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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.
Learn How To Build and Secure Custom Apps at LIKE.TG Live: Asia
This week, we are exploring app development at LIKE.TG Live: Asia.
Apps help companies to streamline processes, capture data from anywhere, and provide engaging customer experiences. Thanks to low-code and no-code tools, almost anyone can create an app to support your organisation’s unique business needs — all in a few clicks.
Register for this week’s Admin and IT Trailblazers episode, and learn how to get your app ideas up and running fast with the LIKE.TG Platform. Get ready to be inspired by our IT and Admin Trailblazers:
PETRONAS empowers its dealer network with e-Service portal
Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS) is a global energy and solutions company. It is also the custodian of Malaysia’s national oil and gas resources. PETRONAS uses a partner and dealer network to operate over 1,000 retail service stations around Malaysia.
To make life easier for its dealers and partners, the Customer Resolutions team at PETRONAS developed an e-Service portal, which was rolled out in April 2020.
The portal is a one-stop shop for all communications, financials, stock, and maintenance tracking between dealers and PETRONAS. Dealers can choose to set up automated reordering of fuel based on predicted sales trends. Maintenance requests are also more visible, which leads to greater efficiency.
Tune in to this episode to hear more about what PETRONAS is doing with the dealer portal and how it contributed to scaling their B2B2C operations.
Enhance employee engagement with LIKE.TG
A great experience is everything when it comes to engaging your employees. In this episode, you’ll hear how two very different companies are unleashing the potential of their employees with LIKE.TG.
Ranosys Technologies replaced their legacy customer relationship management (CRM) software with Sales Cloud. They have also built a range of apps on the Customer 360 platform. With a focus on transparency, clarity, and real-time information, the team had a ‘light-bulb moment’ that LIKE.TG could be a great tool to empower their own employees as well.
The team went on to develop Ranosys Pulse, an internal portal that helped to become the real-time life blood of the organisation. Suddenly, there were no more bi-weekly review meetings, or entering information into disparate spreadsheets. Through transparency, collaboration, and real-time access, employees soon felt valued to have accurate information about their organisation at their fingertips.
In the hospitality industry, the human touch is particularly important. That’s why Loh Lik Peng, CEO of Unlisted Collection:, empowers staff at the group’s restaurants and hotels by giving them autonomy in their respective roles. It’s how the group creates a culture that delivers a great guest experience.
Join us for this episode to hear how Ranosys and Unlisted Collection: have empowered their high achieving teams.
How LIKE.TG delivers customer trust
Thousands of customers around the world trust LIKE.TG with their confidential data. If you have ever wondered how LIKE.TG secures its platform, then this session is for you. LIKE.TG CTO of Security, Dr Taher Elgamal, will share why trust is the foundation for customer success with LIKE.TG. He will discuss how security needs change over time with acquisitions and evolving threats. Dr Elgamal will also share how to enhance trust, compliance, and governance within your LIKE.TG environment.
Whether you want to build a new portal to empower your employees and partners, or learn more about keeping your CRM data safe, this episode will leave you with plenty of ideas.
Pivoting for Sales Growth at LIKE.TG Live: Asia
For sales teams, having accurate customer data, sales history, stock information, and product information at hand can make all the difference in closing a sale. As many businesses are discovering, data also goes a long way in boosting the customer experience and driving loyalty over the long term.
In our upcoming Sales Trailblazers episode on 3 June, we’ll hear the experiences of two companies that are shaking up their sales approach in Southeast Asia by being smarter with their data.
Here is a small sample of what Globe Telecom and Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) will share:
Globe Telecom dials into stronger B2B sales
As one of the largest mobile network companies in the Philippines, Globe Telecom was already well on its way to digital transformation when the pandemic hit. The company used its early lead in digital as an opportunity to further enable sales from anywhere and remove labour-intensive processes from across its sales teams.
By tapping into the analytics and data that Sales Cloud provides, Globe developed a workflow called Guided Selling. Based on customer answers to a series of five to ten questions, the salesperson is guided to the top products or services that are most relevant for that customer. The process has significantly improved the efficiency of customer interactions. Globe’s service team has a similar service with Guided Best Action.
In 2020, Globe acquired a majority stake in LIKE.TG partner, Third Pillar, after the company proved its worth during a LIKE.TG implementation for Globe.
Now, Globe is expanding its own cloud business offerings for B2B customers and showing them the value that digital transformation can bring. Living the experience is a powerful sales tool and the pivot has positioned Globe well as a leader in digital transformation with its customers.
According to Tiffani Bova, the Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at LIKE.TG, 75% of B2B decision-makers now prefer remote human interactions or digital self-service. That means that every digital touchpoint has to be a highly engaging experience. To drive stronger sales, companies should focus on building a great digital experience.This is only possible when sales, marketing, and service all operate in partnership.
TNB Malaysia Powers Up Their Sales Teams
Tenaga Nasional Berhad, also known as TNB Malaysia, is the largest power company in Southeast Asia. Headquartered in Malaysia, the company also has business operations in the United Kingdom, Turkey, India, and Indonesia.
TNB Malaysia pivoted from a traditional face-to-face service at 135 branches to delivering sales from anywhere with Sales Cloud through social media and other digital channels. In addition, the shift to digital helped to grow new revenue streams across the business.
The company had started to develop new renewable energy products and services supporting electric vehicles, energy efficiency, and a rooftop solar program. The team used Sales Cloud to simplify the information they had on rooftop solar customers, analyse for opportunities, and refine their sales approach to deliver more repeat business.
Sharing valuable insights into TNB Malaysia’s digital transformation journey, we are delighted to be joined by the company’s Chief Retail Officer, Datuk IR. Megat Jalaluddin Megat Hassan
To realise strong sales in the digital age, businesses need to make sure their customer data is consolidated, clear, and accessible by their sales teams, no matter where they are. Sales Cloud helps businesses make sense of the data, and its powerful analytics can deliver tangible value and uncover valuable sales opportunities and trends.
Hear more from Globe Telecom, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, and others about their sales transformation journey. Register and tune in on 3 June for Episode 3 of LIKE.TG Live: Asia.
Driving Digital Innovation in Financial Services at LIKE.TG: Asia
In order to manage risks and provide ongoing stability, financial institutions usually take more time than other companies to adapt to change. However, there are some bold financial institutions that are driving innovation and accelerating digital transformation.
Two such companies are Singapore-based insurer Singlife and Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank). You can hear their inspiring stories of digital innovation at the upcoming episode of LIKE.TG Live: Asia for Financial Services Trailblazers.
Race to acquire customers around the region
The financial services landscape is more competitive than ever. Traditional financial institutions face rising competition from FinTechs and InsurTechs, who are shifting further into their territory. A race is forming in Southeast Asia to digitise financial services and efficiently gain new customers.
While FinTechs may not have been a direct threat in the past, they often provide services to underbanked or unbanked individuals and small businesses. There is a significant number of these types of customers throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The International Monetary Fund found that half of adults from low and middle-income Asia-Pacific economies do not have a bank account. Less than 10% have borrowed from financial institutions. If FinTechs were to convert these individuals to become higher value customers, then traditional banks could face a real challenge.
There are also the “SuperApps” to keep an eye on. At the end of last year, Grab in Singapore received its full digital banking licence and has a priority to expand into the financial space. In Indonesia, there is GoTo, which was formed from the merger of GoJek and Tokopedia. The company offers digital payments and financial services, such as insurance and loan management, all through the GoJek SuperApp. Customers can even open a traditional bank account with a partner bank directly through the app.
Just as the pressure is on to acquire new customers, there is equal pressure to keep them. Creating an optimal customer experience and delivering great customer service are high on the priority list for digital transformation. Companies are exploring solutions like LIKE.TG Financial Services Cloud to build deeper relationships with customers.
UnionBank puts customers at the centre of its digital transformation
UnionBank may not be the largest bank in the Philippines, but they are a digital pioneer. Rather than competing on size alone, they began their digital transformation in 2015 to offer stronger services for their customers. Every aspect of their digital transformation was designed around the customer perspective.
UnionBank empowered their team of Relationship Managers with tools based on the LIKE.TG platform to help them access the information they need from anywhere. The team can now easily help customers open bank accounts from home.
Thanks to this digital innovation, UnionBank can deliver banking services from anywhere, without being limited by the number of branches or usual banking hours. The bank delivers exceptional customer service and a true omnichannel experience to more than 6 million customers around the Philippines.
Singlife’s digital-first strategy pays off
When life insurer Singlife was launched in Singapore, the company began with a mission to serve customers through digital platforms. Customers could sign up for products on their mobile devices without ever meeting an agent.
That innovative approach to focus on digital has paid off for the company. Singlife has now become a significant player in insurance in Singapore. They recently launched in the Philippines and are exploring further expansion in Southeast Asia.
Singlife strives to create personal experiences for customers and to understand customers better through scalable and efficient technology. They introduced a range of self-service options for customers and even launched a debit card that is linked to a life insurance policy. Spending over a certain amount in set periods qualifies the card holder to earn bonus returns on their policy and have these credited to their Singlife account.
Singlife recently merged with Aviva Singapore, a major provider of life and health insurance, retirement, and investment solutions. Adopting a Singlife approach across Aviva’s scale and infrastructure, and digitising more of its products and services, will bring significant opportunities for the combined company.
Singlife and UnionBank have grown their businesses during challenging times, thanks to being digitally prepared for the future. Other financial institutions can stay ahead of changing customer expectations by embracing digital transformation to achieve similar success.
To learn more about the innovative digital strategies of UnionBank and Singlife, register and tune in on 1 July for Episode 7 of LIKE.TG Live: Asia.
Successful Digital Transformations Lead With Human-Centred Design
This week, we are exploring app development at LIKE.TG Live: Asia.
Apps help companies to streamline processes, capture data from anywhere, and provide engaging customer experiences. Thanks to low-code and no-code tools, almost anyone can create an app to support your organisation’s unique business needs — all in a few clicks.
Register for this week’s Admin and IT Trailblazers episode, and learn how to get your app ideas up and running fast with the LIKE.TG Platform. Get ready to be inspired by our IT and Admin Trailblazers:
PETRONAS empowers its dealer network with e-Service portal
Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS) is a global energy and solutions company. It is also the custodian of Malaysia’s national oil and gas resources. PETRONAS uses a partner and dealer network to operate over 1,000 retail service stations around Malaysia.
To make life easier for its dealers and partners, the Customer Resolutions team at PETRONAS developed an e-Service portal, which was rolled out in April 2020.
The portal is a one-stop shop for all communications, financials, stock, and maintenance tracking between dealers and PETRONAS. Dealers can choose to set up automated reordering of fuel based on predicted sales trends. Maintenance requests are also more visible, which leads to greater efficiency.
Tune in to this episode to hear more about what PETRONAS is doing with the dealer portal and how it contributed to scaling their B2B2C operations.
Enhance employee engagement with LIKE.TG
A great experience is everything when it comes to engaging your employees. In this episode, you’ll hear how two very different companies are unleashing the potential of their employees with LIKE.TG.
Ranosys Technologies replaced their legacy customer relationship management (CRM) software with Sales Cloud. They have also built a range of apps on the Customer 360 platform. With a focus on transparency, clarity, and real-time information, the team had a ‘light-bulb moment’ that LIKE.TG could be a great tool to empower their own employees as well.
The team went on to develop Ranosys Pulse, an internal portal that helped to become the real-time life blood of the organisation. Suddenly, there were no more bi-weekly review meetings, or entering information into disparate spreadsheets. Through transparency, collaboration, and real-time access, employees soon felt valued to have accurate information about their organisation at their fingertips.
In the hospitality industry, the human touch is particularly important. That’s why Loh Lik Peng, CEO of Unlisted Collection:, empowers staff at the group’s restaurants and hotels by giving them autonomy in their respective roles. It’s how the group creates a culture that delivers a great guest experience.
Join us for this episode to hear how Ranosys and Unlisted Collection: have empowered their high achieving teams.
How LIKE.TG delivers customer trust
Thousands of customers around the world trust LIKE.TG with their confidential data. If you have ever wondered how LIKE.TG secures its platform, then this session is for you. LIKE.TG CTO of Security, Dr Taher Elgamal, will share why trust is the foundation for customer success with LIKE.TG. He will discuss how security needs change over time with acquisitions and evolving threats. Dr Elgamal will also share how to enhance trust, compliance, and governance within your LIKE.TG environment.
Whether you want to build a new portal to empower your employees and partners, or learn more about keeping your CRM data safe, this episode will leave you with plenty of ideas.
Seth Godin Looks to the Future of Marketing at LIKE.TG Live: Asia
Seth Godin, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and teacher, is coming to LIKE.TG Live: Asia this week for our Marketing Trailblazers episode. Sharing his vision on the future of marketing, Seth will outline strategies, tools, and skills that marketing teams of the future will need to have. This episode is a must-see for marketers.
Seth regularly speaks at TED Talks and advises brands to be more human in the way they interact with customers. He is also an avid blogger and podcaster, with a significant following online who tune in to hear his insights on marketing.
Many companies have made giant steps forward with their digital transformation projects. This episode is a timely reminder for marketing Trailblazers to always keep an eye out for what comes next.
What today’s customers expect from companies
We know that the new normal for marketing is customer engagement that starts with digital. Our State of the Connected Customer research shows that 60% of all customer interactions now happen online. Companies are becoming more sophisticated in how they market to customers, with the use of artificial intelligence up by 186% in 2020.
Customers are changing the way they think about companies and now expect them to play a greater role in society than ever before. Around 60% of customers say that last year they stopped buying products or services from a company whose values didn’t agree with theirs. They also actively switched to a company with values that were more closely aligned.
What you say as a brand and when and how you say it are critical for marketing success in this digital age. At LIKE.TG Live: Asia, we’ll talk about how to stay ahead of changing customer expectations.
How Sephora personalises beauty through marketing technology
Sephora, the global leader in beauty and marketing innovation, will also be joining us at LIKE.TG Live: Asia.
We will hear from Amrita Balaji, Senior Manager of Marketing Technology at Sephora in Southeast Asia. Her team helps the business grow by building scalable and automated marketing solutions using LIKE.TG Marketing Cloud. Their mission is to keep the customer experience at the forefront of everything they build.
Prior to 2020, Sephora had many customers that had only visited their retail stores to buy their beauty products. The brand is well known for being bold, vibrant, and colourful, and provides a highly engaging and personalised experience in-store. The marketing technology team wanted to help these customers make a smoother transition to ecommerce.
Join this episode to hear how Sephora used Journey Builder to develop personalised customer journeys as part of their ecommerce onboarding experience. These online journeys guide customers in the same way that an in-store Beauty Advisor would do, creating a familiar experience for customers.
Personalised marketing to the right people at the right time in the right way is the future of modern marketing. We hope stories from Trailblazers like Sephora will inspire you to continue finding ways to become closer to your customers.
To hear from Seth Godin, Sephora, and other leaders in marketing, register and tune in on 17 June for Episode 5 of LIKE.TG Live: Asia.
How Outforce Supports and Celebrates the LGBTQ+ Community
At LIKE.TG, we believe that creating a culture of equality isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s also the smart thing. It empowers us to innovate, build deeper connections with our customers, and ultimately become a better company. For those who might question the business benefits, there’s strong evidence that equality in the workplace increases profits.
One of our priorities at LIKE.TG is to create a workplace that represents the diverse communities we live in. A workplace where everyone feels seen and supported to reach their full potential. This includes employees of all sexual orientations and gender identities, which is why Outforce was formed.
Outforce is one of several equality groups at LIKE.TG that empower underrepresented groups and encourage them to bring their authentic selves to work. Outforce focuses on supporting the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ+) community. In celebration of Global Pride Month, we’re spotlighting some of the ways Outforce is promoting equality in Southeast Asia.
Creating an inclusive environment
As a group, Outforce is bold. However, we know it can be difficult for people from underrepresented groups to believe in themselves. To help, we want to create a workplace where LGBTQ+ people are celebrated for being their true selves and supported to unlock their potential.
Creating visibility is key to our vision. We want to create visibility of the amazing diversity within the LGBTQ+ community. We also want to bring visibility to the continued challenges faced by LGBTQ+ people and educate others on how to become better allies.
Outforce has recently launched an LGBTQ+ Workplace Equality Handbook, which aims to do just that. The handbook contains tips for interacting with LGBTQ+ individuals and helping to nurture inclusivity.
For instance, using someone’s correct pronouns is essential. In the handbook, we offer advice on how to navigate pronouns when meeting new people. The most important thing is to ask, rather than assume. We also suggest everyone offer their own pronouns, making an effort to normalise the sharing of these.
In the handbook and our Quarterly Allyship Leadership Workshops, we provide tips on speaking out about workplace bullying. Bullying can manifest itself in many ways, including less obvious ones like isolating an employee on purpose or keeping them out of the loop. The first step to stop workplace bullying is acknowledging that a problem exists, and this is one area where having an ally can help.
Giving back to local communities
Outforce wants to empower LGBTQ+ individuals both inside and outside of LIKE.TG, which is why we volunteer our time to organisations like Pink Fest. Pink Fest is a festival that has been celebrating Global Pride Month in Singapore since 2018.
This year, we partnered at Pink Fest with PayPal, ResMed, and Twitter to introduce the Inclusive Careers Lab. The program included virtual panel discussions, skill development workshops, and mentoring sessions. These were designed to help underrepresented groups within the region whose careers were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
LIKE.TG held 1:1 Career Coaching Sessions during the event, providing participants with tips on how to navigate career development journeys. Soon, we will launch a broader mentoring program to support the professional and personal development of the LGBTQ+ community across Southeast Asia.
We want to provide everyone with opportunities to shine, connect, and grow. Outforce will continue to work with other groups to promote equality for all.
How Knorex Is Using the Productivity Solutions Grant To Accelerate Digital Transformation
More than half of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) say technology drives the growth of their customer base. From automating manual processes and improving productivity to enabling employee collaboration across regions, digital transformation is enabling companies to pivot to growth.
A government-funded grant is now supporting SMEs in Singapore to spark their digital transformation.
The Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) enables SMEs to accelerate digital transformation, increase productivity, and close deals remotely with customisable and scalable LIKE.TG solutions.
The PSG is supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA). It provides grant support of up to 80% on pre-approved vendor solutions, including LIKE.TG CRM Sales Cloud.
Participating SMEs can now deploy LIKE.TG within weeks. Our Jump Start program helps businesses to configure end-to-end processes and increase team efficiency with guidance and setup assistance from LIKE.TG experts. With Premier Success Services, SMEs can also get additional help, adoption guidance, coaching, and live support.
We sat down with Justin Choo, CEO of cloud marketing platform provider Knorex, and Phu Le, Group General Manager, to find out about their PSG-enabled digital transformation journey.
What are the business challenges that led to your digital transformation journey?
PL: We have been spearheading digital adoption across the company. That involves continuously exploring, evaluating, and adopting innovative tools to streamline our internal workflow and help scale the business.
There were several challenges we faced as we began to grow the business on a global scale. We needed more measurable reporting, tracking, analytics, and a system that can let our teams collaborate easier across the different countries.
We were also looking for better ways to structure our business model for different customers across regions. Lastly, we needed more features to support our sales activity.
Why did you choose LIKE.TG?
PL: There are a few key advantages of LIKE.TG that have been very important to us. We are a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, so we love to do application programming interface (API) integrations and data migration. LIKE.TG has features that support this.
Data security and privacy compliance are also very important to us. LIKE.TG has a special compliance centre that has been very useful as this is something that we emphasise on as part of our ISO certification requirement.
Finally, LIKE.TG has a very strong community that enables us to easily find solutions to any challenges we face. This helps to speed up resolution.
How important was the PSG in enabling your digital transformation?
PL: The PSG program gave us the impetus to explore new, viable options, and accelerate our digital transformation and adoption.
PSG provided a curated list of vendor options, which gave us the confidence to explore products with vendors and directly tap ready-to-use solutions. It also helped to alleviate much of the trial and error, while reducing the cost.
How did you find the PSG application process?
PL: All the ready-to-use solutions are vetted, and you can apply for a particular solution for the current challenge you face in your business.
The application process was simple and straightforward. The PSG customer service team readily answered all our questions along the way. It was an absolutely delightful experience.
Do you have any advice for Singapore SMEs that are considering applying for the PSG?
JC: Be clear about what you’re looking for. There are various ready-to-use digital transformation packages available. You have to understand your problem so that you can choose the package that is the best match for your needs. It is also important that you think of eventual expansion in two to three years’ time, since this will be a solution that you will likely have to work with for that period.
How did the Jump Start program help with your LIKE.TG deployment?
PL: The Jump Start program was very helpful. It guided us on how to best navigate the LIKE.TG deployment and get our team onboarded.
Jump Start also helped us set up different user profiles with different access controls, and we managed to get various reporting features set up from the start of the deployment.
I believe many SMEs would benefit from Jump Start, whether they have prior experience with using customer relationship management (CRM) software or not.
How are you using LIKE.TG in your business?
PL: We are using Sales Cloud for our sales teams across the globe — from North America to Asia-Pacific. It helps to track vital top-line metrics, and our teams can instantly look at the current state of the business to track progress.
JC: Prior to LIKE.TG, we found that we were increasingly constrained by the limitations of our previous CRM. But with LIKE.TG, we have a lot of flexibility especially when it comes to customising reporting. It helps us track up-to-date metrics and enables our team to collaborate wherever they are. It is a very useful tool.
How did you utilise LIKE.TG Premier Success Services?
PL: So far the service has been a great help, especially as we were becoming familiar with the system. The 24/7 live chat has been very helpful for us. It enables us to resolve any query we have right away.
When you transition from a legacy CRM to a new platform, migrating the data and mapping the workflows in the new system is usually the most painful part of the process. Fortunately, that can be done very smoothly with the suite of migration tools LIKE.TG offers.
How did you support employee onboarding to Sales Cloud?
JC: It helps that most of our staff already have previous experience with LIKE.TG, so the onboarding was smooth sailing. Nonetheless, we created an internal playbook for our staff to familiarise themselves with the new system. It highlights things they need to know about the transition and some key new workflow and features.
We also had some internal training sessions with the sales team, and communicated to them some of the tutorials and support services LIKE.TG offers via the Trailhead learning platform.
What results have you seen since your LIKE.TG deployment?
JC: We have the ability to do much more detailed reporting. That enables us to do a much deeper dive into our numbers, which allows us to get closer to our customers. We can get those insights much more easily, which saves us at least four to six hours per week on reporting.
Get your digital transformation journey started with LIKE.TG. Learn more about how to pivot to growth using the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) or contact us to get started now.
At LIKE.TG Live: Asia, we invited fast growing small businesses like V-Key, hoolah, and Carousell to share about how they navigatedthe challenges of the past year. Register for LIKE.TG Live: Asia to hear from these Trailblazers on 10 June.
How Small and Fast Growing Businesses Are Using Mighty Ways To Scale. Learn More at LIKE.TG Live: Asia
Uncertain times can be unsettling for businesses with leaner resources than their larger counterparts. However, they can also be a period of growth for businesses that narrow in on new business opportunities. This is especially true if they use technology to differentiate themselves and create stronger customer connections.
According to the 4th Small and Medium Business Trends Report, the new normal for fast-growing businesses has brought about a renewed focus on the customer in four ways. Businesses now show more care with their customer communications, offer more flexibility, have expanded the ways they can be reached, and prioritise longer term relationships over one-off interactions.
In our upcoming LIKE.TG Live: Asia Small Fast-Growing Business Trailblazers episode on 10 June,we’ll speak to four resilient, innovative, and agile businesses.
One of these businesses is Citrus Media, a vibrant and independent publishing house from Singapore. Founder and owner Angie Lim will talk about how her company used the LIKE.TG Small Business Relief Grant to overcome the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We’ll also explore how the other three fast-growing businesses in Southeast Asia are doubling down on customer communications to fuel their growth and thrive:
Payments startup hoolah takes customer interactions to the next level
Buy now, pay later startup, hoolah, has digital transformation built into its DNA as a company. It partnered with LIKE.TG in 2018 to build a sales methodology into Sales Cloud, which helped hoolah create a scalable sales structure.
When tight restrictions had the hoolah team working from home, the LIKE.TG platform helped maintain the team’s strong culture and keep the teams engaged with its merchants from anywhere.
Using Customer 360, added visibility across merchant activities helped the teams prioritise interactions. With Commerce Cloud, hoolah offered merchants the ability to integrate directly with its systems in a faster and more cost-effective way than a standard application programming interface integration.
The agile and scalable sales methodology based on LIKE.TG has helped set hoolah up for success as it expands further into Asia.
Digital identity leader V-Key eyes growth and platform evolution
As a leader in two-factor authentication and mobile security, V-Key has developed a digital trust platform for companies to use anywhere online. It can secure and authenticate digital identity for its employees as well as customers.
With 100 million installs of its virtual security technology already, V-Key aims to grow this to one billion.
V-Key chose to develop a stronger partner ecosystem around the region. This helps V-Key to scale faster and tap into local knowledge, relationships, and opportunities. Customer 360 helps V-Key collaborate more effectively with its partners and reach its customers.
Internally, V-Key’s teams use LIKE.TG to build deeper relationships with its customers by having a single view of each customer. They also keep track of the business pipeline as V-Key continues to evolve its business.
Peer-to-peer marketplace Carousell scales smarter customer interactions
The second-hand goods industry has evolved from running classifieds in newspapers, to online sites and now, to a native mobile-first design experience, like Carousell.
With operations across six countries, Carousell turned to LIKE.TG to help consolidate, automate, and standardise commercial data and measure the effectiveness of its sales teams.
Carousell also uses Customer 360 to help make sure people aren’t falling through the cracks, and to provide opportunities for better interactions at scale.
The next evolution for Carousell is to use artificial intelligence to jump people through millions of listings directly to the ones most relevant, and help them to buy and sell faster.
Choosing the right technology platform early on can help a business achieve ambitious goals and scale without major disruption to business processes. It is easy for operational effectiveness to go astray during periods of intense growth when scaling up. With integrated customer relationship management platforms like LIKE.TG, every team can contribute to success from anywhere and rally around one goal: putting the customer first.
To hear more from hoolah, V-Key, and Carousell on their learnings and digital transformation journeys, register and tune in on 10 June for Episode 4 of LIKE.TG Live: Asia.
The Summer ’21 Release Preview Is Here
Dive into the latest Summer ’21 innovationsincluding Employee Concierge, Workforce Engagement, Content Scheduler, and Einstein Search. Watch the highlights below:
Ourrelease home pagejust got a makeover.Watch the Innovation Spotlights, two integrated product journeys showcasing some of the most exciting Summer ’21 innovations, to help grow your business. We’ve also added an Innovation Overview, which explores LIKE.TG’s history of customer-led innovation.Watch thefullvideo now.
After June 14, you will have access to hundreds of globally available products and features.
Getting ready for the release is as easy as one, two, three:
1. Find what’s new for your company
Watch theSummer ’21 Release demo videosand use theSummer ’21 Release In a Boxfor a slide-by-slide view of exciting new innovations.
2. Skill up on new products and features
Earn a new badge with the newSummer ’21 Release Highlights Trailor get detailed information on each product and feature with theSummer ’21 Release Notes.
3. Get pro tips from your peers
Check outRelease Readiness Liveand theRelease Readiness Trailblazers Community, where you’ll find the latest release resources and announcements across all LIKE.TG product areas.
This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
5 Ways To Make Your Retail Bank More Customer-Centric
Banks, like most companies, face an urgent imperative to reimagine themselves and seize new growth opportunities.
Most bankers surveyed by PwC view attracting new customers as one of their top challenges. However, banks also recognise the need to deepen their customer relationships and focus more on customer profitability. Hence, enhancing customer experience is the number one investment priority for banks globally.
This renewed focus on customers is crucial, because only 27% of customers surveyed by LIKE.TG describe the financial services industry as completely customer-centric. Similarly, only 27% feel that financial institutions provide great service and support.
To close these gaps and improve customer satisfaction, banks need to embark on a transformational journey. This means making everything customer-centric: from marketing and sales, to service and digitalisation. When you start with the customer and work backwards, you will be better-positioned to deliver incredible experiences that build brand loyalty and drive revenue.
Here are five ways to build this kind of customer-centricity:
1. Engage the right prospects at the right time
To attract new customers, your marketing campaigns need to reach audiences that are actually interested in what you have to offer. The first step in that direction is to define the right audience by combining:
Data collected directly from prospects
Data on prospects gathered by partners
Information on prospect demographics, behaviours, lifestyles, interests, and more, aggregated from third-party sources.
Together, these insights can help you zero in on the best-fit prospects for your bank, and then target them on the channels and devices they prefer.
Once you’ve gained a prospect’s attention, start building a relationship of trust with them. Provide meaningful, useful, and engaging content in exchange for the customer’s personal data. This, in turn, will help you personalise their experiences further.
Next, create an appropriate internal sales cadence. Set up automatic notifications to help sales reps determine when to email a prospect, when to call, when to wait, and more. This streamlined workflow can help reps maximise conversions, and ensure repeatable sales success.
2. Organise your bank around your customers
Being truly customer-centric is about knowing your customers in-depth. Build a 360-degree view of each customer, including needs, key life events, products portfolio, circle of influence, complaints filed, satisfaction level, etc. The more you understand your customers, the better you can anticipate and meet their needs.
Being customer-centric is also about making the customer experience as frictionless as possible, from onboarding to servicing and beyond. Empower your teams with all the customer information they need at their fingertips, so that they can serve customers seamlessly.
When everyone in your organisation has a single source of customer truth, then it won’t matter that your customers are interacting with different teams or lines of business. They will experience your brand as a single, unified entity across touchpoints.
3. Make banking personal
Today’s customers expect hyper-personalised experiences. That means understanding each customer as a segment of one. A unique individual whose personality, lifestyle, preferences, needs, and environment are constantly evolving.
The challenge is to enable this kind of personalisation at scale. Artificial intelligence-powered tools can help by swiftly processing customer transaction history, digital behaviour, channel preferences, life stages, and other data. With the resulting insights, you can predict the needs of each customer, and determine the best way of serving them.
Let’s say you roll out a new offer or marketing message based on your customer insights. To ensure that it translates into the desired customer action, focus on building personalised customer journeys. This set of tailored customer experiences can help you reach customers through the right channels, at the right time, encouraging the desired response.
4. Enable real-time, data-driven customer interactions
Customer insights usually have a short life. So, it’s important to evaluate and act on them while they’re still relevant. Interactions need to be analysed in real time to deliver personalised customer experiences.
Once you do that, track how the customer responds. Use artificial intelligence to infer their intent. Then, re-adjust your customer interaction strategies in real time.
Try and transform each touchpoint and interaction into an opportunity for a meaningful customer conversation. For example, if a customer is accessing knowledge articles around closing a fixed deposit on the bank portal, you could analyse this web behaviour in real time along with signals from other customer behaviour (provided that the customer has consented to this data being used). If a customer is exploring the best credit card options via a bank’s online chat, a next best offer such as “the credit card with the highest cash back”can be generated and sent to the customer via a message, in-app notification, or on any other preferred channel.
Finally, measure the impact of personalised communication and offers on your KPIs. The more real-time metrics you have, the faster you can fine-tune and personalise customer journeys to deliver greater satisfaction.
5. Tap into the open banking ecosystem
Open banking is an opportunity for your bank to keep customers at the centre, and offer them more choices, convenience, and personalised experiences. You can do this by opening your application programming interfaces (APIs) to third parties to access your data or functionality.
You can choose from either of two open banking approaches.
Banking as a Service: In this model, you can integrate your digital banking services with the products and services of non-banks to offer customers an end-to-end solution. This approach requires you to have a robust API-led architecture, so that you can seamlessly connect and exchange data with the third-party ecosystem.
Platform Banking: The second open banking approach is to build your own comprehensive digital ecosystem where you own the customer experience, but offer products and services (financial and non-financial) from multiple third parties. This marketplace model can help you increase customer loyalty, attract new customers, and generate new revenue streams by charging fees on any product or service sold in the ecosystem.
How LIKE.TG can help
LIKE.TG enables you to delight customers by putting them at the centre of your business. With our Customer 360 platform, you can listen to customers better, anticipate their financial needs, and deliver seamless experiences at every touchpoint.
Rich customer profiles and smart insights help you identify new opportunities to deepen customer connections, and convert more leads. Meanwhile, powerful collaboration tools and artificial intelligence help your teams work faster and smarter to get things done.
Learn more about LIKE.TG for retail banking.
This post originally appeared on the I.N.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
Accelerating Digital Transformation with Rapid App Development in Low-Code Environments
Mobile technology adoption is accelerating across the Asia Pacific. InThe Mobile Economy Asia Pacific 2020 report, GSMA estimates that the total number of mobile internet users in the region will grow to around 2.7 billion by 2025 (that’s 61% of the population).
Mobile apps, in particular, are immensely popular in the Asia Pacific. Today, apps like Grab and Shopee are an indispensable part of everyday life for many people. The bottom line? Businesses need to harness the power of mobile apps if they want to stay engaged with their customers and employees.
The good news is that, unlike a few years ago when mobile app development was the domain of IT teams, today low-code app development platforms have made launching digital marketplace and workplace app solutions easier and more inclusive.
Here’s how you can benefit from mobile app development in a low-code environment:
Low-code app development with clicks, not code
The accelerated pace of digital transformation demands rapid development of business applications, which is possible in a low-code environment.
Out-of-the-box PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) solutions allow organisations to build functional business apps with just a few clicks, without the need for an extensive IT team. These solutions are cost-effective and considerably reduce the time taken to build and deploy apps by using customisable templates, drag and drop tools, and other app building components.
Solutions like theLIKE.TGLightning App Buildercan help you build customised business apps by integrating ready-made components such as API services, data integration services, authentication, event log framework, analytics, and collaboration.
Rapidly test and deploy apps
Performance and vulnerability testing are essential even for low-code apps and need an environment that can support such rapid development.
Testing spaces likeSandbox and Scratch.org allow developers to test apps and make any changes in a secure, isolated environment. They also ensure there is no business disruption during the app testing or while making any changes.
Enable business-critical customisations in-house
There is a growing demand for digital skills across the region. For example, in Singapore, 91% of managers believe that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the need for digital skills in their organisation.
But hiring expert talent on a budget is also a challenge.Empowering the existing team to become citizen developers can address this issue. Even business admins, managers, and team leads can build apps that can extend LIKE.TG’s out-of-the-box functionalities to deliver critical customisations. These stakeholders can, among other things:
Automate complicated business processes into seamless workflows
Set triggers for alerts and notifications (for instance, when a new or big sales opportunity arrives)
Set security levels and access permissions based on role and hierarchy in the team
Build custom validations for data entry to ensure compliance with business rules (for example making certain fields mandatory or setting rules on password strength, etc)
Prepare your workplace for successful remote working
With the shift to remote work environments over the past year, your employees have also become the consumers of your remote working setup. This includes file sharing and transfer, remote collaboration, 24/7 access to data, etc. Hence, there is a need to focus on improving the overall digital experience for employees as well. Low-code app development platforms help organisations champion this internal mandate too.
UsingLIKE.TG Platform, you can easily build productivity-driving enterprise mobile applications for your employees. Integrate these with back-end systems to give employees access to all critical data anytime, anywhere. The apps can be fully customised to support a team or employee’s unique line of work and responsibilities. You can also update these apps using simple click-and-point and drag-and-drop tools that let you try-test-launch easy and fast.
Low-code app developmentwill rise to prominence in the new normal, as ‘digital first’ becomes the modus operandiof every business. According toGartner, low-code application building will consolidate more than 65% of all app development functions by 2024.
Organisations can leverage the benefits of LIKE.TG Platform to create powerful, intuitive, and engaging mobile apps in no time with easy-to-use components like no-code builders.
This post originally appeared on the I.N.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
Key Highlights and Takeaways From LIKE.TG Live: Asia
LIKE.TG Live: Asia brought our customers, Trailblazers, and employees together virtually.
We learnt from great speakers, heard inspiring customer stories, and caught up on the latest LIKE.TG innovations. All sessions are now available online, so you can watch any episode you might have missed.
Let’s take a look at the great speakers and session highlights that made LIKE.TG Live: Asia an unmissable experience:
Episode 1: Success From Anywhere
We kicked off the series with a keynote from LIKE.TG Senior Vice President and General Manager for ASEAN, Sujith Abraham. Sujith shared how LIKE.TG is encouraging job creation, enabling digital transformation, and driving economic growth around the region.
Next, we saw some of the latest LIKE.TG technology innovations: Future Cloud 3.0, Customer 360, and Hyperforce. We also heard from customers who used LIKE.TG to transform their businesses:
Cheryl Goh is the Group VP of Marketing and Sustainability at regional powerhouse Grab. With AI, Grab now predicts the best delivery route for drivers and batches orders together based on customer location.
Joshua Tan, Head of CRM at NTUC FairPrice, shared the supermarket chain’s approach to personalising customer communications. This enables them to better predict customer behaviour and respond faster to customer needs across all channels.
Finally, we heard from Joanna Teo, a Trailblazer who helps upskill workers that have been made redundant. There was also a discussion about the increasing challenges that women in Singapore have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Episode 2: Service Trailblazers
In this episode, AirAsia shared how their super app brings together several businesses like food delivery, logistics, flights, and travel packages. AirAsia’s Customer Happiness team now services multiple business units, not just the airline, and helps meet customer needs across any channel.
We then heard from United Tractors, the largest distributor of heavy equipment in Indonesia, about their digital transformation journey. They have digitised most paperwork and have improved productivity and reporting for their field service team. That’s a major achievement for a company that supports customers in a diverse country made up of about 17,000 islands.
Episode 3: Sales Trailblazers
Sales needs accurate customer data, sales history, stock information, and product information. Accessible and accurate data goes a long way in boosting customer experience and driving loyalty over the long term.
Globe Telecom is one of the largest mobile network companies in the Philippines. They shared how tapping into analytics and sales data from Sales Cloud helped the company develop strategies to adapt to the pandemic. A smart, guided workflow helped significantly improve the efficiency of customer interactions.
Tenaga Nasional Berhad shared their challenges pivoting from face-to-face service to delivering sales remotely throughout Malaysia. The company had started to develop new renewable energy products and services. The team simplified their rooftop solar customer data, analysed it for opportunities, and refined their approach to deliver more repeat business.
Episode 4: Small Fast-Growing Business Trailblazers
Fast-growing Buy Now, Pay Later company hoolah shared how they partnered with LIKE.TG to build a sales methodology and scalable sales structure.
As a leader in two-factor authentication and mobile security, V-Key discussed their method for developing a digital trust platform for companies to use anywhere online. They also developed a stronger regional partner ecosystem to scale faster and tap into local knowledge, relationships, and opportunities.
Peer-to-peer marketplace Carousell outlined how they scaled for smarter customer interactions. They use Customer 360 to make sure their customers and prospects aren’t falling through the cracks, and to provide opportunities for better interactions at scale.
Episode 5: Marketers Digital Experience Trailblazers
Bestselling author, entrepreneur, and teacher Seth Godin shared his future vision of marketing, as well as how marketing teams can prepare for the future.
We also heard from Sephora, the global leader in beauty and marketing innovation. They grew their business through building scalable and automated marketing solutions with Marketing Cloud. Watch this session to learn how Sephora used Journey Builder to develop personalised customer journeys as part of their ecommerce onboarding experience.
Episode 6: Admin IT Trailblazers
Thanks to low-code and no-code tools, almost anyone can create an app to support their organisations’ unique business needs.
We heard from global energy and solutions company PETRONAS about how they empowered their dealer network of service stations with an e-Service portal. The portal handles all communications, financials, stock, and maintenance tracking between dealers and PETRONAS.
We featured Ranosys Technologies in a small panel discussion to learn how they built apps on the Customer 360 platform. They also shared how they developed an app to be their internal portal. This portal helps teams across the business sync their efforts and automate some admin tasks.
Also on the panel was Loh Lik Peng, CEO of Unlisted Collection:. He outlined how important employee autonomy and the human touch is for the hospitality industry.
To round out the episode, we heard from LIKE.TG CTO of Security, Dr Taher Elgamal, about why trust is the foundation for customer success at LIKE.TG.
Episode 7: Financial Services Trailblazers
Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) is a digital pioneer. They empowered their team of Relationship Managers to service customers with tools based on the LIKE.TG platform. UnionBank can now deliver banking services from anywhere, without being limited by the number of branches or usual banking hours.
Life insurer Singlife shared how creating brand trust is key to their successful digital-first experience for customers. They also talked about regional expansion, and gave an update on their recent merger with Aviva Singapore.
LIKE.TG Live: Asia is available on demand
If you missed any of these episodes, no worries. We made all LIKE.TG Live: Asia episodes available on-demand, so you can experience the learning, connection, and innovation again. Thanks for tuning in, and come join us again next year!
Watch LIKE.TG Live: Asia on demand.
New to Slack? Here’s How You Can Use It to Work From Anywhere
Slack is your company’s virtual headquarters. It connects everyone in your business and supports the way people naturally work together — in real-time or not, in-person and remote, structured and informal.
It’s where conversations come together, information can easily be found, collaboration is seamless, and your team’s favourite apps are connected in one place. Slack encourages knowledge sharing across the organisation and gives everyone direct and instant involvement with ideas — and the people who have them.
With Slack, collaboration is just the beginning. Like LIKE.TG, Slack is a platform with almost limitless potential for custom integrations, automated workflows, and solutions. In short, Slack is where the future works.
Why is it called Slack?
What does Slack have in common with lasers and scuba diving? For one thing, you might not know that the name is an acronym: it stands for Searchable Log of All Conversations and Knowledge.
That name should give you a pretty good idea of what Slack is all about, but let’s take a look at some of the features that make Slack a great tool for our work-from-anywhere world.
Channel your conversations
There are two main ways to communicate in Slack: channels and direct messages (DMs).
A channel is a conversation involving a group of people that focuses on a specific topic. Channels can be open (anyone can join) or private (only people who are invited can join). Channels are the key to productivity in Slack. When you have conversations in channels, you increase visibility and can easily make sure the right people are involved.
A channel is a conversation involving a group of people that focuses on a specific topic.
Use direct messages for conversations that don’t belong in channels. Say, for example, you need to reschedule a one-on-one with a coworker or have a question specifically for the project lead.
Communicate with panache
Slack also goes way beyond the basics of messaging. Emoji reactions, @mentions, and threads make communication in Slack that much more effective.
Use emoji reactions to simplify communication or acknowledge a message with just a few clicks. You can show someone you’ve seen their message with a tick emoji, or let someone know you’re looking into it with the eyes emoji.
Use @mentions to get someone’s attention in a channel. They’ll get a notification and everyone else in the channel can follow along with the conversation. If you have a message for everyone, use @here to notify everyone currently online in a channel.
Maybe you want to respond to a message in a channel without interrupting the flow of the conversation. In that case, respond in a thread. Here’s one more emoji-related tip: let people know to thread their replies with a thread emoji.
Find what you’re looking for
Use the search bar at the top of your Slack workspace to search for messages, files, channels, or people. Once you’ve entered a search term, you can narrow your search to a specific channel or conversation, then further filter your results by date, reactions, and more.
Search is useful for when you’re looking for something specific (like a project plan) or for context around a decision, client, or project that you’re getting up to speed on.
Make Slack work for you and your team
Slack fosters workplace connections, especially when your coworkers might be in different physical spaces with different time zones and varying schedules. Adding a profile picture and keeping your status up to date when you’re out of the office are just a couple of ways to bridge the gap between remote and in-person workers.
Use direct messages for conversations that don’t belong in channels.
After you’ve filled out your profile, take a few minutes to customise your preferences. You can, for example, decide how and when you get notifications and create a notification schedule.
Want to learn more? Visit Trailhead and earn the Slack Basics badge.
This post originally appeared on the U.S.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
How To Create Connected Experiences Faster: MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021
Tracy Wang leads marketing at MuleSoft Asia, a LIKE.TG company that provides integration software for connecting applications, data, and devices. She reveals how MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021 will help businesses develop a winning API product strategy.
More businesses are turning to reusable Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). APIs are messengers that take requests and tell a system what a user wants it to do, then returns the response back to that user.
One benefit of APIs is that they give businesses better data visibility across many different sources. With good data visibility, businesses can make informed, data-driven decisions. This results in smoother business processes, as well as more connected experiences for customers, partners, and employees.
Learn how to achieve this and more at MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021, on 3 August at 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Singapore Standard Time).
What is MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021?
MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021 brings together IT and business thought leaders in Asia’s leading integration event of the year. The free 90-minute online event will reveal how to fast track API-led connectivity so you can create connected experiences faster.
MuleSoft executives will also demonstrate how you can accelerate your business outcomes using the latest innovations and trends in integration and API management.
Finally, hear from business leaders from some of the most successful companies across Asia, who will share their experiences in developing a winning API product strategy.
Why attend MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021?
MuleSoft helps organisations make better data-driven decisions by leveraging API-led connectivity.
The power of data depends on your ability to get it out of silos and integrate it into your daily business operations. Businesses collect, store, and use vast amounts of data across systems like LIKE.TG, Google Analytics, and MySQL. MuleSoft’s industry-leading full-lifecycle API management and iPaaS capabilities enable you to connect all that data together.
It’s a little like transforming your siloed data into composable LEGO® bricks. With an effective API integration strategy in place, you can use your data to build connected experiences across your organisation. This enables you to deliver digital initiatives faster, and drive bottom-line growth.
Who’s speaking at MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021?
MuleSoft CEO Brent Hayward will be there, along with Brian Kealey, VP Asia, and Shaun Clowes, SVP Product Management. They will demonstrate how MuleSoft is addressing the latest trends in integration, full-lifecycle API management, and automation.
You’ll also hear success stories from some of our customers across Asia:
Get insights into the lessons 7-Eleven learned from a recent MuleSoft deployment.
Learn how AstraZeneca leveraged API-led connectivity to transform their business operations and accelerate their COVID-19 vaccine innovation efforts.
Discover new use cases that big brands such as INSEAD and Hong Kong Broadband Network (HKBN) have been able to support when it comes to integrating systems and data. They will also talk about the challenges they faced in their own integration journey, and share recommendations.
Find out how Singapore-based Starfish Digital is unlocking MuleSoft’s capabilities with no code integrations.
Uncover how Philippines-based Sonak Corporation executed their vision for connectivity in order to set up their ecommerce, retail, and loyalty program efforts.
Where and when is MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021?
MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021 will be held online on Tuesday, 3 August from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Singapore Standard Time). It is completely free and open for all to join. Closed caption language support will be provided for Thai and Traditional Chinese.
Whether you are getting started with APIs and integration, or a long-time MuleSoft customer, join MuleSoft Summit Asia 2021 to learn how to create connected experiences faster. Register today to secure your spot.
CITEM Takes Trade Promotions Online to Support Export Businesses in The Philippines
Prior to COVID-19, exports from the Philippines were on the rise and reached US$70.3billion in 2019. However, the country’s export market—like many others— was challenged by the pandemic. The trade shows, which typically boosted exports, were put on pause. This was a real dilemma for the Philippines’ Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (CITEM).
CITEM is the export promotions arm of the country’s Department of Trade and Industry. It is committed to developing, nurturing, and promoting globally-competitive micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), exporters, designers, and manufacturers. So when it became clear that events had to be cancelled, CITEM leapt into action to support these businesses in new ways.
Here’s a snapshot of how CITEM moved quickly to advance its digital strategy:
Digital tools evolve from an opportunity to a necessity
Even before the pandemic, CITEM viewed the move to digital as a powerful tool to build a community for its stakeholders. However, it became a necessity almost overnight, leading CITEM to engage a LIKE.TG consulting partner to digitalise trade promotions. This partner was Third Pillar, a Philippines-based consulting partner, which is now part of Globe Telecom, Inc.
“The trade show industry, globally, was caught unaware when the pandemic started so it was really difficult for everyone to digitalise and change their processes. However, CITEM had already started to look at putting together a digital trade and community platform,”
said Pauline Suaco-Juan, Executive Director at CITEM. “We did this primarily because we realised that sourcing preferences were beginning to change, with more and more people sourcing products through social media and websites.”
CITEM’s vision for digital engagement gave rise to FAME+, a digital platform that connects buyers and sellers within the Philippine home, fashion and lifestyle industries. It also tells the stories behind each product, brand, or designer found on the catalog to optimise their visibility with content creation and distribution.
CITEM’s main challenge in launching FAME+ was onboarding sellers. Many of these businesses were not yet using digital technologies; so it was up to CITEM to help them get started.
Automation and personalisation drive quick wins
Third Pillar has helped CITEM solve the challenge of onboarding sellers by using MarketingCloud to automate and streamline the process from end-to-end. For example, it has created an email journey which prompts sellers to register for FAME+ and to submit the information needed to build out their product listings.
Third Pillar has also enabled CITEM to promote these listings using personalised email journeys based on buyers’ browsing habits. These journeys have been successful in helping sellers reach new audiences and sustain their businesses—and jobs—at a critical time.
Additionally, the use of Marketing Cloud has created internal efficiencies for CITEM and trimmed the time it takes to produce campaigns.
“What we’ve done is apply LIKE.TG to automate those digital processes that typically take time, allowing the CITEM team to focus on what they do best, which is relationship-building and storytelling,” said Deanna Rubiano, Third Pillar Chief Marketing Officer.
Working with Third Pillar, CITEM has also adopted Social Studio to promote the businesses on FAME+ and enhance their digital presence. Social Studio will also allow CITEM to efficientlymanage social media, equipping just three people to handle 15 different channels. These include channels for CITEM’s sub-brands such as IFEX Philippines, CREATE Philippines, and the Sustainability Solutions Expo (SSX).
Social listening will be especially valuable in helping CITEM to understand and tap into industry trends so that it can continue to lift the profile of the Philippines’ export industry.
“CITEM team has worked closely with LIKE.TG and Third Pillar last year to equip ourselves with the necessary tools to take CITEM’s content marketing to greater heights,” Suaco-Juan said. “I’m certain that with all these CRM functions available to us, we will be able to seize every opportunity ahead of us in the digital sphere.”
Read more customer stories to find out how other businesses are transforming digitally with LIKE.TG.
7 Tips To Stay Productive and Be Well While Working From Home
Even as vaccination drives are well underway, and governments are easing COVID-19 restrictions, working from home is still the norm for many companies.
If you’re working from home, it never hurts to check in on yourself. Make sure you have steps in place to keep your mental health and productivity at its best.
Staying connected with people is one way to stay mentally strong. When it comes to colleagues, don’t just message them. Make time to talk to them, look at their faces during video conferencing, and ask them about what they’ve been up to outside work.
You can also make new connections by joining community groups. We recommend joining community user groups that exchange knowledge and expertise, like the ones we have over at Trailblazer Community Groups. With Trailhead, plus the help of the Trailblazer community, you can learn in-demand skills and earn LIKE.TG certifications.
Read the infographic below for more tips on staying connected, managing your work, keeping your motivation up, and more.
This post originally appeared on the A.U.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
Why Pardot Is the Right Marketing Automation Tool for Sales and Marketing Alignment in SMBs
With inputs from Rajesh Subramanian, Digital AE, Mid-market
Businesses all over the world are quickly digitising to stay relevant. For B2B businesses, the use of the right tools and technologies is particularly important to clinch new, bigger opportunities. This is because B2B selling involves multiple decision-makers, longer sales cycles, and the need for highly-targeted client communication.
Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) often have limited resources. Hence, they are unable toto set up large, dedicated sales and marketing teams, equip them with premium automation tools, and incur capital expenditure (CAPEX) on setting up an elaborate IT infrastructure. But what if they had one powerful B2B marketing automation tool that could align and enhance their sales and marketing strategies without the need for extensive investment or large, specialised teams? They could then:
Create 1-to-1 engagements at scale with personalised emails
Attract more sales-ready prospects
Reconnect with inactive leads
Enable sales teams with complete marketing context to quickly move prospects through the pipeline
Drive data-backed marketing and sales campaigns to maximise ROI
How Pardot helps small businesses
LIKE.TGPardotticks all these boxes. It is a B2Bmarketing automation tool thatcan accelerate an SMB’s growth by integrating and enhancing the two most essential business functions: sales and marketing. Pardot automates critical marketing and sales activities, so sales and marketing can work as one team with one dream: to sell more effectively.
Here’s how Pardot can help small businesses find and win more customers:
Create beautiful, branded landing pages and forms with easy landing page templatesand drag-and-drop buildersto capture new leads
Display targeted offers on your websites and landing pages
Set forms to trigger notifications and score leads automatically, so you always have a steady flow of high-quality leads in your pipeline
Build rich profiles over time using engagement and social media data for progressive and social profiling
Better understand the customer journey by visually mapping out and testing every asset and touchpoint before launch
Use one powerful, flexible builder to create customised experiences through dynamic campaigns that adapt to customers’ buying signals
Automatelead managementusing Pardot’s blended lead scoring and grading system, so reps can identify and interact with the hottest leads first
Enablelead nurturingby automatically triggering emails and notifying the right reps based on prospect activity for prompt follow-ups
Give sales reps marketing powers by enabling them with marketing-approved mini-campaigns for their customers
Perfect marketing to sales handoffs with built-in business rules, real-time alerts, and assignment triggers, so sales reps never miss great opportunities
Automatically segment audiences based on specifications like age, location, industry, etc. and run targeted email campaigns at scale
Build personalised emails with an intuitive email editor, customisable signature, and dynamic content that resonates
A/B and spam test each email and dynamically change them based on each lead’s score, grade, industry, job title, etc.
Set triggers and autoresponders to automate email delivery based on prospect activity
Empower sales reps with visibility into customer engagement history, insights, and access to marketing-approved content to drive more relevant conversations
Leverage visual reporting and graphical dashboards to gain insights into the performance of every sales and marketing campaign
Identify the top performing emails and templates to maximise ROI
Use Engagement and Lifecycle reports to understand your sales cycle’s health and identify where in the sales funnel prospects are getting stuck
Enable marketers to successfully track and demonstrate marketing influence across sales cycle by using off-the rack attribution modules (first, last touch, even)
Pardot enables sales-marketing alignment
SMBs that wish to grow need to think long-term. They need to find customers and build meaningful relationships with them. But they also need quick wins and fast results for continuous cash flows.
Pardot is a simple and cost-effective marketing automation tool that SMBs can start using straight out of the box — no additional CAPEX or special skills needed. The tool is extremely intuitive and templatised, taking only a few minutes to become a part of your marketing and sales processes. With a single command centre, it seamlessly ties your marketing efforts with sales goals, resulting in higher revenue inflow.
Find a Pardot edition that suits your budget and needs.
This post originally appeared on the I.N.-version of the LIKE.TG blog.
Why Marketers Need a Data Health Check
Chris Jordan is Director of Data, Personalisation and Marketing Intelligence, ASEAN. He consults with key strategic customers around the use of data and technology, specifically in the context of digital marketing. In the first of a two-part series on data, Chris discusses how marketers should adapt their data-driven marketing strategies in response to privacy updates from Google and Apple.
Thomas Kuhn, a brilliant philosopher, coined the term paradigm shift. He used it to describe the disorientation that people feel during times of social change. As marketers, we are most certainly going through a phase of social bewilderment, as we revolutionise the way we think about digital and data.
Third-party cookies are on the way out
Consumers have spoken up about privacy and security, and the big players are listening.
In January 2020, Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, announced that it plans to eliminate the third-party cookie. This is a key tool that marketers have used for years to track customers’ online activities and deliver personalised ads. Google’s cookie alternative, called Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), is still in the works.
Meanwhile, Apple rolled out AppTrackingTransparency this year. This new feature requires apps to ask users for permission to track their activities across other companies’ apps and websites.
So, how do we manage data-driven marketing and the personalised experiences that consumers have come to expect? This is challenging in a world where locked off data in big consumer platforms like Google and Facebook is only increasing, and governments are curtailing marketers’ data collection processes.
Healthy and not-so-healthy data
I like to think of data as an ecosystem, much like the human body.
We fuel our body with a healthy balanced diet, and in return, our body operates at maximum capacity. Data is much the same, hence the age-old IT saying, ‘rubbish in, rubbish out’.
So, how can we marketers learn from diet? Well, much like diet, data is based on quantity and quality. Eat too much of the bad stuff, and your health will suffer. Consume the right amount of the good stuff, and your health will prosper. We all know that cookies are not good for our health, but sometimes we can’t help ourselves.
Here’s what a healthy data diet looks like:
Fresh: Much like produce, new data trumps old data. We need the data we collect to be recent and relevant.
Clean: Organic food has proven to be healthier, and much like this, those nasty additives are not going to make for a healthy data ecosystem. We need clean, de-duped first party data.
Trusted: When we know where food is made and what went into it, we trust it. Data is much the same, we need permission to collect and use it with total transparency.
The value exchange between businesses and customers
The trick to long-term health success is typically ‘balance’, and the same will apply to our evolving data strategies.
Whilst AppTrackingTransparency is new and Google’s action plan is still up in the air, right now the best bet is balance. Think about how to collect fresh, clean, and trusted first party data.
This starts by asking your customers or prospects for their permission. Explain in non-legal language that providing this data, explicit consent, and preferences will create personalised and relevant experiences across any channel.
Once collected, we need to connect the data, across ecosystems and internal silos. The idea sounds simple but can create incredible complexity. This exact challenge has given rise to a new MarTech category: Customer Data Platforms (CDP). Martin Kihn, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy for Marketing Cloud, explains what a CDP is and why it matters, in his insightful article.
Once this data has been captured and connected, we can use it to master the next big thing in marketing. Seth Godin, who spoke in the LIKE.TG Live: Asia marketing episode, noted that this big thing is already here:
To quote Adam Grant’s latest hit book, we need to ‘Think Again’, and reframe how we think about the constitution of healthy data. Keep your eyes peeled for part two, in which we dig into ‘activating healthy data’.
To learn more about future marketing trends from thought leaders like Seth Godin, watch the marketing Trailblazers episode ofLIKE.TG Live: Asia.
How Brands Deliver Delightful Customer Experiences Consistently
Retail and consumer brands responded to the challenges of 2020 with admirable resilience, agility, and innovation. In a short time, they launched a variety of new services and customer experiences. These included options to buy-online-pickup-in-store, virtual appointments, flexible payment options, and livestream ecommerce.
As a result, customer expectations for what makes a great digital experience have increased. In fact, more than 80% of B2B and B2C customers now believe the experience provided by a company is as important as its products or services.
Delightful retail experiences help to drive brand loyalty and create lifelong customer connections. This can have a significant impact on the bottom line over the long-term.
All that energy and innovation around the customer experience has changed retail and consumer brands forever. Now the challenge is to continue this spirit of innovation and deliver delightful customer experiences consistently.
Meeting the demand for more personalised experiences
In a recent webinar, Matt Marcotte, LIKE.TG Global Head of Retail and Consumer Goods Industry Advisors, shared his advice on how to deliver exceptional customer experiences. He said it comes down to three things:
Actionable customer data
The ability to personalise customer experiences
Optimisation of consumer engagement and experience
Getting to a single source of truth for customer data is the ultimate goal, particularly for retail and consumer brands. Solutions like LIKE.TG Customer 360 bring sales, marketing, commerce, and service together around a single view of customer data on an integrated platform.
Customer data needs to be collected, consolidated, and stored securely in a place where teams can access it as needed. When teams have a shared understanding of the customer, they can work together to create more personalised customer experiences.
“Finding technologies that really make the collection of data, the creation of the single source of truth, the ability to talk across systems and departments easily, is really something that all companies should be striving to do,” Matt says.
One great tool for this purpose is Tableau. It can help analyse your customer data and provide a deeper understanding of customers. These insights help to identify further opportunities for personalisation and uncover customer trends within your data.
“Personalisation doesn’t need to be as complicated as it sounds to implement,” Matt says.
“It all starts with intent and a relentless focus on putting the customer at the centre of everything that you do as a brand. Then, find ways to use technology and data to get to know them better.”
Creating consistency across platforms
The ability to connect your planning and execution within the same platform is critical for personalising and optimising your consumer engagement. Matt says this helps brands to create a holistic view of the customer that lets them:
Unlock growth
Improve program execution
Build better pricing strategies
Develop more effective promotional activities and channel incentives
Luxasia, the leading omni-channel partner for luxury beauty and lifestyle brands in the Asia-Pacific region, is a great example of this in action. They develop personalised beauty experiences and connected customer journeys for customers online, offline, or in-store.
The Luxasia team knows that they are selling emotional connections as much as physical products. They use feedback and customer data to help them make beauty more personalised through relevant product recommendations.
Consistent, excellent experiences like these develop stronger relationships with customers and drive loyalty over the long term.
“Consumers make decisions based on how they feel. As brands, part of getting to know customers is building relationships, and relationships are emotional,” Matt says.
This is reflected in LIKE.TG’s most recent State of the Connected Customer report. It found that 66% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations.
“So, in a world of increasingly endless choices and commoditised products, the experience the consumer has with the brand is really important,” Matt says.
As retail and consumer brands optimise these experiences, we will see the impact this can have on building loyalty and lifetime relationships. With LIKE.TG as a partner, retail and consumer brands can deliver exceptional customer experiences and build their customer base.
Find out how retail and consumer goods brands are enhancing customer experiences with LIKE.TG. Tune in to watch the webinar on-demand.
6 Ways Toys“R”Us Is Bringing the Magic of Its Stores to Online Shoppers
The shift from physical to digital commerce has been enormous in the past year, with the pandemic driving both businesses and consumers online. For retailers like Toys”R”Us with a large physical presence, this presents a unique challenge. It wanted to provide an experience that offers customers the best of both worlds.
Tim Halaska, Regional General Manager of Digital Strategy for Toys”R”Us Asia, shared how the retailer has responded to this challenge and is fuelling imagination in Asia.
As Asia’s leading retailer of toys, education, and baby products, Toys”R”Us is a well-loved destination for kids of all ages. Here are six ways it’s capturing the magic of its in-store experience and taking it online.
1. Creating efficiencies in digital commerce
As a first step in its online transformation, Toys”R”Us partnered with eWAVE, a global commerce services specialist, to centralise ecommerce with Commerce Cloud. Launched across seven markets in Asia, Commerce Cloud provides Toys”R”Us with a single platform to power more seamless and personalised shopping experiences for its customers.
Commerce Cloud also provides economies of scale so that Toys”R”Us can provide equally compelling experiences to each market, no matter its size.
2. Tailoring sites to local needs
One of the benefits of Commerce Cloud is that it simplifies merchandising across multiple sites, multiple languages, and multiple currencies. It also supports localisation of sites. Working with eWave, Toys”R”Us has integrated Commerce Cloud with local payment options and enabled shoppers to log in from social media sites popular in their markets.
Toys”R”Us has also used Commerce Cloud to centralise activities like site maintenance. This frees up local teams to focus on driving sales locally. For example, they can spend time identifying what products or offers are most popular in their markets and promote these online and in-store.
3. Creating mobile-first experiences
Toys”R”Us has launched new websites in seven markets across Asia in the past twelve months. Commerce Cloud’s Storefront Reference Architecture provided a blueprint to speed up site development and embed mobile design best practices to help convert today’s mobile shoppers. These include a seamless checkout flow with as few taps as possible.
4. Delivering consistency across channels
In transforming the shopper experience, Toys”R”Us has ensured that whether a customer shops online or in-store, they can find the same products and enjoy the same deals.
“One of the things we’ve really focused on is the customer journey and creating alignment between the online and offline experience. So now when an email goes out about a promotion in-store, the customer can also purchase that product online straight away,” said Halaska.
5. Personalising product recommendations
Personalisation provides retailers with the chance to turn every interaction into a positive customer experience. It can also lead to increased conversion and cart size.
Toys”R”Us is reaping these benefits by using Einstein to provide customers with product recommendations based on their browsing and purchase histories.
6. Rewarding shopper loyalty
Now, when customers make purchases on a Toys”R”Us website, they are instantly enrolled into the retailer’s Star Card Loyalty Program. The program allows customers to earn points in-store and online and provides them with access to exclusive offers and events. In exchange, Toys”R”Us is able to track and understand its customers’ behaviour and provide more personalised experiences.
“We can now see the customer’s journey from in-store to online. We’re excited to delve into that further and use those insights to connect with customers in new ways,” said Halaska.
Learn more about how Toys”R”Us is using Commerce Cloud to provide a unified retail experience.