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How To Build a Data Culture: What Leaders Need To Know
Your company accumulates mass quantities of data every day. You collect information from marketing, sales, service, and more. There aremission-critical insightslocked inside. The question is, what trends are you missing? Can you surface them tomake smarter, more strategic decisions? If so, how?
Building a data culture is the only way to unearth these buried insights. That’s a formidable task for the83% of CEOswho want their organisations to be more data-driven. Yet, companies that embrace this approach to decision-making are more successful. In fact, leading data-driven companies to reallocate talent and capitalfour times fasterthan their peers. Furthermore, the 58% of companies that make decisions based on data aremore likely to beat revenue targetsthan those that don’t.
So, what’s next for leaders ready to build a data culture? See how CEOs can overcome challenges and empower their employees to make smarter decisions faster.
CEOs face countless decisions about where to start when building a data culture. Overcome analysis paralysis bystarting smallwith a use case that proves the value of your new data culture. Promote the payoff with skeptics: McKinsey research showsdata-driven companiesaccomplish goals faster and that their initiatives contribute at least 20% to earnings before income taxes.
Here’s why this works:
Data analysis surfaces actionable trends
Data analysis surfaces patterns thatunearth valueand enable companies to take advantage of market opportunities faster. That drives growth, nurtures innovation, and strengthens differentiation from competitors.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning take the guesswork out of decision-making
Companies that still rely on institutional knowledge and gut feelings to guide decision-making are leaving money on the table. With artificial intelligence and machine learning, employeesmake the right decisions quickly and confidently.
Strategic work keeps employees engaged
When data analyses guide routine decisions, employees spend less time on basic tasks and more time focusing on strategic work. That keeps them engaged and productive. That’s why84% of data-leading organisationshave observed an increase in employee retention.
Empower the right team to score a financial win
The best way to build a community of data champions is to demonstrate how data-driven decision-making grows revenue and streamlines operations. Don’t choose an analytics use case just because it might produce an interesting outcome. Instead, opt for a project that will yield a financial win and that you can later scale for maximum impact.
Here’s how to start:
Step 1: Choose the right team members
Start a working group that includes diverse colleagues from across the organisation. These team members should bring a collaborative mindset, differentiated skills and abilities, and distinct organisational perspectives. Make sure you include executives, line managers, data engineers, developers, and machine learning architects.
Step 2: Equip your team with the right training and technology
Withaccessible technology, you can connect team members and enable them to unlock hidden insights. Don’t assume your team members have the skills or tools to get started on their own. Instead, give themcomprehensive trainingso they can learn how to make data-driven decisions from anywhere (without having to be an actual data scientist).
Step 3: Start small
Test your assumptions on a small scale and iterate. You’ll know you’ve hit a winner when your colleagues can measure the value of your project on their bottom line.
Here’s how this worked at one financial services company. After a simple clustering analysis evaluated subclasses of data across sales territories, right-sizing the coverage led to$1 millionin incremental revenue the following year. That win was enough to build enthusiasm for data-driven decision-making across the company.
Step 4: Prioritise data culture’s human element
Ensure team members review raw data analyses to understand downstream utilisation. Only human eyes can determine if bias has influenced the conclusions.
Avoidbias by proxyby not taking data at face value. “Nobody can just drop all your data in and the right answer comes out,” said Mark Nelson, Tableau CEO. “It’s that human insight that helps you jump from raw data to conclusions.”
Take the next step to build your data culture
The process of iterating and scaling new data strategies means success won’t happen overnight. However, leading companiesencourage experimentationbecause they believe not being data-driven is the bigger institutional hazard. Inaction is the biggest risk of all.
This post was orignally published on the U.S.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
The Most Important Phase in Digital Transformation is The Beginning
The pace of change is faster than ever. As a result, business and technology leaders tend to launch into projects with speed and momentum without first planning for success. Jonathan Hatcher uncovers a new framework called Phase 0, which aims to align business goals before the project starts. Jonathan draws from vital lessons that the LIKE.TG Professional Services team gathered from hundreds of highly complex, fully integrated enterprise-scale project implementations.
With inputs from Karl Kuchejda, Director, Services Leader, at LIKE.TG.
The most important moment in a digital transformation is at the very start. That’s where decision making is nimble and it’s easiest to affect valuable change.
Now more than ever there is an imperative for organisations to meet customer expectations, capitalise on new technology, and create a working environment that attracts and retains the best talent.
Although it is tempting to move fast into project-mode, shifting into action without proper planning introduces risk later down the line. This shows up as misaligned objectives, internal politics, and over-indexing on ‘getting it delivered’. As opposed to achieving high user adoption and realisation of business value.
To address this most critical stage, our team has developed a process called Phase 0. This helps businesses develop a clear roadmap of what they want to achieve, and how to get there.
Slow down before you speed up
The sheer scale and complexity of transformations needs a clear runway to ensure the project will be successful. There are innumerable moving parts to consider, competing business goals, and teams to align. With so much at stake, it is vital to get all the important details right.
Our team has gathered insights from hundreds of complex, enterprise-scale transformation projects. These insights are distilled into a framework we call Phase 0. The most successful projects use this precious time before the project starts to reimagine what is possible, gain internal alignment, and conduct detailed planning. Our aim is to help our customers develop a clear vision of what they want to achieve, and a roadmap on how to get there.
We recently worked with a customer in the telecommunications industry, who ran a strategic planning exercise with LIKE.TG Professional Services. The aim was to help align executives, pinpoint business value opportunities, and bring high value LIKE.TG user experience elements to life. We co-created a phased architecture and delivery roadmap, which will allow them to move into their LIKE.TG project delivery with confidence, alignment, and speed.
While every project requires bespoke advice for the customer’s scenario, there are three core elements to our approach. These are empathy, alignment, and action.
Empathy: Engage your customers and employees early
At the end of your project, a mark of success is your end users: your customers and employees.
Does it improve the way customers interact with you? Does it help employees do their jobs? Leading with empathy allows you to reframe preconceived ideas to discover the best possible solution. This is where we start with Phase 0.
Spending time with customers and employees to understand what they are trying to achieve, their frustrations, and hopes is core to our human-centred design approach. This discovery work is vital to ensure technology decisions centre around user needs.
Designing experiences with the LIKE.TG platform in mind from day one proactively balances user needs while maximising use of out-of-the-box capabilities. This paves the foundation for fast and agile implementation leveraging LIKE.TG best practices.
Here’s an example of a healthcare provider who wanted to build an online community for new mothers. We worked with the business and their community to explore how they ideally wanted to share information. Together, we found a solution that could be created with minor changes to an existing product and were able to offer a streamlined solution without reinventing the wheel. This is a win-win scenario for the business and the new mothers.
Empathy isn’t just about the user experience. It also applies to deeply understanding the customer’s broader technology environment. Enterprise customers invariably have multiple complex technology systems that need to deliver their capabilities alongside LIKE.TG. It’s important to take the time to understand each customer’s unique technology environment. This helps to develop an optimal approach around where LIKE.TG should play and how it should be integrated to deliver on CX outcomes.
Alignment: Bring everything back to your why
Executive alignment early in the process is critical. Without it, we commonly see issues arise during project delivery. These issues can cause delays and increase the risk of project failure.
As part of Phase 0, we map out specific project objectives and business success drivers. This is done with a LIKE.TG lens, identifying and quantifying the impact of desired changes. Once agreement has been reached, objectives are aligned to executive OKRs or KPIs. This provides a baseline for measuring success throughout the project and serves to align key stakeholders on transformation goals at the start.
For example, we worked with a multinational conglomerate company that was looking for opportunities to optimise their sales and service model and enable them to assist more customers. We proposed a model that would deliver process automation, increase digital channel optionality for consumers, and drive efficiencies across sales and service teams. We helped them gain insight into how a self-service model for customers and partners could be achieved. This enabled the team to visualise new opportunities for technology to streamline their business and better engage with customers and partners.
As strategic planning unfolds, sharing progress is important to align teams, showcase outputs, and gain additional feedback. We regularly bring cross-functional teams together to share insights, success, and lessons learned. This open forum helps to motivate the team, and keep them aligned on the vision.
Action: Propel your team into delivery
Planning allows a thorough scan of the project ahead, factoring in complexity, risks and navigating roadblocks through better program design.
At the action stage, you want to walk away with a plan that includes how the project will be delivered in detail. You should have a clear idea of the investment, phases, benefits, risks, and dependencies involved.
We look to understand the customer’s unique environment, the resources they have available, nuances of their business operating model, and their project delivery methodology.
Our approach is to dive deep enough into key aspects of the project such as costs, risks, integration, and data migration. Then, emerge with a transformation plan that decision makers can proceed with confidence.
It’s vital to have diverse input into this planning stage from both the business and technology teams. There should also be a single executive owner allocated to being accountable for progressing into a business case.
Launch your project into success
The most successful transformation projects clear the runway before launching their project.
Take the time to plan, reimagine where you are headed, and how to get there. Then the project can be launched into clear skies ahead, instead of building the plane while flying.
Give yourself a month or two to map out a strategic plan, based on empathy, alignment, and action. That’s how you can set yourself up for not just success, but transformation.
This post was originally published on the A.U.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
How Daughters Of Tomorrow Is Using LIKE.TG To Empower Singapore’s Underprivileged Women
More than 25,000 women from low-income families in Singapore are struggling to find and sustain a living. That’s a statistic Daughters Of Tomorrow (DOT) is working hard to change. The Singapore-based IPC charity supports underprivileged women in Singapore to build financially independent and resilient families.
Since 2014, DOT has impacted more than 1,100 women through befriending, skills-training, job-bridging and post-employment support programs. That’s an excellent achievement, but Kaylee Kua, Senior Manager, Programs Operation at DOT, says there’s much more to be done for Singapore’s underprivileged women and families.
“There are a lot of women in Singapore who have challenges finding livelihood opportunities,” she explains. “Many of our beneficiaries have often had a long hiatus from work due to care-giving duties, and they may be disjointed from what is currently happening in the job market.
“Our beneficiaries often do not have the privilege to further their education, and this results in them only having the accessibility to work in blue collar jobs. However, that often requires shift work, which is not mum-friendly.”
To make matters worse, Kua says the financial situation for many of Singapore’s low-income families got worse during COVID-19. “A lot of low to middle income families lost their jobs during the pandemic,” she explains. “The income gap is widening, and this is creating a group of new poor.”
This has created a perfect storm for many of Singapore’s struggling families. Kua says it’s a battle that must be fought on multiple fronts.
“We have to help rebuild our beneficiaries confidence, and support them to reskill. At the same time, we need to help employers understand the challenges our beneficiaries face, provide working arrangements suitable for care-givers, and pay a living income.”
Consolidating the development journey
These are serious and complex problems. But the dedicated team at DOT is up to the challenge. They are using digital transformation to streamline operational processes and personalise their approach.
“We started with four employees working from colour-coded spreadsheets,” Kua explains. “But as our team grew, it became more difficult to collaborate. As a registered charity, we also need to make sure our annual reports are accurate. But this was difficult without a consolidated data source.”
DOT beneficiaries follow a thorough personal and professional development journey. This requires beneficiaries to engage with several DOT teams as they complete each stage of their journey.
Kua explains that after women are referred to DOT by their social workers, they complete the DOT Confidence Curriculum. Many move on to the befriending program, then go through a bridging process into employment. Finally, beneficiaries receive six months of post-employment support.
Each time a beneficiary moves onto a new stage in their journey, their case is handed over to the relevant DOT team. As the organisation grew, this process became increasingly difficult to manage.
Unifying beneficiary data
Kua says DOT needed a consolidated 360-degree view of each beneficiary’s personal progress and needs. The solution was LIKE.TG’s Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP).
NPSP helps DOT to organise program, beneficiary and fundraising data. It provides a unified view of beneficiary data across programs, and supports personalised relationship management from a single platform.
“Initial adoption in 2018 was tough,” says Kua. “We had to limit access to our old database and spreadsheets, and put a cut-off date on employee access to it. But as our LIKE.TG system grew with new functionalities, the team saw how it was improving our processes.
“All the beneficiary data can now be easily handed over to the next team when a beneficiary progresses on their journey. LIKE.TG has helped us to streamline a lot of processes, and makes reporting much easier and more accurate.”
Jonathan Tan, Assistant Manager, Marketing and Data at DOT, holds fortnightly meetings with volunteer LIKE.TG Architects who help with user training and platform customisation.
“We use Trailhead for step-by-step guidance, and the LIKE.TG volunteers help us with more complex customisations. There are certain new processes we want to add in as we grow, and the LIKE.TG volunteers help us deploy new functions much more quickly.”
Closing the income gap
Tan says the next step on DOT’s digital transformation is to implement Pardot and Experience Cloud to increase donor funding and engagement, support outreach to volunteers, and provide more timely updates to befrienders about the progress of their befriendees.
Kua explains the organisation is also looking into technology to eliminate human biases in decision making. This, she says, will ensure every beneficiary has the same positive experience.
But in the short-term, Kua says DOT will remain focused on providing practical support and driving digital inclusion for Singapore’s underprivileged women and low-income families.
“The truth is that many of our beneficiaries who have been in long-term employment are still struggling to make it out of the poverty cycle,” Kua concludes. “Over the next few years, we will be advocating for employers to help close the income gap.
“Women are currently the main care-givers, and we need employers to understand their challenges and needs. While society changes its views on care-giving roles and responsibilities, we also need employers to re-evaluate the value of work and pay more sustainable wages, so that hardworking families can rise out of poverty. Technology will help us shift the needle.”
Learn more about how Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) supports charity organisations to help people in need.
Crafting a Customer Journey? Ask Yourself 11 Questions First
Regardless of which department you are part of, the best results will come when you have a relentless focus on your customer. By ensuring that your every action leads to a better customer outcome, you gain loyal brand advocates, and your business grows.
Part of your efforts to put the customer first should be to understand the customer journey, and how it can be improved. Before you create your ideal customer journey, you need to understand what your customers are experiencing today. According to the latest LIKE.TG research, 80% of customers agree that the experience a company provides is just as important as the products or services they offer.
What is a customer journey?
A customer journey is a description of your customers’ experience when interacting with your brand. In the past, this might have been as simple as a customer walking into a store, making a purchase, and then walking out. Never to be seen again.
Things are much more complex now. According to the State of Connected Customer report, nearly 75% of customers have used more than one channel to interact with a company when making a single purchase. Nearly 70% have even used more than one device in the course of a single transaction. Fifty-three percent of customers say they feel an emotional connection to the brands that they buy from the most.
It is, therefore, vital that you understand the different ways that customers interact with you. From the very first time they encounter your brand, all the way through to their first purchase, and beyond.
Ask the right questions
By understanding the journey your customer goes through when they buy from you, you can find areas for improvement. To generate a customer journey map that gives you these insights, you need to ask the right questions.
This list isn’t exhaustive, of course, but asking these questions will give you a good start:
Do you know all your customer touchpoints?
How many ways are there for your customers to interact with your organisation? You might be surprised. Advertising, social media channels, interactions with employees, search engine results pages, third-party information resources, reviews sites, the list goes on. That’s before they’ve even been to your website or store!
Do you know how your customers find you?
Are they finding your website? Do most of your customers come from word-of-mouth recommendations? Knowing how your customers find you will allow you to focus your energy on optimising those processes. There’s no point in optimising channels that don’t generate customers.
Can potential customers find what they are looking for?
When they arrive on your website, or in your store, can your customers locate the products they want?
You can check your website analytics, including site search, to assess how customers are browsing and what they might be looking for. Often, customers resort to search bars when they can’t find what they want.
Your in-store sales team could also share valuable insight. For example, do customers regularly ask for help finding particular products? This could inform decisions around in-store product placements.
Is there a place where your customers can look for the answers before contacting your customer support team?
Solutions such as Knowledge Base allow you to create repositories of company and product information, including frequently asked questions. This allows customers to serve themselves rather than contact your service team.
Make sure you track which articles get the most traffic. This data will tell you a lot about the things your customers want to know.
What kind of reviews are you getting? How are you using that data?
Customer reviews will tell you a lot about how your products are being used, and the levels of customer satisfaction.
Look for trends, including products or store locations that have generated particularly good or poor reviews. Are there common elements that shine a light on processes that can be learned from? What processes can you improve?
When was the last time you bought or used your own product?
If you’re very familiar with your products and services, you may not notice when there are opportunities for improvement. If it’s been a while since you tried to buy something through your website, it might be worth trying it out. You may be surprised!
Understand and evaluate your data
Some information about the customer journey can only be obtained by asking your customers directly. But there are other metrics that you can use to understand where there are opportunities for improvement.
Is your website easy to use?
Consider using a service that allows you to test your website with representative users. This can be a great way to highlight strengths and opportunities with your web experience.
Is your marketing related to your customers’ interests?
Find out how your customers respond to your messaging. Making sure that your marketing is speaking to your target audience will lead to more sales. The analytics that powers Marketing Cloud will give you insights into which campaigns are performing, and which are falling flat.
If you sell products online, do you get many abandoned carts?
To put it another way, do your customers drop off at some parts of your website?
This kind of analysis will tell you if there are parts of the purchase process that cause friction for the customer. Solutions like Commerce Cloud can help you optimise the purchase process with proven best practices. This includes saved carts, optimised checkout flows, and payment accelerators.
If you are selling B2B, is there a particular part of the sales process that causes your customers and sales teams problems?
As above, any points of friction will cause you to lose business. Ironing out those wrinkles could make all the difference. Sales Cloud can solve many problems by making your sales pipeline more efficient. This leads to better outcomes for customers and salespeople alike.
Are there particular products or services that generate a disproportionate level of customer service tickets?
To put it another way, are there bottlenecks in your customer service workflow?
The customer journey map goes beyond the point of purchase. Loyal customers will keep coming back again and again, but not if your post-sales experience is lacking. A solution like Service Cloud will let you see what your customers are asking. It will also highlight any potential areas where service could be even better.
Don’t forget your employees!
Make sure to include your employees in any evaluation of the customer journey.
Your teams interact with customers every day, so they have valuable insights into customer behaviours, pain points, and satisfaction levels. Get your service agents, sales people, and marketing team in a room together. Listen to their feedback and experiences. You should also consider whether they have the right tools to do their jobs efficiently. They will be able to tell you.
Use data to improve customer relationships
At the core of this evaluation is data. Done right, you will get a comprehensive understanding of the journey your customers go on when they interact with your business.
Remember to share customer data with your teams. When teams can access the information they need to do their best work, collaboration and alignment improves. This leads to more connected and personalised experiences for your customers, which helps you build stronger relationships with them.
Find out how to maintain focus on the customer throughout their journey. Download The Connected Customer Experience e-book to learn more:
5 Ways Financial Services Can Drive Profitability Through a Unified Customer Experience
Increased competition, changing customer expectations, and the rise of omni-channel experiences are all driving change for financial services. This means financial services institutions need to evolve the way they engage customers to stay competitive.
“A lot of financial institutions have to reimagine their operating model, as many banks and insurers are disintermediated by fintechs and insuretechs,” said Cyril Cymbler, VP Financial Services Practice EMEA ASEAN, LIKE.TG. He was speaking during a discussion at the recent IDC Asian Financial Services Congress 2022.
“To overcome that challenge, banks and insurers are focusing on initiatives to simplify their processes and create efficiencies, while improving the customer experience.”
This shift highlights the link between customer relationships and profitability. However, LIKE.TG research revealed that in recent years, exceptional customer service and support became more important than ever due to changing customer expectations in the digital age. This presents a massive opportunity for financial services institutions to stand out among the competition by elevating the customer experience.
How are customer journeys being reimagined in response? What opportunities exist to drive profitability? Here are five strategies to help financial services institutions drive profitability through a unified customer experience.
For details on this infographic, please click here.
What Are the Challenges and Opportunities Ahead for Singapore SMEs?
Each year, the Singapore Business Federation (SBF) publishes their National Business Survey. This survey is sent to more than a thousand businesses across Singapore. It covers many aspects of business: sentiment, priorities and challenges, transformation and innovation, and internationalisation.
After a tumultuous couple of years, the results of the 2021/2022 report give small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) reasons to feel confident about the year ahead. The report shows how businesses are bouncing back, how their priorities have changed, and the challenges that they are still facing today.
It also explains how technology will have an important role to play in SMEs’ success.
LIKE.TG will be hosting an interactive live session with SBF, and leading tech association SGTech. The webinar will give SMEs tips on how to embrace digital transformation more effectively.
Challenges and opportunities for SMEs in Singapore
Nearly half of the businesses surveyed think that the economy will improve in the next year, compared to only 31% from the year before. Additionally, fewer businesses reported that they have been negatively impacted by the pandemic — only 32% this year, compared to more than 60% last year.
Businesses are more confident about the wider economy too. Satisfaction levels with the local, regional, and global economic climates are all up compared to last year.
There are still challenges ahead. For example, organisations are worried about manpower. Both the cost and availability of a qualified workforce feature on the list of concerns.
Evolving business priorities
Commercial priorities dominate the focus of many SMEs in Singapore. Growing revenue and ensuring a positive cashflow remain the top two priorities for businesses.
However, there have been some changes. Attracting and retaining talent has become a much stronger focus, rising to become the third-highest priority this year.
Here’s how the top business priorities compare, from 2020-2021 to 2021-2022:
The power of technology
According to the report, the importance of digital transformation has been understood for some time. Sixty-five percent of SMEs surveyed said that business transformation is very important, while 29% said that it is somewhat important.
However, businesses that are interested in digital transformation face some road blocks. According to the SMEs surveyed, the top three key challenges to implementing technology were:
High cost of adoption (52%)
Upskilling employees to stay current (30%)
Cyber security risks (30%)
Despite these worries, the benefits of digital transformation are well understood. SMEs surveyed said that these are the top three key benefits of digital transformation:
Increased productivity (59%)
Optimised operations (48%)
Reduced operating costs (46%)
Businesses are working towards organisational transformation by investing in technology. A year ago, 34% of organisations surveyed said they would be investing in tech—this year that figure is 42%. Thirty-one percent of businesses are also re-engineering their processes.
The importance of governmental support
Ongoing challenges have meant that businesses are looking to governments for support more than ever.
In Singapore, SMEs have highlighted these key areas of support that they need:
Assistance in digitalisation (42%)
Financial support (39%)
Business strategy development advisory and consultancy services (38%)
The good news is that SMEs can access the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) programme. This initiative aims to help these businesses kickstart their technology journey by providing grant support of up to 70%. LIKE.TG is a pre-approved IT vendor for the program under the SMEs Go Digital programme. An enhanced maximum support level of 70% has also been extended to 7 October 2022.
What does this mean for SMEs in Singapore?
The survey findings raise several questions. What can SMEs in Singapore do to lower costs while also driving digital transformation? How can they access support to enable this? How can businesses keep up with the evolving expectations of their customers?
To answer these questions, LIKE.TG teamed up with SBF and SGTech. Together, we will present our webinar, SME Digitalisation Roadmap: Tips To Fueling Growth and Customer Retention in 2022.
I’ll be joined by guest speakers:
Lin Guoliang, Deputy Director, Advocacy, Digitalisation Transformation, Singapore Business Federation
Eileen Tan, SGTech Singapore Enterprise Chapter Exco and Executive Director, Stone Forest
Keng Low, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Finantier
SBF and SGTech play important roles as multipliers and conduits to help companies, especially SMEs, in their transformation and growth. As Singapore adapts to live with COVID-19, trade associations and chambers will play an even more crucial role in strengthening the business ecosystem.
In the webinar, we’ll explore how digital transformation plays a central role in driving growth, increasing productivity, and lowering operating costs. Eileen will also share insights from the tech industry, including the move to the cloud.
The speakers will also discuss how an approach focusing on workforce, technology, and business support is vital to success.
Lastly, we’ll talk about how government grant support can help you reach your goals for business growth.
Join us on 20 April 2022, at 10 a.m. SGT.
Want to become a digitally resilient business? Register for the free webinar: SME Digitalisation Roadmap: Tips To Fueling Growth and Customer Retention in 2022.
The 8 Rules of Service Leadership
Service leaders are a key part of any organisation and in the current landscape their role is particularly important. It’s vital that service leaders have a strong understanding of current best practices and successful ways of working.
What are the responsibilities of a service leader?
The main responsibility of a service leader is to manage service teams and ensure that the tools and processes they use are efficient and effective. It’s a broad remit, involving not just people management, but process management. In practical terms, this translates to:
Using forward planning to anticipate customer demands
Handling the challenges posed by external factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the pivot towards remote working
Increasing customer engagement and satisfaction by improving internal procedures
Why are service leaders important?
An organisation’s product or service may be outstanding, but if the customer’s experience of it is subpar, everything else fades into the background. Satisfied customers become advocates. But dissatisfied ones are more likely to share their experiences and they have many channels to do so.
Customer service is the backbone of any business, especially in the current moment. Customer-centricity has become a top priority. It’s down to service leaders to shape the reputation of their company by leading their teams effectively and developing intuitive, efficient processes for solving customer problems.
The 8 rules of service leadership
When coming up with strategies for creating effective service leadership, it’s important that service leaders keep some key principles in mind. We’ll call these ‘The 8 Rules of Service Leadership’.
1. Guide by example
Aim to inspire the service teams you lead by acting as a positive role model and embodying company values in everything you do. An organisation’s ethics are becoming increasingly important to its customers and employees, and leaders should exemplify the qualities they want to nurture in the workforce. Additionally, the 4th edition of the State of Service report reveals that:
76% of service and support staff state that communication is very important
71% say that listening skills are very important
62% say that adaptability is very important
It’s no surprise that agility is appreciated in a landscape littered with new obstacles. Soft skills like empathy and listening are prized in a potentially stressful climate. Service leaders who display these skills can guide by example.
2. Good solutions put the customer first
Nearly every customer is digitally savvy, rapidly changing expectations for service. In fact, the State of the Connected Customer report shows that 82% of customers now expect to solve complex issues at first contact. Moreover, the 4th State of Service reveals that 83% of service teams have changed their policies to be more flexible with their customers.
Ensuring that the customer is at the heart of everything you do – and communicating this focus to the teams you manage – will help you to make sound operational decisions in an increasingly customer-centric era. Developing new, customer-focused metrics is one way to raise the bar for great service. Consider KPIs based around satisfaction rather than volume.
3. Meet goals by leveraging smart data and connecting teams
To get insights into what makes your customers tick, and what they want from you, you’ll need to use the data you collect intelligently. Consider using a data management system such as LIKE.TG Customer 360, which allows you to combine learnings from marketing, commerce, and service operations to meet your goals.
If you are not implementing new technologies and leveraging data to keep up with the changing landscape, you are likely falling behind. The State of Service shows that:
81% of decision-makers are accelerating digital initiatives
87% of service professionals say that customers are using digital channels more
79% of service professionals say that it’s impossible to provide great service without a complete view of the customer’s interactions
Service organisations can use digital solutions to smash silos and connect teams, and leverage AI technologies like Einstein Analytics to track the productivity of remote agents.
4. Motivate your team by empowering them to make decisions
Rather than leading in a top-down way, make your teams feel that they are involved in a common goal of improving customer satisfaction. If employees feel that they have a stake in the processes they perform, they are more likely to make great decisions.
You never know where the next great solution or game-changing suggestion might come from, after all. W.L. Gore, of Gore-Tex fame, even gives its employees ‘dabble time’ to brainstorm new ideas.
More and more service organisations are embracing this idea of intrapreneurship or ‘mini-CEOs’, where data is democratised, agents can see their metrics in real time, and everyone can track company-wide goals and blaze their own path towards meeting them.
5. Communicate openly
It’s important to make time to connect with your teams, and to listen to their feedback with an open mind. If you don’t know what challenges they’re facing, how can you help? A good place to start is by surveying your team to get an understanding of how they’re managing in this climate, both in the workplace and outside of it.
At a time when 81% of agents describe their customers as being more anxious and 75% say they’re more demanding, service leaders need to try and lower the emotional burden on the workforce.
When supporting employees through difficult times, such as returning to the workplace after the COVID-19 crisis, consider using Work.com. The Command Centre in Work.com offers businesses a range of tools and resources, including a contact-tracing tool that respects users’ privacy and sensitively gathers data.
6. Plan to invest in people
Offering relevant training, including upskilling or reskilling, can help employees fulfil their potential and keep up with the changing expectations of today’s customer. The new normal requires new ways of working, so leaders need to make sure that their teams have the proper training to succeed. The State of Service shows that:
77% of agents say their role is more strategic than it was two years ago
55% say that they need better training to perform their role well
79% of decision-makers are making significant investments in agent training
It’s clear that the role of reps is evolving. Fortunately, on-demand training programmes are becoming more popular, so service reps can skill up even while working from home. For today’s service leaders, investing in people is imperative.
7. Create a vision for continuous improvement
Just because something has always been done a certain way, that doesn’t mean it’s the best way. Always look out for ways to improve and polish existing processes, and ask your teams to do the same.
By adopting new strategies, implementing cutting-edge technologies and encouraging teams to share their own ideas for solutions, service leaders can create a culture of innovation and continuous improvement. The changes don’t have to be huge – even small changes can help to oil the gears of inspiration and innovation.
8. Strong direction is critical, especially in uncertain times
Service teams need the right skills and strategies to succeed in a competitive landscape, but they also need strong direction. The uncertainty of the current climate demands leaders that can steer a ship towards shore, even through choppy waters. Building agility, nurturing a sense of purpose, and empowering the workforce with digital solutions can help today’s service leaders become world-class directors.
As Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, once said, “Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”
Leading towards a better future
Both businesses and customers depend on effective service leadership – now more than ever. Having ineffectual or inefficient service leadership not only leads to dissatisfied customers, it can lead to an unmotivated workforce. Good service leaders inspire the workers, and they give them the tools they need to succeed. Put the 8 Rules of Service Leadership into effect today, and create a stronger workforce for tomorrow.
To see more about how service leaders are adapting to today’s challenges, check out The Service Leader’s Guide to Resiliency.
How Your Business Can Start the Journey To Net Zero
Over the past fifteen years or so, sustainability has progressed from a buzzword to a concept at the centre of public consciousness.
The ASEAN region is one of themost vulnerable in the worldto future climate change. Many livelihoods depend on climate-sensitive sectors, and the region features long coastlines. Climate concerns include climbing temperatures, rising sea levels, extreme weather events, worsening air pollution, biodiversity losses, and the depletion of natural resources. As a result, the momentum to make real change is picking up speed, particularly among the business community.
As employers, providers, and community leaders,businesses are uniquely placed to lead by example. In order for businesses to make a contribution to the journey to a net zero future, sustainability needs to be a factor in all business decisions. In 2020, the total GDP of the ASEAN region was approximately US $3.08 trillion. If little to no climate action is taken, by 2050 sea level rise alone isestimated to cost ASEAN nations an average of over US $2 trillion each. ASEAN companies who lead the charge on climate change stand to gain$1 trillion in economic opportunities by 2030.
What does that mean? Action is ongoing and required at multiple levels, and there isn’t a single answer. While the sustainability journey is specific to each organisation and isn’t always clear-cut, one thing is for sure: businesses can be platforms for change. The time for action is now.
Net zero and climate change: the key terms you need to know
We all know about climate change, but what about more recent sustainability-related terminology? We’ve summarised some common terms and their recognised definitions below:
Net zero: cutting climate pollution to zero by balancing what you put out into the atmosphere, with what you remove from it.
Carbon neutral: achieving a balance between the behaviours and practices that produce carbon dioxide and those that limit and remove it.
Circular economy: a model of production and consumption that fosters the continued life cycle of ‘waste’ through practices such as reusing, repairing, recycling, upcycling, refurbishing, and sharing.
5 questions with a sustainability advocate
We spoke to LIKE.TG’s César Vieira Lino, Regional Vice President for JAPAC Earthforce. Earthforce is aLIKE.TG Employee Resource Groupthat focuses on sustainability.
1. How can tech-based companies reduce their environmental footprint?
Every company will need to find its own approach, but tech companies have three areas that can have the biggest impact. These are operations, product, and offices.
LIKE.TG is a tech company, so we can use it as an example. We have anet zero operations strategy, which means that our data centres and so on are carbon neutral. In September 2021, LIKE.TG announced itbecame a net zero companyacross its full value chain. It has also achieved 100% renewable energy for all its operations.
LIKE.TG also launched a sustainability focused product —Net Zero Cloud. Not every company has to create a dedicated product, of course. There are other things you can do, including working with partners that have sustainability as a core value.
Finally, there are things you can do in offices, but I’ll address that in the next question.
2. How do LIKE.TG employees become involved in sustainability initiatives? How can other companies encourage engagement?
Of course, my colleagues who are working on Net Zero Cloud are working on many sustainability projects. Let’s look at how we approach volunteering. Earthforce is our ‘green team’. It has chapters in our offices around the world that hold events, connect with local organisations, and advocate sustainability.
Many companies will have similar ways for individuals to effect change. I see three pathways:
First, there are the things you can do in your personal life. That might be changing your lifestyle or spreading awareness of sustainability issues.
Second, is affecting change within your office and immediate teams, which brings me back to the first question. When I first joined LIKE.TG, we were already on the path to becoming greener at the company level. But when you look at the office level — supplies, catering, etc. — there’s no global standard you can apply from a top-down point of view. It has to come from the ground up. You can find ways to move away from single-use plastic, to encourage the purchase of local supplies and produce, and so on.
Third, is making use of your professional influence. You can report to your organisation about inefficiencies and what’s having the biggest carbon footprint in your area. You can be the person that pushes your company to be more sustainable.
3. The LIKE.TG ecosystem is made up of many partner organisations. How do you negotiate your own sustainability ethos with theirs?
I personally believe that either we change or the world will force us to change. I can only do my best to influence others to make the right decisions for themselves. It’s not really a negotiation, more of an acceptance that ‘This is my ethos, and yours is yours. Let’s try and live together with these two realities’.
When your company has a well-known product, project, or ethos, you get asked questions. Those questions lead to opportunities to listen, encourage, and advise partner organisations on their own sustainability path.
LIKE.TG is a founding partner of theTrillion Trees initiativeand we have our Earthforce group. Just explaining how our equality groups operate inspires other companies and their employees to drive internal change.
4. What would you say to an organisation looking to assemble a ‘green team’?
You need self-motivated people, as they’re the most effective for the green team. Identifying those individuals is the first step. There has to be a grassroots element to it.
Then, drive executive sponsorship. This helps to define the scope and range of the team and helps them to make the best decisions.
Finally, bring wider visibility to the work of the team. This uncovers potential blindspots in their work and gives them a broader audience. This is especially useful when their work requires greater buy-in from more stakeholders. This visibility also spreads the word and drivers further advocacy, which brings in more people to the green team.
5. Over the coming years, what will be the biggest concern when it comes to sustainability in business?
My biggest worry is that everything stays as is. Relying on economic factors alone to change minds is going to be very hard.
For example, companies could understand the need for change, but they will look at the ROI and not see how they will benefit.
Of course, over time, it will become more and more obvious that we need to change. But we are running against the clock, so we need to take that leap of faith as individuals and companies.
To companies that are reluctant or don’t see the benefits, I would ask them to switch the ROI equation. I’d say to them that it’s not about how much it will cost to change, but the massive cost of not changing.
At LIKE.TG, we believe that business is the greatest platform for change. Success should be for everyone on Earth and the planet itself.Join our #TeamEarth.
Ready to make a difference?
Are you ready to take the first steps on your sustainability journey? Here are some ways to get started.
Look out for those who care about sustainability
Look out for passionate people in your organisation. They are the ones who make things happen. Create an environment where they have the opportunity to come forward.
Stay informed
Sustainability is an ever-evolving field. Keep an eye on public policy and global climate endeavours to ensure that you are always up to date.
Start tracking emissions
If businesses use technology to track sales, why wouldn’t they do the same for their annual greenhouse gas inventory? Innovative technology now allows industries to implement sustainability initiatives in a way that’s never been possible before.
For example,Net Zero Cloud 2.0(formerly Sustainability Cloud) has been completely rebuilt to offer trusted reporting, deeper insights, and supplier management.
Net Zero Cloud allows organisations to go carbon-neutral faster through Customer 360 solutions. Data-driven insights allow users to take meaningful action both on a day-to-day and long-term basis, whether through tracking emissions or finding clear methods of increasing energy efficiency. The platform also facilitates carbon accounting audits in weeks instead of months.
More than 74% of people living in the ASEAN regionbelieve that companies are responsible for fighting climate change. Platforms such as Net Zero Cloud are not only welcome, but integral to the future of business.
To learn more about how your business can be part of the sustainability movement, read more aboutNet Zero Cloud 2.0.
LIKE.TG was an official partner ofCOP26, the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conferenceheld in Scotland in 2021.
What Is a Trailblazer?
Trailblazers are truly the heart and soul of LIKE.TG. Everyone who wants to innovate and deliver success with LIKE.TG can be a Trailblazer.
LIKE.TG’s technology helps companies of all sizes deliver customer and employee success from anywhere. The customers, partners, and technology professionals that make up the LIKE.TG ecosystem are seeing endless growth and opportunity.
According to a recentIDC report, the LIKE.TG ecosystem will create 9.3 million new jobs and 1.6 trillion in new business revenues worldwide by 2026. This growth is powered byTrailblazers— the learners and innovators who use LIKE.TG to build successful careers, companies, and communities around the world.
LIKE.TG’s technology helps companies of all sizes deliver customer and employee success from anywhere. The customers, partners, and technology professionals that make up the LIKE.TG ecosystem are seeing endless growth and opportunity.
According to a recentIDC report, the LIKE.TG ecosystem will create 9.3 million new jobs and 1.6 trillion in new business revenues worldwide by 2026. This growth is powered byTrailblazers— the learners and innovators who use LIKE.TG to build successful careers, companies, and communities around the world.
So, what is a Trailblazer?
Trailblazers are truly the heart and soul of LIKE.TG. And we’ve made it our mission to pave pathways for anyone to unlock career opportunities and provide them with the tools needed to succeed.
Trailblazer /treyl-bley-zer/noun
A pioneer; an innovator; a lifelong learner; a mover and shaker.
A leader who leaves a path for others to follow.
Most importantly, a person who builds a better world for others.
We believe everyone who wants to innovate and deliver success with LIKE.TG can be a Trailblazer. Whether you’re just starting your career or reskilling for a new one. Whether you’re an experienced leader helping teams to deliver digital transformation or an entrepreneur building business apps.
The opportunities are truly endless, and we invite everyone to explore the possibilities. Here, we celebrate some of our amazing Trailblazers and explore how you can start your own Trailblazer journey.
Who are Trailblazers?
Trailblazers come from all walks of life and deliver success in a variety of roles.
Here are a few Trailblazer Stories to show the beautiful diversity of our community, pathways to success, and opportunities to give back:
Brian Owens, Business Systems Analyst
Brianand his fiance had a pivotal conversation about their future in January 2020. Soon after, Brian decided to pursue a tech career and went all-in on learning withTrailhead, LIKE.TG’s free online learning platform.
After many hours of studying, building apps in hisTrailhead Playground, and networking with theTrailblazer Community, Brian earned hisLIKE.TG Admin Certification.
Brian landed his first job as a LIKE.TG Business Analyst in April of 2020. He is eager to help others follow in his footsteps and co-hosts certification study groups and spreads the word about LIKE.TG to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
Erika McEvilly, Junior Developer
Erikawalked away from a successful business development career when she had her babies. After a few years, she decided to pursue flexible work and discovered LIKE.TG throughSupermums, a UK-basedTrailblazer Workforce Partner.
During her job search, Erika was encouraged to pursue aLIKE.TG Developer career. So she learned to code during the pandemic, with the help ofRAD Women Codeand Trailblazers around the world.
Today, Erika is a Junior Developer for a major financial institution and is paying it forward as co-leader of theLondon LIKE.TG Developer Community Group.
Tracy Lim, Head of CX for Retail
Tracystarted out as a risk analyst in the banking industry but quickly determined she belonged in marketing. After a stint in B2B sales where she honed her listening skills, Tracy’s leadership offered her an opportunity to break into the field.
She excelled at the blend of art and science, which led to opportunities to lead digital transformation and customer experience in the banking industry.
When Tracy attendedDreamforce, she discovered the power of peer connections and a passion for helping others. Tracy passes on her love of technology by makingTrailheadlearning and friendly competitions part of her team’s regular routine. She also leads theLIKE.TG Marketer Groupin Manila, Philippines.
Max Rudman, CEO
Maxis the CEO and founder ofProdly, an app that helps businesses automate low-code app development. Before Prodly, Max took a Configure-Price-Quote app from an idea to a thriving company that was acquired by LIKE.TG with 200+ employees.
In 2019, Max had newinspiration to solve app development challenges. He decided to build Prodly, which now has 50+ employees and 40+ five-star reviews onAppExchange. Max pays it forward by sharing experience and lessons learned with other entrepreneurs and always enjoys the mutual benefit of shared learning.
What’s the story behind the Trailblazer hoodie?
The creation of the iconic black hoodie is central to the Trailblazer origin story. In 2015, the Trailblazer spirit was thriving in our community, and we wanted to create a way for them to showcase that identity and spirit. So we created the first black hoodie with “Trailblazer” written across the front in script font.
Originally, Trailblazers earned hoodies by learning during LIKE.TG events. Now anyone who wants to wear their Trailblazer pride canget oneon the LIKE.TG Store.
We also givegolden Trailblazer hoodiesas a gift of gratitude to Trailblazers who share their stories of doing well and doing good at LIKE.TG events around the world.
How do you become a Trailblazer?
Anyone can be a Trailblazer with LIKE.TG. Here are a few ways to get started on your journey:
Connect with Trailblazers from Anywhere:Join theTrailblazer Communityto collaborate with Trailblazers online, and choose from more than 1,300 local and virtual community-ledTrailblazer Community Groupsin 90+ countries around the world.
Skill up on Trailhead:Build your tech and business skills onTrailhead, our free online learning platform.
Build your business:Learn how toextend the power of LIKE.TGwith apps andBuild Apps as an AppExchange Partner.
Share your inspiration and expertise:Encourage friends and family to explorecareer pathsin the LIKE.TG ecosystem. Provideanswersto product questions, and volunteer to help new Trailblazers skill up and find jobs throughTrailblazer MentorshipandTrailblazer Workforce Partners.
Trailblazers are the true heart and soul of LIKE.TG, and we love to succeed together. We can’t wait to hear your#TrailblazerStory. Please keep us posted on the Trailblazer Community and social!
Don’t forget to spread the word to your family, friends, and communities you love.
This post was originally published on the U.S.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
How UEM Sunrise Secures Data and Strengthens Customer Trust
As more organisations move to a hybrid workplace and accelerate their digital transformation journeys, they must do so in a way that strengthens customer trust.
Protecting customer data and privacy is paramount, but far from easy. Organisations face a rapidly evolving threat landscape in which Asia is the most targeted region. They also face increased expectations from regulators and customers when it comes to handling sensitive data.
How can business, IT, and security teams work together to enhance data security in the all digital, work-from-anywhere world?
UEM Sunrise Berhad, a LIKE.TG customer, recently spoke at a webinar on Navigating the Security Frontier in 2022. UEM Sunrise Berhad is one of Malaysia’s leading property developers. Hasniza Binti Mohamed, Director, Digital Incubation at UEM Sunrise Berhad, shared how the company ensures the security and privacy of customer data:
Build secure experiences
To protect themselves and secure data, organisations need to build security into every experience—even when innovating at unprecedented pace.
UEM Sunrise Berhad makes sure to prioritise security when building new experiences. For example, Hasniza’s team works with the business to develop a standard operating procedure (SOP) at the outset of each project. This allows them to identify all security requirements and make them part of any tender process.
“As a user of technology, you want systems deployed as soon as possible. However, from a security perspective, there are a lot of measures to put in place first,” said Hasniza.
Take control of privacy through identity and access management
Many customers are willing to share their data in exchange for hyper-personalised experiences. At the same time, they want to trust their data is safe. This is particularly true for personally identifiable information (PII) such as medical or financial records.
To maintain customer trust, organisations need to take control of privacy at every stage of the data lifecycle. For UEM Sunrise Berhad, this includes taking the time to classify data and establish clear policies about who can access it.
UEM Sunrise Berhad also has plans to introduce Privileged Access Management (PAM).
“Users manage many systems within the business and even though they are aware of our SOPs and data governance policies, but there’s still the possibility of users sharing the permissions with other users. So, moving forward, we will use PAM to centralise the access at our corporate level. This will allow my team to monitor and take action to remove any unnecessary permissions,” said Hasniza.
Be proactive in creating a trusted digital environment
Proactively embedding security and privacy controls throughout an organisation can help to increase the pace of innovation while strengthening customer trust. For example, adopting techniques like data masking allows teams to build and test applications while protecting regulated data.
Organisations also need to be proactive in addressing the evolving threat landscape. One way UEM Sunrise Berhad tackles this is through proactive threat hunting.
“Cybersecurity attacks are increasing and we can’t always predict what’s next. What we can do is use proactive threat hunting with AI to simulate attacks and identify any gaps. This helps to bulletproof our environment and protect us against any new virus or breach,” said Hasniza.
The bottom line is that as companies go all-digital, they need to stay safe, secure, and compliant. Building secure experiences, managing identity and access, and creating a trusted digital environment are essential to success.
98% of Marketers Measure Success Based on Data Privacy Changes
It’s an exciting time to be a marketer. Customers are increasingly engaging online through new innovative formats. Disruptive trends and technology continuously shake up the virtual landscape. Through it all, marketers have been at the forefront of digital transformation, adapting to meet the challenges and opportunities of a changing business landscape.
In this digital-first era, marketing’s responsibility has evolved around two critical roles: the stewards of customer relationships and the engine fueling growth. Eighty percent of marketers say their organisation leads customer experience initiatives across the business, while 94% of marketers globally view the marketing function as critical for driving growth — up from 87% last year.
In our latest marketing research, the third edition of the Marketing Intelligence Report, we surveyed more than 2,500 marketing decision makers around the world to uncover how marketers are using data for growth and customer experiences. Plus, we discover how marketers are adapting to a privacy-focused data ecosystem and the trends shaping cross-channel marketing.
Let’s take a look at some of the key findings. You can download the whole marketing report here.
1. Those in marketing report that proving impact is crucial
Today’s marketer has a dual mandate: growing revenue and nurturing customer relationships. This is reflected in how marketers define success. In Singapore, the top three metrics for defining success are:
Customer acquisition
Brand awareness
Conversions, or desired action
Fewer than two in five marketers around the world report that they feel completely successful in evaluating any of these metrics definitively. When asked to name the challenges they face in evaluating performance, marketers in Singapore named the following:
Manual data integration processes
Siloed data
Alignment across teams on measurement and reporting
2. Privacy changes have led to shifts in marketing strategies and investments
Over the past few years, data privacy regulations — such as GDPR, Apple Mail Privacy Protection, and Google’s deprecation of the third-party cookie — have encouraged marketers to adopt a consumer-first, consent-based approach to data collection. At the same time, marketers are feeling downstream effects in their analytics as popular performance metrics like email opens are now less relevant as privacy policies preventing tracking are implemented. In fact, 98% of marketers in Singapore agree that recent data privacy changes have fundamentally changed how they measure marketing performance.
Marketers are relying on technology to ensure they can continue to measure performance, understand their customers, and provide them with individualised experiences. In Singapore:
92% of marketers plan to either increase or maintain investments in marketing analytics
91% of marketers plan to either increase or maintain investments in customer data platforms
96% of marketers plan to either increase or maintain investments in real-time interaction and personalisation
Speaking of investments, more than half of marketers around the world have increased their investment in paid social, mobile marketing, and web experiences — places where customers shop and do business online. This comes as no surprise as 58% of consumers expect to do more online shopping after the pandemic than before, and 80% of business buyers expect to conduct more business online.
3. Data quality is paramount — but not universally accounted for
Regardless of their objectives, marketers need dependable data to demonstrate the value of their programs and drive outcomes. Nearly four in five marketers around the world say data quality is key to driving marketing-led growth and customer experiences.
Though marketers globally are investing in analytics technology, only 51% of marketing teams currently have employees dedicated to analytics, according to the marketing report.
As with all challenges, there’s room for opportunity. It’s time for organisations to use AI and automation to accelerate manual data integration and analytics processes, and free up marketing resources for more strategic, creative work.
4. Data-driven marketing cultures require a centralised view
Without a clear, holistic view of data, it’s hard to give meaning to data-driven marketing efforts. Our marketing report found 99% of marketers in Singapore emphasise the importance of having a complete, centralised view of all cross-channel marketing. Yet, 68% still evaluate the performance of their cross-channel marketing in silos, leaving plenty of room for improvement and integration.
Not only do marketers need to integrate data across business units and sources, they also need to share it to generate value, foster team-wide collaboration, and connect marketing to business outcomes. With data unified in one place, marketers are positioned to lead growth in their organisations and engage their customers.
Get Ready for LIKE.TG Live: Asia!
LIKE.TG Live: Asia is just around the corner. On 12 May, experts from LIKE.TG, industry-leading Trailblazers, and some special guests will gather to talk about how we can expect to work in the future. It promises to be an inspiring event, filled with advice to get you ready for the future of work.
LIKE.TG Live: Asia is an online event, meaning you can watch from anywhere. You can register your place now.
We have a host of engaging speakers lined up. First up, we are very excited to welcome Simon Sinek to join us to talk about resilience, and how it can be a foundation for business growth.
Resilience as a platform for growth
We all know the importance of bouncing back from setbacks, but did you know that building resilience in your organisation can have a positive effect on the bottom line?
Organisations that foster resilience have more engaged employees, are more productive, and have better financial performance.
Simon and Chin Yin Ong, Chief People Officer at Grab, will discuss how you can foster a culture of resilience in your organisation. Simon will also answer your questions, and leave you with some practical takeaways to help you build resilience, both personally and within your teams. The conversation will be moderated by Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ASEAN.
Simon Sinek
Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, Find Your Why, and The Infinite Game. He presented his first TED Talk in 2009. It has since become the third most watched talk on TED.com, with over 40 million views.
Chin Yin Ong
Chin Yin is the Chief People Officer at Grab.She leads the People Operations (Pops), Grabber Technology Solutions (GTS) and Corporate Real Estate and Security (CREST) teams to build positive and personalised experiences for all Grabbers to thrive.
Sujith Abraham
Leading the ASEAN team, Sujith’s focus is to ensure the success of our customers, partners, employees, and community. Be inspired by his take on building a resilient team across the region
What else is happening at LIKE.TG Live: Asia?
There’s more in store! See a live product demo from a LIKE.TG customer and hear insights from LIKE.TG experts. Maybe catch a surprise or two.
Insights from visionary leaders: Sujith Abraham and Cecily Ng will discuss new ways to inspire employees and navigate change, and our vision for how the future works.
Lessons from technology Trailblazers: You’ll hear about innovation from Trailblazer Ninja Van Group, and see how Tokopedia uses LIKE.TG to stay connected to customers, partners, and employees.
Hear about our new core value: sustainability
We’ll talk about why sustainability matters and what you can do to kickstart efforts towards Net Zero in your organisation.
Register now for LIKE.TG Live: Asia
LIKE.TG Live: Asia kicks off at 10 a.m. Singapore time on Thursday 12 May. Register now to submit your questions for Simon Sinek. Remember, it’s a 100% virtual event, so you can participate from anywhere.Grab your seat at LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2022!
Intelligent Triaging and Automated Routing: How Service Cloud Enables Faster, Better Customer Servicing
Ever wondered how doctors in a busy emergency ward decide which patient they need to prioritise? The answer is triage.
Triaging is the meticulous process of categorising patients according to the severity of their conditions. This way, the limited resources — doctors, support staff, and equipment — are immediately directed to tend to critical patients in need of urgent attention.
This triaging process is widely used in the world of customer service as well.
Triaging and routing in customer service
Customer service teams are forever busy solving problems and answering questions. One way your customer service team works is by deciding which tickets to prioritise.
A triaging system reviews every ticket to assess for business impact and severity. If your customers raise complaints about an issue that has halted their core business processes, that issue will be assigned the highest priority. Issues raised by many but are not severe will be placed lower in the queue.
Triaging helps streamline the customer service and support process, routing the right tasks to the right agents. Tickets raised by several users or on recurring issues can be collated for a complete picture to understand the root cause.
Levelling up customer service with intelligent triage and automated routing
However, manual triaging can be time consuming and take a lot of effort. With human error creeping in, high-priority tickets could get ignored, or worse, some may ping-pong around.
Did you know that you can automate and streamline the triage and routing process using Artificial Intelligence (AI)? AI models help analyse service tickets in the context of requirement and purpose for accurate resolution. By analysing the ticket repository, AI can also help highlight trends and patterns in issues your customers face.
LIKE.TG Service Cloudensures tickets are routed to the right team and the right member in it, based on their level of experience, expertise, and knowledge. This way:
No one is working on tickets they can’t handle
Tickets are not missed or ignored
Nor are they bouncing around in the system
WithService Cloud Einstein, you can use AI to analyse incoming tickets for intelligent triaging andautomated routingand get the next best step recommendations.Intelligently assign tickets to the right person based on skill set, availability, capacity to handle, and business priorities. Also, tickets are assigned in real-time with an in-context view of the customer across all channels to offer relevant and well-informed assistance anytime, anywhere.
You can also deploy bots on the front line to service the more routine issues. This will eliminate the hold time as bots can immediately engage your customers. In case of complex requests, these bots can help reduce the ticket handling time by collecting and qualifying customer information for seamless handoff to service reps.
As a result, you have ensured the following benefits:
High-priority tickets always receive immediate attention
Customer service agents gauge the relative volume and priority of work for enhanced efficiency and outcomes
Analytics (average wait times, average handle times, and service level agreement adherence) to diagnose, react and fix problem areas faster
Operational insights: what is the volume of work your agents are handling, how long they’ve spent in certain statuses, and how often they accept versus decline work
Improved customer engagement by eliminating hold time and case handle time
With Service Cloud, you can streamline your service team’s processes to improve customer satisfaction and case resolution. Consistent and efficient customer support gives you the confidence to focus on your business goals rather than on daily operational issues.
This post was originally published on the I.N.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
How Do We Make Customer Centricity More Than a Tagline?
A little while back, I had a conversation with best-selling author and digital anthropologist, Brian Solis. He’s also LIKE.TG’s Global Innovation Evangelist. The main focus of our conversation was customer centricity, which is a phrase we hear a lot these days.
Brian sometimes describes himself as a futurist — another word we hear a lot. I’ll let Brian describe exactly what that means to him:
“Digital anthropology lets us understand how technology impacts communities. If you want to deliver better customer service for a digital-first brain, you need to understand what it is that they value, and what they expect. It helps to humanise the business, giving technology a sense of greater purpose. We’re going full steam ahead on digital, and we tend to make it transactional. We miss that warmth, and technology’s power to develop more meaningful relationships. The role of a futurist is to translate those trends. We ask what the next few years are going to look like, so that we can start to plan ahead rather than react to the next disruption.”
I really enjoyed my conversation with Brian. Here are my takeaways, including how we can make customer centricity more than just a tagline:
What does customer centricity really mean?
As Brian said in our conversation, you could ask any executive from any company in any industry whether their organisation is customer centric, and they would say yes.
That presents us with a challenge: how can we define customer centricity? Many organisations use it as a philosophy, but perhaps don’t have the tools to turn that into practical activity.
In reality, being customer centric comes down to whether or not your operations, decision-making, and planning are all based on the information you have about your customers. That data has to be accessible to everyone. If you don’t have a single source of truth about your customers, it is very difficult to be truly customer centric.
Brian told me about some research that we’ve conducted recently. It found that only 13% of businesses around the world have a single view of their customers and can act in real time based on that data. That means we still have a long way to go before every company is truly customer centric.
The gift of customer service
Customer service teams have the opportunity to drive the move to total customer centricity.
It could be said that customer service is often a weak link in the customer journey. You don’t often hear customers telling stories of being excited to contact customer service, after all.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Some of the best companies in the world have turned excellent customer service into a competitive advantage. As Brian puts it: “Service means to serve, to help, to advise. If you think about it, it’s a gift. You might have a customer who’s in need of attention. And if you can deliver that, then they will feel a sense of reciprocity. That can turn into loyalty in the form of an additional purchase down the road, or a referral. And these are all wonderful things.”
Successful businesses share the desire to deliver a better experience. An experience is an emotional reaction to a moment. If it’s exceptional, you’re going to remember it. This is where many businesses make mistakes. They either deliver bad experiences, or they deliver mediocre experiences thinking that it just checks the box. It takes effort, and the right organisational structure, to deliver exceptional experiences.
A reset moment for business
We have an opportunity to reinvent what it means to do business. This isn’t about the digitisation of old practices. We can invent new ways of working using the technology available to us.
Part of this big reset moment is changing how we think about our data, and what metrics we choose to concentrate on. Measuring clicks to resolution, or response times, is measuring the barriers to customer satisfaction.
What would happen if, instead, we started to measure the things we want to succeed at — satisfaction, lifetime value, etc.? These are human centred metrics that will ensure that we focus our efforts on improving the customer experience.
Brian says we need to have a ‘control-alt-delete’ moment: “Customers now have a more powerful voice that is being exercised through their digital transformation. The next wave of disruption is happening because people are looking for, and finding, better experiences. So, if we want to become truly customer centred, we have to start thinking like the customer and looking for ways to fix what’s broken. We have to innovate and deliver something new that we might not have otherwise thought of before.”
The ‘experience style guide’
Brian also introduced me to the concept of the ‘experience style guide’.
Many organisations have a style guide that dictates how their marketing materials should look, or their tone of voice. How many have a document that defines what customer service should feel like for the customer? It has the power to become a very important piece of policy for any business. An understanding of your business’s experience style guide would be just as important as understanding its branding or marketing messaging.
You can empower your customer service teams by reminding them that they are a key part of your organisation. Their efforts are a meaningful driver of positive customer experience, and have a direct effect on the value of the brand.
It’s time for C-suite engagement
This kind of change in attitude should come from the top.
To succeed, your organisation needs a culture of innovation, a culture of empowerment, and a culture of customer centricity. The CEO is the only one who could own that.
It can be incredibly difficult for executives to find the time to engage with this kind of thinking. In between meetings, we’re usually catching up on our inboxes, or dealing with dozens of competing priorities. Sadly, this makes it difficult to have that empathy that’s really required to understand your customer, and to know what a day in their life is like.
The advice I would give is to become your customer. Try a reverse-mentorship with an employee, or with a customer who lives life differently than you. That way, you can understand their needs.
For more insights into how customer service is the backbone of your brand, download our State of Service report.
Growth Plan for the Future: Prepare Your Business and Employees
Preparing a growth plan for the future is essential for small businesses. One of the biggest reasons small businesses fail is a lack of planning. A surprising number of business leaders haven’t prioritised tangible growth strategies and haven’t expanded the size, revenue, and scope of their small businesses.
Below, we outline five easy steps businesses can take to create a growth plan for the future.
5 tips to create a winning future growth plan
A future growth plan is simply a blueprint for how companies plan to hit their targets over a certain period of time. Most growth plans cover a relatively short time — usually one or two years — but some businesses create plans that extend well beyond that.
Future growth plans help companies lock down their objectives and focus on ways to meet those objectives. This gives investors a clearer vision of their future.
Here are five ways that companies can create a successful future growth plan:
1. Establish your differentiator
Your value proposition will go a long way towards determining the success of your business. Do you offer better prices than your competitors? Are you a knowledge leader in a particular space? Perhaps your service, or the customer experience you offer, is what sets you apart. Whatever your value proposition is, make sure that it’s crystal-clear to your audience.
If you look at your organisation and can’t figure out what exactly sets you apart from the competition, then chances are your customers can’t either.
2. Identify your ideal customer
Once you know what your value proposition is, you’ll know who might benefit the most from it; that’s your ideal customer. Once this target audience is identified, you can figure out the best ways to reach them. Spend time discovering:
which channels do they use the most
how they like to engage
what messaging do they respond to
how do your competitors target this audience
Once you have as much information as possible about your ideal customer, you can begin to craft an omnichannel strategy and leverage digital solutions like Marketing Cloud and Social Studio to reach them where they spend most of their time.
3. Analyse your revenue streams
The biggest reason businesses fail is that they’re simply not generating enough revenue. It’s critical that businesses evaluate their revenue streams and try to optimise them. Which pipelines are working; which aren’t? Why are some revenue streams not producing as expected; why are others booming? Are there any new revenue streams that can be added?
This shouldn’t be a one-off evaluation; it needs to be a regular occurrence. New technologies and changing customer behaviour can drastically affect the viability of existing revenue streams. So it’s important to monitor them regularly and make the needed adjustments.
4. Learn from your competitors
Unless they’re creating a category, no one begins at the top. You’ve most likely started a business because you’ve identified a gap in the market or a problem that needs to be solved, so you know how you’ll fit into the marketplace.
The next step is to look around the market and see who’s succeeding. Try to figure out where they’re falling short, what they’re doing well, and what you can do better. We’re in an age of sky-high expectations for customer service, digital experiences and personalised communications, so the bar for keeping up with the competition has never been higher.
5. Maximise talent
Ideally, your future growth plan should help you maximise your value proposition, and to do that, you need to maximise your talent. Once you know your differentiator and your target audience, you can put together a workforce with skills that are aligned with your goals. Finding highly motivated, inspired employees is a great place to start – skilling them up to be agile and work across functions is even better.
Where will your future growth plan take you?
Creating a future growth plan helps businesses become what they want to be, whether that’s one, two, five or ten years down the line. It helps establish a shared vision and a set of common goals, making it easier to align teams and pitch to investors. Most of all, helps businesses stay on the course to success.
To get started on creating your future growth plan, discover how to engage your ideal customer with personalised communication with AI and build your ideal app with zero coding knowledge.
What Is LIKE.TG AppExchange and How Can I Use It?
LIKE.TG Customer 360 is the world’s number one customer relationship management (CRM) platform. We have solutions to match any organisation size, industry, and business structure. But what if you could take that CRM and make it even better? That’s where AppExchange comes in. AppExchange is the most trusted enterprise cloud marketplace of apps and experts for your business needs. It has recently celebrated 10 million installs, and more than 91% of LIKE.TG customers have at least one app integrated within their CRM solution.
What can I find on AppExchange?
If you have a problem to be solved, or a question to be answered, chances are there is an app or expert on AppExchange that will help to meet your needs. There are thousands of pre-built and customisable apps tailored to specific industries, departments, and use cases. It’s not limited to apps either. On AppExchange, you can also discover:
Components that allow you to build apps and customise pages
Pre-built solution packages
LIKE.TG Labs apps — a collection of free apps built by LIKE.TG employees
Trailblazers from around the world in our dedicated Trailhead Community groups
Certified LIKE.TG consultants to help you with integrations and implementations
How do I use AppExchange?
Regardless of whether you have a specific problem, or you’re simply curious about what’s out there, the AppExchange homepage is a good place to start. From there, you can check out curated collections of apps and experts , find a list of consultants ready to create a bespoke fix for you, check out the trending apps, or read customer stories for inspiration. If you’re a return visitor, AppExchange provides recommendations based on who you are and what you’ve browsed in the past.
Of course, if you have a particular question in mind, a comprehensive list of solutions is only one search away.
AppExchange partners share their stories
With its thriving ecosystems of partners, AppExchange provides solutions as unique as the problems they’re solving. Below, we’ve shared just a handful of the many success stories we’ve seen from AppExchange partners. For more inspiration, you can take a look at the AppExchange customer stories.
Knowesis helps a large Thai bank transform its customer engagement
Based in Singapore, and with offices across APAC and beyond, Knowesis specialises in providing a centralised real-time view of customer attributes. It partnered with LIKE.TG to deliver key capabilities a large Thai bank needed to adopt LIKE.TG Marketing Cloud for campaign management.
Throughout the customer journey, Knowesis processes data from the bank’s core systems, allowing it to monitor customer transactions and provide personalised offers in real-time.
Through this partnership with Knowesis, the bank was able to:
Enhance its customer experience by reacting in real-time
Engage with customers through next-generation digital channels
Maintain capabilities provided by its legacy campaign management system, especially key governance features
Implement behavioural tracking, offer management, and a granular contact policy
Read more about Knowesis and their ready-to-use plug-in activities for Marketing Cloud Journey Builder.
Blufy helps schools, universities, and training centres manage their operations
Blufy is part of ‘TechMatrix’, a top tier LIKE.TG partner with a strong focus on education. Blufy is a student- and school-management platform built natively on LIKE.TG. It provides a ready-to-use, subscription-based platform for education institutions to manage student engagement, school operations, and CRM related areas.
It has helped its customers, including schools across Singapore, to:
Automate multi-centre school operations, including class and sessions scheduling, and attendance and assessment tracking
Publish courses and programs, and capture enquiries and applications directly into their CRM systems via configurable web forms
Streamline revenue management by automating billing and invoicing based on various fee and payment plans
Improve student engagement via self-service student and parent portals for class schedules, fee payments, student requests, etc.
Calendaring and resource management to allocate teachers, rooms, and other resources to classes via a drag-and-drop interface
Real-time insights into business performance for decision making
You can find out more about Blufy’s Student School Management Platform on AppExchange.
eBest provides digital transformation services for the consumer packaged goods industry
For the past 22 years, eBest has been serving world’s top Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brands across more than 30 countries. It specialises in RTM (route-to-market) digital transformation IT services, optimising their customers’ retail execution and further increasing sales.
With a presence in Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Latin America, it is devoted to providing agile services and innovative products to enable customer success.
eBest has worked with a major soft drinks company in Asia, using its eBest iMarket and iMentor Solutions. The eBest Mobile platform integrated with their customers’ SAP and business intelligence systems to provide a fully automated sales operation to better control business outcomes.
Supervisors at that company gained real time insights to proactively address market issues and ensure 100% sales call completion.
Take a look at eBest’s automation, route plan, retail execution, and order management solution on AppExchange.
Top 10 KPIs for Email Marketers
Email marketing never works when the mentality is “set it and forget it.” Think of your process like a lab. To figure out what’s working and what needs improvement, you need to always be analysing your results. The key to proper analysis is having the right email marketing KPIs (key performance indicators).
Identifying the right KPIs always depends on the nature of your business: “Success” varies a lot if you’re selling enterprise software to executive buyers, versus sneakers to anyone who wants them. Plus, theaccelerated transition to the digital-first customerhas added extra nuance on top of this already complicated process. For example, changes to privacy rules such asApple’s mail privacy protectionshave made open rates difficult to accurately track.
However, there are some baseline KPIs that almost every email marketer should be using. Here are 10 email marketing KPIs to help you understand how well your messages are connecting and make adjustments to boost success.
1. Delivery rate
Delivery rate is the percentage of emails delivered. ((Number of sends) – (Number of Bounces)) / (Number of Sends).
Did your intended audience receive your email? This is where everything should start when reviewing your campaigns. If your emails aren’t successfully delivered to inboxes or are going directly to spam, your offers and content, regardless of how compelling, aren’t being received.
2. Click-through rate
The click-through rate is the percentage of clicks once an email is opened. (Unique Clicks) / (Delivered Emails).
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of email recipients who not only opened your email but also clicked on at least one of the links in the email. Marketers can use this to measure the strength of the email’s content, messaging, or offers. Combining this with web conversion (coming later!) can indicate whether your email and web messaging are aligned to create a relevant, consistent, and successful customer journey.
3. Clicks by link/URL
These are unique clicks on a link within a single email or across many emails. They are sometimes tracked by aliases or UTM parameters.
It’s also critical to knowwhatpeople are clicking on. A high CTR can look nice on the surface, but what if all those clicks are for the unsubscribe button? Or maybe your customers are clicking a link early in the email and not the main call to action you built your campaign around. Tracking clicks by link can help you identify what is grabbing people’s attention and that the flow of your email is working as intended.
4. Event lag
Event lag is the average time that passed between the click and send time.
Okay, so we know if someone has clicked, and what exactly they’re clicking on: But how long did it take for them to get there? Event lag is a great way to measure the effectiveness of your subject lines, preheaders, and the content of the email itself. With this measurement, you can understand if customers are moving quickly to open your emails, or letting them languish in their inboxes.
5. Bounce rate by bounce type
Bounce rate is the percentage of messages rejected by the email client (e.g., Google, Apple). Calculation: (Bounces) / (Sends).
While delivery rate is one of the key email marketing KPIs, it doesn’t tell the whole story. If your email isn’t reaching your customers’ inboxes, you need to understand why. This could occur for a variety of reasons, such as an invalid email address, a full inbox, a down server, or mail that was simply too large for the recipient’s inbox. Bounces are typically organised into a few categories, including:
Block.Bounces resulting from a complaint, blocklist, content, URL block, or authentication error.
Hard.Bounces caused by an unknown domain or user, or syntax error.
Soft.Bounces resulting from a full or temporarily inactive mailbox, or temporary domain failure.
Technical.Number of bounces caused by the server, data format, or network error.
It’s important to track emails that have “bounced” — and why — so you can avoid bounces in the future. For example, block bounces are indicative of mismanagement on the marketer’s end, while soft bounces are typically out of the marketer’s control.
6. Unsubscribe rate and complaint rate
The Unsubscribe rate is the percentage of unsubscribes per deliveries.
The complaint rate is the percentage of complaints per deliveries. A complaint is logged when a subscriber flags the email as spam.
While unsubscribes can be demoralising, there is a lot that can be learned from them. It’s critical to set benchmarks for these. What is your average unsubscribe rate per email? It’s natural that some churn will happen: For example, a company that targets parents with young children will have to continuously scrub and update their lists as those customers’ children outgrow that brand or product.
On the other hand, high unsubscribes and complaints for a specific email, or over a specific time period, are a flashing red flag for change, whether it’s your targeting, frequency, messaging, channel, or product offer. By drilling down into the details of the subject lines and content by segment for each send, you can understand mistakes to avoid in the future.
7. Web traffic and conversions
Web traffic and conversions and sales are the bread and butter of email marketing. Almost every email campaign is leading customers to some sort of web property where a conversion can happen. Yet this is often left untracked, as it requires connecting two data silos: email and web.
This typically calls for adding UTM parameters to email links to easily harmonise emails and campaigns sent in your email automation tool with web pages in your web analytics tool.
Doing so is worth the effort, as these metrics indicate the percentage of recipients who completed the email’s intended purpose, such as converting online to visit, purchase, download, or complete a similar call to action.
These are particularly important metrics for measuring ROI and optimising to meet your campaign goals.
8. Campaign performance (by campaign and by email)
Emails are almost never ad-hoc. They’re part of a larger customer journey, whether that’s a series of emails or a much more complex web of messaging across many channels. Oftentimes, a single email will be used in multiple journeys, at different stages or for different audiences.
No matter the case, it’s critical for email marketers to not look at their email performance in one silo or another: They must examine email performance by campaign,andperformance for specific emails.
Creating distinct email marketing KPIs for each can help; for example, click-through rate for a whole campaign versus click-through rate for individual emails across multiple campaigns. Doing this will help you understand why a campaign is working or not, and which emails to use in future ones.
9. Subscriber list growth and trends
Your subscriber lists are behind all of this. Are they growing? Are they stagnant? Declining? Tracking the health of your various lists and segments is a vital indicator of how your emails are performing over time, and if your email sign-up CTAs are effective.
It’s particularly critical to view subscriber list health in context of specific campaign and email performance. Try looking at other KPIs mentioned previously (such as CTR, bounces, delivery rate) and list growth for the same period. Is there a correlation in low CTR and stagnant email list growth?
Perhaps complaints jumped from a specific email to a list segment, and your list declined in response. These can all give you indications on what to improve in the future.
10. Most and least engaged subscribers
Likewise, it can be a great exercise to regularly analyse which subscribers in your lists are most and least engaged. High engagement may indicate a customer with high brand loyalty, who maybe should be targeted in an upcoming loyalty offer.
Low engagement, on the other hand, may mean they need to be re-targeted; or perhaps, be removed from your lists altogether. After all, the size of your lists ultimately is not what’s important. It’s how many people on those lists are actually engaging with your content.
While email marketing continues to change, the core principles have remained the same: Give your customers something of value, and they’ll return the favor.
Tracking your success in doing this, however, requires an agile mindset. While these email marketing KPIs can help get you started, you shouldn’t stop there. Always keep learning, testing, and evolving.
How the SFCCA Uses LIKE.TG To Preserve and Share Cultural Knowledge
Chinese clan associations — also known as ‘huay kuan’ — have a rich history in Singapore. The first clan associations date back to the early 19th century. They provided vital support for Chinese immigrants settling in Singapore.
Today, Singapore’s Chinese clan associations preserve cultural traditions and connect new generations with their ancestral heritage. The Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations (SFCCA) wants to see this tradition of community togetherness thrive into the future.
“The clans’ main objective is to help their communities,” says Mr Mark Mah, SFCCA Executive Director. “In Singapore, the younger generation is very proactive in that way. Many want to do good deeds for their communities, and the clans can help them do so.”
Mr Mah says many of the clan associations are modernising to attract younger members. They are using technology to preserve cultural knowledge so it can be passed on to the next generation.
“Much of our cultural knowledge is stored in the memories of the older clan members,” Mr Mah explains. “Our digital transformation gives us the technology to record, protect, and share this knowledge.”
Preserving cultural knowledge
Digital transformation is also helping the SFCCA — and many of the more than 230 clans it represents — centralise, protect, and utilise member data.
The SFCCA and the clans rely on part-time staff and volunteers. The clans also elect new committee members every three to five years. Mah explains that frequent leadership handovers and transient volunteers have been difficult to manage without a centralised platform in place.
“Previously we used mostly Excel spreadsheets and paper records to manage membership and event data,” Mr Mah says. “Data could be lost in transition, corrupted, or compromised. It was very messy and difficult for the clan associations to access and share data they could trust.”
Mr Mah adds that it was also difficult for staff to access and utilise the cultural knowledge and expertise of their members.
“For example, events staff might be looking for a clan member to be an expert speaker at an event. They would have to rely on memory or ask around to see if anyone knew a member with the relevant expertise. Centralising this kind of information about members on a CRM means we can immediately search and sort all members based on their profession or expertise.”
Implementing a centralised solution
Mr Mah knew LIKE.TG was the solution, and the SFCCA committee members agreed.
“I didn’t have any trouble convincing them,” he says. “Most of our committee members come from the business world, so they understand this problem and why a CRM is needed to centralise data.”
Mr Mah chose CrimsonWorks as SFCCA’s implementation partner. LIKE.TG was up and running by the end of 2019, just before COVID-19 caused extensive lockdowns in Singapore.
“We were able to run face-to-face LIKE.TG training in the office before COVID-19, so our staff members were immediately able to work from home when the lockdowns were announced,” says Mr Mah.
“There was no copying and pasting of data between spreadsheets. All the data was centralised in LIKE.TG. Our team could all access it from their homes, which made them more effective. LIKE.TG also gave us much more confidence that the data was accurate and secure.”
Learn more about how LIKE.TG.org helps a global community of nonprofits and educational institutions operate effectively, raise funds, and build more meaningful relationships with those they serve.
Personalising and protecting data
A handful of clan associations are also now using LIKE.TG to manage their membership and events data. Mr Mah says that while there was some early resistance among SFCCA staff and clan members, they are now seeing clear benefits.
“There are many LIKE.TG functions we use. We can now access data like how long council members have been with the SFCCA, which clans they belong to, and their position level. We can also track our members’ activity, which helps with outreach.”
Mr Mah explains that organisation-wide access to centralised data is helping to personalise communications with members.
“Our events staff can now track which members are participating in certain cultural activities. Now, when we want to promote new events, we can target members based on their interests rather than doing mass sendouts.”
LIKE.TG is also serving as an accurate, protected, and centralised ledger for managing the SFCCA library inventory. This includes cultural artefacts that are often given to the clan associations.
“We need to be able to effectively record and track these treasures so we can protect them and pass them to the next generation,” Mr Mah says. “LIKE.TG helps us do that.”
Bridging the generation gap
The SFCCA’s commitment to digital transformation extends beyond LIKE.TG. The organisation helped some clan associations hold virtual events throughout pandemic lockdowns, and made a range of digital assets available to members.
From attending Zoom seminars to viewing online operas and voting in digital pageants, clan association members had plenty to do throughout the lockdowns. Mr Mah says these shared digital experiences are bridging generation gaps within families.
“The younger generation are participating in these online events, and communicating with their parents about their cultural heritage,” he says. “Of course, physical interaction is more fun, but our outreach is much higher with digital events. There are five to 10 times more people participating now.
“The clans will have a bright future if they continue this transformation. LIKE.TG can help the clans reach out to their communities and bring the generations together.”
Learn more about how LIKE.TG.org helps a global community of nonprofits and educational institutions operate effectively, raise funds, and build more meaningful relationships with those they serve.
Maximise Your LIKE.TG ROI With the Summer ’22 Release
The Summer ’22 release preview is here! There are many new features and enhancements to help you maximise your LIKE.TG return on investment (ROI).
You’re probably wondering: Why should I care? What’s in it for me? How can LIKE.TG help my business in even more ways?
We release hundreds of new products, features, and enhancements three times a year, and many of them are free!
This cycle has many innovations that can help expand your business to meet growing digital demands and close operational gaps. As a start, check out:
CRM Analytics for industries — We’re introducing new ways to leverage our CRM Analytics tools for manufacturing cloud, loyalty management, and communications cloud. CRM Analytics delivers tailored insights and user experiences for every industry and line of business. Since it’s native to LIKE.TG, it also leverages all the security with no additional deployments, allowing automation, rapid scalability, and connecting business processes.
LIKE.TG Cloud Integrations for Slack — There’s a new way to interact with LIKE.TG to drive performance and automate work — right from Slack. New integrations with Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud bring LIKE.TG data and tools right into Slack. These integrations improve team performance and make conversations more insightful, customer centric, and action-oriented.
Mulesoft Accelerators — New and improved MuleSoft Accelerators for Manufacturing Cloud, Health Cloud (Healthcare Life sciences), Financial Services Cloud, and Retail Cloud provide the foundation to jumpstart your top integration use cases for LIKE.TG clouds and other industry needs. These packaged solutions will help you get started quickly with your most important integrations and business initiatives.
Learn more about these and other features and innovations in the Summer ’22 release.
Release in a Box—A comprehensive guideto learn about the new features from the Summer ’22 release.
Summer ’22 Highlights Trail— Learn about many of our innovations in the best way, throughTrailhead! Take the trail and learn about new features to uplevel your work.
Summer ’22 Demo Videos— Want to see our new features in action? Our product teams made these informationalvideosto show you how to get the most out of our Summer ’22 release.
Excited for the release yet?
Check out our release marketing website to maximise your investment and learn more about the Summer ’22 release.
Get release notes
This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of theLIKE.TG blog.
Measure What Matters Most — Which Marketing Metrics Should You Focus On?
As Seth Godin rightly points out, “Measurement is fabulous. Unless you’re busy measuring what’s easy to measure as opposed to what’s important”.
With channel proliferation, privacy changes, and more data, it is getting harder to measure what is important. Only 33% of marketers strongly agree that they gain insights fast enough for impactful decision-making (Marketing Intelligence Report).
Getting data quickly is certainly important, but so too is the quality of the insights arising from that data. Vanity metrics, which tend to focus on number of followers, for example, are falling out of favour. Marketers now concentrate on metrics that measure engagement or conversions. Nearly four in five marketers agree that data quality is what will drive marketing-led growth and improved customer experience.
While recent changes in privacy laws make things more complicated, new technologies are now available to help marketers meet these challenges head on.
A new definition of success
In the latest Marketing Intelligence Report, marketers named customer satisfaction and return on marketing investment as the two most important success metrics.
Given the huge shifts that have taken place in customer behaviours and in business objectives due to the pandemic, it’s no surprise they should sit at the top of the success metric list.
According to the State of Marketing report, customer satisfaction analytics have seen a 22% growth rate as 78% of marketing organisations reprioritised metrics in light of the pandemic.
However, only around a third of marketers say they are completely successful at measuring customer satisfaction and return on investment (ROI).
The figures are similar for the next two most important metrics. Thirty nine percent of marketers say customer acquisition is important, but only 31% say they are measuring it successfully. Brand awareness sits at fourth on the list with 36% but only 32% reporting accurate measurements.
Part of the challenge lies in the quality of marketing data. The State of Marketing Report shows only 42% of marketers are completely satisfied with the hygiene of their customer data, only 37% are satisfied with the timeliness of their data, and 35% are happy with data integration.
And these are not the only data challenges marketers are up against.
Challenges faced by marketers today
When asked to define the challenges they face in evaluating performance, marketers in Singapore named the following:
Manual data integration processes
Siloed data
Alignment across teams on measurement and reporting
These challenges leave marketers in a paradox. Our report found 99% of marketers in Singapore emphasise the importance of having a complete, centralised view of all cross-channel marketing. However, 68% still evaluate the performance of their cross-channel marketing in silos. This leaves plenty of room for improvement and integration.
This appears to be a particular problem for businesses in Singapore, where siloed data is the number two performance challenge reported by marketers. Globally, it sits at the bottom of the list, at number seven.
This might suggest marketers in Singapore could benefit from greater uptake of customer data platforms (CDPs). And, as we will see below, it’s an area of growing investment. Marketing Intelligence, for example, offers a single source of truth by integrating data from across teams and channels. It gives you real-time insights, allowing you to adjust your underperforming campaigns while they are still live. ROI becomes something that can be monitored and adjusted in real time, not just in retrospect once a campaign is over.
Data privacy takes centre stage
There have been several significant changes to data regulations over the last few years. Introduced in 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a privacy and security law that imposes obligations on organisations globally and delivers harsh fines against businesses that violate its standards. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) came into effect two years later. It allows California consumers to see the information companies have saved on them, and who they shared it with. This is also relevant to companies based in Asia who have customers in the US. Together with Apple’s privacy updates and Google’s phasing out of third party cookies, these changes in consumer privacy protections are causing substantial disruptions to digital marketing globally.
In response to these changes in data privacy regulations, 98% of marketers in Singapore have fundamentally changed how they measure marketing performance, with revisions in:
Customer data collection
Marketing performance KPIs and goals
Marketing budget allocation
But where there is change, there is opportunity. Marketers in Singapore have reported increasing their investments in:
Marketing analytics and measurement
Customer data platforms
Real-time interaction and personalisation
Analytics strategies that go beyond outdated measurements like email open rates will be essential to fostering the new metrics of marketing success. With LIKE.TG Marketing Intelligence , marketers can unify data from email from web analytics to build a 360-degree view of their customer, without breaching new privacy regulations. Add data from revenue databases to that equation and the success metric of ROI also becomes simpler to measure.
The art and science of marketing
It’s long been said that marketing is both an art and a science. I would argue that has never been truer. The scope for creativity is vast and the tools for data measurement are extremely sophisticated.
But with the proliferation of data, it can be hard to know how best we can apply these tools.
The average number of data sources used in B2C is expected to hit 12 in 2022. That’s double what it was in 2020. In B2B, the anticipated increase is from 10 to 15 (State of Marketing report).
A clear objective is critical. Otherwise marketers will find themselves just wading through data, rather than finding real value in it.
This is where technology like Marketing Cloud can help. Its AI capabilities can drive automated, personalised content and deliver meaningful and timely insights about customer behaviour. Interactive reporting across teams and channels means campaigns can be course-corrected to improve performance and ROI.
Marketers must focus on the most valuable metrics and use the right tools to surface actionable insights from data. By doing this well, marketers not only drive business performance, but also validate and justify the role of marketing. As marketers, there has never been a better time to validate our seat at the board room table.
For more data, analysis and expert insight, download the Marketing Intelligence Report.
What Drives Customer Loyalty in a Digital First World?
The fifth edition of LIKE.TG’s State of the Connected Customer report reveals how trust, personalisation, and digital-first experiences are increasingly central to meeting customer needs. Based on a global survey of consumers and business buyers, the report also highlights how customer expectations and behaviours have changed over time.
Brian Solis has one critical piece of advice for businesses undergoing digital transformation: “In times of change, make customers’ needs and expectations your corporate North Star,” says LIKE.TG’s Global Innovation Evangelist. “Keeping customers at the centre will inspire loyalty and deepen trust.”
But what, exactly, do customers need and expect from businesses today? How can brands earn, maintain, and build customer trust? To find out, LIKE.TG surveyed over 13,000 consumers and nearly 4,000 business buyers across 29 countries for its latest study, State of the Connected Customer.
Trusted enterprises win the hearts of customers
As customers navigate a rapidly-shifting world, questions of trust, values, and integrity occupy their minds: 91% of business buyers in Singapore and Thailand believe trust becomes more important in times of change.
In addition, customers expect businesses to act responsibly. Sixty-eight percent of customers around the world trust companies to act with society’s best interest in mind — a significant jump from the 59% who agreed in LIKE.TG’s2020 survey.
Customers expect companies to help solve issues like inequality or climate change. Solis explains, “When it comes to important issues, companies can’t stand on the sidelines. Your values are an important part of your brand.”
Not doing so risks impacting the bottom line. LIKE.TG’s research shows that 78% of customers around the world are influenced by a company’s environmental practices. Two-thirds (66%) have ceased buying from companies whose values didn’t align with their own.
The importance of customer experience hits an all-time high
Values aren’t the only factor when deciding whether or not to buy from a company. Increasingly, customers consider whether their interactions with a company are easy and enjoyable. In Singapore, 90% of customers say the experience a company provides is as important as its products or services — the highest it’s ever been.
Developing customer loyalty has never been more important. In the last year alone, 71% of worldwide consumers switched brands at least once as their priorities, lifestyles, or financial situations changed.
Customers are in a decidedly digital-first mindset
Customer interactions with brands are more important and more varied than before. Many of the behaviours that customers adopted during quarantine restrictions are now enduring habits.
“Customers who use contactless payments, AR/VR, and social media shopping — among other habits adopted amid the pandemic — overwhelmingly expect to maintain or increase their use of such digital-first experiences over the coming three years. So this really shows the lasting appeal of digital-first engagement,” explains Solis. “I’m optimistic the next couple years will improve the quality of those experiences as well — that businesses will take hurried, early-pandemic tech investments and thoughtfully integrate them into connected, useful, and satisfying experiences.”
Even as the world opens up and we see a return to in-person commerce, customers are saying that they prefer digital channels. This is particularly true among younger generations.
Demand grows for personalisation at scale
The breadth of new digital touchpoints provides additional data to inform personalised experiences. After years of increased digital engagement, the majority of customers assume companies understand their individual needs, especially given the abundance of personalised insights obtained from customer interactions.
To deliver on these expectations at scale, many companies are turning to artificial intelligence (AI). While customers are increasingly familiar with AI — whether it drives the music playlists they listen to or provides directions from one location to another — they also have some misgivings.
For AI to be effective, businesses need a substantial amount of data as fuel. As use of third-party cookies wanes, companies must find new ways to responsibly collect and use that data.
To feel more at ease, customers want input into how AI is used and opportunities to provide direct feedback on how AI is explained or implemented.
Solis sees this as an opportunity, “An end to third-party cookies doesn’t mean an end to personalisation: it’s a new beginning. The need for robust first-party datasets ups the ante for companies to earn trust via consent-forward approaches to deliver the experiences customers expect.”
When customer information is collected thoughtfully, companies can deliver remarkable experiences and deepen trust at the same time.
New Connected Customer research
Explore State of the Connected Customer data on our interactive Tableau dashboards. Read our report to see what 17,000 consumers and business buyers have to say about trust, personalisation, and the importance of exceptional experiences.
This post was adapted from the original article at the LIKE.TG newsroom.
Resilience and Other Takeaways From LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2022
LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2022 was a day of inspiration, innovation, and celebration! It brought our ASEAN community of Trailblazers, industry leaders and partners together virtually to share inspiring stories. We discussed a wide range of topics — from building trust and resilience, to committing to a sustainable future. Trailblazers also shared transformational tales of customer success and career change. You can now experience LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2022 on-demand.
Here are the key highlights:
Resilience to fuel recovery and growth
One of the greatest takeaways from LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2022 is around how successful teams build resilience. By fostering personal and organisational resilience, businesses can achieve greater fulfilment and success. This year, we invited bestselling author Simon Sinek and Chin Yin Ong, Chief People Officer at Grab, to share insights on how building resilience helps individuals and organisations on their growth journey.
At an organisational level, connectedness is the foundation of resilience. Chin Yin shared that in today’s hybrid workspace, Grab leaders make a concerted effort to reconnect with their employees, merchants, and consumers to understand their needs. “We’re now starting with our teams to rebuild a lot of the social bonds that have weakened,” Chin Yin said. Bringing people together is the first step towards building resilient teams.
Simon also emphasised the importance of an ‘infinite mindset’ in developing both personal and organisational resilience. Having an infinite mindset means approaching solutions to problems with a spirit of service, and understanding that helping others also helps us grow. “When we see people as human, it not only builds resilient individuals, but definitely contributes to building resilient organisations,” Simon remarked. Only with empathy and trust, can teams build resilience and come together to solve complex problems.
The LIKE.TG community continues to ‘do well and do good’
In his keynote, Sujith Abraham, LIKE.TG Senior Vice President and General Manager for ASEAN, took us through some key milestones from the last 12 months. By working closely with our LIKE.TG community, we empower organisations to do well and do good. Guided by our core values, we put trust in our people and products, support customer success, champion innovation, and promote equality for all.
We are also fully committed to stepping up for our planet and giving back to our communities. Aligning our business with the newly unveiled core value — sustainability, we embrace business as a platform for change and believe success is for everyone on Earth and the planet itself.
How ASEAN businesses are crafting the ‘wow’ experience
LIKE.TG solutions continued to empower businesses in an increasingly connected world. Cecily Ng, SVP GM Singapore, showed us how LIKE.TG solutions are helping Tokopedia craft a seamless connected customer experience. By leveraging Customer 360, Service Cloud, and Slack, their service agents are promptly resolving cases and keeping customers up to date throughout the process.
Boxian Tan, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Ninja Van Group, shared how LIKE.TG solutions help to boost their business performance. Sales Cloud empowers their remote teams with timely and accurate information, leading to significantly higher conversion rates. This improvement in sales experience helped Ninja Van Group emerge stronger from the challenges of the pandemic.
How a Trailblazer transformed her career
Jia Ying Lee is a Singapore-based Trailblazer. With no prior experience in technology, Jia Ying was enrolled in the Professional Conversion Program by her employer to upskill on LIKE.TG. This helped her take on the role of People Technology Analyst, and she now builds automated workflows, including Slack bots, to empower employees globally. For people looking to transform their careers, she advised, “Don’t stop learning; seize any formal learning opportunities available,and teach your newly acquired skills to someone else.”
Jia Ying was awarded a Golden Hoodie for transforming her career and sharing her learnings with others.
Pathway to sustainability
Naomi Rajendram, Head of LIKE.TG ASEAN, Accenture, talked to Stephanie Goveas, Regional Vice President, Alliances at LIKE.TG, about how Net Zero Cloud is at the centre of Accenture’s sustainability journey. Naomi shared how ASEAN businesses can chart their pathway to sustainability. “First, understand what sustainability means to your organisation,” advised Naomi. “If net zero is your focus, know what your current emissions are and get access to accurate data.”
“Then, set appropriate science-based targets. Put a price on carbon emissions and get your teams to focus on immediate reduction. And third, track your progress. Get data-driven insights to drive your sustainability.”
LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2022 was a celebration of ideas, innovation and inspiring stories from the ASEAN community. Thank you to our Trailblazers, industry partners, and thought leaders for sharing their insights and learnings.
Watch LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2022 on demand.
How V-Key Became a Trusted Advisor to Global Businesses
In the all-digital world, smartphones have become almost ubiquitous in our lives. They have changed the way that we work, transact, and access information and services. However, the convenience provided by smartphones and mobile apps must come with the right level of security.
That’s why V-Key exists. Founded in 2011, the Singapore-based cybersecurity company helps organisations secure their digital experiences. It has been recognised as one of Singapore’s fastest growing companies and a trusted advisor to organisations worldwide.
V-Key’s ambitious journey from startup to a successful small business with global reach, has been backed by venture capital and driven by constant innovation.
Raymond Lee, Chief Operating Officer at V-Key, recently joined us to discuss the company’s journey. Here are key takeaways and tips from Lee on how to fuel business growth.
Listen to your customers and partners
At the core of V-Key’s offering is a patented technology called V-OS that acts as a security foundation for mobile applications. Demand for the technology sparked initial growth for the company. However, its ongoing success came from listening to customers and meeting more of their needs.
“Engaging with our customers, we realised they needed more than what we initially offered and that’s when we began to evolve our technology into the products and solutions we have today,” said Lee.
One of these solutions is a new Digital Trust Platform that is set to help customers in multiple industries stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape and deliver fresh digital experiences.
Lee said that it’s important to keep asking questions and listening to customers. Businesses should also seek input from partners who may own the customer relationship and can provide regional expertise.
“When you start to expand rapidly and move into new countries, you may not have the intimate relationships you had with your customers in the beginning. Then, you need to listen to your partners because they will have valuable feedback,” said Lee.
Take a macro and long term view
As a startup, winning new customers was everything to V-Key and it was easy in the beginning. The challenge was that it didn’t anticipate what it would take to keep winning.
“The pace of a startup is absolutely frantic. There are so many things you need to do and what you really want is to land new customers and expand to new countries. What you don’t anticipate is the kind of detail required to keep winning and to keep customers happy,” said Lee.
For V-Key to scale, it needed a solution to help it stay on top of sales and marketing activities. The company chose LIKE.TG and now uses both Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud Account Engagement. The first provides an invaluable source of truth for V-Key and helps to inform its aggressive growth strategy, while the second is used to nurture complex customer relationships.
“Executing tactically each quarter is one thing, but we also need to think about our plans for the next three years. LIKE.TG has helped us move from a micro view of what we need to do each week, to a macro view and helps us make better decisions,” said Lee.
The focus on long-term business goals instead of daily operational challenges also helps V-Key stay focused on what’s most important and act as a trusted advisor to its customers.
Foster the right culture
Transformation is innate in the cybersecurity space, and V-Key needs to stay on top of the threat landscape, the competition, and customer demands. V-Key has learned that having an agile workforce that’s ready to pivot and take on new challenges is critical.
“Our customers also have tremendous ambition and want to revolutionise the digital landscape in which they operate. There are no boundaries to the kinds of challenges they throw at us, which keeps us on our toes and makes sure we’re not complacent,” said Lee.
LIKE.TG helps V-Key foster the culture it needs to scale by connecting different departments on a single platform and helping them operate as one. This is especially apparent in sales and marketing, where teams use LIKE.TG to collaborate on opportunities.
“LIKE.TG reminds us on a daily basis that we’re all operating as one towards a common goal and that’s a game-changer,” said Lee.
Get more insights from V-Key on how to drive growth and success in a fast-changing environment. Watch the webinar How to find, win, and keep your customers for future growth and success.
Insurance Technology Is Changing the Industry — Here’s How
Self-driving cars. Web-enabled machinery. Data-capturing drones. These are just a few innovations changing the ways people live and work — and buy insurance.
Nimble insurance technology companies are winning new customers by providing near-instant quotes, fast claims processing, and personalised service. But what about legacy firms? How can they uplevel their back- and middle-office operations to surpass their more agile competitors?
To keep up, carriers are realising technology isn’tpartof their value proposition, itistheir value proposition.Over 80%of insurance executives say their business and technology strategies are the same. After all, insurance technology companies are already on board, relying on cloud technology, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation. But for the heritage businesses saddled with decades of technology debt and outdated operating models, it’s a different story.
The good news is companies with legacy systems don’t have to start from scratch with new technology (and probably shouldn’t). By taking a modular approach, companies can preserve decades of valuable data and deliver the excellent experiences customers have come to expect in every area of their lives.
Here are three insurance industry trends that can help carriers grow — and scale quickly —with the right tech:
Meetrealinsurance customer needs with tailored, data-driven coverage
Gone are the days when insurers simply trusted the accuracy of customer-provided usage information. Today, telematics technologies like GPS and onboard diagnostics are yielding a trove of valuable (read: accurate) data for insurers. From real-time maintenance alerts that prevent unnecessary repairs to driver safety scorecards that keep workers safer, telematics is transforming business.
This should be awake-up callfor insurers. Using datasets generated from drone images or radar, for example, carriers can customise better coverage in less time. This can happen thanks to cloud technologies and 5G networks working together with platforms like LIKE.TG, which offerindustry-specific clouds. You can deliver better end-to-end policyholder experiences when personalised insights filter their way into offering specific kinds of coverage.
Embrace an architecture that builds a bridge over and around old insurance systems
Many insurance companies have invested large sums of money into aging systems with extensive customisation. Ripping it out is not just expensive but daunting. You can’t afford to skip a beat in coverage, premium processing, or claims payouts. The good news is a rip-and-replace method isn’t necessary — or even wise,according to Accenture. Their recommendation? Take a modular approach.
To start, consider the places your business needs to connect more efficiently. Do your distributors work seamlessly with underwriting or service? Perhaps your newly-remote back-office employees need a cloud-based platform (designed specifically for insurance companies) so they can better manage workflows, easily surface actionable insights, and seamlessly share information with key partners. With the right insurance technology, you can streamline business processes and enable anywhere/anytime collaboration to achieve operational excellence while deepening relationships with agents/brokers and policyholders.
Uplevel automation capabilities for faster underwriting and claims processing
Carriers have always invested in automation for back-office functions like payment processing. As AI’s capabilities evolve and mature, look for predictive analytics to disrupt underwriting, service, and marketing.
Imagine an agent has submitted a standard policy application to underwriting. Instead of waiting days for pricing, decisions can happen in minutes.AI-powered automationdelivers the response nearly instantly. In cases where AI can’t deliver a decision quickly, it will route the agent’s inquiry to a human representative. Speedy service like this makes it more likely you’ll gain preferred status with your distributors.
Learn more about trends in insurance technology
The insurance industry is in the midst of a digital revolution. The question is:How will they use the new technology in insurance to win against agile competitors who already have a head start?
This post was originally published on the U.S.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
10 Effective Sales Coaching Tips That Work
A good sales coach unlocks serious revenue potential. Effective coaching can increase sales performance by 8%, according to a study by research firm Gartner.Many sales managers find coaching difficult to master, however — especially in environments where reps are remote and managers are asked to do more with less time and fewer resources.Understanding the sales coaching process is crucial in maximising sales rep performance, empowering reps, and positively impacting the sales organisation through structured, data-driven strategies.If you’re not getting the support you need to effectively coach your sales team, don’t despair. These 10 sales coaching tips are easy to implement with many of the tools already at your disposal, and are effective for both in-person and remote teams.1. Focus on rep wellbeingOne in three salespeople say mental health in sales has declined over the last two years, according to a recent LIKE.TG survey. One of the biggest reasons is the shift to remote work environments, which pushed sales reps to change routines while still hitting quotas. Add in the isolation inherent in virtual selling and you have a formula for serious mental and emotional strain.You can alleviate this in a couple of ways. First, create boundaries for your team. Set clear work hours and urge reps not to schedule sales or internal calls outside of these hours. Also, be clear about when reps should be checking internal messages and when they can sign off.Lori Richardson, founder of sales training company Score More Sales, advises managers to address this head-on by asking reps about their wellbeing during weekly one-on-ones. “I like to ask open-ended questions about the past week,” she said. “Questions like, ‘How did it go?’ and ‘What was it like?’ are good first steps. Then, you need to listen.”When the rep is done sharing their reflection, Richardson suggests restating the main points to ensure you’re on the same page. If necessary, ask for clarity so you fully understand what’s affecting their state of mind. Also, she urges: Don’t judge. The level of comfort required for sharing in these scenarios can only exist if you don’t jump to judgement.2. Build trust with authentic storiesFor sales coaching to work, sales managers must earn reps’ trust. This allows the individual to be open about performance challenges. The best way to start is by sharing personal and professional stories.These anecdotes should be authentic, revealing fault and weakness as much as success. There are two goals here: support reps with relatable stories so they know they’re not struggling alone, and let them know there are ways to address and overcome challenges.For example, a seasoned manager might share details about their first failed sales call as a cautionary tale – highlighting poor preparation, aggressive posturing, and lack of empathy during the conversation. This would be followed by steps the manager took to fix these mistakes, like call rehearsing and early-stage research into the prospect’s background, business, position, and pain points.3. Record and review sales callsSales coaching sessions, where recording and reviewing sales calls are key components aimed at improving sales call techniques, have become essential in today’s sales environment. Once upon a time, sales reps learned by shadowing tenured salespeople. While this is still done, it’s inefficient – and often untenable for virtual sales teams.To give sales reps the guidance and coaching they need to improve sales calls, deploy an intuitive conversation recording and analysis tool like Einstein Conversation Insights (ECI). You can analyse sales call conversations, track keywords to identify market trends, and share successful calls to help coach existing reps and accelerate onboarding for new reps. Curate both “best of” and “what not to do” examples so reps have a sense of where the guide rails are.4. Encourage self-evaluationWhen doing post-call debriefs or skill assessments – or just coaching during one-on-ones – it’s critical to have the salesperson self-evaluate. As a sales manager, you may only be with the rep one or two days a month. Given this disconnect, the goal is to encourage the sales rep to evaluate their own performance and build self-improvement goals around these observations.There are two important components to this. First, avoid jumping directly into feedback during your interactions. Relax and take a step back; let the sales rep self-evaluate.Second, be ready to prompt your reps with open-ended questions to help guide their self-evaluation. Consider questions like:What were your big wins over the last week/quarter?What were your biggest challenges and where did they come from?How did you address obstacles to sales closings?What have you learned about both your wins and losses?What happened during recent calls that didn’t go as well as you’d like? What would you do differently next time?Reps who can assess what they do well and where they can improve ultimately become more self-aware. Self-awareness is the gateway to self-confidence, which can help lead to more consistent sales.5. Let your reps set their own goalsThis falls in line with self-evaluation. Effective sales coaches don’t set focus areas for their salespeople; they let reps set this for themselves. During your one-on-ones, see if there’s an important area each rep wants to focus on and go with their suggestion (recommending adjustments as needed to ensure their goals align with those of the company). This creates a stronger desire to improve as it’s the rep who is making the commitment. Less effective managers will pick improvement goals for their reps, then wonder why they don’t get buy-in.For instance, a rep who identifies a tendency to be overly chatty in sales calls might set a goal to listen more. (Nine out of 10 salespeople say listening is more important than talking in sales today, according to a recent LIKE.TG survey.) To help, they could record their calls and review the listen-to-talk ratio. Based on industry benchmarks, they could set a clear goal metric and timeline – a 60/40 listen-to-talk ratio in four weeks, for example.Richardson does have one note of caution, however. “Reps don’t have all the answers. Each seller has strengths and gaps,” she said. “A strong manager can identify those strengths and gaps, and help reps fill in the missing pieces.”6. Focus on one improvement at a timeFor sales coaching to be effective, work with the rep to improve one area at a time instead of multiple areas simultaneously. With the former, you see acute focus and measurable progress. With the latter, you end up with frustrated, stalled-out reps pulled in too many directions.Here’s an example: Let’s say your rep is struggling with sales call openings. They let their nerves get the best of them and fumble through rehearsed intros. Over the course of a year, encourage them to practice different kinds of openings with other reps. Review their calls and offer insight. Ask them to regularly assess their comfort level with call openings during one-on-ones. Over time, you will see their focus pay off.7. Ask each rep to create an action planOpen questioning during one-on-ones creates an environment where a sales rep can surface methods to achieve their goals. To make this concrete, have the sales rep write out a plan of action that incorporates these methods. This plan should outline achievable steps to a desired goal with a clearly defined timeline. Be sure you upload it to your CRM as an attachment or use a tool like Quip to create a collaborative document editable by both the manager and the rep. Have reps create the plan after early-quarter one-on-ones and check in monthly to gauge progress (more on that in the next step).Here’s what a basic action plan might look like:Main goal: Complete 10 sales calls during the last week of the quarterSteps:Week 1: Identify 20-25 prospectsWeek 2: Make qualifying callsWeek 3: Conduct needs analysis (discovery) calls, prune list, and schedule sales calls with top prospectsWeek 4: Lead sales calls and close dealsThe power of putting pen to paper here is twofold. First, it forces the sales rep to think through their plan of action. Second, it crystallises their thinking and cements their commitment to action.8. Hold your rep accountableAs businessman Louis Gerstner, Jr. wrote in “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?”, “people respect what you inspect.” The effective manager understands that once the plan of action is in place, their role as coach is to hold the sales rep accountable for following through on their commitments. To support them, a manager should ask questions during one-on-ones such as:What measurable progress have you made this week/quarter?What challenges are you facing?How do you plan to overcome these challenges?You can also review rep activity in your CRM. This is especially easy if you have a platform that combines automatic activity logging, easy pipeline inspection, and task lists with reminders. If you need to follow up, don’t schedule another meeting. Instead, send your rep a quick note via email or a messaging tool like Slack to level-set.9. Offer professional development opportunitiesAccording to a study by LinkedIn, 94% of employees would stay at a company longer if it invested in their career. When companies make an effort to feed their employees’ growth, it’s a win-win. Productivity increases and employees are engaged in their work.Book clubs, seminars, internal training sessions, and courses are all great development opportunities. If tuition reimbursement or sponsorship is possible, articulate this up front so reps know about all available options.Richardson adds podcasts to the list. “Get all of your salespeople together to talk about a podcast episode that ties into sales,” she said. “Take notes, pull key takeaways and action items, and share a meeting summary the next day with the group. I love that kind of peer engagement. It’s so much better than watching a dull training video.”10. Set up time to share failures — and celebrationsAs Forbes Council member and sales vet Adam Mendler wrote of sales teams, successful reps and executives prize learning from failure. But as Richardson points out, a lot of coaches rescue their reps before they can learn from mistakes: “Instead of letting them fail, they try to save an opportunity,” she said. “But that’s not scalable and doesn’t build confidence in the rep.”Instead, give your reps the freedom to make mistakes and offer them guidance to grow through their failures. Set up a safe space where reps can share their mistakes and learnings with the larger team — then encourage each rep to toss those mistakes on a metaphorical bonfire so they can move on.By embracing failure as a learning opportunity, you also minimise the likelihood of repeating the same mistakes. Encourage your reps to document the circumstances that led to a missed opportunity or lost deal. Review calls to pinpoint where conversations go awry. Study failure, and you might be surprised by the insights that emerge.Also — and equally as important — make space for celebrating big wins. This cements best practices and offers positive reinforcement, which motivates reps to work harder to hit (or exceed) quota.Next steps for your sales coaching programA successful sales coach plays a pivotal role in enhancing sales rep performance and elevating the entire sales organisation. Successful sales coaching requires daily interaction with your team, ongoing training, and regular feedback, which optimises sales processes to improve overall sales performance. As Lindsey Boggs, global director of sales development at Quantum Metric, noted, it also requires intentional focus and a strategic approach to empower the sales team, significantly impacting the sales organisation.“Remove noise from your calendar so you can focus your day on what’s going to move the needle the most — coaching,” she said. Once that’s prioritised, follow the best practices above to help improve your sales reps’ performance, focusing on individual rep development as a key aspect of sales coaching. Remember: coaching is the key to driving sales performance.Steven Rosen, founder of sales management training company STAR Results, contributed to this article.
