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Helping Women Rise: A Chat with Kim Underhill, Daughters Of Tomorrow
In her role at LIKE.TG, Wendy leads marketing in the region. She helps businesses grow and connect with their customers, partners, and employees. As a passionate advocate for Equality, Wendy is also President of the LIKE.TG Women’s Network: Asia (SWN) one of the global equality groups. SWN’s charter is to empower, invest, and amplify the progress of women, create gender-equality allies, and take action on equality. More from Wendy here.
Daughters Of Tomorrow (DOT) is a non-profit based in Singapore. It supports women from the low-income community to match into sustainable livelihood opportunities, through confidence building and upskilling workshops.
Like many of the women who come to DOT, Kim Underhill was once struggling to make ends meet. Now, as President and Board Member at DOT, Kim helps other women in need, and especially in their back-to-work journeys. As part of LIKE.TG’s International Women’s Day 2021 programmes, Kim participated in a fireside chat to share about her journey and motivations to give back.
This is Kim’s story:
From heartbreak to second chances
The lowest point in my life was when I returned from Malaysia to Singapore with my children after leaving a physically abusive marriage. My children were only eight and four. We came back with only the clothes on our backs.
I had left school when I was 15 years old and began working for an English man [named] Terry. After a year, he came to me and said, “Why don’t you go back to school?” My answer was, “I can hardly afford anything more than my rent.” Terry convinced the company to send me back to school. The initial plan was to do a two-year certificate, but it extended from there and became a six-year sponsorship.
Today, I hold a Bachelor’s degree in business and marketing, as well as a Masters in Industrial and Organisational Psychology. All these were obtained in my 30s. I went through six years of night school, while raising two children, and holding a full-time job.
The power of paying it forward
I came to DOT when I met its founder, Carrie Tan, at a women in leadership event. She invited me to become a trainer and talk to women about how to get job-ready, build confidence, and improve their livelihoods. Many people may not realise this, but there are more than 25,000 women from low-income families in Singapore. These women are struggling to find and sustain a living.
My feeling is that somebody once gave me a little push and an opportunity, and that these women also need attention, help, and guidance. When the women hear my story, they ask “how can I do that?” The advice I always give is, “Things don’t happen overnight. It may take years, but you have to start from step one to make a difference.”
DOT provides support in so many practical ways.
For example, one particular client was a struggling single mother with no support. Through DOT, she received skills-focused training and became interested in the eldercare industry. Today, she is working in a nursing home and we have plans to support her to get her diploma. This makes it so worthwhile for me.
Women helping women
Within DOT, we have the Befriender Program. We attach a professional woman to a beneficiary to coach and mentor them, and to help to nurture confidence.
We are also developing a new program called the Childminding Network to encourage women in Singapore to support each other. For example, we have women who cannot go for a job interview because they cannot afford to pay for childcare. When they do get a job, we also step in and sponsor their childcare for 3–6 months, until their salary is stable.
One of the biggest challenges women face, especially when they have to work from home, is that they are available to cater to everybody’s needs. I always advise women to learn to ask for help.
Live intentionally to find success
My mother raised my brother, sister, and I single-handedly, and worked three jobs to put food on the table. She advised me not to focus on the problems in my life, but on the steps I needed to take to move forward. That was very impactful and inspiring for me.
My advice to other women is also to practice daily intention. When you tell yourself, “I’m going to have a happy day,” somehow it turns out that way, because you are mentally prepared for success. Too often, women rush through the day with family and work without having time for themselves. Be intentional in finding “me” time and plan it consciously.
Join LIKE.TG in supporting gender equality
LIKE.TG is committed to supporting gender equality. Some of LIKE.TG’s global equality initiatives include committing to equal pay for equal work and investing in the development of future leaders.
In Singapore, LIKE.TG is a proud supporter of Daughters Of Tomorrow, through fundraising and volunteering.
To donate, or volunteer, including through mentorship opportunities, please visit the Daughters Of Tomorrow website to find out more.
Let’s make a positive difference in the lives of women in Singapore.
Customer Effort Score Cracks the Top 5 Most-Measured Service Metrics
Are you measuring your customer effort score yet? Service professionals are now prioritising this key performance indicator (KPI) with the same importance as tried-and-true metrics like customer satisfaction, revenue, and customer retention, according to the latest findings from the LIKE.TGState of Servicereport.
Since we begansurveying service professionalsfor the State of Service reports in 2016, this is the first year that customer effort has cracked the top five most-measured metrics. Today, the majority (60%) of service organisations track customer effort compared to 44% in 2018. That’s a 37% increase year-over-year. Service professionals have clearly realised how much work a customer puts in to get the information they need matters.
So, what exactly is customer effort, how do you find your score, and what are the steps you can take to improve it?
What is a customer effort score?
A customer effort score is a quantifiable measurement of the amount of work a customer puts in to get information they need or to reach a resolution on an issue.Harvard Business Reviewintroduced the idea of customer effort back in 2010 as something that is directly tied to customer loyalty.
Consider some of the most frustrating customer service experiences that you’ve had — they probably involved more steps and callbacks than expected. If a customer is transferred to multiple departments and has to repeat themselves several times, or they search your help centre only to have to reach out by chat or phone anyway, that’s increased effort for the customer. The goal is to do the opposite: Ensure as little effort as possible.
How do you measure your customer effort score?
Most organisations measure their customer effort score with follow-up surveys after a service interaction that might include questions like, “How easy did we make it to resolve your issue?” Response options are on a multi-point scale (strongly agree, agree, neither, disagree, strongly disagree). To get your score, find the percentage of those who selected the “agree” options.
Of course, there are other factors that contribute to customer effort beyond a survey. Average handle time (AHT), the amount of repeat calls, and the number of transfers can add to the hurdles that customers have to jump over to get their issue resolved. One way to gain insight into these areas is to review contact centre analytics to spot gaps and opportunities for improvement.
Using a heat map to see where users navigate on your website is another good way to understand effort. Do patterns indicate that they easily find what they need on your help centre or customer portal? Review search terms to signal any gaps as well.
5 ways to improve your customer effort score
You can create a frictionless customer service experience — and improve your customer effort score — by giving customers what they need at the very first interaction. Take these steps:
1. Make it easy with self-service options
Reduce or eliminate the need for customers to contact a customer service representative with helpful, informativeself-service channels, including your help centre, customer portal, andchatbots. Review search trends and have agents track requests to identify new patterns. Create knowledge articles based on recurring customer questions. Update your help centre and chatbot messaging. And be sure to revisit search engine optimisation (SEO) terms to ensure customers find your content first.
2. Have the right channels
Customers use an average ofnine channelsto engage with brands, and 76% prefer different channels depending on context. Survey customers to understand their channel preferences. Keep an ear to the ground: Are customers asking for service on another channel that you haven’t considered yet? Stay up-to-date on emerging trends and technology as well, including new social media platforms and messenger apps. The more relevant channels that you have, the less customer effort is required.
3. Speed up resolutions with workflows
Preconfigured workflowsguide agents through processes to reach resolutions faster. For example, they can help agents report an error on a customer’s billing statement. Intelligent workflows also work on self-service channels to walk customers through simple processes on their own, such as how to initiate a return.
4. Connect your data
Seventy-six percentof customers expect consistent interactions across departments, but 53% say it generally feels like sales, service, and marketing don’t share information. Create asingle source of truth for datathat connects teams and technology for a holistic view that goes well beyond service interactions. This way, if a high-value B2B customer reaches out with a problem, the agent has access to details on the relationship and may choose to loop in a sales rep.
5. Assign the right agent
When customersconnect with someone with the best skill setto solve their specific problem, whether that be institutional knowledge or a deep understanding of a process, the likelihood of a resolution increases. Try aworkforce engagement solution, which can be integrated across your service channels to automatically analyse case data and assign the right agent. It can also predict demand based on volume across channels, geographies, and expertise.
6. Stay proactive
Artificial intelligence (AI) helps in a number of ways to cut down on customer effort. AI analyses data and offers recommended next steps for agents, such as follow-up questions, opportunities to up-sell, and ways to continue the engagement (for example, attaching a special offer to a customer’s profile). AI-powered chatbots deliver personalised responses to common questions. And, you can use AI on your website to recommend other relevant knowledge articles and content based on what a customer has already viewed on your help centre.
How hoolah Brings Responsible Affordability To Consumers in Asia
The best business ideas come from solving meaningful problems and hoolah is a prime example. Joining us on the Future of Work, Now podcast, Stuart Thornton, CEO and Co-Founder of hoolah, shared that the fintech startup was created to help retailers solve four critical challenges.
These are getting customers to visit their store, getting them to buy, getting them to put more in their basket, and getting them to come back and buy again.
“What we’ve built is a buy-now-pay-later platform that connects merchants and consumers and offers an interest free repayment solution that allows them to split their payments into three over a sixty-day period. It aligns to consumers’ salary payments and budgeting, and has been helpful at a time when people are concerned about money,” said Stuart.
hoolah also promotes a more sustainable way of shopping through a commitment to “responsible affordability”. Stuart talks to podcast host Simone Heng about this concept and about his journey as an entrepreneur.
Here are highlights from the conversation:
Where did the idea for hoolah come from?
I worked for a wonderful payments company and enjoyed what I was doing, but I kept hearing from merchants and retailers who wanted to solve those four critical challenges. At the same time, the buy-now-pay-later movement was growing in Europe and in Australia.
This was all back in 2016 and it took a few years to think about how we could launch this business in Asia.
Did you wonder why no one was occupying this niche in Asia?
The reality is that while Asia is a beautiful part of the world to live in, it is not an easy place when it comes to payments or technology.
Every single country is different and that ultimately creates a challenge. However, it is a wonderful opportunity if you can solve that challenge. This made it exciting when the light bulb flickered on and we had the idea of bringing this solution to Asia and solving these retail problems.
What’s unique about your approach?
The lending space can be aggressive, with business models that generate money from people experiencing bad debt or going into default. Right from the beginning, we wanted responsible affordability to be part of our values and this sits within our vision statement. We don’t want people to get into debt and it is in fact disadvantageous to our business model for that to happen.
Ours is a more sustainable approach to shopping and that comes with an element of education and making sure that consumers are using hoolah in a responsible way.
How does this align to your own story? Is there a reason why you wanted to create a business with a purpose like this?
My father had his own business, which went through good times and bad times. He was always vigilant with money and very frugal. My mum balanced that with the idea that it is okay to want nice things from time to time. I think that discipline comes into how we position hoolah.
As an entrepreneur, how did you approach building your company culture?
Culture is something we thought about from the beginning as we felt it was important to create the right foundation. It is a decision that has served us quite well. We have a great bunch of people in the business and we have merchants who want to work with us just because of the passion our team has for what we do. This culture is something we’ve really invested in and we even have a name for our team, which is the hoolahgans.
When we think about what makes a good hoolaghan, customer obsession plays a big part. We also want people to come in and treat everyone else as they would expect to be treated and treat the company as though it is their own. We try to give back by creating a great environment for people to just be themselves and live their lives.
Access the podcast on demand at our podcasts page, Spotify, and iTunes. You can also listen over at the Singapore Community Radio Twitch page, Facebook page, and website.
Introducing the ASEAN 50 Pro Sales Tips for 2021 E-book
The past twelve months has brought many unprecedented challenges for sales teams across Southeast Asia. Despite this, those armed with the right digital tools, mindset, and determination have not only survived – but thrived.
For example, at Anantara Vacation Club, the company’s 40 customer service agents were put to the test when they were abruptly forced to work from home. The lockdowns also meant that agents were split across three countries for an extended period.
“Working from home is now normal, but you can only do it if your base and infrastructure is correct,” says Matthijs de Man, Director of Club Services and Innovation at Anantara Vacation Club. “Our people needed to get into a different rhythm, and our existing digital infrastructure meant we could provide the consistency our team needed.”
The result? A dynamic and connected team that was determined to succeed despite the obstacles.
I get excited when I hear these stories. Even more so, when the people behind them, the business leaders and entrepreneurs, are willing to share their insights and knowledge. It’s this spirit of collaboration, and information transparency that underpins so much of our philosophy at LIKE.TG and what we know, without doubt, gives businesses that extra edge.
How ASEAN sales experts seal their deals
With this in mind, I am pleased to announce the launch of our latest e-book, ASEAN 50 Pro Sales Tips for 2021.
In it, you will find unmissable insights and learnings from experts in Southeast Asia who are the best in their fields. They shared tried and tested methods on how to become a master in the art of sales in 2021.
The 50 carefully selected tips also connect the whole sales cycle, from building a great team culture to customer relationships, social selling, and more. Each tip gives you the opportunity to identify weaknesses and resolve problems quickly. My vision is that you keep this handy as you go about your working days, and also share it widely amongst your sales teams to inspire and guide them towards success.
Here’s a preview of what you can look forward to:
Accelerate sales with these three key insights
Building a great sales culture
Jolyn Tay, VP Commercial at Singapore-based omnichannel Buy-Now Pay-Later company hoolah, talks about the value of investing in staff training, tools, and support to improve productivity and overall business growth. This is a great strategy, which has worked so well for hoolah throughout the challenges of the last year, and firmly set them up for future success as well.
The art of negotiation
Another tip from the e-book that really resonated for me was from Khoo Boo Beng, Managing Director of Cloud First Applications, Accenture, with regards to negotiating a sale. He outlines four simple steps: Empathise, Understand, Demonstrate, and Test. Approaching a negotiation from this perspective takes the emphasis away from simply closing a sale at all costs. Considering it as a process driven by human relationships and communication can really transform the outcome.
Being authentic when social selling
Avis Easteal, Regional Head of Consumer, APAC at Luxasia, makes the important point that not all social platforms may be right for your brand image. Taking the time to research and consider the options, and checking alignment with your brand image, will reinforce that you are authentic and trustworthy.
These are just three of the kernels of wisdom you will find in the e-book.
To find out more, download your copy of ASEAN 50 Pro Sales Tips today and make 2021 your best sales year yet!
Realising the Power of Community and Purpose
Suraj Naik has had a diverse career, which took him on a journey from running Bollywood events to doing media sales. He’s now found his place as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Director of the Genius Group. Suraj is motivated by the energy and passion of the global entrepreneur community that the group has established.
Joining us on the Future of Work, Now podcast, Suraj discusses the growth of this community and how it’s evolving in the digital world. He also shines a light on how communities like Genius Group give back to society.
Here are the key takeaways:
The compelling nature of entrepreneurship
Suraj was exposed to the world of entrepreneurship while running an event. He listened to many entrepreneurs and was captivated by the transformation they’d undergone to get to where they wanted to be.
“Entrepreneurs go through different phases of transformation. There is the self-awareness phase of getting to know who you really are, the self-expression phase where you’re able to connect with other people and express who you are, and then you get to self-mastery,” said Suraj.
Genius Group supports entrepreneurs in their transformations with its technology solutions. These include its online education platform and entrepreneurial assessment tool. The group also runs events and spaces like Genius Central Singapore where entrepreneurs can co-work and make new connections.
“We are a 1.7 million strong global community today, which presents opportunities for entrepreneurs to learn from one another,” said Suraj.
Tapping the power of trust
During the pandemic, Genius Group’s physical spaces had to close. It came up with the idea of the Trusted Buyer’s Club to help members sustain business. The premise of the club was for members to buy from one another and many used the opportunity to transform digitally.
Small businesses, which had largely operated offline, brought in consultants to rollout customer relationship management (CRM) software and deploy chatbots. Others engaged consultants to help them with digital marketing and social media.
“Trust has always played a role in our community and so we created this club where everyone made a pact to buy from one another. It helped entrepreneurs to keep their businesses running and they received feedback from the community on how to improve their products,” said Suraj.
Suraj acknowledged that business was still difficult for some entrepreneurs and many had to adopt a better approach to selling.
“When COVID-19 hit, there was panic and people were not buying. It became clearer that you could not sell with the mindset of ‘here’s my product, now buy it’,” said Suraj. “Instead, you need to go to market with the idea of solving someone’s problem and that has been our approach from early on.”
Staying true to culture
Genius Group has navigated the pandemic by staying true to its culture. Everything the group does is aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Part of goal number eight is to promote full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Genius Group’s commitment to this goal influenced its decision to not let anyone go during the pandemic. Instead, everyone rallied together and created a 100-day plan to help the organisation pivot. Focusing on just 100 days made goals easier to achieve and brought the finish line closer.
Many parts of the organisation are now back to operating as normal and Suraj said Genius Central Singapore is buzzing.
“There are often queues outside the cafe at lunchtime, but it’s a good problem to have. With recent acquisitions, we now have an opportunity to bring more people together and transform more lives,” said Suraj.
Listen to the full podcast to learn more about Genius Group and its community of purpose-driven entrepreneurs.
Access the podcast on demand at our podcasts page, Spotify, and iTunes. You can also listen over at the Singapore Community Radio Twitch page, Facebook page, and website.
Sign up here for our LIKE.TG Blog newsletter to get monthly updates on the latest LIKE.TG stories.
Earthforce: Empowering LIKE.TG Employees To Lead Greener Lives
Regina Lim is the group lead for the Singapore chapter of the Earthforce equality group, which is LIKE.TG’s community for sustainability. In this post, Regina shares how Earthforce promotes environmental responsibility.
Every month at LIKE.TG, groups of environmentally conscious staff members come together to help make the world a better, safer, and more sustainable place.
Our teams sometimes take boat trips along waterways to collect rubbish. Once a month, we trek nature trails to learn from guides about the unique local ecosystem. Other times, we welcome special guest speakers. They help our members figure out what we can do and who we can partner with to help protect the Earth.
We are members of the Earthforce equality group. Globally, Earthforce boasts over 9,000 adventurous and passionate nature lovers throughout the LIKE.TG family. Every one of them is aware of the power of the individual in creating change.
Together we can make change
Individuals, particularly when they come together in groups, can make a big difference. Climate change has many serious effects on the Earth. Therefore, it’s more important than ever that we bring as many people as possible on board to make that difference.
LIKE.TG’s Earthforce chapters around the world help to spearhead this movement. Local chapters have their own processes and events.
For Earth Month, we have planned themes in advance and activities to match those themes. For example, we also compile lists of local organisations we’d like to make contact with, or partner with, to promote our cause.
The more people and organisations we can get involved with, the more empowered we become. For instance, we encourage our customers to join us by creating Earthforce groups of their own. LIKE.TG has even released videos such as this one, showing interested customers how they might best do this.
What the Earthforce Singapore chapter does
Here’s what we had lined up for April 2021:
Week one of April was about the importance of biodiversity in Singapore. The group’s plans for the week included:
Contacting several local nature societies, including Nature Society Singapore and the Restore Ubin Mangroves Initiative;
A fascinating nature tour with a group from the Bachelor of Environmental Studies program at the National University of Singapore; and
Attending a Earth Optimism Cambridge event, called In Conversation with Sir David Attenborough
Week two of April was about food waste and what we can do about it. Food waste is a huge problem in Singapore, with around 744 million kilograms of food wasted every year. This food waste makes up 10% of Singapore’s total waste, and only 18% of it is recycled. To raise awareness about food waste, Earthforce Singapore and Bamboo Builders will run an Explore Food Wastage program on 24 April. Participants will have the opportunity to “rescue” ugly vegetables and redistribute these to people in need.
Week three was all about e-waste and what we can do about it. E-waste includes home appliances such as washing machines, and devices such as laptops and mobile phones.
In Singapore, there is a “repair coffee shop”, where you can get broken appliances fixed while having a coffee. That way, you don’t have to throw your appliances away and buy new ones. Another organisation, called Engineering For Good, collects laptops or desktop computers and refurbishes them, then gives them to people who can’t afford computers. Our members contacted both of these businesses to discuss how we might partner in the future.
Week four, coinciding with Earth Day on April 22, is about reflection and what we can do to encourage others to join us in taking small steps toward big change.
Earthforce is a community for sustainability
We at Earthforce recognise that there are urgent and systemic issues that contribute to climate change.
These may seem too daunting to overcome. But by getting employees, customers, and like-minded organisations together, we can fix some of these issues.
Along the way, we’re connecting with amazing people and having great adventures.
Learn more about how to make a positive difference and combat the effects of climate change, take the Sustainability Trail on our free learning platform, Trailhead.
How To Sell Better in 2021
“Sell me this pen.”
Who could forget the last scene in the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”? That’s the scene in which Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) asked a colleague to “sell me this pen.” They discuss the process as a simple matter of supply and demand. But sales experts know effective selling is never about simply listing the useful features of a product.
In the digital age, selling is an art.
To learn more about the art of sales, we turned to top sales experts in ASEAN. We compiled their advice on building a great sales culture, closing a deal, and so much more into an e-book: 50 Pro Sales Tips for 2021.
Here are 10 of the sales tips that experts shared with us:
This post originally appeared on the A.U.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2021 is coming
LIKE.TG Live: Asia launches on 20 May 2021 and we can’t wait for you to join us!
Over six weeks, there will be many opportunities for you to listen, learn, connect, and ask questions. You’ll also get the chance to participate in a range of interactive live demonstrations.
We are thrilled to feature many Trailblazers at LIKE.TG Live: Asia. Trailblazers are individuals or companies that do amazing things with LIKE.TG. They drive innovation, solve problems, transform their companies, and grow their careers. We’re proud to bring some of these inspirational tales and learnings to LIKE.TG Live: Asia. Our goal is to give you the right practical tools and know-how to create your own success story.
What’s on at LIKE.TG Live: Asia
On 20 May, we will launch with an opening keynote, “Success from Anywhere”. The keynote is hosted by presenter Simone Heng and features Sujith Abraham, LIKE.TG’s Senior Vice President and General Manager, ASEAN. Special guest customers Grab and NTUC Fairprice, will share their digital transformation experiences and how LIKE.TG has helped them grow. You can also tune in to product demonstrations, partner sessions, and Trailblazer Network sessions to kickstart your LIKE.TG Live: Asia journey.
In the weeks that follow, we’ll have a series of episodes featuring LIKE.TG customers. These Trailblazers come from a wide range of industries and companies of various sizes. We’ll dive deep into subjects such as app building, customer journey mapping, and building customer relationships.
Here’s what we have in store throughout the next few weeks:
Episode 1 – 20 May
10:00 a.m. – 10:40 a.m. – Opening keynote: Success from Anywhere
10:40 a.m. – 11:20 a.m. – Live Stream Sessions
11:20 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Interactive Experiences
Episode 2 – for Service Trailblazers – 27 May
Episode 3 – for Sales Trailblazers – 3 June
Episode 4 – for Small Fast-Growing Business Trailblazers – 10 June
Episode 5 – for Marketers Digital Experience Trailblazers – 17 June
Episode 6 – for Admin IT Trailblazers – 24 June
Episode 7 – for Financial Services Trailblazers – 1 July
Why join LIKE.TG Live: Asia
LIKE.TG Live: Asia episodes will cover the topics that matter most to your role. You’ll take away exactly what you need to accelerate your business, increase your knowledge, and fast track your journey towards success.
Here’re some of the topics that we will cover:
Reinventing for the future: How fast-growing businesses succeed
Pivoting for success: Transform and accelerate sales growth for the year and beyond
What it takes to create and maintain high-performing teams
Building trust in a digital-first world through exceptional customer experiences
How to register for LIKE.TG Live: Asia and stay updated
Visit the LIKE.TG Live: Asia page for more details on what we’ve got in store. Complete our registration form, and we’ll keep you up to date on our full list of speakers, episode details, and special announcements.
Finally, keep an eye on the blog for LIKE.TG Live: Asia stories. We’ll cover things to look forward to in the weekly episodes, as well as key takeaways and announcements.
Meet Johan Yu: Empowering People and Businesses Through Technology
At LIKE.TG, Nichola Palmer works with customers to bring their stories of innovation and transformation to life. In this blog series featuring Trailblazers, Nichola introduces Johan Yu, a LIKE.TG MVP, business systems architect, blogger, and author, based in Singapore. Johan loves using the power of data for the benefit of all business stakeholders.
In the remote Indonesian village where Johan Yu grew up, electricity was a rare luxury. Therefore, all tasks connected to his father’s farming business were done manually. Along with the farming itself, these included record-keeping of expenses, crop production levels, and sales accounts.
At school, Johan began to learn about computers. Very soon, he recognised the power such technology would bring to his father’s business, as well as his community. Johan wasn’t thinking of anything sophisticated like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, or robotic automation. Such technology was still a long way off. He could simply see that certain jobs were better left to machines, enabling humans to be better at what they do.
“At my high school, we had a computer lab and I became very interested in computers,” says Johan. “Once my teachers knew I was interested in computer science, they guided me on a path to study at university in Jakarta.”
Johan earned a Bachelor of Computer, Management Information Systems, at Jakarta’s BINUS University. Then, he took a Master of Management, Information Systems, at BINUS University and Australia’s Curtin University.
While studying, Johan realised his dream could come true. As a child, he had imagined using the power of computing to help businesspeople like his father. Today, he is a business systems architect and LIKE.TG MVP , who works with businesses to solve problems using technology.
Becoming “skilled, more competent, and faster”
For seven years during and following university, Johan worked for an insurance firm. Then he moved to Sydney, Australia, and took a job with the country’s first LIKE.TG partner. Immediately, the LIKE.TG platform made sense to him. It wasn’t so much about what it did, but more about what it allowed him to do.
“I had come from using basic systems to building applications,” Johan says. “And I realised there were a lot of things that I thought IT professionals shouldn’t have to do any more.
“I saw that we could focus more on how technology can enable the strategic needs of the business, rather than just the infrastructure required. The capabilities of the technology enabled us to think about the business in a different way.”
The capabilities of the LIKE.TG platform made him feel “skilled, more competent, and faster”, Johan says. In the past, he had never experienced a strong community around a platform or brand. So when he had challenges, it was sometimes difficult to find solutions. But once he discovered how active the LIKE.TG community was, he realised he was able to find answers immediately, from Trailblazers all over the world.
“I appreciated the speed to execute,” he says. “In the past, I had to spend a long time setting up the server, the database, and more. But the LIKE.TG platform is so convenient. I could just start working on projects immediately. And reach out to the community for help when needed.”
Success = user experience + empowerment
Johan is currently working in a multinational company, from his home in Singapore, with more than 10,000 people around the globe. How does he ensure they’re all making the most of a platform or application that has been developed for them?
“We try to make sure apps are simple for users to understand and interact with,” he says. “We don’t want to put too much effort into documentation. If it is user-friendly, then it makes sense. If it’s not user-friendly, it’s just wasting money.”
Importantly, Johan says, technology is not about replacing people. Its true power, as he realised when he was a young boy, is in making people even better at what they do.
“In the corporate world, we don’t use AI to replace people. We use it to enable people,” he says.
“Our people can use AI to see how likely it is that a sale will close. The propensity to close is based on historical data and on the experience of similar customers. So, the AI helps salespeople to prioritise their work. We see that it makes them more successful.”
Leading the LIKE.TG community in Singapore
In Singapore, Johan is well-known as a generous leader within the LIKE.TG community. He is considered a knowledgeable expert, who spends a great deal of time helping others to find solutions to powerful business challenges.
This assistance includes a Salesforce-themed blog site, managed and written by Johan, which attracts more than 2,200 people every day from around the world. Most of his visitors are not from Singapore. They come from the USA, UK, and India. His reputation has spread around the globe.
The prolific sharer of knowledge has also written three books. They are LIKE.TG Reporting and Dashboards, LIKE.TG Lightning Reporting and Dashboards, and Getting Started with LIKE.TG Einstein Analytics.
Visit Trailhead to learn more about how to deepen your LIKE.TG knowledge and learn in-demand skills.
For more stories of our Trailblazers, check out these other posts from our Inspired Trailblazers series:
Meet Francisco N. Collantes Jr. : Delivering Energy Through Collaboration
Meet Gratiano Yeung: Transforming Service by Delighting Customers
How to Work With AI Colleagues and Build AI Skills
Growing up in a liberal household in Pakistan, Dr Ayesha Khanna was aware of the inequity in society and felt a responsibility to do something about it. Joining us on the Future of Work, Now podcast, Dr Khanna shared how these principles have influenced her career and led her to complete a PhD focused on smart cities.
Today, Dr Khanna is CEO of ADDO AI, a specialist data science and artificial intelligence (AI) firm. ADDO AI provides advice and implements data platforms for customers in Asia, the Middle East, and the US. She is also Founder of 21C Girls (21st Century Girls), a registered charity that teaches coding and artificial intelligence to girls and women in Singapore.
In her conversation with podcast host Jess O’Reilly, Dr Khanna offers insight into her work and provides advice on how to maximise the benefits of AI.
Here are highlights from the conversation:
Machines are the new team players
Over time, technology has moved from the back office to the front office. Now, technology and business teams work closer together. However, there’s a new team player today and that’s the machine.
“There’s the business person, there’s the technology person, and now there is the machine itself. We have to learn to work with these new influences, whether it’s an AI agent that supports you in your daily decision-making, or a robot in your warehouse,” said Dr Khanna.
Treating AI like a colleague doesn’t mean believing everything it says. On the contrary, Dr Khanna, says it is okay to question what it tells you. The important thing is to listen.
“Think about your normal office relationships. Your colleague will say something and you could be quite open to it or your instinct may tell you that it won’t work for your business. That is precisely how we work with humans and how we must work with machines. We have to be open to AI’s recommendations and experiment, but we also have to be critical and question the recommendations,” said Dr Khanna.
Building skills and confidence in AI
AI projects typically require data scientists and AI engineers, as well as experts in areas like natural language processing (NLP). Dr Khanna said there had previously been a shortage of skills in these areas, but growing interest in AI could help close the talent gap. In addition, solutions like Tableau CRM could lessen the need for large teams of data experts.
“Where existing AI products can be used, then your job is to connect the dots. You don’t need to be a deep AI expert for that. You can have just a small team or have an advisory team who can come in and create a little bit of custom code. I think we’ll see more of this in the future,” said Dr Khanna.
Asked about the skills required for the future of work and AI, Dr Khanna said it was important for everyone to be computationally literate.
“The ability to read and write, do basic math and recognise basic coding is fundamental to understanding how the world around you works. Without that, you lose confidence,” said Dr Khanna. “There are many fabulous people who shrink back in board meetings, for example, as they don’t understand how technology is disrupting their business. It is unfair to them and unfair to their employer and employees as they have a responsibility to learn what’s necessary about the world around them.”
Empowering women in tech
Through her charity 21C Girls, Dr Khanna is now empowering the next generation with the skills and confidence to succeed in the future of work. She was raised to believe that she could do anything, and started the charity because she wanted other girls to believe the same.
The charity now works with the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and Google in Singapore to teach boys and girls how to code. “The kids love it. They learn the basics of coding, but also problem solving through coding and that really is the key. Coding is another language to solve problems just like writing music or painting is a language to express your creativity,” said Dr Khanna.
Dr Khanna also runs the Empower Program with Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore. This program teaches girls the basics of AI and the feedback has shown it to be successful in building confidence about the future.
“It’s very important we put in that work to upskill ourselves and be fearless. AI and technology is not rocket science. You can learn the basics and sometimes the basics are all that you need. So I encourage everyone— especially girls and women— to pick up that book or take that course and learn,” said Dr Khanna.
Listen to the full podcast for more on Dr Khanna’s career journey and her perspectives on the future of AI.
Access the podcast on demand at our podcasts page, Spotify, and iTunes. You can also listen over at the Singapore Community Radio Twitch page, Facebook page, and website.
Tune in at 1:00 p.m. SGT Friday, April 30 to hear from Suraj Naik, CMO and Board Member of the Genius Group.
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How Marketers Can Drive Equality, Connection, and Digital Innovation
As the digital imperative reshapes how we work and connect with our customers, marketers everywhere are experimenting and pushing the boundaries of digital technology. From pivoting to online events to driving hyper-personalisation, they’re spearheading a massive shift in customer engagement.
Wendy Walker, Senior Director Marketing Asia Pacific at LIKE.TG, joined us on the Future of Work, Now podcast to talk about this shift. She also discusses how marketers are championing equality and innovation.
Here are key takeaways from the conversation:
Diversity and inclusion are key to innovation
Wendy is passionate about the constant change and progression that comes with working as a marketer in the technology industry. Even so, she shared that the pandemic was a reminder that change can come from absolutely anywhere and have a dramatic impact on the way we work.
Marketers need to be ready to adapt and innovate, and the role of diversity is crucial.
“Our teams are more agile than ever and we all know that innovation can give us a competitive edge. What many leaders forget is that diversity is a key ingredient in innovation. This includes the diversity of thought and the diversity of perspective that comes from an inclusive culture where everyone feels they have a voice.
“For me, this emphasises the point that diversity and inclusion are not nice-to-have considerations. They are key drivers of innovation and collaboration, and can have a major impact on business success,” said Wendy.
Representation in marketing
Like others within the media industry, marketers can play a pivotal role in promoting and celebrating diversity within our broader society. It’s a role that Wendy takes seriously as a passionate advocate for equality both inside and outside of the workplace.
“I am acutely aware of the powerful impact marketing can have on society and that is why I am very intentional about ensuring the messages we send out are truly representative of the communities we serve at LIKE.TG.
“Everyone should see themselves reflected in popular culture and that includes seeing themselves represented in advertising. It helps people to feel seen and heard and hopefully empowered and inspired as well,” said Wendy.
Authentic representation is becoming the standard and Wendy said that marketers are in a unique position to challenge and influence perceptions of what society should look like.
“What does a doctor look like? What does an athlete look like? Or what does love look like? We as marketers can help to define these things and ensure inclusivity,” said Wendy.
Achieving customer connection
Marketers are adept at understanding and influencing customer behaviour, which puts them in a prime position to help businesses recover and grow post-pandemic.
“It’s become tougher than ever to connect with our customers, but if we understand what they are going through, we can send more relevant messages out to the market and show that we care. I talk a lot about empathy in marketing; it’s what we need to achieve a real connection with our customers,” said Wendy.
Of course, the touch points used to engage with customers are also important. The last year has led marketers to accelerate their move to digital and build new skills for the future. They have also been experimenting with personalisation and automation for more sustainable and scalable engagement.
“There’s been so much learning for everyone over the last twelve months, which is evident in how marketers relate to customers, address their needs for accessibility, and execute in a number of other different ways.
LIKE.TG + Tableau: A Potent Pairing for Data-Driven Success
Robert Wickham is Tableau’s Vice President Strategy Growth, Asia Pacific Japan. He leads a team of specialists throughout the region that helps customers transform their business using the Customer Success Platform.
Right now in business, we’re seeing a dramatic and growing performance divide between organisations that are data-driven and those that are not.
Data-driven companies have a considerable competitive advantage. They’re more likely to acquire and retain customers, uncover hidden opportunities, attract talented staff, and deliver seamless and connected experiences for their customers.
This is supported by research recently conducted in the Asia-Pacific region by Tableau and YouGov. It revealed that 82% of data-driven organisations believe data gives them a critical advantage.
The study confirmed that data allowed businesses to:
Make strategic decisions faster
Communicate more effectively with stakeholders
Be more agile
These are all powerful advantages in a fast-changing environment. But it’s not enough to have data. The data must be presented as actionable insights and the user must be motivated to have their decisions informed by the data. The business advantages of data only become a reality within an organisation that truly embraces a data culture.
LIKE.TG + Tableau: Better Together
In companies with good data culture, every employee has access to the data they require to do their best work. This is possible when all departments are connected around a single, shared view of customer data.
LIKE.TG Customer 360 makes this possible. Customer 360, the world’s #1 CRM, offers best-in-class apps that unite every team — marketing, sales, commerce, service, and IT — around a single, shared view of customer data on an integrated platform. This enables teams to work together to build lasting, trusted relationships and deliver the personalised experiences their customers expect.
The world’s #1 CRM is truly supercharged when paired with Tableau, the world’s leading analytics platform. If data gives businesses a competitive edge, the combination of LIKE.TG and Tableau fuels high performance and drives impact.
Why is this?
Tableau brings analytics into the flow of business. It does this by unifying data from other sources as well as LIKE.TG into a single view. In doing so, it offers intelligent insights for informed business decisions. It allows people across the organisation to interact with and feel confident about the company’s real-time data feed.
Tableau’s user-friendly platform gives each team member insight into exactly what they need to make excellent decisions, every time. Importantly, when combined with LIKE.TG Customer 360, it powers up a single view of the customer by connecting data across various functions, including sales, service and marketing, offering entirely new insights into customer success.
Not only does Tableau help people see and understand data with its customisable, intuitive, and interactive dashboards, the AI function also reveals trends and patterns that were previously invisible.
The confidence that comes from this user-friendly platform is a vital part of its success. The best data analytics in the world will come to nothing if staff can’t, or don’t want to, use the software. In a data culture, this is not a problem.
Good data culture means great customer experience
To remain relevant and close to customers, and to deliver better outcomes for them, a business needs digital capabilities. The better its capabilities, including its data culture, the better the customer experience.
An excellent example is PLDT, which transformed from traditional telco to digital disruptor.
PLDT has dramatically boosted experience and engagement for its customers by transforming its internal operations through the use of LIKE.TG and Tableau.
These platforms are essential for its workforce to manage, engage, and collaborate more effectively.
Static spreadsheets are gone. In their place are rich, real-time data dashboards customised to the specific needs and workflows of individuals within the organisation. Historical reporting is exactly that – history. Teams have moved on to focus on future plans and strategy.
Having real-time data at their fingertips and presented in an easily digestible format means every decision by every staff member is informed by real-time market intelligence. Staff know exactly what is going on within the organisation, around the business, in the market, and in their customers’ individual journeys.
It all adds up to better business, outstanding agility, improved insight, and exceptional customer experience. The returns are many, including growth in individual customer value and customer numbers, highly satisfied customers, greater brand loyalty, more engaged team members, and a high-tech workplace that attracts talent.
When businesses adopt digital technology and use data to inform decisions, they develop a distinct competitive advantage. When businesses combine the power of LIKE.TG, the insight of Tableau, and a healthy data culture, there is no limit to their success.
Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more about how LIKE.TG and Tableau can supercharge growth for your business.
How To Create a Data Culture Starting With Trust
As companies become more digital and have more online interactions with customers, they have an explosion of data at their fingertips. A recent study shows that this data can provide companies with a critical advantage.
The study, by Tableau and YouGov, examined the use of data by organisations in Asia Pacific and Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic. It revealed that 82% of data-driven companies reported critical business advantages during the pandemic. It also found that 62% of data-driven companies are optimistic about the future.
So, how can more companies reap these advantages? We examine this topic in season four of our Future of Work, Now podcast, Tech in Hyperspeed. The season is hosted by Jess O’Reilly, Regional Vice President for LIKE.TG. To kick off the fourth season, she talked to our first guest about how to build a data culture.
Here are highlights of the conversation with Robert Wickham, Vice President Strategy Growth, Tableau Asia Pacific Japan:
Why are data companies more optimistic about the future?
The global pandemic has made us feel as though we’ve gone through a portal and come out on the other side, to a world where the laws of physics no longer apply. It’s a little bit like being dropped into the jungle and needing to find a new path. We need new tools to navigate and data acts as our map and compass.
For example, by looking at what employees and customers are telling you — whether through surveys or through the data they’re creating — you can create services that are more relevant to them right now.
Organisations that have a data culture feel more optimistic about how to navigate these uncertain times.
What does having a data culture mean to you?
Data culture can sound like yet another buzz word, but within a data culture there are several elements that lead people to value and rely on data to make decisions. One of these is data literacy. Can you read and understand your data? Can you ask the right questions and become a data detective?
When we talk to customers about creating a data culture, we encourage them to think about three fundamental pieces of the puzzle. The first is that you’ve got to build trust. The second is that you’ve got to cultivate talent. The third is you’ve got to drive commitment from the top down.
If we explore those pieces in more detail, trust has a couple of different facets. First, you need to trust the people within your organisation to be the custodians of the data. So, rather than locking data in silos, you want to create an environment where all employees have access to data and the opportunity to explore it. Secondly, you need to be able to trust your data and know that it is valid. That requires data literacy.
How can you cultivate talent and data literacy?
You need to bring people into your organisation that already have data literacy skills. That means you need to look at your recruiting practices and your job descriptions, and ensure you’re hiring for those skills.
Secondly, you need to create learning pathways for existing employees so that they can learn and develop their skills. We do this at LIKE.TG through Trailhead and there are some organisations that have set up data academies.
Building data literacy is not something that can be achieved with a “one and done” mindset though. In addition to offering training, companies need to create data communities where people can continue to learn and share.
What does the future of data and analytics look like?
I am excited about a future where everyone is thinking about data and analytics, and making data-driven decisions regardless of their role. I’d also like to see data become as significant and easily available as electricity in the developed world.
Listen to the full podcast for more insights on how to build a data culture and create data-driven customer experiences.
Access the podcast on demand at our podcasts page, Spotify, and iTunes. You can also listen over at the Singapore Community Radio Twitch page, Facebook page, and website.
Tune in at 1:00 p.m. SGT Friday, April 23 to hear from Dr Ayesha Khanna, CEO and Co-Founder of ADDO AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm and incubator.
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Customer Journey Map: What is Customer Journey Mapping & Why is it Important?
On the surface, customer journeys may seem simple – you offer a product and someone buys it. But look more closely and it’s easy to see that the customer journey is becoming increasingly complex.
Customers use messaging apps, email, phone calls, websites, and various other channels to communicate with businesses. All these touchpoints create increasingly complex customer journeys, making it more difficult to always ensure a great customer experience. But customer experience is more important than ever. According to 2020 global research from LIKE.TG,
80% of customers now consider their experience with a company to be as important as its products.
69% of Gen X customers prioritise convenience over brand loyalty
91% of customers agree that a positive customer experience makes them more likely to purchase again
Customer expectations are undoubtedly undergoing a major transformation. How can brands meet these expectations and ensure every customer journey is smooth?
One excellent way to understand and optimise the customer experience is a process called customer journey mapping.
Your customer’s journey – in pictures
A customer journey map is a visual picture of the customer or user journey. It helps you tell the story of your customers’ experiences with your brand across social media, email, livechat, and any other channels they might use.
Mapping the customer journey ensures that you are not missing out on the chance to interact with your customer at any stage.This process also helps business leaders gain insights into common customer pain points. With these insights, businesses can deliver more optimised and personalised customer experiences.
Creating a customer journey map
Customer journey mapping (also called user journey mapping) is the process of creating a customer journey map. Doing this helps businesses see things from the customer’s perspective and where they can improve. First, all the possible customer touchpoints are mapped out. Touchpoints include websites, social channels, or interactions with the marketing and sales teams.
User journeys are then created across these various touchpoints for each buyer persona. For example, a millennial buyer persona may typically become aware of a product on social media, research it on the mobile version of your site, and finally make a purchase on a laptop.
The customer experience at each touchpoint should be included in your customer journey map. This can include what action the customer needs to take and how your brand responds.
Why customer journey mapping matters
Customer journey mapping is important, because it is a strategic approach to better understand customer expectations. It is also crucial for optimising the customer experience.
Customer journey mapping is just as important for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) as it is for larger companies. Customer expectations are changing for all businesses, regardless of size. Customers demand an omni-channel approach to customer service, marketing, and sales.
One of the most important aspects of the customer experience is personalisation. Recent research found that 52% expect their offers to always be personalised. Customer journey mapping allows SMBs to create personalised experiences across all touchpoints – for every individual, across all channels.
Mapping the customer journey has a host of benefits such as:
Allowing you to optimise the customer onboarding process
Checking customer expectations against the experience they actually receive
Understanding the differences in buyer personas as they move from prospect to conversion through the buying funnel
Creating a logical order to your buyer journey
However, the biggest benefit of customer journey mapping is simply understanding your customers more. The better you understand their expectations, the more you can tailor the customer experience to their needs.
How does customer journey mapping enable omnichannel marketing and customer service?
Today’s consumers want a highly personalised experience and this includes your marketing and customer service efforts. This interconnected approach is called omni-channel marketing and omni-channel customer service.
In terms of marketing, customer journey mapping can target one prospect across multiple touchpoints. For example, a customer who browses a product on a website can be retargeted with a social media ad later on.
To offer the best possible customer experience, omni-channel marketing is often backed up by omni-channel customer service. This is where the customer can receive customer support across any channel, such as on social media, messenger apps, or live chat. Again, customer journey mapping can allow your customer service team to better understand the customer experience and improve their ability to resolve issues.
How can I optimise my customer journey map?
Mapping out many different customer journeys across many different buyer personas can be quite time-consuming. Once you have mapped them out, you still need a way to offer a personalised omni-channel customer experience.
If you’re serious about customer journey mapping, you need to invest in software that can help. Customer journey mapping tools are typically part of marketing automation software like Pardot. These allow you to easily create customised journeys and automate marketing actions. This takes your marketing automation efforts to the next level.
Check out a demo of Marketing Cloud Account Engagement’s powerful marketing automation software built on the world’s #1 CRM.
This post originally appeared in the U.K.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
FAQs
What is a Customer Journey Map?
A Customer Journey Map is a visual representation of the end-to-end experience a customer has with a brand. It outlines touchpoints and interactions, helping businesses enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. Explore LIKE.TG solutions for optimising your customer journey today.
How do you create a customer journey map?
Here are the steps:
1) Identify customer touchpoints and interactions across their lifecycle.
2) Gather data, analyse feedback, and collaborate cross-functionally.
3) Leverage LIKE.TG’s tools to streamline the process and design effective journey maps for improved customer experiences.
Highlights From Our LIKE.TG Live: Asia Premiere Episode
Yesterday, we launched our premiere virtual experience – LIKE.TG Live: Asia. Featuring Trailblazers, industry experts, panel discussions, and live demonstrations, it was packed full of inspiration – and celebration!
Here are the highlights of the first episode:
Success from Anywhere is the New Normal
Our morning session kicked off with a keynote from LIKE.TG Senior Vice President and General Manager for ASEAN, Sujith Abraham. Sujith shared how LIKE.TG has successfully partnered with organisations across the region to encourage job creation, enable digital transformation, and drive economic growth.
Highlights include:
Creating 147,000 new direct jobs by 2024
Generating $10.5 billion in new business revenue in Asia by 2024
Offering S$960,000 to 120 eligible small businesses alongside the Singapore Business Federation this year to overcome COVID-19 challenges
Sujith reinforced one of our core LIKE.TG values – innovation – and how this important principle can inspire and enable every organisation in Asia to “do well, and do good.”
LIKE.TG Area Senior Vice President and General Manager, Singapore, Cecily Ng, presented LIKE.TG technology innovations: Future Cloud 3.0, Customer 360, and Hyperforce. Cecily pointed out that the true measure of technology isn’t simply that it can automate and streamline processes. It’s about enabling businesses to be agile when the going gets tough.
Learn about the latest LIKE.TG technology in our keynote session.
The ASEAN businesses leading the way in innovation
At LIKE.TG, we’re always proud to see how our customers embrace change and thrive through innovation. None more so than two success stories from the region: Grab and NTUC FairPrice.
First, Cheryl Goh, Group VP of Marketing and Sustainability at Grab, shared how this regional powerhouse utilised machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to increase efficiency and create great customer experiences through mapping and routing. With the help of LIKE.TG AI, Grab is now able to predict the best delivery route for drivers, and batch orders together based on customer location. This isn’t just efficient. It maximises drivers’ time and brings them higher earnings. The use of this technology is just one of the reasons Grab has now expanded into eight ASEAN countries.
We also learnt how Grab has helped onboard small businesses and boost their online exposure through the $3.5M Homegrown program. Grab launched a social impact initiative – Grab For Good – that focuses on improving the lives of Grab partners, and a Grab For Good Fund. Amongst the many planned initiatives, including scholarships, training and insurance subsidies, $20M has been set aside to vaccinate Grab drivers not covered by national insurance programs. Well done Grab team!
Special guest, Joshua Tan, Head of CRM at NTUC FairPrice, shared FairPrice’s digital transformation process and how they are personalising customer communications through an omni-channel approach. With the help of LIKE.TG Customer 360, NTUC FairPrice sees their “customer as a compass”. This has enabled them to better predict customer behavior, respond faster to customer needs, and be more present in their customer’s journey with the brand.
Along with special community outreach programmes during the past year, It was also inspiring to hear how FairPrice has adopted a “test and learn mindset” to improve customer experience through tech innovations to drive business growth. Thank you Joshua and NTUC FairPrice for sharing such valuable insights.
Watch the full stories from Grab and NTUC FairPrice.
How an Inspired Trailblazer created opportunities for workers
Inspired Trailblazer, Joanna Teo, is the Founder and Managing Director of customer intelligence data agency, Attribute Data. She joined LIKE.TG Senior Director of Marketing Wendy Walker for an enlightening discussion. Joanna talked about her journey with LIKE.TG over the past 12 years and why she formed her own company to help organisations unlock the value of data and analytics.
One of Joanna’s greatest contributions was helping to upskill workers, especially those who were made redundant. She partnered with the Singapore government and LIKE.TG to train workers to learn tech-focused skills. This partnership led to employment for many participants and helped to build their confidence.
Learn more about Joanna’s career journey here.
How the crisis has created opportunities
We were honoured to have Kim Underhill, President of Singapore charity, Daughters of Tomorrow, and Shailey Hingorani, Head of Advocacy, Research, and Communications at AWARE. They talked to Wendy Walker about the increasing challenges many women have faced throughout the COVID-19 crisis, and what their organisations are doing to help.
Kim and Shailey shared candid insights into the factors leading to increased domestic violence cases. They also discussed the impact on women who needed to juggle the responsibilities of child and elderly care, homeschooling, and for some, employment. Despite all of this, however, Kim and Shailey also reflected on many positive initiatives. For example, creating child care communities for women in Singapore who are experiencing financial hardship, and an online collaboration with Twitter to help those in domestic violence situations. They also shared the good news story that donations to women’s causes in Singapore during 2020 were at a record high. Bravo, and heartfelt thanks to Kim and Shaile!
Watch the full discussion with Wendy here.
Wrap-up
That wasn’t all. We saw live demonstrations and interactive sessions that dived deep into LIKE.TG technology. We also heard from Trailblazers who shared their digital skills through Trailhead Network.
If you missed any of our sessions in episode one, you can still catch them on demand by registering here.
Tune in for more
This is just the first in a series of informative and engaging online episodes over the coming six weeks. From now until 1 July, you can tune into weekly episodes on Service, Sales, Small Fast Growing Businesses, Marketing, and IT/Admins.
Heads up: In the Marketing episode we’ll be joined by Seth Godin, Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur and Teacher! He’ll share his vision on The Future of Marketing in a Digital-First World.
You’ll also hear from more of our Trailblazers, who will generously share their learnings and best practices for success.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to learn more!
LIKE.TG Live: Asia Is Almost Here. Join Us in 2 Days!
If you haven’t done so already, do sign up for our premier annual event, LIKE.TG Live: Asia 2021. Kicking off in just two days, we begin a 6-week program with our keynote, “Success From Anywhere”.
“Success From Anywhere” is a phrase you hear a lot at LIKE.TG. It’s embedded in our values and our mission, and is demonstrated daily through the resilience and strength of our Trailblazers.
Two ASEAN businesses who exemplify this are Grab and NTUC FairPrice. Cheryl Goh, VP Marketing and Sustainability at Grab, and Joshua Tan, Head of CRM at NTUC FairPrice – will be joining us in the keynote. If you want to learn more about how their businesses have adapted in this all-digital, work from anywhere world, this opening episode is one you won’t want to miss.
If you already use LIKE.TG – or are still researching how it can benefit your business – LIKE.TG Live: Asia is the perfect place to learn more. You can watch live demonstrations, ask questions, hear customer success stories, and network. No matter the size or scale of your operation, or the industry you work in, LIKE.TG Live: Asia has something for everyone.
So what are you waiting for? Mark your calendars and get ready. We look forward to seeing you there!
Episode 1: Program Overview
10:00-10:40 a.m. “Success From Anywhere” Keynote and Customer Interviews
10:40a.m.-11:00a.m. Panel Discussion “Where to From Here? What Do We Need to Propel Us Into The Future”.
11:00 a.m.-11:10 a.m. Trailblazer Interview
11:10 a.m. – 12:00 a.m. Live Demonstrations
ON DEMAND: Equality Track: Lesson From A Year of Change. What The Pandemic is Teaching Us About Equality
Tableau Live APAC 2021: Find Success Through Data
JY Pook leads the Asia-Pacific (APJ) region for Tableau, and is responsible for the region’s overall efforts to enable customers to supercharge their digital transformations by leveraging data and analytics. More from JY here.
Having made it through a nerve-wracking period of turbulence and disruption, businesses in Asia-Pacific are now eyeing growth. Some are achieving this much earlier than others.
Register for the Tableau Live Asia Pacific event, happening on May 11 2021, and you’ll meet people from some of those businesses. They include Macquarie Bank, Bentley, Mahindra Finance, Tokopedia, MYOB, Agoda, and Mass Rapid Transit Jakarta.
These organisations have recognised the urgent need to transform, prepare for future shocks, meet customer experience expectations, and ensure every decision is informed by the most accurate real-time data.
They realise data is essential to being agile and quick to recognise opportunities before their competitors do. They also understand that innovation is essential if they’re to use the right data in the right ways.
Critical to part of the transformation journey is figuring out how to democratise that data and place the power of this strategic asset in the hands of everyone.
To do that, a business must develop a true data culture. But how is this achieved? How does everybody across the organisation receive relevant data to make faster, smarter decisions and engage meaningfully with customers?
As we’ll discover in detail during the Tableau Live Asia Pacific event, the answer lies in:
Technology and innovation
Behaviours around that technology, aka “data culture”
Data culture is essentially the collective behaviours and beliefs of those who value data. However, data culture on its own is worth little. A business may be filled with people who value data, but who have no way to access it.
Hence, the other essential ingredient in the recipe for data-driven success is technology. Typically involving artificial intelligence (AI), technology should automatically source the right data for the right person. This allows people to uncover relevant insights, operationalise accurate predictions, and make excellent decisions faster.
Product innovation to democratise data for everyone
At Tableau Live Asia Pacific, attendees will also discover entirely new ways to utilise the world’s leading analytics platform, Tableau, and uncover the depth of capabilities of the platform.
At Tableau, we’ve had a relentless focus on how AI-powered analytics can democratise data across an organisation. We believe analytics needs to be accessible and easy to use for the ordinary user to deliver business impact. That’s accessing any data, anywhere for any user.
The result is a real-time, dashboard view of relevant data that is customised for each and every individual within the organisation. With the assistance of AI, which collates and analyses the right data from the right sources, sales people see exactly what they need to see when they’re on a call. Marketing managers get real-time intelligence on current campaigns. Supply chain managers see how a current delay of raw materials in one part of the world will affect deliveries of manufactured goods in another.
Rather than relying on static, historical data presented in spreadsheets, employees get a live feed of real-time, relevant data. They have the technology and they know how it makes them better at their work.
That’s what the democratisation of data truly looks like.
The value and power of a passionate community
Data culture begins with community – a thriving, collaborative group of people who help each other and share knowledge. In the data analytics space, the Tableau Community is unrivalled.
At Tableau Live Asia Pacific, you have the opportunity to join and meet members of our passionate community, and learn from each other at roundtables.
You will develop an appreciation of data as a key strategic asset. You’ll also see how data creates high-trust and high-transparency environments that promote sharing, collaboration, and the success of others.
Most importantly, you’ll begin to adopt a data and innovation mindset. One in which data and analytics become a catalyst for personal and organisational improvement. That’s a powerful step towards better decision making and future business success.
We look forward to welcoming you into our community at Tableau Live Asia Pacific. Get to know members from Bentley, Mahindra Finance, Tokopedia, MYOB, Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health Thailand, Agoda, Mass Rapid Transit Jakarta, and more.
Register to find out how your business can become truly data-driven.
5 Tips for Building a Successful Development Roadmap From AXA Singapore
AXA Singapore is on a mission to become the world’s best digital insurer. That means creating value and differentiation for the company’s customers and its vast network of more than 5,000 distribution partners.
The company has undergone an extensive digital transformation that includes Service Cloud and Marketing Cloud deployments. It has also built a new distributor portal on Experience Cloud.
This distributor portal gives the company’s dedicated partners and independent agents direct access to customer policy data and claim status.
“Previously, partners needed to call or email our distributor care team to check on policy details, claim status and renewal dates for their customers,” explains Abhishek Sharma, Head of CRM, AXA Singapore. “Some of our partners may have a portfolio of around 1,000 customers, so this could be quite time consuming.”
The new portal puts an end to this. It also reduces the admin burden on the distributor care team, and enables them to focus on more high-value tasks.
Read thecustomer storyto learn more about how AXA Singapore has improved customer engagement while boosting process efficiency. Sharma also shares his five tips to create a development roadmap that will put your next digital transformation project on the path to success:
Report: Making Singapore’s Workforce Digitally Ready
By 2025, Singapore will need 1.2 million more digital workers to remain competitive.
This digital skills gap requires urgent action from business leaders and the government alike.
TheSalesforce-YouGovDigital Skills– Singapore reportreveals the current capabilities, expectations, and requirements fordigitalskillingacrossindustries. It includes private, public, and not-for-profitorganisationswith one to more than 100 employees. These findings are based on asurveyconducted withmore than 1,000mid-levelmanagersand senior management professionals in Singapore.
The road ahead for digital skilling in Singapore looks positive with technology innovations and strategic collaborations between businessesand the government, like the Professional Conversion Programme.Making training a continual practice through technologies like Trailhead, will further enable businesses to gain a competitive advantage.
The Singapore Government is also increasing its effort in growing jobs and training opportunities. The Future Economy Council, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister Swee Keat Heng focuses on reskilling and upskilling programmes for Singaporeans. The National Jobs Council, chaired by Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam focuses on identifying and developing job opportunities for Singaporeans.
Check out the infographic below for a summary of key findings from the report. To read the full report, click here.
Meet Joanna Teo: Customer-Focused Data Evangelist
At LIKE.TG, Nichola Palmer works with customers to bring their stories of innovation and transformation to life. In this series featuring Trailblazers, Nichola introduces Joanna Teo, Managing Director of Attribute Data. Much of Joanna’s career has been spent convincing businesses of the powerful influence data has on exceptional customer experience. More from Nichola here.
Around 13 years ago, Joanna Teo was a digital analyst at OgilvyOne Worldwide. Part of her responsibility involved analysing data to figure out whether online ads were working.
Joanna and her colleagues discovered that by looking at the right data, they were able to understand a lot more about the people who interacted with those ads. For example, they could identify patterns of behaviour once people entered a site, and find out what other products they were interested in.
She realised that her team had the power to understand how and why customers behaved the way they did prior to, during, and following an interaction. The data offered hints as to the true nature and drivers of their customer experience.
The problem was that many colleagues and clients didn’t appreciate the value of this knowledge. Following this, Joanna had to spend time and energy convincing them of its potential.
Now, almost 13 years later, and in a dramatically advanced technological environment, she’s having similar discussions, but in a far more receptive environment. As founder and Managing Director of customer intelligence consultancy Attribute Data, Joanna spends much time showing data-savvy clients where to look for the most transformational information.
“There has always been a balance between having clients understand that you need more time and more budget for this work, rather than spending everything on ads, or upgrading websites,” she says.
“More businesses are now understanding the beauty of data and what it can do for customer relationships. They realise that’s important because success is not just about the moment of transaction.”
“At Attribute Data, we focus on customer data. We want to know what customers are doing, thinking, and feeling. A lot of businesses want to figure out how to increase the amount of money customers spend with them. To do this, they first have to realise relationships are not transactional, they’re long-term and they are about experience.”
Data reveals the truth
Joanna Teo’s LinkedIn page has a three-word title: “actionable intelligence evangelist”. It’s a fitting label for a professional who has spent her career finding powerful meaning in data and convincing clients of its value.
Joanna attended Singapore Management University, earning a BSc Information Systems Management.
While studying, she interned with Yahoo! later accepting a network optimisation role after graduation, where she was mentored by world-class managers. She learned about performance influenced costs, and the advantage of having accurate data insights.
During her time at Yahoo!, the organisation relied on data to win market share in certain parts of the business, optimise ad pricing strategies, and ensure customer success with ad campaigns. Sometimes Yahoo! found success, sometimes competitors had wins.
What became clear to Joanna was that the secret to success was to be found in the proper analysis of the right data.
“In hindsight, it made me realise how limiting it is to be focused only within your own business, to not pop your head up and see what’s happening in the market.”
This led to her next move deep into data analytics at OgilvyOne, where she realised that growth was also about knowing what motivated customer behaviour. It was about understanding people. As important as technology had become in every organisation, sector, and market, it held little value if it didn’t serve human needs.
Those needs, Joanna knew, were revealed through data.
People drive success
In her own business, Joanna realised from the very beginning that people, rather than technology, drive success.
She launched Attribute Data, a LIKE.TG partner, six years ago and now has 14 employees. Its success has seen the launch of operations in China this year.
“It’s a consultancy, so of course it’s about people,” Joanna says. “We focus on collecting data about how people feel, behave, and think.”
Joanna is proud of the fact that during the COVID-19 pandemic, she held on to all her staff. This was partly due to the fact that she employed the right types of people. New hires naturally require an analytical mindset, but she does not hire for specific skill sets New employees can learn on the job, as long as they have the right attitude.
“Having the right mindset is important,” she says. “They must be ready to continuously learn, because this is not a stagnant industry. Our people take classes with industry partners such as LIKE.TG to develop highly industry-relevant skills.”
What about her own development? Joanna has completed several university-based short courses. These include a Data Science Specialisation from Johns Hopkins University, a Big Data and Social Analytics program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an AI and Business Strategy program at Nanyang Technological University. Next, she’s planning to complete a Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence.
“I enjoy learning,” Joanna says. “I have set aside an annual budget that I call the ‘enrichment fund’ that all staff can tap into,” Joanna says. “It is very motivating because they choose what they’re going to do.
“We need to make data as palatable as possible for our clients, which means we need to enjoy what we’re doing. If we’re engaged, our clients will be too.”
At LIKE.TG Live: Asia, we are inviting Trailblazer from around Southeast Asia to share their stories of growth and transformation. Join LIKE.TG Live: Asia to learn from our Trailblazers.
For more stories of our Trailblazers, check out these other posts from our Inspired Trailblazers series:
Meet Johan Yu: Empowering People and Businesses Through Technology
Meet Colleen Toledo: Revolutionising Banking, Transforming Experiences
Service Teams Today Have the Opportunity To Exceed Expectations. Learn More at LIKE.TG Live: Asia
Meeting customer expectations is just the beginning for service teams that are aiming for great things. To move from expected to exceptional, smart customer service teams are shifting their focus from problem-solving to customer happiness. Innovative digital platforms help to keep service agents at the top of their game.
Our recent State of the Connected Customer research shows that focusing on service makes good business sense. Ninety-one percent of customers are more likely to make an additional purchase after a great service experience. There has never been a better time to reflect on how your organisation manages service teams, and consider levelling-up your business for customer success.
At our upcoming LIKE.TG Live: Asia – Service Trailblazers episode on 27 May, we will hear from regional airline AirAsia and heavy equipment distributor, United Tractors. Each will share key learnings on delivering better service for customers and exceeding – not just meeting – expectations.
Here is a small taste of their stories:
AirAsia’s Super App takes flight — online
During the pandemic, AirAsia’s founder, Tony Fernandes, regularly reminded staff to “never waste a crisis.” So, it was no surprise that the AirAsia team used that time to rethink its online strategy and fast-track the development of its ASEAN super app. The resulting app is a comprehensive lifestyle platform that offers customers more value and choice. It brings together flights, hotels, travel packages, loyalty programs, shopping, food, deliveries, and payments all in one platform.
From a service perspective, the app is changing the way customers interact with AirAsia, giving them a new channel for their enquiries. AirAsia’s Virtual Allstar chatbot (AVA) works across all digital platforms and helps customers get quick access to general information, book flights, and perform other simple tasks. The chatbot helps to shift customer service caseload from other channels and allows service teams to focus on the more high-value aspects of service.
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United Tractors’ remote service teams go digital
United Tractors is the largest distributor of heavy equipment in Indonesia. Most of its customers come from the mining and construction sectors. In a country of more than 17,500 islands, meeting their customers’ needs can be a logistical challenge.
Many customers use their equipment 24 hours a day and require an always-on level of support from United Tractors. The company needs to work onsite with customers to resolve their issues quickly and also provide peace of mind with strict Service Level Agreements (SLAs) across all locations. They needed the technology in place to enable their technicians to deliver on SLAs consistently.
Since its digital transformation, United Tractors has removed most of its field paperwork and has improved the productivity and reporting for its field service team. Cindy Christian, Head of Digital, shares their process, learnings, and results.
Whether service teams are out in the field or finding new ways to work across channels, customer service is evolving to meet the rising expectations of customers. Providing responsive service from anywhere, as well as a consistent and seamless customer experience across all channels, are part of the new normal.
To hear more from AirAsia, United Tractors, and others about their service transformation journeys, register and tune in on 27 May for Episode 2 of LIKE.TG Live: Asia.
All About Trailhead, LIKE.TG’s Free Online Learning Platform
According to theWorld Economic Forum’s “The Future of Jobs Report 2020,” 50% of all employees will need new skills in the next five years to keep up with the pace of technology.
Many people and companies are exploring alternative avenues for learning new skills rather than pursuing traditional degrees, redefining the education landscape. Online learning is alsoeliminating the educational wealth gap— in some ways — and helping othersbuild skills in the booming customer service sector.
A revolution in online learning
Launched in 2014, Trailhead is part of this movement. The platform breaks down barriers to learning and creates an equal and accessible pathway into the LIKE.TG ecosystem for anyone with an internet connection. From admins to developers, marketers to architects, consultants, analysts, sales and services roles, and everything in between. Whatever your background or interests,there’s a learning path for you.
Want to jump straight in? Get answers to your top questions:
How does Trailhead work?
Why is Trailhead effective?
How does Trailhead help people?
Can anyone use Trailhead?
What about the Trailblazer Community?
With Trailhead, you can:
Learnin-demand skills needed to build your career or land a position in the LIKE.TG ecosystem — no degree required. Not to mention gamification with points and badges make learning fun.
Earncredentials (such as a role-basedLIKE.TG Certificationor a real-world business challenge via asuperbadge) that prove your LIKE.TG expertise, build your resume, and give you a competitive edge in the job market.
Connectwith the globalTrailblazer Community of learnersfor mentorship, collaboration, and job opportunities.
Naturally, Trailhead offers robust training in LIKE.TG skills, among its many other offerings. But the demand for LIKE.TG skills has risen in recent years as more companies adopt our technology to help manage their customer relationships. AnIDC report from 2019predicted that by 2024, the LIKE.TG ecosystem will add 4.2 million new jobs around the world. With a library of more than 1,000+ badges of learning content that spans tech, business, and soft skills, Trailhead helps people further their careers however they choose.
Discover how you can skill up for the future with Trailhead:
How does Trailhead work?
Trailhead puts the learner at the heart of everything we do. Bite-sized, conversational content makes learning complex topics easy to understand and is personalised by roles and level —for example a would-be marketing practitioner mightLearn Marketing Best Practices, while a director of customer service might want to pick up skills toCultivate Equality at Work.
Our online learning even includes hands-on elements, called projects, so you can practice as you go in a free instance of LIKE.TG, which we affectionately dub aTrailhead Playground. Once complete, you take a multiple-choice quiz or challenge to test your new skills. These quizzes and challenges earn you points and badges that display on yourTrailblazer.me profile.
The more badges you earn, the higher you rise inTrailhead Trailblazer ranksuntil you reach Trailhead Ranger rank with 100 badges and 50,000 points!
Why is Trailhead effective?
Trailhead’s playful storytelling and very own cast of characters, known as “LIKE.TGlandians,” bring the instruction to life while representing our diverse Trailblazer Community.
Meet the LIKE.TGlandians who help make Trailhead the most inclusive, approachable, and fun way to learn for everyone
Trailhead Quests, the gamification aspect of Trailhead, adds another element of fun and motivation. These revolving monthly sweepstakes combine the challenge of gaining new skills with the chance of scoring fun prizes such as community badges, swag, gift cards, LIKE.TG Certification vouchers, and more.
Trailhead also personalised learning withcareer-based pathsthat help individuals achieve their specific goals. If you want to work on professional or personal development, there are modules on business skills such asstorytelling,coaching,hiring, andleadership.
The Trailhead experience gets even more personal when you curate your favourite trails, modules, hands-on projects, and superbadges intoTrailmixes. Just like your favourite song playlists, you can share these Trailmixes with other Trailblazers.
LIKE.TG’s AI technology,Einstein Recommendations, is embedded into Trailhead. This helps the platform learn about you, so it gets smarter and offers more tailored recommendations as you progress.
How does Trailhead help people?
Well, let’s take a look at some stats from a2020 study. More than 50% of Trailhead learners reported they had gained skills that resulted in a promotion or a raise at their current company. One in five reported a salary increase of more than 20% because of Trailhead. And one in three Trailblazers have found a new job with the skills they’ve learned on Trailhead.
“More than 50% of Trailhead learners reported they had gained skills that resulted in a promotion or a raise at their current company. And one in three Trailblazers have found a new job with the skills they’ve learned on Trailhead.”
Can anyone use Trailhead?
Anyone with an internet connection who’s ready to take their skills to the next level, regardless of background, age, gender, or belief can simply sign up for a free Trailhead account (no LIKE.TG CRM account needed) atTrailhead.com.
Since Trailhead offers free learning available to everyone, it helps create new pathways into tech for diverse talent. This levels the playing field to shape a more inclusive future.
Trailhead characters guide you on your learning journey!
But while Trailhead is for everyone, not everyone learns the same way. That’s why it includes:
Virtual and in-person expert-led learningwithTrailhead Academy.
Live-streamed and on-demand expert-led videosviaTrailhead Live.
Access to Trailhead’s modules and Trailhead Live sessionswith the free mobile app for iOS and Android,Trailhead GO.
We recognise Trailblazers are in different stages of their careers and hail from diverse professional backgrounds too, so we provide several workforce development programs. For example:
Trailblazer Connecthelps people find opportunities through events, mentorship, and career resources.
Pathfinderpartners with Deloitteto mentor participants and train them with the technical and business skills necessary to pursue a career in the LIKE.TG ecosystem.
LIKE.TG Military Allianceoffers online training classes and certification exams at no cost to active-duty military, veterans, and military spouses.
LIKE.TG Talent Allianceconnects partners to Salesforce-certified candidates and brings new, diverse talent into the ecosystem.
More than just a learning platform
If you’re brand new to LIKE.TG or have never heard of our company, you might not knowwhat a Trailblazer is,and what makes our community special. Trailblazers are the pioneers, innovators, and lifelong learners who will make the world a better place by propelling the future of technology, and who give back to their communities.
Our Trailblazers are innovating with LIKE.TG and using our platform to transform their companies. The best part? Anyone can be a Trailblazer! And many attribute their success to the support of the Trailblazer Community.
Having a supportive network of people is all the more important now that many of us work remotely. TheTrailblazer Communityis where Trailhead learners connect with LIKE.TG customers, partners, product specialists, and employees to learn together, find mentors, and connect to career opportunities. There are currently1,300Trailblazer Community Groupsacross90countries.
Discover how Trailblazers are achieving morein their professional lives with all the passion, grit, and#Trailheartthat are Trailblazer hallmarks.
Ready to start your learning journey? You can kick things off bysigning up(for free!) and completing the Beginner’s QuestGet Started with TrailheadTrailmix.
See you on the trails!
This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
10 Inspiring Quotes To Help You Navigate The Future of Work
Our Future of Work, Now podcast wraps up today. To mark the occasion, we took a look back at some of the most impactful moments, starting with our very first episode where we spoke to Paralympic Medalist Theresa Goh.
Theresa and our other podcast guests provided unique views on what the future holds for businesses and communities. You can tune in to watch as host Jess O’Reilly recaps some of the highlights from our four-part series.
Meanwhile, here are ten inspiring quotes to help you navigate the future of work:
Season one: Business as a Platform for Change
Season two: All-Digital, Work From Anywhere World
Season three: Digital Imperative
Season four: Tech in Hyperspeed
Access all episodes of Future of Work, Now on demand at our podcasts page, Spotify, and iTunes. You can also listen over at the Singapore Community Radio Twitch page, Facebook page, and website.
Sign up here for our LIKE.TG Blog newsletter to get monthly updates on the latest LIKE.TG stories.
LIKE.TG Live: Asia Starts Next Week. Don’t Miss It!
LIKE.TG Live: Asia is almost here – just over one week to go! The event kicks off on Thursday 20 May with an exciting premiere episode hosted by Simone Heng. Following this, there will be live workshops, Trailblazer connections, special guests, and programmes every Thursday, over six action-packed weeks.
At LIKE.TG Live: Asia, you can learn more about LIKE.TG Customer 360 and how businesses across Southeast Asia have used the platform to digitally transform.
We’ll also be gathering a host of inspiring Trailblazers. If you want to hear from people who have done amazing things with LIKE.TG, then LIKE.TG Live: Asia is for you.
So, where should you start? We’ve selected a few of the highlights from each weekly episode so you can plan your calendar:
Episode 1 – Premiere Episode for all Trailblazers
Keynote – Success from Anywhere
Date: 20 May
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 10:40 a.m. Singapore time
Listen to LIKE.TG senior executives Sujith Abraham and Cecily Ng discuss how businesses across Southeast Asia have adapted to the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world. You’ll also hear from Cheryl Goh, Group VP of Marketing and Sustainability at regional powerhouse Grab, and Joshua Tan, Head of CRM at NTUC FairPrice, Singapore’s largest retail grocery chain. If you want to know more about how they’ve adapted in the “new normal”, then this session is for you.
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Episode 2 – for Service Trailblazers
Date: 27 May
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Singapore time
In this episode for Service Trailblazers, you’ll hear from Adam Geneave, Chief Customer Happiness Officer at AirAsia and Cindy Christian, Head of Digital at United Tractors. Join us to hear how their teams are using technology to deliver seamless support, from anywhere.
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Episode 3 – for Sales Trailblazers
Date: 3 June
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 10.55 a.m Singapore time
This episode features Peter Maquera, SVP Enterprise Group at Globe Telecom, Datuk Megat Jalaluddin, Chief Retail Officer from Tenaga Nasional Berhad and LIKE.TG’s Chief Growth Evangelist, Tiffani Bova. They will discuss how LIKE.TG has empowered them to transform their sales teams, automate B2B processes, enhance workflows, and adapt during a period of rapid change. Don’t miss it!
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Episode 4 – for Small and Fast Growing Business Trailblazers
Date: 10 June
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 10:40 a.m. Singapore time
V-Key, hoolah, and Carousell are fast growing businesses that have successfully navigated this challenging period. In this episode, Stuart Thornton, Co-founder and CEO at hoolah and Raymond Lee, COO at V-Key will share insights on how they’re reinventing, building resilience, and fuelling growth for the coming year. SVP of Growth at Carousell, Penny Cox, talks about the impact of doing well while doing good for the community. This episode is hosted by Dr. Ayesha Khanna, Co-Founder and CEO of ADDO AI, an artificial intelligence (AI) solutions firm and incubator, who shares learnings from her own journey also.
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Episode 5 – for Marketers and Digital Experience Trailblazers
Date: 17 June
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 10:40 a.m. Singapore time
In this session, you’ll hear from Amrita Balaji, Senior Manager – Marketing Technology, at Sephora. She’ll share with Jess O’Reilly, LIKE.TG ASEAN AVP, how companies and brands can connect and engage with their customers in the “always-on” digital world of retail.
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Episode 6 – for Admin and IT Trailblazers
Date: 24 June
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 10:55 a.m. Singapore time
Learn more about how building apps is transforming ASEAN businesses, with experts Loh Lik Peng, CEO at Unlisted Collection, customer trailblazer Rameshwar Vyas, CEO at Ranosys Technologies and moderator Sasha Wight, MD and Employee Experience Lead at wrkflow. They look at how businesses can empower employees with new technologies to create unforgettable experiences for their customers. We have a session on how to enhance protection for your data security with LIKE.TG CTO, Dr .Taher Elgamal. And we chat with Kelly Hoong, Head of Customer Resolutions, about how PETRONAS are leveraging apps to deliver a connected experience for their dealers, that is, their gas stations.
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Episode 7 – for Financial Services Trailblazers
Date: 1 July
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 10: 55 a.m. Singapore time
In our final episode, former Channel News Asia presenter Yvonne Chan will talk with Ned Lowe, CTO at Singlife; and with Joyce Gonzalez, EVP Head – Retail Banking Center at Union Bank of the Philippines. They explore engaging with customers to build moments that delight, what are key enablers in technology for their teams, and what sets them apart as digital-first, innovative businesses.
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At LIKE.TG Live: Asia, there’s something for every role! Have a look through our full agenda to learn more.
Register today and get ready to listen, learn, connect, and be inspired. See you on 20 May – and beyond!
Up Close and Personal: How To Build Loyalty Through Community
Cecily Ng leads the Singapore business at LIKE.TG as Area Vice President and General Manager of Singapore. She is focused on enabling Singapore businesses to innovate, be more agile, and connect with their customers in a whole new way.
We all know that it’s more important than ever to be close to our customers. But what exactly does this mean? What does it look like when it’s done well?
Most organisations understand the need to get closer to their customers. It’s about providing exceptional experience and an individualised level of service.
The challenge in achieving that goal, often begins at the back end, with disparate legacy systems offering an overload of data that fail to offer the insights required to make this a reality.
Data is there, but may be hidden. It’s not always available to those on the front lines who need it, and is not being presented in a way that serves the varying needs of departments and individuals— those in sales, marketing, service, etc.— around the organisation.
Where does a business start, then? We all know it begins with knowing your customer and developing a clear understanding of your business strategy and end goal, but in today’s business environment it’s really all about the purpose and motivation of change.
Clarity that comes from developing a deep understanding of your customers’ wants and needs helps your organisation to understand why it must change. It encourages active listening and a motivation to pivot toward a customer focus. How can you make your customers’ lives as easy as possible? How do you thrill them with every interaction? Where do you want the business to be in three, four, or five years? How will customer experience have transformed when you get there?
In my experience, this is where powerful transformation begins. It’s a change of mindset that follows the recognition of the fact that we can make life better for our customers.
We went through a similar questioning of our own processes at LIKE.TG when the pandemic disabled our events. How can we better serve our customers when we’re such an experience-based brand? How do we bring that magic, digitally? We found a way. Our LIKE.TG Live: Asia online offering continues to evolve. It has now become a hugely important channel for us and our customers.
How does data help?
You already appreciate the value of data. You know it can show the way, reveal previously invisible trends, help predict future customer decisions, actions, behaviour, and so much more. The challenge in getting closer to each individual customer is that new data sets that address specific questions are required.
If we stare into an ocean of data and expect it to reveal something, we’ll never succeed. But if we approach data with a business problem that must be solved, if we have a specific question that requires an answer, we can utilise this data to reveal the information we need.
At the same time, when it comes to personalisation of services, we must ensure we take a values-based, privacy-centric approach.
Consider my own membership with Marriott Bonvoy. For purely business purposes, they never needed to know whether I was male or female. I was simply a regular guest who had particular preferences in terms of room type, bottled water, check-in times, favourite snacks , etc. For the business application, gender was irrelevant.
However, when it was time to get closer to the customer and more deeply personalise correspondence, gender absolutely did matter. If I was to receive a promotional email addressed to ‘Mr Ng’, for example, it would make me question their familiarity with me as an individual. After all, I have appeared at their front desk perhaps 50 times a year!
Fortunately for their members, Marriott Bonvoy used data to get the small details right. That’s important – for customers, little things make a big difference. I feel seen and understood by Marriott Bonvoy and their knowing who I am is a big part of the loyalty basis of our relationship.
There’s a lot of work to do to get to the point where you have that level of familiarity and where you can make the customer’s life as easy as possible. But the payoff is enormous. Brands doing this well are surprising and delighting their customers with every interaction. As they do this, they build loyalty and increase the potential value of every interaction.
How to get to know your customers
To get closer to its customers, a business must ask:
Do our customers feel valued? How can we make them feel more valued?
Where are our customers’ biggest pain points?
How do customers feel about the products? Are the offerings too complicated, for example.
What is useful knowledge for our customers and what might be considered spam?
What matters to the customer, and what might be considered irrelevant or over-servicing?
The same analysis then must be made on the business itself.
What information do our frontline staff require to personalise customer interactions?
Where are the information blocks in all directions within an organisation? For example, it’s not just about frontline staff having the information they require. It’s also about whether they have a channel to feed information back into the business.
What data do the marketing, sales, and service teams require? What information must these teams share?
What tools do staff need to create a magical experience for customers every time?
You begin with a customer-related business problem and look to the data to find a solution. Then you ensure the relevant staff have access to that data in a live and real-time environment.
Suddenly, customers feel the business knows them a little better. More importantly,the systems in the background that drive this insight are no longer disparate. They are integrated and scalable, meaning this personalisation of service is easily scalable, too.
As a result, the business experiences an entirely new level of productivity and agility, all to the benefit of the customer.
How it feels when you’re close to your customer
AXA Singapore had a vision to become the best digital insurer by creating value and differentiation for its customers. This is a lot easier said than done.
In developing a business case, the organisation realised its operations had to be transformed.
“To holistically change how we sell, service, and engage our customers, we needed to move from a patchwork of systems to a platform approach,” said AXA Singapore’s Tomasz Kurczyk, Chief Transformation and Digital Officer.
The digital ecosystem that resulted from that transformation means AXA has a single view of each customer throughout sales, service, and marketing. Every interaction, from phone calls to email marketing messages, is deeply personalised.
Does this require more effort? Actually, it requires less. Much of the process is now automated. Errors and turnaround times have been reduced by up to 50 per cent.
Customers are noticing, too. Around 90 per cent of customers are now somewhat or very satisfied after an interaction.
Another success story is Grab, the hyperlocal services super-app. Through deep personalisation it offers customer choice, fast delivery times, value, and safety – everything its customers truly value.
Grab uses data not just to personalise its marketing, but also to drive real-time, strategic decisions within its business like improving user experience and informing app development. This, in turn, allows the business to drive improvements that continually build trust and loyalty, and that sustain communities.
Perhaps that’s where the real magic of getting close to customers is to be found, in building more than a business. When an organisation is truly close to its customers, it creates a community, a family of sorts. That’s a powerful business differentiator.
Read our customer stories and learn how businesses just like yours have succeeded in delighting their customers by using data.
