software engineering experiences. What are the career prospects for a developer who works with LIKE.TG in APAC? As the ecosystem around LIKE.TGgrows, developers continue to be highly sought after. In the past 5 years, the number of new developer positions has increased by 165percenton average year-over-year. And based on U.S. data, a starting salary for a developer is $105,000 per year. Developers often come to LIKE.TG as a career opportunity. Once here, many get hooked on the friendly support of theLIKE.TG Developer Community. You can also connect, share ideas, and build your skills through local, in-personmeetups. Join the conversation virtually with developers daily through theLIKE.TG Developersgroup in theTrailblazer CommunityonTrailhead—LIKE.TG’s free online learning platform. Take your learning and networking even further by attending one of the communityconferencesfound worldwide and in APAC. Which credentials and certifications are relevant for the job? As a developer, you want to work with the most relevant technologies, languages, and platforms. No language is more universally relevant today than JavaScript. You can show your JavaScript competence by earning theJavaScript Developer 1 Certification. This certification tests your knowledge of JavaScript in the browser and in NodeJS. While used to validate the skills of many candidates in the LIKE.TG ecosystem, because it’s focused on universal knowledge, any company can use this certification when looking to hire a JavaScript developer. To demonstrate your competence in developing with LIKE.TG Platform-specific features, tools, and technologies, you can pursue several paths. To learn about all the platform features that require no coding, you can take thePlatform App Builder Certification. To show knowledge and understanding of different programming features, earn yourPlatform Developer 1 Certification (PD1). Once you have your PD1, you can go further by pursuing the practical, hands-onPlatform Developer 2 Certification. In addition to these core LIKE.TG Platform certifications, you can also pursue specialist certification in products such as: OmniStudio Developer: Develop cloud applications using OmniStudio declarative development tools. Industries CPQ Developer: Develop configure, price, quote (CPQ) applications for the LIKE.TG Communications, Media, and Energy Utilities clouds. B2C Commerce Developer: Customise LIKE.TG Commerce through configurations, user management, and development with the LIKE.TG B2C Commerce Digital platform. Marketing Cloud Developer: Create personalised, dynamic messages and landing pages using Marketing Cloud scripting languages, data configuration, manipulations, and advanced segmentation, as well as reporting and analytics. Slack Certified Developer: Build interactive apps on the Slack platform. MuleSoft Developer Certifications: Build, test, and deploy APIs and integrations using the MuleSoft platform. Embarking on your developer career journey in APAC. As a developer, you hold some of the most sought-after skills in every industry. Every business needs technical experts to turn their requirements for business applications, integrations, and customer-facing websites into experiences that deliver what their users and customers need. You might have long-standing experience developing on other platforms. You might just be launching your career. You might be somewhere in between. Whatever the case, there are many paths for you to become a developer in the LIKE.TG ecosystem. If this has you excited to learn more, theLIKE.TG Developers websiteis a great place to start. You can also learn about the latest developer features through ourLIKE.TG Developer blogorYouTube channel. And be sure to keep up with all the latest from uson LinkedIn, and connect with us in theLIKE.TG Developers Trailblazer Community Group.

Dreamforce is the crown jewel of the LIKE.TG event universe —and it was epic. From amazing keynote sessions to demos showcasing the tools to solve your biggest challenges, Dreamforce had something for everyone (including the very best swag!). But are you ready for the understatement of the year? That’s right – AI pretty much stole the show. From generating hyper-relevant sales emails to prospects to anticipating a customer service issue with a VIP, AI is here to serve and support every aspect of the business.Here’s the thing: it’s IT that enables everyone else to leverage AI.As an IT leader, you’re already feeling the pressure to pivot to an AI-led approach across your organization. But you’re faced with the harsh reality of connecting and harmonizing your data while adhering to security and data governance standards? How can you build AI-powered applications that you can trust? And how can you do it now? AI for IT: 3 launches you can use Let’s take a look at how these new AI launches, all announced at Dreamforce 2023, are helping IT teams get more done – and how you can, too! 1. Unlock the full power of your data According to our latest State of IT report, 86% of IT decision-makers worldwide believe that generative AI will play a significant role in their organizations in the near future.However, the average organization reported more than 1000 distinct applications used across the enterprise. Scarier still, fewer than a third of these apps are integrated. This is a problem when AI depends on accurate, unified data to deliver critical insights and predictions. In MuleSoft’s 2023 Connectivity Benchmark Report, enterprise IT leaders estimated spending an average of $4.7 million per year on custom integration efforts. That’s an increase of 31% from their 2022 estimate of $3.6 million. With this in mind, it’s critical to have the right tools and development environments at the ready to implement and build the experiences customers expect. All of this with security and powerful generative AI capabilities built right in. One way to get connected quickly is with MuleSoft, loaded with new generative AI capabilities to make integration faster than ever before. Connect to any data or system, wherever it resides, with security and governance built in. The MuleSoft Accelerator for Data Cloud can help you unlock and connect to critical industry systems quickly and securely. Once unlocked, your teams can finally harmonize with existing data sources through the power of LIKE.TG Data Cloud. This enables you to get a unified view of every customer so that you can deliver the right experiences at the right time every time.Harmonizing data quickly? That’s music to our ears. Get IT articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now 2. Put your data to work If your teams have tackled the data unification challenge — bravo! After all, it’s these integration challenges that slow down digital transformation initiatives for 80% of IT teams. But it’s actually garnering insights and getting recommendations from AI that IT leaders are being pressured to deliver. With unified data in place, how can we start to see the benefits of AI? Well, IT teams can make the building of apps and automations a bit easier with Prompt Builder.Because every generative AI-powered CRM app depends on the quality of the AI prompt, it’s useful to get a boost with the provided prompt templates. These templates guide IT teams in building AI prompts that will root the AI in specific data and instructions —making it possible for the AI to deliver better suggestions more quickly. This low-code prompt management tool allows IT teams to build, test, and fine-tune trusted AI prompts within the Einstein Trust Layer. Any sensitive data is automatically masked to limit bias and toxicity. With this tool, IT teams can leverage AI to build everything from auto-generated emails to product descriptions for websites. This means freeing up time to focus on deeper, more sophisticated IT challenges. Low-code. Painless. That’s how AI should be. 3. Deploy safely and quickly With a tremendous amount of pressure to consistently deliver new solutions, IT leaders must balance speed and delivery with security.We know all too well what can happen when an organization skirts security concerns to increase deployment speed. According to our recent State of the Connected Customer Report, the average cost of not complying with data protection regulations is $14.8 million. That’s a lot, and we want to work toward avoiding any data breaches.One thing AI can help with is mitigating security concerns without compromising on deployment speed. By using secure development environments with sandboxes, IT teams can safely test AI processes without the risk of pushing any errors to the production org.Plus, sandboxes are also a great space to train teams on how to responsibly build code with the help of generative AI.When it comes to production environments, a new feature will help protect your sensitive data and stay compliant. Privacy Center will feature new data management policies where IT teams can delete stale data or de-identify at scale to protect the production org.But if something were to go awry, we’ve got you covered there, too. LIKE.TG Backup is a native solution that allows you to protect against corruption, data loss, or coding errors by providing daily backups and the ability to restore quickly.Delivering new solutions with peace of mind. Sounds peaceful. Don’t sleep on AI What’s top-of-mind for IT leaders is how to get the most out of AI —now. That starts with the right tools to pull together your data with security and governance built-in. Leading IT organizations are already transforming to accommodate the latest AI trends. Make sure you’re one of them.

“Where’s my order?” It’s the kind of question that companies are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to answer quickly. But consider these two potential, AI-generated responses your agent could send to this customer. Response 1: Thank you for your inquiry. What is your name, email, and order number? Where did you place your order? Response 2: Jon, thanks for being a Gold Level loyalty member! How can I help? Do you have an issue regarding the mug in your cart, the messenger bag you’re currently browsing on our website, or something else? There is a huge difference in how those replies make your customer feel. And that difference comes down to data. The data difference Generative AI promises to significantly reshape how you manage your customer relationships, but it requires data that is accurate, updated, accessible, and complete. This is called data-centric AI, and is predicated on the notion that AI systems are developed using only quality data. It also requires companies to have a connected, up-to-the-minute view of customer’s activity. The Trailblazer view “You might have data available but is it current, authoritative, and complete?” said Carl Brundage, a certified technical architect specialising in data and analytics at Odaseva. “If not, you might not have a complete picture of your customer.” Having the complete picture — knowing what, when, why, and how your customer does something –is the key to adding valuable context to AI. What your company can do now While some of the most impactful AI tools for businesses are still being developed, there are some key steps your business can take now to get its data house in order: Ensure the quality of your data. Remove duplicates, outliers, errors, and other things that can negatively affect how you make decisions. Connect your data sources — marketing, sales, service, commerce – into a single record, updated in real time, so the AI can make the best recommendations. Lay the groundwork for data-centric AI Customer data is at the heart of delivering great experiences. Your data does not need to be perfect to build an effective AI program, but it needs to be clean. That means free of errors, incorrect formats, duplicates, or mislabelings. The data experts at Tableau offer these steps on how to clean your data, an important first step in unifying data sets for AI projects: Remove duplicate or irrelevant observations Duplication happens when you combine data sets from multiple places, and duplicate entries are created. Irrelevant observations happen when data (say, on older consumers) doesn’t fit into a problem you’re trying to analyse (say, millennial shopping habits). Removing these makes analysis more efficient, useful, and accurate for an AI system. Fix structural errors This happens when data includes typos, incorrect capitalisation, or mislabelings. For example, “N/A” and “not applicable” mean the same thing, but are not analysed the same way because they’re rendered differently. The entries should be consistent to ensure accurate and complete analysis by the AI system. Filter unwanted outliers There are often one-off observations that don’t appear to align with the data you’re analysing. That might be the result of incorrect data entry (and should be removed) but sometimes the outlier will help prove a theory you’re working on. In any case, analysis is needed to determine its validity. Get articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now Handle missing data Missing or incomplete data is a very common problem in data sets, and can reduce the accuracy of AI models. There are a few ways to deal with this: Eliminate observations that include missing values; however, this will result in lost information. Input missing values based on other observations; however, you may lose data integrity because you’re operating from assumptions and not actual observations Consider altering the way the data is used to effectively navigate the missing values. Validate After cleaning the data, you should be able to answer these questions: Does the data make sense? Does the data follow the appropriate rules for its field? Does it prove or disprove your theory, or surface any insight? Can you find trends that help inform the next theory? If not, is that because of continued data quality issues? Data-centric AI + CRM = killer combo AI has already begun to transform CRM and the way companies connect with and serve their customers. AI is useless without good data that is integrated, accurate, and real-time. At the same time, making sense of your mountains of data is impossible without AI. The winning approach is combining the two practices. Doing so will help you identify and foresee trends, challenges, and opportunities across all lines of business —and serve your customers better. A unified customer profile, enabled by Data Cloud, gives you a comprehensive view of your users, whether they are visitors, customers, prospects, or subscribers. Historically, marketing data has been locked inside marketing systems, service data in service systems, etc., which doesn’t give you the complete picture of your customer’s activity. “There’s absolutely a need to have a trusted unified customer profile, in one place and updated in real time,” said Brundage. “Something you did last month, you may do differently this month, based on the data. And if you have outdated data, that’s what AI will use.” There’s a famous pyramid which demonstrates the hierarchy of knowledge management. Data sits at the bottom, representing everything we collect, progresses to information, then knowledge, and finally wisdom, which sits at the top. Data and information provide little context or answer the “why” of anything. But with integrated, real-time data layered with AI, you can see patterns, predict trends, and make connections between things that on the surface might not seem to go together. “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit,” Brundage said. “Wisdom is knowing it does not go into a fruit salad.”

Most reps I know are motivated by building relationships and bringing real-life solutions to customers, not crunching numbers or drafting emails. Fortunately, generative AI can help take the drudge work off their plates by drafting communications, conducting research, and streamlining sales process tasks. I don’t see it replacing reps any time soon, but AI will certainly affect the way we work in the coming months and years. More details on that below. What is generative AI for sales? Generative AI uses simple prompts to create copy (like prospecting emails) and make recommendations (like suggestions for quick-win deals) that are critical to efficient sales processes. It does this by analysing your existing sales and customer data to help you draft emails, or determine which messages or resources would help advance a sales conversation. All of this will likely be integrated into a CRM, where sales and customer data live. For example, let’s say you’re a rep selling accessories to car buyers, and you’re struggling to hook new prospects with your emails. You probably already use a sales engagement tool to add a personal touch, but maybe it’s not working well. Here’s where generative AI can help: It can streamline email creation by generating copy based on what customers are looking for and which emails have performed well in the past. You simply paste a prompt such as “Write a prospecting email for car accessory buyers” into a chat interface like ChatGPT. The AI system will then review your previous emails, along with industry and customer information, and craft a high-performing email you can use with new prospects. This is just one application. Let’s look at all the ways generative AI will likely affect your day-to-day work. 4 ways generative AI will improve sales We’ll see generative AI for sales used heavily in four key areas over the next year. Sales reps will use it to generate prospecting emails, get real-time guidance during discovery and negotiation, improve presentations in real time, and analyse data. Let’s dig into each use case. 1. Create prospect emails at scale A typical sales rep outreach process looks something like this: Review CRM data to find a qualified lead, head to LinkedIn to research their background and role, spend more time researching their company on Google, and draft a personalised email to catch their attention. Time-consuming, right? With generative AI, you can use text-based prompts to quickly research target companies for information to use in prospecting emails. In the same tool, you can use that information to request a draft of a prospect email. For example, you might enter a prompt like, “Draft an introduction email to my highest-value lead.” Then, you can ask for the best subject lines based on past email performance to increase the chance of an open. 2. Guide effective discovery Establishing trust with a prospect during discovery will always be a deeply human process. But humans aren’t perfect:Sometimes, we miss body language and verbal cues that show a prospect is struggling or has concerns. In an interview, Dan Heffernan, chief growth officer at Dale Carnegie Training, said he believes “empathic AI” will help with this during virtual sales calls. This technology is built into phone or video conferencing tools to analyse prospective clients’ speech patterns, speaking volume, and body movements to gauge mood and recommend ways to steer the conversation in the right direction. Here’s an example. While meeting with a high-value prospect, you start describing a new feature of your product — and the prospect begins fidgeting. Empathic AI tools can notice this and suggest the cause of the prospect’s discomfort, such as the imagined cost of this new feature. Easy to solve: As you continue the conversation, fold in a casual line to allay their fears, like, “This is part of the base price.” 3. Improve sales presentations in real time I’ve spent hours crafting the perfect presentation that will catch and keep clients’ attention. I’m sure you’ve done the same. With generative AI, you can use text-based prompts in presentation tools to create tailored decks and pitches in minutes. This isn’t common now, but with ChatGPT already making waves, it’s only a matter of time. We’re also seeing early versions of real-time coaching: AI-based guidance, integrated into video conferencing tools, can evaluate your live presentation to see if it’s hitting the right pain points for your prospect. Triggered by specific keywords, the AI system can recommend prospect-specific information to ensure you’re delivering the most effective presentation. Instead of just rolling through a standard deck, for example, AI coaching could prompt you to highlight a certain feature the prospect is interested in. It’s so advanced, Heffernan said, “you may even be prompted to go for the close.” 4. Speed up data analysis Sales reps can spend huge parts of their day generating, pulling, and analysing data — and with so much to look at, it’s easy to miss big-win deal opportunities. Generative AI can act like a personal data analyst assistant to uncover patterns and relationships in your CRM data almost instantaneously, pointing you toward high-value deals and deals likely to close. Even better, it adapts to changing deals and customer information in real time, helping you modify your sales approach to what works in the moment. Adapting to an AI world Generative AI for sales has a lot of pros. It can help you write knockout pitches and emails, make the discovery process pop, and analyse a slew of data in seconds. In other words, it’s a tool that can handle the busywork so you can sell more efficiently. I predict it will be an integral part of sales within the year. What generative AI won’t do is replace the human aspect of sales. Sales is inherently about relationships and will continue to rely on a personal touch. As Heffernan put it: With generative AI in the mix, “sales professionals will be freed up to hone knowledge and skills best left to humans — building customer trust, collaborating, and empathising to meet customer’s’ needs.” Get articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now

Prospects — the potential customers you want to sell to — are the fuel for the sales pipeline. Every prospect represents a possible deal. So growing your base of prospects and working to nurture them will grow your revenue. Even though prospecting is important, it may sometimes feel like you’re just wishing and hoping the right people will come. Let’s see how to make prospecting a science instead — less like drilling for oil and more like filling up on gas. What is sales prospecting? Prospects are possible customers, and prospecting is finding possible customers. Sales reps use prospecting to expand the size of their potential customer base. They’ll reach out to leads (potential sales contacts) and nurture them into “opportunities” (leads who have been warmed up over time). There are various sales prospecting techniques, from making calls to sending direct mail, attending networking events, and connecting on social platforms like LinkedIn. The stages of the sales prospecting process The sales process goes from cold leads to warm opportunities to red-hot deals. Prospecting is what happens in between: From leads … Sales and marketing source leads. Leads are unqualified prospects. Leads can come from marketing (think a webinar that requires a form fill) or sales (think cold outreach). … to opportunities … Sales qualifies leads into prospects. Sales gets to know leads and decides whether they’re a good fit for the product. If they are, the lead is “qualified” to become a prospect. Sales nurtures prospects into opportunities. As sales works to make prospects more and more interested in the sale, these prospects become “opportunities” who are more and more likely to buy. … to customers Sales closes opportunities into deals. In the end, after many conversations, there will be two kinds of opportunities: “closed-lost” (boo) or “closed-won” (yay!). How do I find new sales prospects? We could talk about all the different platforms out there, but let’s be real. “When it comes to sourcing prospects online, LinkedIn is the biggest game in town,” says Stephanie Svanfeldt, a strategic account executive at LIKE.TG. Here are tips to get going: 1. Follow the prospect before you connect Unless you’re sending InMail, which is a sponsored message, you’ll need to get connected with prospects before you can message them on LinkedIn. Start by following them. From there, you can begin to comment on, like, and share their status updates and work your way into their world. If they think you’re providing value, they’ll be more likely to respond to a connection request. 2. Find them in groups Joining a group where your prospect is active can give you a shortcut to getting connected. Look for the groups they belong to on their profile and see if there’s one that also makes sense to join. Then you can chime in on the group’s posts. Even if you can’t respond to them directly, they might get email alerts about the best comments left in the group, which is a great way to end up directly in their inbox. 3. Hype them up Everyone wants to go viral. Follow the prospect’s activity and help drum up engagement. This is a great way to show that you’re interested in your prospect’s ideas. You can also look at the information they highlight on their profile — like courses, presentations, and thought leadership — and “endorse” them for skills that matter most to them. How has the sales prospect changed? Prospecting used to be a volume play. Salespeople could make 200 calls a day and send out blasts of emails and know that enough of them would stick to be worth it. Cold outreach is still an important piece of the puzzle, but sales development representatives (SDRs) and sales reps will need to balance broad quantity outreach with targeted quality outreach. Here’s why: The new prospect isn’t waiting by the phone like they used to Prospects are spread out across digital platforms — mainly LinkedIn, but also Twitter, Facebook, and messaging apps — and they have strong opinions about where they like to communicate. The new prospect is flooded with more messages than ever. Our inboxes have never been more crowded. First, in a trend The Economist calls, “It could have been an email,” meetings are getting shorter — by 20%, according to this Harvard Business School study. Conversations that used to happen in meetings are happening in emails instead. Second, that same study shows that more emails are being sent in the pandemic (by 5%) — with more recipients on average (by 3%), and more frequently after hours (by 8%). The question becomes: How can you capture people’s attention as their inboxes overflow? The new prospect wants more out of their interactions. The intense, shared experience of the pandemic has taught us all to go beyond the superficial layer. To get a prospect’s attention now, you have to be authentic and relevant. Get articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now How can I approach this new sales prospect? Account-based marketing made a splash when companies began to personalise marketing campaigns to individual companies. Now this trend of personalisation is coming to sales. Here’s Stephanie Svanfeldt again: “Everyone talks about account-based marketing, but it’s also about account-based sales. We need to study the individual and be relevant when we reach out.” What are the prospect’s preferred channels? How can you stand out from the crowd? How can you find an authentic common ground that gives the relationship traction? Here are the steps to take: Lean on customer relationship management (CRM) Sales prospecting is harder than it used to be, now that we need to be more relevant and personalised with every approach. It takes more time and more care, and it’s harder to scale. We need technology to close the gap. CRM gives you a control room for all your interactions with our prospects — the last email you sent, notes from all of your meetings, and the pitch deck you presented —so all the information you need is at your fingertips. Research your way into their world Research is the groundwork. If it’s a publicly traded company, read their investor reports. If it’s a small or medium business (SMB), then set up Google alerts to learn about their press, and devour everything they put out there about themselves. Insights about opportunities and accounts (at LIKE.TG, we use Opportunity Management) help you bring more value to the table. You’re trying to learn about problems and people, so by the time you reach out, you’re not only saying the right things — you’re also saying them to the right person. Find the channel that sticks Everyone is different. Every approach needs to be different too. Some of us are old school and like to talk on the phone. Some of us live in our inboxes. Some of us really love getting gifts in the mail. How can you find the right channel? The answer is to leave no stone unturned. If the prospect doesn’t pick up the phone, try connecting on LinkedIn. Still no luck? Reach out again and be as relevant as you can. Craft an email that grabs them. Keep working on the interaction until you see a spark. Earn the right to ask them what their favourite communication channel is — and meet them there. How do I qualify a sales prospect? Qualifying a prospect is an important piece of the puzzle, but don’t mistake “qualifying” for “deciding whether someone is important.” Everyone you talk to is important — because if they’re not the right person to talk to, then they can point you to the person who is. Here are questions to help you qualify whether a prospect is a good fit: Is this the right person? Does the prospect match your ideal customer profile? Are they already interested in your product? Can they influence the deal, or even decide to buy it? Is this the right company? Is it in your territory? Is the industry a good fit? What’s the size of their organisation? (Don’t just think of how many employees they have. If you’re selling a subscription or usage-based service, then also think about the size of their consumption.) Is this the right project? Is the department funded to pay your price? Will the project be a priority this year for the company? Will the team be using the product for the right use case — in a way that will create an impact? How can I move sales prospects to the next stage in the sales cycle? Research is important, but you’ll need more than that to take the conversation to the next level. After all, it’s just as easy for prospects to research us as it is for us to research them. We won’t get anywhere with them by repeating the same general information on your company’s website. How can you go deep, and bring them an insight that no one else has? You’ll need to learn their accent — not just their language — and become knowledgeable about their lives at work. That means learning about specific trends in their industries, their companies, and even their lives. Ready to take your very best practices for prospecting, and set them into motion at scale? Sales Cadences lets sales managers set steps for sellers to follow — things like: when to email versus call, what call script to use, and what material to send if they say no. Keep the conversation moving. Don’t just think about closing the deal. Think about closing every step of the deal. It can be easy to get carried away in your excitement to move the conversation along. Here’s how: Obsess over the next step Don’t forget to end every conversation with a question. “Can we connect for five minutes after you’ve taken a look?” “Is there someone on your team I could work with on that?” “If you’re not the right person to ask, can you tell me who is?” Advance but qualify Prospecting is all about marching onward. But don’t over-focus on a deal that won’t be worth the effort. As you move the conversation forward, you need to keep qualifying at the same time. At every stage, ask whether the prospect is still a fit. Qualification also means making sure that they’re ready to move onto the next step. You won’t have all the answers, but someone else will Selling is a team sport. You need to lean on everyone you can to get the information you need. Ask subject matter experts at your company to teach you about a new domain. Reach out to technical and digital advisors to help you map out a solution. Ask marketing for help with a new pitch. You don’t have to do this alone. Head over to Trailhead and learn how to prospect for better sales. You’ll discover why prospecting is important, how to develop a contact strategy, and when it’s best to reach out.

In an uncertain economy, banking customers want clear guidance and familiarity from their financial institution — and they’re not afraid to move their money if they’re not satisfied. Improved customer service in banking should be your focus, as people have grown to expect easy digital services and personalised support from their bank. AI can help you meet those expectations – anytime, anywhere, and on customers’ preferred channels. In the last year, we found that 25% of customers switched banks, and 39% of those who switched did so due to poor customer service. Customers want to feel like their needs come first, and banks that can deliver will come out on top. How can banks offer a more personal touch? This is where AI can help. While you already may use predictive AI in customer churn prediction, ticket routing, credit scoring, and fraud detection, generative AI can help create new content that greatly improves customer service experiences. Banking use cases for generative AI You can prompt generative AI to help create emails, service replies in chat, and knowledge articles that make it easier to offer more relevant and personalised service. The technology understands natural language, so customers can use their own words and language to communicate with chatbots that sound human. Because generative AI can read and understand text, video, and sound, it can identify and summarise action items and insights from conversations, transcripts, and recordings to assist contact centre agents. Generative AI can help you improve and grow your customer service experiences, from no-touch interactions like self-service help with chatbots to high-touch situations like working through complex issues in a branch visit. When using this technology, your top priority should be better serving your customers’ needs in order to meet your fiduciary responsibility. Last month, for example, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States proposed updating rules and regulations requiring wealth management firms to supervise AI technology, such as automated replies produced by generative AI. Future proposed regulations could lie ahead for all of financial services, so banking leaders should proactively think about how to manage the risks associated with using this technology. By combining your trusted customer data with AI, you can transform customer service in banking to improve the customer experience and boost loyalty. AI can help you deliver personalised customer service in banking Our research found 63% of service professionals say generative AI will help them serve their customers faster, saving them over four hours weekly (or nearly one month per year). Drawing from your trusted customer data, generative AI can automatically generate relevant content, such as action summaries and service replies. It helps agents find answers to known questions and issues, surfacing content from your knowledge base articles so they don’t start from scratch with each new caller. This makes your agents more efficient, allowing them to focus on more complicated cases. And it’s not just helpful for service inquiries. AI can look at customer data, preferences, transaction history, and customer service logs to generate new offers, recommend next steps, or provide proactive assistance for customers’ specific questions or issues, regardless of how they communicate. For example, if a customer is getting married and asks about opening a shared account, generative AI can create a suggested reply for an agent that includes details specific to the customer’s finances, while also triggering a followup email to the client with relevant offers for newlyweds. These highly personalised recommendations are possible because AI uses customer data to create content that’s better matched to real-time customer needs, improving customer engagement and loyalty. Make self-service tools easy to use and effective We found 81% of people try to solve a problem themselves with self-service tools like chatbots or how-to articles before seeking support. Self-service options save both customers and banks time and effort, making for quick, in-and-out interactions, but bots can be very impersonal if not set up right. Self-service tools must be easy to use and integrated well with your platform. When customers use these tools for simple banking transactions, you can use that data to better serve them in the future. While you should focus on making these tools intuitive and simple, you also need to make sure these services feel empathetic and personalised, which helps to build trust with your customers. Unfortunately, 59% of consumers say it often feels like they are dealing with separate departments, not one company. And 52% of customers describe most service interactions as fragmented. Customers want their banks to have a holistic view of their relationship, so they can avoid repeating their story or starting at square one when moving across service teams, channels, and departments. AI can significantly improve and scale customer service in banking with better self-service tools that handle more of your customers’ questions. AI-powered self-service enables banks to resolve high volumes of inquiries more efficiently, enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing operational costs. And using AI alongside the trusted data in your CRM system allows you to quickly analyse customer behaviour patterns to anticipate what they’ll need next. For example, if a customer frequently transfers funds between accounts, the system can provide shortcuts to reach the next step. Or at the start of a session, it could automatically offer a short list of the customer’s most frequent tasks to save time. This helps customers resolve issues and accomplish tasks quickly, providing full access to personalised services, showing them savings opportunities, and proactively recommending services that support their financial wellbeing. Use your data to offer proactive recommendations Banking customers want to feel like you know, remember, and value them. But only 37% of customers say their bank anticipates their needs. That’s concerning, because half of those we surveyed said they would switch banks if service felt impersonal. AI algorithms can help you anticipate customer needs and automate outreach — even before customers turn to you. For example, predictive AI can identify patterns, then alert bank staff to potential customer needs. Maybe it recognises a customer building up their savings account and frequently checking their credit score. This could indicate they are planning to make a purchase that requires lending services. A personal banker then could use generative AI to reach out to the customer with a personalised loan offer tailored to their finances. Similarly, predictive AI can alert your team to event triggers, such as a customer’s fixed deposit reaching maturity. Then generative AI can help you meet that customer at the right moment, generating a package of reinvestment options for their unique circumstances. That’s what people want from customer service in banking. Eventually, AI will make personalised financial planning more accessible for all banking customers, no matter their wealth. By analysing the vast amounts of data you already have, the algorithm can offer personalised recommendations tailored to every customer’s financial goals. This will revolutionise the way financial advice is delivered, making it more accessible and relevant to the broadest range of banking customers. Use AI to take customer service in banking to the next level Despite improving digital services and capabilities, many banks find it difficult to win the loyalty of their customers. Customer service could make the difference, helping the customer feel known and valued by offering empathetic, personalised care.Still, you will need to think about how you’ll supervise AI usage. Choosing the right technology platform is key, and you should look for solutions with built-in compliance and transparency features for protection and control. These might include audit trails for record-keeping, automatic hand-off to humans for decision-making, and transparency in data usage for recommendations. For banks to build trust with their customers, they must get to know them throughout the journey. To do this at scale, AI can help you connect with customers, addressing their needs and showing you care about their needs today and in the future.

“You are caller number 10; please stay on the line.” A few years ago, a phone message like this from a company was a standard part of the customer experience.But today, customers expect more. They expect callback options. They expect to open a chat window on your website, send a text message or a tweet, and get a near-instant reply. They expect that you already know who they are when they call, that you’re aware of their most recent order, and that you understand what they neednext. They don’t want to repeat their information. And they definitely don’t want to wait.Customer expectations for good experiences keep soaring. They don’t just want the right product at the right price — they want the full package. In our annualState of the Connected Customer reportthat surveyed nearly 17,000 global customers, 91% of business buyers and 86% of consumers said the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services.As products become less distinguishable by brand and price, a great customer experience has become essential for companies to differentiate themselves. Here are some ideas and strategies for building customer relationships that last.What is customer experience?Customer experience, also called CX, gets thrown around a lot. But how is it defined, and what does it mean?“Customer experience and service have converged,” saidPeter Schwartz, LIKE.TG senior vice president of strategic planning. “It’s more than call centres and successful responses to problems. It is service opportunities in sales, support, and marketing. Delivering great customer experiences now means providing amazing, almost magical service at every opportunity.”For example, think back to the last time you called your cable company, filed an insurance claim, or booked a vacation. When you were finished, how did it feel? Was the overall experience easy and enjoyable? Or headache-inducing? What did you think of the company that provided the experience?What’s the difference between customer service and customer experience?The customer experience is broader and deeper than just the level of service received. Customer experience is the total perception of the company, interaction by interaction, from the first touchpoint to the last. This may include navigating the website, talking to sales reps over the phone, visiting a store, sampling a product or service, and experiencing an onboarding phase after a purchase.The point is that at every one of these moments, customers form judgments about whether a company is living up to their expectations. Is that company making it easy and enjoyable for them to do business with? In other words, customer experience is the sum of all interactions.Why is customer service important?Customer service isn’t just about addressing concerns or fixing issues; it’s about forging relationships, building trust, and creating memorable experiences that your customers will reflect on for all the right reasons. Let’s unpack why investing in premium customer service should be a no-brainer for today’s businesses.Increased brand loyalty thanks to great CXWhen customers feel valued and understood, they’re more likely to stick around. Every other positive experience and interaction they have with your brand reinforces their decision to choose you over competitors. Conversely, a single negative experience can be enough to push them towards competitors. Indeed, one in six shoppers will abandon a purchase after just one bad experience.Prioritising excellent customer service is your ticket to building a loyal customer base. And you’ve no doubt realised for yourself how much easier it is to convince an existing customer to buy from you again than it is to convince a prospective customer to buy from you for the first time. Not only that — increasing customer loyalty (retention) by just 5% has been shown to increase profits by somewhere between 25-95%.Minimised churn through genuine careChurn, or the rate at which customers stop doing business with an entity, is a metric no business can afford to overlook. This is the flip side of the brand loyalty argument. Since it’s much more complicated (and more expensive) to win a new customer than keeping an existing one, the churn-reducing impacts of providing great customer service are similarly immense. The difference here is that brand loyalty refers more strongly to customers making repeat or additional purchases. Whereas, churn is more relevant to subscription- and membership-based businesses as it’s more strongly related to people choosing to cancel a service rather than to choosing not to make a repeat purchase. (Note, you can measure a churn rate even if you sell non-consumable products. However, the reasons for churn in those circumstances are harder to determine and attribute. Often, the reason is simply that a customer doesn’t need any other products from you.)Effective customer service acts as a vital buffer against churn by proactively addressing concerns, listening to feedback, and showing customers they’re more than just numbers. We instinctively understand that it’s easier for a customer to choose not to make a purchase in the first place than it is for them to cancel an ongoing subscription or membership. (The former is really easy. The latter takes effort.) But if you thought one in six shoppers abandoning a purchase after a bad experience was bad, this may just make you fall off your seat. A whopping 86% of shoppers will leave a brand altogether after just two bad experiences!Additional sales opportunities with stellar serviceEver heard the phrase ‘people buy from people’? When customers have an emotional connection with a brand, they’re not just more likely to buy but also are more loyal customers and likely to upsell or cross-sell. And they’re also much more likely to share their positive experiences with their friends, relatives, work colleagues, and even just acquaintances. In fact, 72% of customers will share a positive experience with six or more people.Delivering top-tier customer service can lead to increased sales opportunities, from repeat business to referrals. When customers love your service, they won’t just come back — they’ll bring friends.Standing out in a saturated marketWith so many options available at the click of a button, what makes a customer choose one brand over another? More often than not, it’s the experience they anticipate or have received. In a market teeming with similar products and services, standout customer service can be the difference between being a customer’s first choice or a forgotten brand. And 81% of businesses believe the experience they give their customers differentiates them from their competitors.Ability to charge higher pricesImpressive though the above CX benefits are, there’s one amazingly direct benefit that makes investing in superior customer experience and service even easier to justify. Customers will pay for a better customer experience. And we’re not talking about a minority here. An overwhelming majority (86%) of shoppers are willing to pay a premium for great customer service.How to create good customer experiencesCustomers have always wanted a consistently good buying experience and the best value they can get. If they’re not happy buying expensive razor blades, they can sign up for inexpensive monthly delivery. If they’re fed up with mediocre hotel chains that don’t offer value, why not try Airbnb?Technological advances have led to disruption across every industry. Customers have more choice and great freedom to take their business elsewhere if they’re not receiving the experience they expect.In fact,71% of consumersswitched brands at least once in the past year.And, social media and review websites likeTripadvisorandYelpgive consumers an unprecedented platform — for better or worse — to amplify poor experiences to a much wider audience.Together, these factors give consumers an upper hand dealing with companies. And service with a smile is no longer enough.Customer experience isn’t a new concept, but it’s never been more relevant. According toour State of the Connected Customer report, 88% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services — the highest it’s been since LIKE.TG began tracking the sentiment.Customer service teams aren’t the only ones responsible. Once mainly concerned with driving new leads,80% of marketersnow feel they lead customer experience initiatives across their organisation.The good news? Customers are willing to pay a premium for great experiences, and not just great products and services. This means businesses have an opportunity to increase revenue by delighting their customers in a way that no one else can.How to measure customer experienceOffering top-notch customer experience is vital for businesses today. But how do you know you’re delivering what your customers want? The key is to measure and evaluate your activities using not just one, but several methods. Here are some top techniques to get you started.Analyse customer satisfaction survey resultsSurveys are a direct line to your customers’ thoughts and feelings. When you send out a well-crafted survey, you’re essentially asking your customers, ‘How’d we do?’, and their responses can provide a wealth of information.Look for patterns in the feedback. If multiple customers mention a specific aspect of your service that they loved, you know you’re onto a winner. Conversely, if there’s consistent feedback about areas of improvement, it’s a sign there’s work to be done.Not everyone will respond to your survey request. Those that do will tend to have a reason to respond. Either something’s been bugging them, and a survey is a chance for them to air their feelings. Or they’re thrilled with their user experience along with you, and so they’re happy to help you out. People in the middle tend not to bother filling in surveys unless there’s an incentive. Either way, keep your surveys concise and focused to get the most meaningful results.Identify the rate of, and reasons for, customer churnCustomer churn, or the rate at which customers stop doing business with you, can be a telling metric. However, a high churn rate might indicate dissatisfaction with your customer service, or it could result from dissatisfaction with your products or services. Therefore, it’s essential to know your churn rate and understand the reasons behind it.As an example, if you sell infant nappies (diapers), customers will churn when their children are toilet trained, no matter how wonderful your products and customer service are. However, if your churn rate suddenly spikes, you can be pretty sure there’s some other factor at play.Exit surveys can help you gain insights into why customers are leaving. Maybe it’s pricing, maybe it’s a competitor’s new offering, maybe they had a bad experience with one of your customer support team or people, or perhaps it’s something about the product itself. Pinpointing the reason for churn can guide your strategies for reducing it in the future.Ask customers for product or feature requestsSurveys of any kind are always going to give you information, mostly from people who are either really happy or dissatisfied. Suppose you don’t want to experience the disadvantages associated with incentivising survey responses. In that case, one clever way to get feedback from people in the middle of the spectrum is to allow them to submit product, service, or feature requests.It’s simple but effective: ask your customers what they want, and they’ll tell you if anything is missing from your offering. By actively seeking feedback from unhappy customers on potential new products or features, you can ensure you’re meeting (and even exceeding) their expectations. If you notice certain requests popping up repeatedly, it clearly indicates a market demand. Delivering on these requests can enhance the customer experience and foster loyalty, as customers feel heard and valued.Analyse customer support ticket trendsA treasure trove of information can be found in customer support tickets. Examining the trends and recurring issues in these tickets gives you a clearer picture of where customers might be stumbling. Is there a particular stage in the buying process that causes confusion? Or maybe a product feature that’s not intuitive? Keeping a close eye on these tickets can provide actionable insights to smooth out any wrinkles in the customer’s perspective journey.What is customer experience management?Measuring customer satisfaction score and experience and analysing the effectiveness of your CX strategies are both important parts of customer experience management (CXM or CEM). CXM isn’t a new concept, but it’s not particularly well known. However, as shoppers demand ever-increasing levels of customer service, customer experience management is also increasing in popularity.At its core, customer experience management is about ensuring customer interactions lead to positive and memorable experiences. It’s the practice of designing, understanding, and optimising every interaction and touchpoint in a customer’s journey to foster satisfaction and loyalty. It’s not just about mitigating negative experiences, but actively creating positive ones.In a world where consumers have endless choices at their fingertips, a single, poor customer experience frequently leads customers to explore competing options. Conversely, a consistently good experience can turn a one-time buyer into a lifelong advocate. Add the power of online reviews and social media into the mix, and such advocates can influence countless potential customers. This interconnected landscape makes CXM crucial for modern businesses.The components of effective CXMCustomer service management is a whole topic unto itself; however, these are the basic pieces of the puzzle:Listening to your customers: This sounds obvious, but it’s more than just hearing words. It’s about understanding the sentiments behind the feedback, be it through surveys, reviews, or direct communications.Analysing data: With technological advancements, we’re swimming in data. But raw data isn’t helpful on its own. Effective CXM involves diving deep into this data to glean actionable insights about customer preferences, behaviours, and pain points.Engagement and personalisation: Today’s customers don’t just want products; they want experiences tailored to their unique needs and preferences. Using tools like customer relationship management (CRM) software can help businesses offer personalised recommendations, content, and interactions.Continuous improvement: The world isn’t static, and neither are customer expectations. CXM isn’t a one-off task but an ongoing effort, so it’s important to regularly revisit and refine strategies based on new insights and feedback.As you can see, customer experience management is more than just a buzzword. It’s a comprehensive approach to understanding, engaging with, and delighting customers at every step of their journey. In a world where customer-centricity is the name of the game, businesses can’t afford to overlook the power of effective CXM. If you’d like to kick-start your CXM efforts, check out our guide to improving customer experience management.Why customer relationships matterIf a friend ignores a call, text, or email, it probably doesn’t bode well for the relationship. As with friendships, customer relationships bloom when individuals feel understood. Relationships weaken when customers feel that businesses don’t appreciate their personal preferences, whether that’s remembering they enjoy romantic comedies, or that they would rather be contacted by email.Lack of trust can also derail a customer’s experience before it even starts. While customer data is an essential part of delivering personalised experiences, customers need to know that if they hand their data over, it will be safe, used legitimately, and beneficial to them.Asquestionable business practicesmake headlines, customers grow ever more selective about the brands they trust. Nearlytwo-thirds (64%)say most companies aren’t transparent about how they use personal information at a time when trust comes at a premium: 74% of customers say communicating honestly and transparently is more important now than before the pandemic. Businesses that clearly articulate how they use their customers’ data can gain and keep their trust.How can companies better know and connect to their customers and build more trust? Listen to Seth Godin, marketing guru and founding editor of The Carbon Almanac, and Brian Solis, vice president of Global Innovation at LIKE.TG, discuss.window.addEventListener("message", function(message){ // Ensure event is coming from Casted if(message.origin === "https://podcasts.LIKE.TG" ) { if( message.data.event) { // Handle events if(message.data.event === "castedSizeUpdate") { var casted_episode_player = document.getElementById('casted-episode-player-a88e5233'); if(casted_episode_player) { casted_episode_player.height = message.data.payload.height; } } } } }, false)A company’s trustworthiness also represents its values. Increasingly, customers consider what a company stands for when deciding whether or not to buy from it. According to theState of the Connected Customer report, 66% of customers stopped buying from a company whose values didn’t align with theirs — up from 62% in 2020.How do you create a good customer experience?One challenge for companies trying to get this right is that customer expectations keep soaring. Increasingly, customers want experiences that are connected, memorable, and differentiated. We’ll talk through examples of each.;Our research showsthat 85% of customers now expect consistent interactions across departments when they engage with a company. For example, in a customer’s mind, a service agent should know the details of any recent ecommerce transaction they made, and engage accordingly. Not doing so risks losing customer trust:55% of customerslose trust in companies when there’s a lack of consistency across touchpoints.U.S. Bankconnects all of its employees with a single, unified database of customer information. The solution also allows the bank to turn raw data into high-value insights, which can be used to drive decision-making, and personalise its financial offerings for customers.Customer relationships had previously been built within individual business units such as banking, mortgages, investments, and payments. This led to a disjointed and often unsatisfactory customer experience. By approaching customer relationships as a single business, employees now have an aligned and complete view of their customers’ interactions with the entire organisation. This creates a unified customer experience across all business lines and strengthens relationships with customers.Customers now have an easier time accessing financial services across all channels, including mobile devices, personal computers, ATMs, and 3,000 branches across 25 states.A customer experience strategy builds relationshipsIt’s not enough for businesses to provide a personalised customer experience. They need to stand out from other companiessetting a high bar. And they need to organise around the customer. While research from more than a thousand global senior leaders ina study from Harvard Business Review Analytic Servicesfound that customer experience is a top-five business priority, few feel they’re presently doing it well.One European brand seeing results isBrunello Cucinelli, which quadrupled its ecommerce revenue after it adopted its customer experience strategy, culture, and solutions. The high-end clothing brand found maintaining its personal touch challenging for digital shoppers. It needed to bring the personalised experiences it was known for in its stores to online commerce.The company’s solution was to implement what its leaders have dubbed “graceful technology.” This centralised system builds stronger, more personal relationships with customers. Featuring easily accessible customer order histories and automated workflows, the system helps store managers expedite online customer service needs. Employees can spend more time building relationships with shoppers. Customers can receive in-store service regardless of where they connect.Brunello Cucinelli has successfully translated the luxury experience to the digital realm. And in the process, set new customer experience standards for the mass market.The benefits of long-term customer relationshipsCustomers want businesses to treat them like individuals. They want tailored engagement based on their unique needs. While niche brands were the first to offer differentiated customer experiences, this is now the expectation people have of mass-market companies as well.TakePiedmont Healthcare, for example. With the U.S. healthcare industry shifting to a value-based model, the healthcare provider was under pressure to improve patient outcomes and meet growing patient expectations with more personalised medicine. Piedmont Healthcare realised it needed to embrace technology to help it engage with patients and assist them to get easier access to care. They needed to personalise how the company connects with them.The organisation’s solution was to implement an integrated cloud-based system to capture patients’ information and create comprehensive patient profiles. It gives the company better insight into its relationships with both patients and physicians. They can use data-driven information to create high-quality, personalised marketing communications for both groups. Sales staff can also use the system to deliver personalised messages to physicians at scale, track engagement, nurture leads, and follow up with greater speed.How to make an amazing customer experienceWith success stories such as these making the market acutely aware of what’s possible,56% of customers expectoffers to always be personalised. LIKE.TG’s Peter Schwartz believes businesses will eventually use artificial intelligence (AI) to achieve a better customer experience. He wrote that it can turn a “comprehensive trove of datainto insights that can anticipate customers’ needs and act as their digital assistant.”He uses the example of a frequent business traveler. They walk into a hotel room to be greeted by their favourite song playing, photos of their family in digital frames, and an email asking if they’d like the Caesar salad, without croutons, they last ordered from room service. The temperature and lighting are set to their preferred levels. And when they turn on the television, it suggests a movie they’ve yet to see, starring their favourite actress. A rental car of the model they’re considering buying is available at the hotel.“This isn’t marketing to a category of consumers,” Schwartz said. “It’s applying AI and all the customer data to cater to the needs of a single individual, which is much more powerful.”Glen Hartman, global lead of commerce and ecosystems partners atAccenture Song,has also describedthe potential for unprecedented levels of customer immersion. “Say you usually do your grocery shopping on a Saturday morning. You use the store’s app, you belong to its loyalty program, and perhaps you’ve even attended a do-it-yourself cooking class there. So, they know you well,” he said in an interview.“When you walk in the door, the store knows you’re there through location technology. Delivering a real-time personalised experience in this context could mean the store suggesting a recipe based on your shopping list you created using the store app.“They could even show you a video of what the recipe looks like, right on your phone. Then they might upsell you on some other things to have a great dinner that night. That’s a successful shopping trip.”Hartman stresses that people also expect the brands they love to understand their wants and needs in context. Otherwise, it’s easy to miss the point and end up alienating customers. As he pointed out, if that same customer came back with the goal of quickly picking up some medicine for a sick child, for instance, and was offered all kinds of coupons and additional ingredient suggestions, their experience would clearly be less than optimal.How to improve customer experienceShelves of books are devoted to answering this question. However, the advice can be distilled to two pieces of wisdom:Give your business a customer-first mindset.Put the customer at the heart of your business — from marketing to point-of-sale procedures and after-sales follow-ups. Make customer obsession principles part of executive conversations and business planning during pipeline reviews, inside shareholder meetings, and throughout business development. Ask what their needs are, what’s driving their decision-making, what their goals are, and what they’re feeling.Get started with automation and AI.Get clear on the specific business problems you want automation and AI to solve.Once you’ve defined a specific use case, consider how existing workflows would be impacted and who would need to be reskilled.Customers are open to companies using AI to improve the experience they receive, includingchatbots, text and voice analytics, and more. In fact,AI adoption is surgingfrom service teams and beyond.Connected customersare knowledgeable and technology-aware — and they have limited patience for brands that can’t keep up. Delivering outstanding experiences isn’t a luxury; it’s an expectation. And those that do it well will be rewarded with customer loyalty and repeat business.

In a world where the simple act of a returned voicemail was once considered the hallmark of exemplary customer service, it’s fascinating to see just how much the landscape has evolved, especially over the past decade. Gone are the days of basic, one-size-fits-all service. Now, it’s all about customised, quick responses. Businesses nowadays are no longer in a race to be good; they’re in a race to be the best. The quandary that emerges from this transformation, then, is defining what exactly constitutes exceptional customer service in today’s fast-paced, customer-centric world. To shed light on the subject we’ve delved deep into the heart of recent research, analysing insights from two major global surveys: the “State of Service”, which includes data from over 3,500 service professionals worldwide, and the “State of the Connected Customer” which brings together viewpoints from over 6,700 customers, blending both consumer and business buyer perspectives. Our goal is to present a detailed interpretation of their findings, providing definitive answers to these important questions: What is good customer service today? How do we measure customer service experiences? How can businesses provide a service that surpasses customer expectations? The definition of good customer service and how it’s evolved Customer service isn’t just about the person behind the counter anymore; it’s the sum of interactions a customer has with your company. Today, every touchpoint matters, from the initial contact, through the definitive sale, and even beyond. Each of these elements collectively addresses the pivotal question, ‘What is good customer service?’. Technology advancements have forever altered the customer service landscape. Gone are the days when checking an order status required a lengthy phone call. There is no doubt that technology in the Fourth Industrial Revolution has made customer expectations higher than ever before. What’s not quite as easy is actually delivering customer service that lives up to these very high standards. Today’s Generation Z and the Alpha generation assume they can get that information just by speaking into a device. In fact, 67% of customers admit that their standards for a good customer experience are higher than ever before according to a study by LIKE.TG. So, what does it mean to offer great customer service in this fast-paced, tech-driven age? Today, good customer service entails: Personalised interactions A seamlessly connected experience Speedy responses (“real-time” or “always on”) Proactive solutions that address potential issues before they surface Let’s unravel these elements one by one. Being connected and personalisation: the pillars of customer service We’ve all been trapped in the maze of customer service phone lines, haven’t we?The frustration of having to repeat our problems multiple times is a universal pain point. Customers don’t see your business departments as separate entities; they view your business as one cohesive unit. Hence, their impatience when your service team doesn’t have access to your sales or marketing teams’ databases. LIKE.TG showed that 70% of customers emphasise that connected processes are crucial to winning their business, and an equal percentage say service agents’ awareness of sales interactions is essential for retaining their business. It becomes evident that when striving to cultivate customer loyalty and maintain client relationships, the significance of establishing personalised connections through service interactions cannot be overlooked. What’s more, customers expect uniquely personalised interactions.And the demand for personalisation isn’t limited to consumers; 72% of business buyers also expect sellers to tailor engagement to their unique needs. Everything from social media to live chat options, chatbots, and AI have become essential parts of customer service.Companies that master these technologies not only stand out but also set a new bar for customer service in their respective industries. That said, if customer service representatives lack the autonomy to resolve problems themselves, customers can be left feeling unimportant and overlooked. This issue resonates with 26% of consumers who’ve experienced being transferred from agent to agent without a solution! How much does real-time service really matter? The customer’s adage has evolved from “the customer is always right” to “the customer is always right now”. Our research reveals that one of the most highly valued service factors is “real-time messaging when I need service.”64% of consumers said they expect companies to respond and interact with them in real time. In our connected world, good service equates to always-on customer service. Customers also appreciate self-service tools like FAQs or account portals, which allow them to find immediate solutions. In this era of constant connectivity, real-time messaging and self-service capabilities are considered the fast track to resolution. Now, what does personalisation look like in the practical sense? Imagine logging onto a website and seeing recommendations tailored specifically to your past purchases or preferences.Or consider reaching out to a customer service representative who already knows your purchase history, sparing you the need to explain. Industry giants like Amazon have built their success on such personalised customer interactions. Harnessing the power of customer data and smart algorithms, they’ve elevated personalisation to an art form. Real-time responses and personalised interactions are no longer luxuries but prerequisites for effective customer service.There is little doubt that by offering these features, bolstered by self-service capabilities, you can significantly enhance customer satisfaction. The secret sauce to exceptional customer service: customer service channels Interestingly, there is a considerable gap between how businesses and customers utilise customer service channels. Did you know that the average customer uses 10 different channels to communicate with companies, ranging from phone calls to voice-activated personal assistants? With a considerable gap between how businesses and customers utilise customer service channels, customer service teams are in a race to keep up.While businesses are mostly aligned with customer expectations around more established channels like email, to provide good customer service means it is essential to look beyond traditional customer touchpoints. An astonishing 66% of service professionals have witnessed a significant surge in volume via digital channels, however there are still big gaps in the adoption of channels like mobile apps and voice-activated assistants. While conventional channels like phone and email remain vital, customer service is witnessing a digital revolution. SMS-based text, Social Media applications like Instagram and Twitter, and messenger apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are already used by a majority of service teams. In the near future, we anticipate growth in mobile chat and video support. In fact, the use of voice-activated personal assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri, in customer service is expected to grow by an impressive 152%. This digital shift has led 80% of service decision-makers to admit that emerging technology is transforming customers’ expectations of their service organisation. But even ensuring customer service availability across all channels might not suffice.Why?Because as well as multiple service channels, you need to deliver proactive service. Proactive service is the new norm Customers increasingly associate good customer service with proactive services, like receiving notifications about a delayed shipment before the expected delivery window. A previous LIKE.TG study indicated that 59% of customers expect companies to anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions before they even contact them. Looking to the future, customer service is likely to continue evolving, shaped by advances in technology. From virtual reality that could offer immersive customer support experiences, to blockchain technology that promises secure and transparent customer transactions, the possibilities are truly exciting. Forward-thinking businesses are already exploring these technologies to stay ahead of the curve and exceed customer expectations. More than half (56%) of service organisations are exploring AI technologies that could automate tasks typically requiring human interaction, potentially freeing up customer service reps for higher-value tasks. Proactive service doesn’t just solve problems; it builds trust and loyalty. When a company takes the initiative to address an issue before it escalates, it shows customers that they are valued and that their satisfaction is a priority. Internet service providers like Comcast, for example, often reach out to customers proactively if they detect an issue with their service. When resolving issues before they affect the customer, they not only prevent dissatisfaction but also strengthen the customer relationship. The importance of assessing customer service experiences Customer service metrics have evolved, just like the service itself. Once viewed as a necessary expense, customer service is now seen as a key driver of revenue and customer loyalty. Top-performing companies are redefining and measuring success in new ways. For instance, classic KPIs like case volume and average handle time are still relevant but are increasingly being tracked alongside newer performance measures that account for the broader customer experience. The top-tracked metrics for customer service teams include customer satisfaction (net promoter score, CSAT, etc.), employee experience, and average handle time (AHT). So, what does proactive service look like? Consider a streaming service that suggests shows based on your viewing history, or a shopping website that warns you when items in your wish list are about to go out of stock. Simply by anticipating customer needs and acting accordingly, these businesses not only enhance the customer experience but also cultivate customer loyalty. The power of effective communication and empathy Communication is more than just exchanging information. It’s about understanding the emotion and intentions behind the information.Effective communication involves active listening, clarity, and empathy, all of which are key to satisfying customers. In the modern era, customer service metrics have become more sophisticated. They not only include traditional metrics like response time and resolution rate but also track customer emotion, sentiment analysis, and customer effort score.These metrics provide a deeper understanding of the customer experience, helping businesses to optimise their service accordingly. For instance, the airline industry might prioritise on-time departures, while a call centre might focus on first-call resolution. Empathy can make a real difference in customer service interactions. By truly understanding and sharing the feelings of another, customer service agents can build trust, diffuse tense situations, and create a loyal customer base. But how do we cultivate empathy in a customer service setting? The role of training and empowerment Training customer service representatives to effectively address customer needs is vital. In addition, empowering them with the right resources and autonomy to solve customer issues independently can significantly enhance the customer experience. Empowerment begins with training service agents to truly listen to customers, to understand their feelings and respond in a way that demonstrates this understanding.This could involve role play exercises, active listening workshops, or even mindfulness training. Customers are becoming more demanding, and businesses must adapt or risk losing customers to competitors.Companies like Apple recognise the importance of delivering exceptional customer service, and have become well-known for training their agents to deliver empathetic customer service, encouraging them to go the extra mile to make customers feel heard and valued. The pivotal role of AI in customer service The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed the way customer service functions, with a 143% projected growth rate of AI use in service organisations over the next 18 months. High-performing service teams are 3.2 times more likely than underperformers to have a defined AI strategy, showing that AI is becoming a vital component of a high-performing customer service strategy. Looking ahead, 82% of service decision-makers say their company’s customer service must transform to stay competitive. As customer expectations continue to evolve, companies that place a high priority on customer service and adapt to new technologies will likely lead the way in customer satisfaction and retention. Other tips to improve customer service While effective communication, empathy, and AI integration play crucial roles in delivering high-quality customer service, there are other strategic steps that can be leveraged to elevate the customer experience. In this section, we’ll dive into additional key strategies and practical tips to enhance your customer service, further fostering trust and loyalty amongst your clientele. 1. Customer service is like a clear lake: transparent and inviting Imagine your customer navigating your online shop. Can they understand why that sitewide sale isn’t reflected in their cart? Do delivery times and return policies shine bright, clear, and accessible? How about the information on discounts? Are they a treasure hunt, or easy to stumble upon? If any of these answers come up in the negative, we might be faltering in customer service, letting potential sales slip through our fingers. In a study by Forrester, almost half of online customers—45%, to be exact—said they would abandon a transaction if their questions remain unanswered! That’s why in customer service, it’s always wise to err on the side of too much information rather than too little. An FAQ page is so important to have, but remember that the best e-commerce businesses guide their customers every step of the way, hiding nothing that could be of use. Physical stores operate differently. Here, clear signage and open communication are key to exceptional service. Avoid situations where your customers make wrong assumptions. If certain items are non-returnable, make it clear before they hit the checkout counter. Remember, no one likes to squint at the fine print—keep it clear, keep it transparent, and both you and your customers will steer clear of unwanted surprises. 2. Extend a helping hand to your digital diners In this e-commerce age, many businesses expect online shoppers to be self-reliant. While it’s true that customers have become more independent, not everyone is a tech wizard, and even those who are may sometimes want a little hand-holding. eConsultancy showed that a whopping 83% of online shoppers need some customer support. Whether it’s a conversation with an agent, in-person or online, or a slower-paced email exchange for less urgent queries, many customers crave human interaction to save time and ensure smooth transactions. To prevent an ocean of abandoned shopping carts, make sure you meet your customers halfway. Live chat can be a lifesaver, known to significantly reduce abandonment rates. But if that’s out of reach, ensure your customers can easily find email support and a 24/7 toll-free number on every page of your site. Make it simple for your customer to find quick answers. If they feel lost, they might abandon their cart, whether out of frustration or lack of time. Remember, the easier you make it for them to reach out, the higher the chance of completing a sale. 3. Trust: the magic ingredient for customer loyalty Does your company pick up the phone before the first ring has ended? Is it honest with all important purchasing information, offering personalised experiences when customers need them? If so, congratulations! You’re weaving the magic ingredient into your business: trust. Sure, your product or service might bring customers to your door, maybe even twice. But the secret to having them come back over and over again lies in trust. If customers believe they’ll have a good, hassle-free experience with you, that trust will blossom into invaluable loyalty. In a nutshell, if you can offer customers what they want when they expect it, the bond of trust between your company and your customer will grow into loyalty that’s hard to break. Harmonising service and trust: a symphony of customer loyalty Let’s recap. Placing your customer at the heart of all your business operations and earnestly working towards enhancing their experience essentially encapsulates the concept of “What is good customer service?” Exceptional customer service is all about being proactive, consistent, accessible, personalised, and empathetic.It’s about valuing your customers and putting them at the heart of your business. It’s also important to remember that these qualities aren’t just abstract ideas. They are critical business strategies that can and should be measured, evaluated, and improved upon continually. Customer service was once a 9-5 affair, but today, customers demand round-the-clock service. Companies that can deliver this level of service will see significant improvements in customer satisfaction and loyalty. Remember, you’re not just providing a service or selling a product, you’re also delivering an experience. A delightful, memorable experience that leaves your customers eager to come back for more. It’s about embracing technology but never forgetting the importance of human connection. It’s about putting your customer at the heart of your business and doing everything in your power to make their experience with you fantastic. If you can provide the customers with what they’re looking for, when they need and expect it, then that trust built between your company and the customer will evolve into invaluable customer loyalty. And you don’t have to do it all alone!Your team is your most valuable asset. Train them, empower them, and make them part of your customer service journey. Together, you can create a customer service experience that’s not just good, but exceptional. Remember, every interaction you have with a customer influences whether or not they’ll come back. Your business’s success depends on it.

Dreamforce is the crown jewel of the LIKE.TG event universe —and it was epic. From amazing keynote sessions to demos showcasing the tools to solve your biggest challenges, Dreamforce had something for everyone (including the very best swag!). But are you ready for the understatement of the year? That’s right – AI pretty much stole the show. From generating hyper-relevant sales emails to prospects to anticipating a customer service issue with a VIP, AI is here to serve and support every aspect of the business.Here’s the thing: it’s IT that enables everyone else to leverage AI.As an IT leader, you’re already feeling the pressure to pivot to an AI-led approach across your organization. But you’re faced with the harsh reality of connecting and harmonizing your data while adhering to security and data governance standards? How can you build AI-powered applications that you can trust? And how can you do it now? AI for IT: 3 launches you can use Let’s take a look at how these new AI launches, all announced at Dreamforce 2023, are helping IT teams get more done – and how you can, too! 1. Unlock the full power of your data According to our latest State of IT report, 86% of IT decision-makers worldwide believe that generative AI will play a significant role in their organizations in the near future.However, the average organization reported more than 1000 distinct applications used across the enterprise. Scarier still, fewer than a third of these apps are integrated. This is a problem when AI depends on accurate, unified data to deliver critical insights and predictions. In MuleSoft’s 2023 Connectivity Benchmark Report, enterprise IT leaders estimated spending an average of $4.7 million per year on custom integration efforts. That’s an increase of 31% from their 2022 estimate of $3.6 million. With this in mind, it’s critical to have the right tools and development environments at the ready to implement and build the experiences customers expect. All of this with security and powerful generative AI capabilities built right in. One way to get connected quickly is with MuleSoft, loaded with new generative AI capabilities to make integration faster than ever before. Connect to any data or system, wherever it resides, with security and governance built in. The MuleSoft Accelerator for Data Cloud can help you unlock and connect to critical industry systems quickly and securely. Once unlocked, your teams can finally harmonize with existing data sources through the power of LIKE.TG Data Cloud. This enables you to get a unified view of every customer so that you can deliver the right experiences at the right time every time.Harmonizing data quickly? That’s music to our ears. Get IT articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now 2. Put your data to work If your teams have tackled the data unification challenge — bravo! After all, it’s these integration challenges that slow down digital transformation initiatives for 80% of IT teams. But it’s actually garnering insights and getting recommendations from AI that IT leaders are being pressured to deliver. With unified data in place, how can we start to see the benefits of AI? Well, IT teams can make the building of apps and automations a bit easier with Prompt Builder.Because every generative AI-powered CRM app depends on the quality of the AI prompt, it’s useful to get a boost with the provided prompt templates. These templates guide IT teams in building AI prompts that will root the AI in specific data and instructions —making it possible for the AI to deliver better suggestions more quickly. This low-code prompt management tool allows IT teams to build, test, and fine-tune trusted AI prompts within the Einstein Trust Layer. Any sensitive data is automatically masked to limit bias and toxicity. With this tool, IT teams can leverage AI to build everything from auto-generated emails to product descriptions for websites. This means freeing up time to focus on deeper, more sophisticated IT challenges. Low-code. Painless. That’s how AI should be. 3. Deploy safely and quickly With a tremendous amount of pressure to consistently deliver new solutions, IT leaders must balance speed and delivery with security.We know all too well what can happen when an organization skirts security concerns to increase deployment speed. According to our recent State of the Connected Customer Report, the average cost of not complying with data protection regulations is $14.8 million. That’s a lot, and we want to work toward avoiding any data breaches.One thing AI can help with is mitigating security concerns without compromising on deployment speed. By using secure development environments with sandboxes, IT teams can safely test AI processes without the risk of pushing any errors to the production org.Plus, sandboxes are also a great space to train teams on how to responsibly build code with the help of generative AI.When it comes to production environments, a new feature will help protect your sensitive data and stay compliant. Privacy Center will feature new data management policies where IT teams can delete stale data or de-identify at scale to protect the production org.But if something were to go awry, we’ve got you covered there, too. LIKE.TG Backup is a native solution that allows you to protect against corruption, data loss, or coding errors by providing daily backups and the ability to restore quickly.Delivering new solutions with peace of mind. Sounds peaceful. Don’t sleep on AI What’s top-of-mind for IT leaders is how to get the most out of AI —now. That starts with the right tools to pull together your data with security and governance built-in. Leading IT organizations are already transforming to accommodate the latest AI trends. Make sure you’re one of them.

Every year Dreamforce excites, inspires, and guides us toward the future, and this year was no exception. With more than 1,600 sessions across three days, Trailblazers from all over the world gathered to hear what the future of CRM + AI + Data + Trust holds for us. Trailblazers from the APAC region were well represented, with over 25 speakers featuring across nearly 30 sessions. Dreamforce keynote – the AI revolution Of course the main event was the keynote address, which kicked off with the big questions – if artificial intelligence is the wild west, then who’s the sheriff in town? Responsible innovation, paired with ethical use, was the focus of so much of what we heard. We’ve already mentioned the core elements of LIKE.TG – CRM + AI + Data. On the keynote stage, CEO Marc Benioff added an extra element to that trio – Trust. “We’re in this AI revolution – it’s going to impact who we are, it’s going to impact how we operate, but it’s also going to bring us back to our values,” said Benioff. He highlighted what he called the trust gap – 52% of consumers don’t believe AI is safe and secure. Public Language Learning Models (LLMs) are harvesting data from across the internet, warned Benioff, and they have set their sights on corporate data next. New AI capabilities in LIKE.TG To combat this, Benioff announced the launch of Einstein 1, the new trusted AI platform for customer companies. All LIKE.TG applications integrate with Einstein 1 Platform, built on the LIKE.TG metadata framework. Pairing with Data Cloud, it can access and provide real-time data, and allows you to build next-generation applications. Integrated, shared metadata makes LIKE.TG fast and easy to use, and allows you to create solutions once, and run them anywhere. And because they’re on the cloud, they update automatically. Ultimately, says Benioff, the AI revolution is a trust revolution. Parker Harris, co-founder and CTO, joined Marc on stage to discuss the Einstein Trust Layer. This unique technology ensures that customer data is kept safe and secure, meaning that LIKE.TG AI doesn’t have access to your customer data, no customer is shared with LLMs, and PII data is never compromised – what Harris calls ‘zero retention’. David Schmaier, President and Chief Product Officer, then took to the stage to talk about Einstein Copilot. Embedded into every app, Copilot lets you use natural language to interrogate your data, improve customer experiences, resolve issues faster, and grow your business.And if this powerful new technology sounds like something you need for your business – and we think it is – then we have some good news for you. Tableau and Data Cloud are now free to get started. Asia Pacific Trailblazers Dreamforce is truly an international event, and among the many speakers from all over the world, there were more than 25 speakers from across the region speaking in nearly 30 sessions. Among them was Cebu Pacific Air. Angelo Maria Berbano, IT Director – Airline Operations Systems, was there to share how the airline has automated its operations using Slack – saving an incredible 114,000 admin hours a year. “The number that isn’t out there, though, is the huge impact that this has had on our people. It just makes things easier for them, more efficient, and they’re able to do things faster,” said Berbano. “And you know what they say – happy people are productive people.” You can watch the story on LIKE.TG+. And don’t forget Dreamforce: The Asia Pacific Edition. Join Leandro Perez, Vice President and CMO of Asia Pacific, as he talks to LIKE.TG leaders including Amy Weaver, President and Chief Financial Officer, and Paula Goldman, Chief Ethical and Humane Use Officer. They’re talking about data, AI, and what the future holds for LIKE.TG and its customers. There’s more insight from Asia Pacific Trailblazers, too. Tune in to see Regional LIKE.TG leaders from across Asia Pacific also interview Trailblazers on the latest that’s going on in our region: Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson and CEO, India, talks to Miling Nagnur, Chief Technology Officer at Kotak Mahindra Bank. They discuss the power of Dreamforce, customer experience, and the future of AI in India. Frank Filman, CRO Australia, speaks to Melissa Irwin, Chief Data, People and Sustainability Officer at Endeavour Energy about her first Dreamforce, and the company’s net zero efforts. Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ASEAN, chats to Mac Munsayac, Vice President and Head of Customer Experience at Philippine Airlines about the company’s digital transformation, data-driven personalisation, and employee experience. Plus, take a look at the playful game show ‘Who wants to be an Einstein?’. You can watch Dreamforce: The Asia Pacific Edition on LIKE.TG+. The most sustainable Dreamforce ever Of course, Dreamforce wouldn’t be Dreamforce without embodying each of the LIKE.TG values. Sustainability is the most recent addition to that list, and with every event, we’ve taken an extra step to making our work as sustainable as possible. This year, more than 74% of the structures used at the event have been recycled or reused, and 100% of the food packaging used across the three days was compostable. It doesn’t end with the physical materials at the event, though. There were dozens of sessions dedicated to addressing one of the most pressing issues of our times – climate change. As part of the Platform for Change series, Australian energy company Endeavour Energy took part in a session titled Tackle Climate Change at the Source. Guy Chalkley, CEO, presented Endeavour Energy’s context, values, and how it has embraced sustainable transformation. Chalkley was joined on stage by Melissa Irwin, Chief Data, People and Sustainability Officer at Endeavour Energy. Irwin expanded on the sustainability mission at Endeavour, and shared how others can take on the challenge themselves using Net Zero Cloud.Check out the full session on LIKE.TG+.

What are customer needs? Answering that question may not always be easy – but it’s crucial for business success. After all, knowing what the customer wants is the starting point for creating winning products and services. Just as importantly, it’s the basis for forming long-lasting relationships. The State of the Connected Customer report reveals that 62% of customers expect businesses to anticipate their needs, and 73% expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. If your business isn’t proactively working towards understanding its customer and addressing their concerns, it risks falling behind competitors that are. Let’s take a look at how you can determine the needs of your customer – then go about satisfying them. What are customer needs? Put simply, customer needs are the factors that influence the purchasing decisions of consumers and B2B buyers. By anticipating and meeting customer needs, brands can create offerings that better connect with the consumer and buyer, while increasing profitability and driving long-term loyalty. Main categories of customer needs There are many factors that might influence purchasing behaviour, from the simple and common to the complex and highly personal, but most fall into one of three types. Practical. Customer needs are most often driven by practical considerations. These can include everything from price and availability to ease-of-use and functionality. If you’re offering a high-quality, low-cost product or service that’s easy to obtain or access, you’re catering towards practical customer needs. Customers driven by practical needs are likely to choose an offering that will simply help them perform a function or achieve a goal. This was once particularly true of B2B buyers, whose longer buying journey includes input from multiple stakeholders. But in a world where products and services often share similar price points, availability and functionality, B2B buyers are increasingly being influenced by emotional and social factors — whether they know it or not. Emotional. What a customer wants can often be just as powerful a driver of purchases as what a customer needs. In other words, they may be driven by how an offering makes them feel. For example, they may choose a product that evokes pleasant memories from childhood. Or they may look for a product that makes them feel more confident or powerful. While a practical customer may choose a fuel-efficient compact car, an emotional one may splurge on a motorcycle. Consumers have always been influenced by emotional and social factors, but these factors are increasingly influencing B2B buyers as well. Harvard Business School professor Gerard Zaltman posits that 95% of cognitive decision-making happens subconsciously. This means that even buyers who think they’re being pragmatic are often responding to factors outside the rational. And this means that B2B organisations should focus on creating emotional bonds with buyers – not just winning over the procurement team. Social. Some customers make purchases that are socially driven. For example, they may choose sustainable or ethical brands that reflect their lifestyle. Or they may opt for luxury products that are in-line with their social circle to keep up with the Joneses’. Socially driven needs are often considered to be the hardest to predict, but entire businesses have sprung up around tracking new trainer drops or tech releases. B2B buyers are also paying attention to socio-political factors in their purchasing decisions, as they need to justify partnerships to stakeholders. As such, they’re looking at their vendors’ CSR (corporate social responsibility), treatment of employees, environmental impact and community involvement in ways they never did before. Decoding consumer needs: Unpacking product desires Once you understand what your target customers need, you can start creating products that fulfil those needs and then marketing them effectively. However, those three categories of customer needs are very broad. It’s much easier to begin building products that fulfil those needs, if you can apply them to all the various aspects of product design and development. In the shifting landscape of consumer needs, it’s crucial to understand the various factors that play a role in driving product selection and influencing purchasing decisions. So, let’s take a look at how nine aspects of product design relate to the three categories of customer needs. Functionality: Bridging the gap between expectations and utility When designing the functionality of a product, it’s vital to consider how it addresses the practical, emotional, and social needs of your target customers. For practical needs, the product’s functionality needs to either resolve a specific problem or simplify a process for the user. Here you’re looking at your product’s core utility and what you’re going to promise your customers about what your product can do for them. When designing the functionality of a product to meet the practical needs of your audience, it’s a good idea to focus on usability, ensuring it’s intuitive. Addressing emotional needs involves creating a user experience that consumers will enjoy. It doesn’t matter how well your product meets your customer’s practical needs, if they don’t enjoy using it they simply won’t use it and therefore they won’t recommend it to their friends. So, when designing your product’s functionality, it’s also a good idea to aim to evoke positive emotions like comfort, delight, or a sense of achievement. Social needs are fulfilled when a product either helps people interact with others or elevates their social status. Some of the best products do both. When designing your product’s functionality to meet your customers’ social needs, think about how it could enable sharing or collaboration, helping users feel connected. Or, if that’s not possible, try to incorporate something that will help your product become a status symbol once it becomes popular. Anything you can do to help your users feel a sense of pride or belonging within their social circle when using your product is going to help make your product popular. So, when it comes to designing the functionality of your product, you’ll get the best results if you can ensure it: Solves a problem or simplifies a process Is easy and intuitive to use Is comfortable to wear or use Delights your audience Helps users collaborate, share, or connect with friends, family, work colleagues etc. Gives people a sense of pride to own and use or helps them feel like they belong within their social circle The price conundrum: Balancing affordability and value In the same way that product functionality needs to meet the practical, emotional, and social needs of the intended users, so too does product pricing need to meet all three categories of customer needs. When it comes to practical needs, the price must align with the perceived functionality and utility of the product. Customers need to feel they’re getting their money’s worth, and the cost of the product should correspond with its ability to solve a problem or enhance a process. Price also plays a practical role in the customer’s budgeting, so providing a range of options or payment plans can be beneficial. Addressing emotional needs involves the psychological aspects of pricing. The price can evoke emotions of satisfaction or discontent, based on perceived fairness and value for money. If a product is priced too high, it may deter potential customers; if too low, it might create doubt about its quality. Therefore, a pricing strategy should strive to create a positive emotional response, where the customer feels they’re making a worthwhile investment. Social needs pertain to the status symbol a product’s price can represent. For some consumers, purchasing premium or expensive items is a way to express their identity and status. Conversely, other consumers may derive pride from finding the best deals and saving money. It’s therefore essential you understand these dynamics within your target audience, and develop pricing strategies that respect and cater to these social needs. Therefore, a well-crafted pricing strategy should aim to: Align with the product’s utility and the customer’s budget constraints Evoke positive emotions by providing perceived value for money Cater to the social needs of the target audience, whether they be prestige-seeking or bargain-loving. Convenience: The silent influencer in consumer preferences Designing a product for convenience is yet another balancing act that must address the practical, emotional, and social needs of customers. For practical needs, ensure your product simplifies tasks and is easy to use. A product that seamlessly fits into the customer’s daily routine and requires minimal effort to operate ticks the boxes for practical convenience. Emotionally, a convenient product brings peace of mind and reduces stress, making the customer’s interaction with the product enjoyable. The more effortless the experience, the more positive the emotional response. Social needs are met when the product aligns with the customer’s lifestyle and collaborating with it, or sharing it, is effortless. In short, when optimising your product for convenience: Make your product user-friendly and time-efficient Aim for a stress-free, enjoyable customer experience Ensure collaborating with or sharing you product is easy Design matters: The aesthetic appeal in product selection Sensing a pattern? Yep, you guessed it — design plays a significant role in addressing practical, emotional, and social customer needs too. Practically, a well-designed product is easy to use and enhances the user’s efficiency. This involves thoughtful placement of elements, appropriate use of color and contrast for visibility, and a design that supports the product’s overall functionality. Emotionally, the aesthetic of a product can evoke feelings of attraction, pleasure, and even joy. A visually appealing product not only enhances the user experience but also makes the product more desirable. It’s the emotional appeal of the design that often turns a one-time user into a loyal customer. Socially, product design can influence how a product is perceived by others, often serving as a status symbol. A well-designed product can reflect good taste, sophistication, or a specific lifestyle, thus contributing to the user’s social identity. A thoughtful product design should: Enhance usability and efficiency Create an emotional connection through visual appeal Cater to the social desires of the target audience Reliability: Building trust through consistency Reliability addresses the practical, emotional, and social needs of customers all in one go. From a practical perspective, a reliable product consistently performs as expected. Emotionally, reliability builds trust and reduces anxiety. Socially, the dependability of a product can enhance a user’s reputation. Performance: Quality at the forefront Similarly, performance addresses practical, emotional, and social customer needs all in one go. Practically, a product’s quality and operational excellence ensures it effectively delivers on its intended function. The key here is that the level of quality needs to match the customer’s expectation and your pricing strategy. E.g. There’s no point making a super endurable, disposable product as the cost would likely be too high for customers to stomach. Emotionally, a high-performing product can instill pride and satisfaction in the user. Socially, products known for their superior performance can elevate a user’s status among peers. Efficiency: The quest for productivity Product efficiency is fundamental in catering to the practical, emotional, and social needs of your customers. Practically, an efficient product can simplify tasks, conserve resources, and save time for the user. It enhances the user’s productivity, proving its worth in their everyday routine. Here’s a great example of a product improving efficiency for a customer. Emotionally, an efficient product can induce feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment. It can reduce stress by making tasks easier, and provide more time for enjoyment or relaxation, enhancing the user’s overall well-being. Socially, an efficient product can serve as a status symbol, portraying the user as a conscious and responsible individual. In our increasingly eco-conscious society, products that promote efficiency are often viewed as desirable, elevating the user’s standing within their social circle. An efficient product addressed the three categories of customer needs by: Simplifying tasks and saving time Inducing feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment Reflecting a responsible and eco-conscious image Compatibility: The role of integration in consumer choice The compatibility of your product with other products owned by your users is crucial in addressing practical, emotional, and social customer needs. Practically, a compatible product that seamlessly integrates with existing systems or devices, can increase productivity for customers, reduce the learning curve for your product, and ensure your users don’t have to buy extra products to use what you’re offering. Emotionally, a product that integrates easily can provide a sense of relief and satisfaction. It simplifies the user’s life, reducing potential stress and frustration that may come from incompatible devices or systems. Socially, compatibility can enhance the user’s status in their circle. Having a product that works harmoniously within an ecosystem of devices demonstrates a user’s savvy tech awareness and can be a source of pride. When designing your products, it’s a great idea to consider how compatibility could provide a better experience for your users. Compatible products: Seamlessly integrate with existing systems or devices Provide emotional satisfaction by simplifying the user’s life Enhance the user’s social standing by demonstrating tech-savviness The experience quotient: More than just interaction Customer experience is the culmination of every other part of the product design process. Products deliver a good customer experience if they: Are intuitive, or at least have great instructions that make them easy to use Perform well and reliably Easily integrate with existing workflows and products Generate positive feelings such as joy, satisfaction, or excitement Make it easy for users to share their experience or feel like they belong when using the product Make users look good within their society If you’re looking for ways to improve your customer experience, here are six ways to improve CX with data and measurement. Navigating the terrain of service needs Just as key facets of product design can fulfil all categories of customer needs, so too can the critical elements of service design meet all three categories of client needs. When designing new service for your clients, you’ll get the best results if you consider each aspect of the service from the following angles. Empathy: The key to service satisfaction Empathy is one of the most important customer service skills you can employ and building empathy into your services themselves also plays a vital role in meeting the practical, emotional, and social needs of your clients. Practically, empathetic customer service provides solutions that truly fit the customer’s needs, thereby enhancing the overall value of the service. Emotionally, empathy can evoke feelings of being understood and valued, fostering a deeper connection between the customer and the service provider. Socially, customers who experience empathetic service are more likely to share their positive experiences, enhancing their status within their circles. When developing your services, see if you can incorporate empathy into your design process by: Really understanding what your clients need, so you can design the best solution Ensuring your clients feel understood and valued Making is socially desirable for your clients to share their experience with you Fairness: The foundation of trust Fairness is also crucial in addressing the practical, emotional, and social needs of your clients. Practically, fair service policies ensure everyone is treated equally and without bias, enhancing the overall reliability of the service. Emotionally, fairness can instill feelings of trust and respect, strengthening the customer-provider relationship. A good example of an unfair practice that really annoys clients is when service providers offer discounts for new clients without rewarding loyal clients. Fairness is perhaps most relevant, however, to the social needs of your target audience. If they’re driven by the need to be ethical, they’ll want to know your services are fair to all clients, without any kind of social bias. Alternatively, for some target audiences, social responsibility might be a bigger driver, and they may be more likely to buy from a service provider that provides discounts for not-for-profits or contributes to worthy causes. Fairness means different things to different audiences, so when designing your services, you might consider: Ensuring equal and unbiased treatment of all clients Balancing attraction tactics with loyalty strategies Giving back to underserved communities or those in need Transparency: The service game-changer There are practical, emotional, and social aspects to transparency too. Practically, transparent service operations enable customers to make informed decisions, increasing the service’s utility. Emotionally, transparency can induce feelings of trust and loyalty, making the service more desirable. Socially, transparency enhances a customer’s social standing as they can confidently vouch for the service to their circle. It also gives clients the confidence that a service provider is honest and ethical. Many businesses get nervous about sharing their inner workings, worrying that competitors might copy them. However, there are several benefits to transparency: Clients like that they can make informed decisions It fosters trust and loyalty Clients are more likely to recommend transparent services from honest, ethical businesses Control: A new era in customisation Control is another aspect of service design that can enable you to address the practical, emotional, and social needs of your clients. Practically, giving customers control by allowing them to customise their services enables them to choose a service that exactly meets their needs, enhancing their overall experience and satisfaction. Emotionally, control can incite feelings of empowerment and freedom, making the service more enjoyable. Socially, having control enables customers to tailor the service to their social context, making it more shareable and recommendable. The benefits of giving control to your clients can be highly rewarding: Enhanced customer experience and satisfaction, which leads to increased conversions along with greater loyalty and advocacy Feelings of empowerment and freedom, which also leads to increased loyalty Options: Choice is power Options are an important way you can give your clients more control over their services and therefore options are a key way of meeting the practical, emotional, and social needs of your clients. Information: The fuel of knowledgeable decisions You might think giving your prospective clients information only fulfils their practical needs, but, with the right strategy, it fulfils emotional and social needs too. Providing sufficient information empowers customers to make informed decisions, which is critical if they’re to choose a service that meets their practical needs by solving a problem for them. This includes the decision to buy as well as making informed choices about any options you offer. Emotionally, information can evoke feelings of confidence and trust, making the service more appealing. Socially, informed customers are more likely to share their knowledge, enhancing their social interactions and status, and effectively giving you free advertising and even free customer support. Apple’s support community is probably one of the most well known examples of this. In short, providing information can: Foster confidence and trust Ensure your clients get what they need from your service, reducing churn and increasing referrals Enable you to create a community around your service and reduce your advertising and customer support costs Accessibility: Anywhere, anytime service Accessibility is perhaps the element of service design where it’s most obvious how to meet the practical, emotional, and social needs of clients. An accessible service gives clients what they need, when they need it. That includes allowing clients with disabilities to benefit from your services. Accessibility therefore addresses the practical needs of clients in several ways. A client who can’t access the services they need when travelling, will get really frustrated. Whereas a client who can start a project on their desktop in the office, continue it in the car on the way home by dictating to their mobile, and then continue on their home computer at the end of their journey, is likely to be pretty chuffed. These examples illustrate just how much of an impact accessibility has on whether a service meets the emotional needs of clients. A client who wants to share their service with friends when traveling, or use it to collaborate with their blind assistant on the other side of the world, is far more likely to choose a service provider that enables them to easily share their fully accessible service with others. To summarise, an accessible service: Can be used in any location at any time Has online and offline capabilities and can be used on any device (if it’s a digital service) Can be used by people with disabilities Enables sharing Eight ways for identifying the needs of your customers When it comes to addressing customer needs, a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. For instance, you’ll want to tailor your messaging to prioritise the distinct concerns of different audiences. But how can you gain key insights into your customers, so that you can not only meet their needs, but exceed their expectations? Here are 8 strategies for getting started. Follow your data. We’re living in the age of the digital imperative. You likely already have a wealth of information about your customers at your disposal, especially if you’re centralising your data in a CRM. Take a deep dive into your business’s data and see what’s connecting with customers, what can be improved, and what new opportunities can be identified from it. Talk to your customers. The best way to know what your customers want is to simply ask them. Deploying post-purchase surveys will help you evaluate your customer experience. You can also reach out to loyal customers for opinions on products and services. They may have some great ideas for improvements and new offerings. Raise your social media game. Try to engage with your customers in the places where they spend their most time. For many, that’s social media. Listen in on what people are saying about your business. Are you seeing recurring concerns? Can you use this information to drive improvements? Are you using your brand’s social media presence to showcase your voice and build more personal relationships? Gather feedback from your teams. Your sales and service teams speak to your customers frequently. Gather your reps and discuss what they’ve been hearing from customers. Do your teams have suggestions for new products or services? Do they have ideas for how you can improve the customer experience? Form a focus group. Forming a focus group isn’t for every business. After all, it can be costly. Moreover, these groups will not have the same in-depth knowledge of your offerings as your customer base will. But if you’re looking to move into new markets, a focus group can put you on the right path. See what people are searching for. One of the most cost-effective ways to see what customers need is to see what they’re searching for. You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner to gain insights into customer behaviour. You can see how many times phrases and keywords have been searched each month, so you can see what’s trending up. Or you could use Google Trends to see more specific data, with searches being further segmented. Learn from your competitors. Your competitors are helping to define your marketplace, so it’s important to keep up with any new products or services they’re offering. Look for ways you can use this market intelligence to improve your offerings or create new ones. You’ll also want to pay attention to their messaging. How are they positioning themselves? After all, they’re trying to reach the same customers you are. Use Artificial Intelligence. Artificial intelligence is one of the most customer-centric technologies that SMES can use. Not only can AI tools analyse data to identify unique needs and preferences; they can help SMEs create tailored customer journeys. AI can also increase efficiency, improve service and create more customer-centric marketing campaigns. You understand the needs of your customer – what’s next? Now that you know the needs of your customers, you can build a blueprint for meeting them. Some of the steps towards building a customer-centric strategy include: Get regular feedback from your customers. Talking to your customers isn’t a one-time thing – it should be done regularly. Establish a feedback loop where you can constantly evaluate the products and services you’re offering, and the market’s response to them. This regular monitoring of consumer needs will help you respond quickly to market shifts and emerging customer concerns. Perfect your brand’s messaging. You’ll want to create different messaging for different audience segments, considering their specific needs and the channels through which they shop. Make sure that your marketing is aligned with customer needs and that your communications highlight the most relevant benefits of your products and services. Brainstorm new products and services. Knowing what your customers value and prioritise when making a purchase will help you create innovative offerings that not only address their needs, but stand out from the crowd. Look at the results from your focus research. Is there a gap between what customers need and what’s available? Create the need. Some businesses have an ‘if you build it, they will come’ approach. Instead of researching and responding to the existing needs of their customers, they create a new need in their customers. For example, it’s unlikely that socially conscious Millennials are wishing there was a credit card made just for them, but if you offer a card that donates to charities, provides rewards based on purchases from sustainable businesses, and sponsors community building, you may create that customer need. Level up your loyalty programme. Look at your business’s loyalty programme. Is it centred around the needs of your customers? Is it offering value at the right places? Loyalty programmes are a powerful tool for building relationships, so ensure that your programme is working as hard as it could be. Re-evaluate your customer service KPIs. Quick and convenient should always be the priority when it comes to customer service. But once that frictionless service is in place, can you add further value to the customer experience? Look at your service KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and see if they can be supplemented to not only measure successful resolutions, but how well you’re meeting the ongoing needs of your customers. In other words, turn your service into a relationship-building machine. Ready to follow customer needs to exciting new places? By following the needs of your customer, you can ensure that you’re always putting them first. And by designing your business around offering solutions, you’ll be well on your way to winning trust and increasing customer retention.

1. What’s my starting point?2. How can I get prepared?3. Can Superbadge Super Sets help me?4. What’s my time commitment?5. How do I ace the exam?6. Are there more resources? LIKE.TG Administrators are the productivity champions who keep their company’s instances of LIKE.TG running at peak efficiency. They help ensure business processes are automated, create essential reports and dashboards, and train users on how everything operates. Admins help their teams work more effectively.Being the one with all that knowledge and skill pays off! Admins are in high demand, and getting certified can put your career in high gear. Our research shows 148% job growth for admins in the past 5 years (US data) and a median U.S. salary of $86,000.So, how do you set yourself up for LIKE.TG Certification success? Here are the answers to six questions that will put you on the path to becoming an admin #CertifiedPro. 1. What’s my starting point? Trailhead! LIKE.TG’s free online learning platform helps you enhance your resume with the most in-demand skills to prepare you for future LIKE.TG career opportunities. Within Trailhead, the Trailblazer Community also helps you make great connections with Trailblazers from anywhere who can mentor and help grow your network to boost your career. Trailhead allows you to: Learn at your own pace: What learning schedule works best for you? Mornings before work? Evenings after work? Weekends? Any and all options are open because you decide what modules to complete at a pace and time that works for you. Every time you return, you can pick up exactly where you left off, so you never miss a beat. Learn anywhere: With the free Trailhead GO mobile apps for iOS and Android, you can do your studying on the go from almost anywhere! Have a few minutes on your commute? Waiting at the airport, or on a long-haul flight? If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, you can learn something new. Follow a curated guide for role-specific learning: We’ve got guided learning paths called trails and custom learning paths called trailmixes designed especially for admins, and you can follow that preset path to make sure you’re exam-ready. You can also check out the LIKE.TG Associate certification exam. This exam is for those with up to 6 months of LIKE.TG user experience and who want to demonstrate skills in the following areas: How the CRM platform solves the challenge of connecting departments and customer data How LIKE.TG Customer 360 can solve business challenges Key LIKE.TG Platform terms Fundamental functionality in the current version of LIKE.TG at a foundational level, such as requirements gathering, reporting, security, sharing, customisation, and data management You can prepare for your LIKE.TG Associate certification exam with the exam guide and by completing the LIKE.TG Associate certification preparation trailmix. 2. How can I get prepared? We’ve got the tools to help you prepare for your exam, no matter your learning style. We’ve covered all the bases, with exam guides, interactive study tools, videos, trailmixes, and more. Prepare for Your LIKE.TG Administrator Credential trailmix This trailmix includes all the modules, projects, and tasks that will guide you through your preparation for the admin cert exam. LIKE.TG Certified Administrator exam guide This exam guide supplies all the critical details you’ll need, including a full content overview, information about how much time is allotted for the exam, the score required to pass, all associated fees, retake options, and more. There’s a handy exam outline included that details every topic covered in the exam and the relative weight of that topic. It also includes a list of all other recommended training, reference, and study materials to get you on the path to success! Administrator Certification Exam trail You’ll know if you’re exam-ready after you’ve completed the Study for the Administrator Certification Exam trail. The trail guides you through earning four badges, each of which covers a separate section of the exam. It includes interactive content such as flashcards, embedded practice questions, and downloadable materials — all specially designed to get you prepped and ready for the actual exam. The interactive Administrator practice test gives you the opportunity to experience the format and questions you may see on the LIKE.TG Administrator Certification exam. The results upon submission are your guide to strengths and weaknesses to help you focus on areas needed for additional learning. Courses led by experts For a more interactive, face-to-face learning approach, we also offer an array of Trailhead Academy courses taught by LIKE.TG experts to help you prepare for your admin certification exam. These courses include: Certification Preparation for Administrator (CRT 101) Administrative Essentials for New Admins in Lightning Experience (ADX 201) Trailhead Virtual Bootcamp for New Admins (TVB201) LIKE.TG Certification Days 3. Can Superbadge Super Sets help me? The design of a Trailhead module offers step-by-step instruction and bite-sized learning with interactive challenges so you can test your newly developed skills. A superbadge, on the other hand, takes the skills you’ve learned in a specific domain (think: process automation or app customisation) and challenges you to put them to work to solve a complex, realistic business problem. You’ll get a specific business scenario with relevant information scattered throughout the story. Your job is to uncover the business need and design a solution through a series of interactive challenges in a Trailhead Playground. Those challenges are validated in real time as you complete them. Then, you can add on Super Sets, a series of superbadges that cover specific roles. Super Sets allow you to prove your expertise in specific areas and are a powerful cert prep tool. In fact, we surveyed Trailblazers and found that 95% said that completing superbadges made them better prepared for their certifications. Check out the Admin Super Set, which highlights the superbadges designed to help you get ready for your admin certification. And superbadges are a great addition to your resume, profile, and social channels, as they show the world just how much of an #AwesomeAdmin you are! 4. What’s my time commitment? “How long is this going to take?” Don’t worry, that’s everyone’s top question! The answer is that it really depends on you. You’re the best judge of your current schedule and how much time you can commit to studying. The great thing about Trailhead is that your learning really is up to you. How does studying fit into your schedule? Can you carve out a few minutes in between meetings or during your commute? Our on-the-go tools and “pick up where you left off” modules mean that no matter how much time you have, you can probably squeeze in a little learning. And keep in mind that there’s no hurry to get certified. You’re working toward a goal here, which is to make sure you’ve really grasped all the key concepts in a certain module — because these are concepts you need to build on for the next module. So, take your time and learn at a pace that works for you. If you’re nervous about making a time commitment or you’ve been putting off the exam because you’re afraid to fail, don’t let that hold you back! Learning is a process and failing is just one small part of that process. 5. How do I ace the exam? Test-taking is stressful for lots of people. Even if you think you’ve got all the concepts for the LIKE.TG Certification down, you may dread the actual exam just because test-taking isn’t your thing. But you can manage your state of mind and put a success strategy in place to help you breeze right through exam day! Stay calm and learn to manage your expectations. Not everyone passes the exam the first time around, and the internal pressure to pass at any cost may cause unnecessary stress. To be clear — if you don’t pass, it’s okay! There’s no failing on this learning journey. There’s only a new opportunity to do better on your next attempt. Your exam results include section-level feedback, which will help you identify exactly what to focus on to come back even stronger for any certification retake. During the exam, it’s important to manage your time. Exams can last anywhere from 90 to 120 minutes depending on the topic, so you should be able to figure out approximately how much time you should give each question before you move on. You’ll always know the total amount of time you have remaining, and you can easily mark a question to come back to later — so don’t let any single question take up too much of your time. Simply mark it for review and revisit it. Take advantage of available resources. If you’re taking the exam in person, the testing centre will allow you three sheets of paper, which you can use to jot down notes, keywords, and important concepts that you’re afraid of forgetting. Have one concept you continually brain freeze on? Memorised an acronym or mnemonic device that helps you remember it? Jot that down as soon as you get to your station. Your testing time doesn’t start until you hit the start button, so take a few moments in the beginning to get prepared. 6. Are there more resources? Yes, of course! Bookmark the LIKE.TG Admin Career Development page where you can find all of the resources designed to help you grow your LIKE.TG Admin career. Check out the Admin blog— This is the place to find best practices, tips and tricks, insights, and career advice for LIKE.TG Admins. Subscribe to the Admin podcast — We’ve got interesting guest speakers who are ready to share their career insights on a variety of topics, all designed to help you maximise your leadership skills and career potential. Join Admin events in your area — In-person and virtual events let you make great connections with other Trailblazers in your area. Get involved with the Trailblazer Community — This is the place to connect, learn, have fun, and give back with #AwesomeAdmins around the world. You can even connect with a user group close to you, or a study group that will help you get exam-ready! You’re doing a great job — celebrate your progress All of these strategies have one thing in common: to help make preparing for your exam more fun! Enjoy the learning process, and remember, you’re an expert in your field. Getting Salesforce-certified is proof to yourself and your employer that you’ve worked hard to gain the knowledge and skills you need to succeed as a LIKE.TG Admin. So, it’s not a matter of whether or not you’ll get certified — it’s just a matter of when. You’ve got this! And when you do earn your certification, you can pay it forward by taking part in the Trailblazer Community and helping other aspiring admins get ready for their exams.

Over the last two decades, communications services providers (CSPs) have faced a two-fold cash flow squeeze. First, accelerated adoption of competing OTT (Over-The-Top) service offerings – such as voice calls and messaging through WhatsApp – have put downward pressure on consumer revenue. Second, increasing spends on generational technology advancements every few years – like 4G to 5G network upgrades and fibre rollouts to address increased data consumption demands – have put upward pressure on costs. So it’s logical for CSPs to seek alternative strategies to maintain healthy margin levels and retain market foothold. Mergers and acquisitions (MAs) are a powerful strategy CSPs use to achieve this. How MAs are reshaping the APAC communications market APAC markets are a diverse mix of prepaid and postpaid, characterised by a blended mobile ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) – as low as USD $3 in Indonesia and India, and up to USD $30 in Australia. At the same time, the prepaid heavy markets have an extremely cost savvy subscriber base that churns easily from one provider to next. Consumers are lured by lower costs or value-added incentives such as free data roaming packages or unlimited local calls. And most countries have high teledensities – as high as 145% in Singapore, 124.8% in Australia, and 113.9% in New Zealand – that leave limited headroom for net new customer acquisition. These unique market dynamics have powered a surge in MA activity that has reshaped the marketplace and created new market leaders throughout the region. True Corporation and Total Access Communication (dTac) in Thailand, for example, created a new company with an enterprise value exceeding USD $20 billion. That’s only one of several examples. Celcom and Digi in Malaysia formed the largest mobile services provider in the country. Indosat and Hutchinson in Indonesia created the country’s second largest service provider with more than 100 million subscribers. And the Telkomsel and IndiHome merger in Indonesia resulted in expected annualised savings of USD $330 million. In Australia, the merger between Vodafone Hutchison and TPG Telecom created an enterprise value of USD $4.9 billion for Vodafone. And in neighbouring New Zealand, 2degrees and Vocus joined forces to form the country’s third largest service provider with an annual turnover of more than USD $1 billion. The same can be seen in India. When Vodafone India and Idea Cellular merged a few years ago, the combined entity emerged as the market leader with nearly 400 million subscribers. MAs have enabled each of these players to establish a 50% or above market share in their markets of operation. Increasing customer stickiness and wallet share with MAs In addition to an increase in market share, MA activities typically enable CSPs to increase customer stickiness where subscribers use a mix of volatile prepaid services (such as mobile data) from one provider, and highly retentive postpaid services (like fibre broadband) from another. Tapping in on each party’s offerings generates cross-sell opportunities CSPs use to increase customer wallet share and retention. On the spend side of the equation, MA activities tend to free up capital by reducing or eliminating spend on overlapping infrastructure. CSPs can then choose to use such capital to develop and market innovative products in the information and communities technology (ICT) space (such enterprise apps, IoT, and data centres), or develop partnerships with other industry service providers (like digital banks and micro insurance companies). The critical need for an integrated customer view Achieving a successful MA in the communications industry presents several challenges. For CSPs with legacy systems, realising the business benefits of an MA requires the rationalisation and integration of business strategies, customer facing and internal functions, product offerings, business processes, and IT stacks. However, delivering high-quality customer service over the course of the rationalisation period – and beyond – is key to retaining customers across the merging companies. In scenarios where a customer is consuming products from both merging companies, having an integrated view of the customer becomes crucial to achieving this goal. Gavin Barfield, VP Solutions and CTO ASEAN at LIKE.TG, makes the point that MAs provide an opportunity to retire legacy technology and embrace modern technology stacks. Solving the integration puzzle with a 360-degree customer view Developing this integrated 360-degree customer view requires systems integration and normalisation of data across product offerings, sales transactions, inflight orders, customer’s assets, trouble ticket histories, and more. LIKE.TG Customer 360 provides an integrated view of each customer, across multiple functions, products and systems. This view is what communications companies’ marketing, sales, contact centre and field service teams require for day-to-day operations, and to maintain business-as-usual – or better. For example, marketing teams enabled with deep customer insights from Customer 360, can review customer segments, customer spend and preferences to develop attractive cross-sell and up-sell offers for the new acquired customer base. Sales and customer service teams can also review customer sentiment to inform meaningful conversations with customers from the merging organisations, and address customer concerns with the right insights at hand. Singtel in Singapore is one CSP that’s using such data insights to understand and prioritise its customers’ needs in a complex, hyper-connected and fast-changing world. Rationalising business processes with a connected CRM Integrated CRM platforms also enable the rationalisation of business processes during MA activity. When CRM platforms are served over a connected user interface, it enables seamless handovers across internal functions. For example, when a sales representative requests pricing approvals for mobility and connectivity products, their manager uses the same connected interface to review and approve the pricing. Solution specialists use the same interface to review the overall solution construct for consistency and coherency. Sales Ops uses the same view to review quote accuracy, and can derive weekly forecast reports using a single data instance. Such simplification allows identification of redundant or unnecessary business processes that are candidates for transformation during the rationalisation process. Leveraging AI technologies to enable sales and service teams Gavin Barfield is seeing more communications companies increasingly motivated to embrace generative artificial intelligence (AI) to lead innovation and stay ahead. That’s largely because AI technologies provide relevant and contextual information – during the sales stages and customer service engagement – that enables sales and service teams to meet their customers where they are. Customer 360 uses LIKE.TG Einstein AI technologies to leverage the full power of this kind of data analytics. Let’s take an example of a high-value subscriber who uses different prepaid SIM cards for voice and mobile gaming from two merging CSPs. AI could potentially suggest an up-sell to a 5G plan with more voice minutes and gigabytes for this subscriber, and the latest bluetooth earphones to enhance the subscriber’s gaming experience. Additionally, based on customer demographics and preferences across similar customers, AI could suggest an Instagram and WhatsApp add-on for a few extra dollars. Such examples not only generate increased wallet share, but also project the CSP as an intelligent organisation that understands and wows its customer throughout the customer lifecycle. From business transformation, process harmonisation and operational streamlining to increasing customer delight and wallet share, CRM platforms help CSPs across all stages of the MA journey, and ensure long-term business success.

Imagine a world where you create a new product that everyone wants. It’s a snap to make, and it sells itself – a mega-hit. Congratulations, you’ve smashed your goals! In this world, there is no overnight success. If you sell a product without attracting the right buyers and demonstrating how it meets their needs, it may just sit on the shelf. Meanwhile, a competitor does their research, knows what buyers want, and delivers it. Not only have you lost revenue, you’ve lost potential customers to the competition. Ouch. How do you avoid this and capture customer interest? Build a comprehensive go-to-market (GTM) strategy that combines careful research with tailored messaging that hits on the right buyer pain points. What you’ll learn: What is a go-to-market strategy?Why is a go-to-market strategy important?How to build a go-to-market strategy frameworkGo-to-market strategy example What is a go-to-market strategy? A go-to-market strategy is a step-by-step plan for introducing a new product to buyers. This includes market, customer, and competitive research that uncovers problems your product can solve. Creating a buyer persona lets you target prospects with key messaging that emphasises your product’s unique problem-solving value. Why is a go-to-market strategy important? A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is a meticulously crafted blueprint businesses employ to introduce a new product or service to the market. A well-crafted GTM strategy ensures target buyers see your product, understand and appreciate its value, and are compelled to buy. As CEO of Revenue.io, Howard Brown put it, “Meeting expectations early and often builds trust and is the foundation of any successful partnership.” You can launch a product without a go-to-market strategy, but buyers who need your product might not see or appreciate its value. They might turn to competitors already established in the marketplace and are perceived to be stable. In the early stage, it’s normal for someone to see your solution and say, “Oh, you’re just like [competitor],” even if they don’t offer what you offer. Research bears this out, especially for smaller companies. Of startups that fail, more than a third do so because there was no identified market need. How to build a go-to-market strategy framework A successful go-to-market strategy requires understanding your market, prioritising buyers’ pains, and identifying your competitive advantage. Building a framework around these fourelements can help deliver your product in a way that makes it “ready to buy.” Let’s run through how to do that in six steps. 1. Create your buyer persona Selling is about delivering value to your target buyer, and that often takes the form of a solution to a unique problem. To make sure you’re targeting the right problem, build out a buyer persona that connects their pain points to your solution. To surface this detail, you’ll start with your existing customers. Dig into customer data in your CRM, conduct interviews with buyers whose problems you’ve solved, and lead market research efforts to see where else these needs surface in your industry. (Check out our comprehensive guide on buyer personas for more guidance.) If you sell B2B, your team will likely be coordinating a purchase with multiple people at each prospective company. The buying group might include end users, the CFO, an operations lead, and so on. Make sure you include problems and needs for these roles in your buyer persona. 2. Conduct competitive research Going to market with a new product isn’t just about solving prospects’ problems. It’s also about separating yourself from the crowd of products already in the market. To ensure you deliver unique value, research competitors with similar products to see how they’re positioned. Use these questions to guide you: What similar products are already on the market? What do you offer (features, price, functionality) that your competitors don’t? If a competitor’s product is famous, why is it resonating with customers? How can you use that information to frame your messaging? You can likely offload some of this research if you have an AI-powered CRM. Use AI tools to scan sales call transcripts for competitor mentions and pricing information. Pair this with automated online research based on industry, competitor, and product keywords. (Here’s how Sales Cloud does this.) 3. Map customer problems to your product solutions You know your target buyer’s problems. You know what competitors are doing to solve those problems. And, you know what your product offers. It’s time to connect all three and deliver a high-value solution that’s unique in your market. Build out a simple matrix so you can see all three and how they connect. Here’s what this might look like: Product: Long-lasting, high-performance running shoes with extra arch support priced 20% below similar productsExample buyer: Casual runner, mid-40s, median income To keep the focus on the buyer during this value mapping, review your matrix and ask: “How would my target buyer see or understand this?” That’s a good gut check before you frame your messaging. 4. Develop key messaging for marketing and sales efforts Using your matrix from the previous step, draft messaging for each prospect problem that shows why your product is uniquely qualified to serve as a solution with proof points to back it up. Let’s continue with the example of our shoe buyer. You know from your research that they are between the ages of 40 and 50, like to run as a hobby, and want to stay active despite minor injuries. But, they’re also price-conscious. Here’s what key messaging might look like for this target buyer: Problem: Their feet hurt when they run, likely due to prior injuries, muscle strain, or bad shoes. Product value: A pair of running shoes designed with input from an orthopedic surgeon, with research that finds 60% of wearers felt less foot pain after a month. What competitors offer: Some shoe brands advertise “extra support” but don’t have medical experts contributing to design or research showing this support works. Key message: Running doesn’t have to end when you hit middle age. Buy orthopedist-designed running shoes that keep you on the trail, whatever your age. Don’t believe us? Just ask our runners: 60% of customers in their 40s say they felt less foot pain after a month of running in our shoes. Complete this messaging for every problem you’ve identified, making sure to demonstrate clear and measurable ROI. You can also emphasise the potential downsides to sticking with the status quo or going with the competition. 5. Identify your sales channels Now you need to reach your prospective customers. But how do you take your key messaging and combine it with the right buying channel? Start by identifying the channels your buyers typically use to make a purchase, then select the right strategy to match. Here are the most common strategies: Direct sales: This involves a rep talking directly to a customer, building a personal relationship over time before closing a deal. This is perfect for longer sales cycles that require ongoing negotiation, typical for complex products at high price points. These deals are often high-touch, requiring a nurture-heavy strategy with lots of explanation and sharing of valuable resources to build trust. Self-service sales: This strategy is much more hands-off, letting customers make a purchase on their own without speaking to a sales rep. Consider this option when you want to make it fast and easy for your customers to buy, and/or when you don’t have a large team to handle individual sales. It works best for simple products that don’t require a lot of explanation and are offered at a low price point. I typically see this strategy with B2C business models, where customers can buy products on a website, but I also see it with SaaS companies that offer subscriptions. For example, LIKE.TG lets small-business owners buy software through the LIKE.TG Starter page. Partner sales: Consider this strategy, also known as channel sales, if you want to get your product to market quickly without adding headcount. It’s ideal for smaller, resource-strapped companies launching a simple product that’s relatively low-cost, but best sold directly through reps because it requires some assistance with delivery, onboarding, or setup. The big benefit here is broader market reach via preferred vendors like online marketplaces, resellers, and third-party distributors. 6. Go to market and measure results With the core elements of your go-to-market strategy in place, it’s time to get your product to the right buyers. As you ramp up marketing and sales on your channel(s) of choice, start tracking total units sold, prospect engagement and objections, and sales cycle length. You can do this easily with an AI-powered sales analytics tool that delivers insights in real-time. If you lag behind expectations, consider adjusting elements of your go-to-market strategy to compensate. Go through the steps above again periodically (at least once a quarter) to make sure your research and persona are up-to-date. By surfacing any new needs or problems of your target buyers, you can adjust messaging to keep customers interested. Go-to-market strategy example Mary, a software as a service (SaaS) company founder, is working on launching her new product to the market. Mary has created an innovative solution that automates data entry for companies with high volumes of customer information to manage. Her soft launch was a success, and she’s ready to sell. To make sure she’s bringing in the right prospects, Mary develops a buyer persona based on conversations with her current customers, and conducting market research. After a few weeks, she lands on the target buyer: mid-sized retailers that take a lot of customer orders online and by phone. The problem: the only other software providers on the market are too expensive for mid-sized companies, and their solutions take too long to get up and running. With this as a guide, Mary decides on key messaging: Spending your weekend entering customer orders (only to ship them too late)? Automate your data entry to save your weekends and keep customers happy. Mary also knows from customer conversations that she needs a sales team to engage with prospects – it’s a long-term investment for her customers, so they need to see demos before they commit. So, she hires 10 sales reps to start conducting outreach and connecting with prospective customers. Within a few weeks, the team has scheduled demos and is having in-person meetings. She even lands some initial clients, who find the software easy to set up out of the box and affordable for their budgets. Most of them are impressed with how it works, but there’s a problem: people say they need more app integrations to make data management easier.That’s excellent feedback, so Mary takes it to her team. After some investigation, they land on the top 10 most requested apps to start. As customers start using Mary’s software with the app integrations, they see real-time savings for their teams. Because they don’t have to spend extra time entering customer data manually, they can also save on headcount and ensure customer orders are shipped promptly. Within a few months, Mary saw a 40% increase in sales, with many customers saying they’ll write positive product reviews and refer their friends. Build your customer base with a strong go-to-market strategy A go-to-market strategy may seem like more fuss than it’s worth, but it helps you accomplish the most important task in sales: solving customer problems. Just keep in mind that it’s not a “one and done” effort. Continually monitor your sales and customer engagement to see how you can adapt your strategy to meet evolving buyer needs.

Dreamforce is the crown jewel of the LIKE.TG event universe —and it was epic. From amazing keynote sessions to demos showcasing the tools to solve your biggest challenges, Dreamforce had something for everyone (including the very best swag!). But are you ready for the understatement of the year? That’s right – AI pretty much stole the show. From generating hyper-relevant sales emails to prospects to anticipating a customer service issue with a VIP, AI is here to serve and support every aspect of the business.Here’s the thing: it’s IT that enables everyone else to leverage AI.As an IT leader, you’re already feeling the pressure to pivot to an AI-led approach across your organization. But you’re faced with the harsh reality of connecting and harmonizing your data while adhering to security and data governance standards? How can you build AI-powered applications that you can trust? And how can you do it now? AI for IT: 3 launches you can use Let’s take a look at how these new AI launches, all announced at Dreamforce 2023, are helping IT teams get more done – and how you can, too! 1. Unlock the full power of your data According to our latest State of IT report, 86% of IT decision-makers worldwide believe that generative AI will play a significant role in their organizations in the near future.However, the average organization reported more than 1000 distinct applications used across the enterprise. Scarier still, fewer than a third of these apps are integrated. This is a problem when AI depends on accurate, unified data to deliver critical insights and predictions. In MuleSoft’s 2023 Connectivity Benchmark Report, enterprise IT leaders estimated spending an average of $4.7 million per year on custom integration efforts. That’s an increase of 31% from their 2022 estimate of $3.6 million. With this in mind, it’s critical to have the right tools and development environments at the ready to implement and build the experiences customers expect. All of this with security and powerful generative AI capabilities built right in. One way to get connected quickly is with MuleSoft, loaded with new generative AI capabilities to make integration faster than ever before. Connect to any data or system, wherever it resides, with security and governance built in. The MuleSoft Accelerator for Data Cloud can help you unlock and connect to critical industry systems quickly and securely. Once unlocked, your teams can finally harmonize with existing data sources through the power of LIKE.TG Data Cloud. This enables you to get a unified view of every customer so that you can deliver the right experiences at the right time every time.Harmonizing data quickly? That’s music to our ears. Get IT articles selected just for you, in your inbox Sign up now 2. Put your data to work If your teams have tackled the data unification challenge — bravo! After all, it’s these integration challenges that slow down digital transformation initiatives for 80% of IT teams. But it’s actually garnering insights and getting recommendations from AI that IT leaders are being pressured to deliver. With unified data in place, how can we start to see the benefits of AI? Well, IT teams can make the building of apps and automations a bit easier with Prompt Builder.Because every generative AI-powered CRM app depends on the quality of the AI prompt, it’s useful to get a boost with the provided prompt templates. These templates guide IT teams in building AI prompts that will root the AI in specific data and instructions —making it possible for the AI to deliver better suggestions more quickly. This low-code prompt management tool allows IT teams to build, test, and fine-tune trusted AI prompts within the Einstein Trust Layer. Any sensitive data is automatically masked to limit bias and toxicity. With this tool, IT teams can leverage AI to build everything from auto-generated emails to product descriptions for websites. This means freeing up time to focus on deeper, more sophisticated IT challenges. Low-code. Painless. That’s how AI should be. 3. Deploy safely and quickly With a tremendous amount of pressure to consistently deliver new solutions, IT leaders must balance speed and delivery with security.We know all too well what can happen when an organization skirts security concerns to increase deployment speed. According to our recent State of the Connected Customer Report, the average cost of not complying with data protection regulations is $14.8 million. That’s a lot, and we want to work toward avoiding any data breaches.One thing AI can help with is mitigating security concerns without compromising on deployment speed. By using secure development environments with sandboxes, IT teams can safely test AI processes without the risk of pushing any errors to the production org.Plus, sandboxes are also a great space to train teams on how to responsibly build code with the help of generative AI.When it comes to production environments, a new feature will help protect your sensitive data and stay compliant. Privacy Center will feature new data management policies where IT teams can delete stale data or de-identify at scale to protect the production org.But if something were to go awry, we’ve got you covered there, too. LIKE.TG Backup is a native solution that allows you to protect against corruption, data loss, or coding errors by providing daily backups and the ability to restore quickly.Delivering new solutions with peace of mind. Sounds peaceful. Don’t sleep on AI What’s top-of-mind for IT leaders is how to get the most out of AI —now. That starts with the right tools to pull together your data with security and governance built-in. Leading IT organizations are already transforming to accommodate the latest AI trends. Make sure you’re one of them.