Verizon has the dubious distinction of being the only one of the top three wireless carriers to be losing customers.
Verizon announced its third-quarter results, with the company reporting a net loss of 189,000 postpaid phone subscribers. The company said it was “due to elevated churn partially as a result of recent pricing actions”
According to CNET, Verizon posted similar subscriber losses in the second quarter, to the tune of 215,000. Those loses were similarly the result of increased prices, from raising the price of legacy plans to increasing administrative fees.
The losses put Verizon in an interesting position, as it appears to be the only one of the top three carriers losing subscribers. AT&T gained 708,000 subscribers during this most recent quarter and T-Mobile has similarly continued its growth streak unabated.
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg painted the subscriber losses as part of Verizon’s attempt to increase profits and operational performance.
“We took a number of actions in the third quarter that helped drive improved operational and financial performance, but we know there’s still more work to be done,” said Vestberg. “The pricing actions we took earlier this year, as well as our new cost savings program, show that we are being deliberate and strategic in our decisions to strengthen our business. At the same time, we are focused on executing our 5G strategy, as we are covering every major market and accelerating our C-Band network build. We are on track to reach 200 million POPs within first-quarter 2023.”
T-Mobile opted to back YouTube TV (YTTV) when it ended its own TVision streaming service, but customers are being left in the cold.
Like many T-Mobile customers, I cheered the company’s entry into the TV streaming market. The magenta carrier has a well-earned reputation for putting customers first and has revolutionized the cell phone industry. Unfortunately, TVision was not meant to be, and T-Mobile announced it was shutting it down less than six months later.
T-Mobile partnered with Google to give its customers a discount on YouTube TV as an alternative to TVision. On paper, the deal looked good: one of the leading streaming platforms for a reasonable discount.
Fast forward a year and a half later, and the partnership between the two companies has resulted in an exceptionally poor experience for the consumer, a shocking departure for T-Mobile, a company that has built its brand on customer service.
There are two main ways this partnership fails, both of which I experienced after giving YTTV a try after using Sling TV exclusively since TVision’s demise. As someone who tries to use Google’s services an absolute minimum over privacy concerns, I was lured to try YTTV with a half-price offer for T-Mobile customers that were enrolled in their Magenta MAX plans and used their T-Mobile Home Internet service.
Location-Based TV
Almost immediately, I started getting warnings when watching local channels that I was not in my local area, as defined by the zip code I entered when signing up for YTTV.
I went through the steps to verify my account, but each attempt pinged my location to a city nearly 100 miles away. This wasn’t particularly surprising since using internet speed testing services often showed that city as the location of the T-Mobile servers my internet was being routed through.
Ultimately, there was no way to get my computer to properly reflect my location since it was entirely dependent on where T-Mobile was routing my traffic. I was able to get it working by using my mobile phone to verify my location, but it’s an imperfect solution. The steps must be followed for each browser you use, and it is temporary, meaning you have to periodically go through the steps to keep your location accurate.
I reached out to Twitter to get assistance from T-Mobile’s support team, and while the person I dealt with was very helpful, they were unable to fix the issue. Why? Because T-Mobile’s Home Internet does not support TV streaming services that are location-based.
Twitter exchange with T–Mobile support member
To be perfectly clear: T-Mobile partnered with a TV streaming service that offers localized channels — based on your location — knowing full well that T-Mobile Home Internet was not compatible with that service. Ironically, Sling TV works perfectly with T-Mobile Home Internet despite T-Mobile’s customer support rep saying otherwise.
What’s more, the company cannot claim that it did not intend for T-Mobile Home Internet users to use YTTV with the service since it specifically offered a half-off discount for T-Mobile Home Internet users.
To intentionally promote a service that you know is not compatible and won’t work for the very users being targeted is incredibly disappointing at best…unethical at worst.
Billing Issues and Disappearing Discounts
The second issue is disappearing discounts when YTTV is paused for any reason.
This happened to me through a combination of factors. I had YTTV set up on autopay with one of my debit cards. The card expired and I had to activate the new one.
As I mentioned earlier, I try to use Google as little as possible due to the company’s long history of not respecting user privacy. As a result, while I have a Gmail account, I don’t use it and have set up an alternative email in my Google account.
Like many people who use autopay, when it comes time to update my card I often forget exactly what services are set up on that card until I get notified. Despite having an alternate email set up, Google only sent notifications of the card’s expiration directly to my Gmail account…which I rarely if ever check.
While watching TV, I was suddenly presented with a screen saying the service had been paused until I could update my card, which I promptly did. Imagine my surprise when I was charged the full amount, rather than the half-price amount I had been paying.
After messaging and calling Google’s customer support, I was told that any pause, for any reason, canceled out any promotional deals. What’s more, because T-Mobile no longer offers the half-off discount (it abruptly ended shortly after I pointed out to T-Mobile customer support the questionable ethics involved), there was absolutely no way for me to regain the half-off discount.
Conclusion
Taken together, these two issues shine a spotlight on a major failing of T-Mobile and YouTube TV’s partnership: customer service.
A customer support failing of this magnitude is particularly disappointing as a T-Mobile customer. The company built its brand and owes its amazing turnaround to its legendary customer service. To intentionally promote a partnership with, and offer discounts for, a service that doesn’t work well for its customers is a rare but inexcusable lapse in its otherwise stellar customer service.
For Google’s part, as someone who rarely uses the company’s services, I can’t and won’t comment on whether this is in line with the customer service it normally offers.
At the same time, however, it’s not a good look for Google to be jumping at every possible opportunity to negate customers’ promotional discounts, even if they never intentionally paused or canceled their service.
Taken together, T-Mobile and Google provide a perfect example of everything that’s wrong with the current TV streaming market.
What I wouldn’t give for the old TVision. Short of that, I’d settle for T-Mobile partnering with a service that’s actually compatible with its Home Internet.
Apple isn’t winning any popularity contests by threatening to fire an employee for helping a customer.
According to The Mac Observer (TMO), an Apple customer posted a TikTok video asking for help in dealing with a stolen iPhone. The user had tracked the phone to China, but the thieves were trying to extort the victim into removing the phone from her iCloud account under threat of her personal information being released publicly. As anyone who has sold a used iPhone knows, it’s important to remove a phone from one’s iCloud account so the new owner can set it up properly.
An Apple engineer, Paris Campbell, saw the video and posted one of her own, encouraging the victim not to give in to the thief’s demands. Instead, she pointed out that her data was protected as long as she didn’t give the perpetrators what they wanted.
In the course of the video, Campbell did not explicitly say she worked for Apple, only saying she was “a certified hardware engineer for a certain company that likes to talk about fruit.” Even that measure may not have been entirely necessary, as Apple’s rules do not prohibit its employees from identifying what company they work for.
Despite her precautions, and despite the positive response to her video, Campbell was told by her manager that she must take the video down or face disciplinary action, as the company’s social media policies prohibit revealing confidential information or posting anything about employees or customers.. The disciplinary action could include losing her job.
As TMO points out, Campbell did absolutely nothing to make Apple look bad. In fact, the argument could be made that Campbell was a prime example of a good employee, one that went out of her way to help a customer on her own time.
Instead, the only one that comes off looking bad is Apple itself. Campbell should be getting recognition, not threats, for going above and beyond to assist the company’s customers.
T-Mobile has taken the top honors in J.D. Power’s 022 U.S. Wireless Customer Care Mobile Network Operator Performance Study – Volume 2 for the 10th consecutive time.
T-Mobile has long branded itself the “Un-carrier,” eschewing traditional contracts, agreements, and general bad wireless industry practices in favor of putting the customer first. The approach is what helped the company begin turning things around when it was in fourth place in the industry and led to a long-term period of growth that has never stopped.
The company appears to be continuing in its efforts to put customers first, winning J.D. Power’s top honors for the 10th consecutive time.
“T-Mobile’s 10th consecutive first place finish is a testament to our focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences, and this win only motivates our team to aim even higher!” said Jon Freier, President of T-Mobile Consumer Group. “At T-Mobile, we’re committed to giving our customers the best network, the best value AND the best experience. Because people have enough to worry about these days – their wireless service and support they get with it should be easy, and even a bright spot in their day.”
As your business grows, it is important to keep track of your customers and ensure that you follow all the necessary regulations. One way to do this is to verify Know Your Customer (KYC). A strong KYC program helps ensure that a business is only doing business with legitimate customers, which protects the business from fraud and other risks.
What is KYC?
KYC stands for “know your customer” and is a process that businesses use to verify the identity of their customers. The KYC process typically involves collecting customer data such as name, address, date of birth, and ID type (For example, passport or driver’s license) and then verifying this information against a reliable source. In many cases, businesses will also perform additional checks, such as asking for proof of address or running a credit check.
By completing the KYC process, businesses can be sure that they are dealing with legitimate customers and reduce the risks associated with fraud and money laundering. KYC stands for “know your customer” and is a process that businesses use to verify the identity of their customers.
The benefits of implementing a KYC process include:
1. Compliance with Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Regulations
KYC is important because it helps businesses comply with anti money laundering compliance regulations and prevent fraud. By verifying the identity of their customers, businesses can be sure that they are not dealing with criminals or terrorists.
2. Reduced Fraudulent Activity
KYC can help businesses avoid fraud by verifying customer identities. It helps businesses save money and protect their reputations.
3. Improved Customer Relationships
Customers appreciate it when businesses take measures to protect their personal information. Implementing a KYC process can show customers that you value their privacy and security.
There are several steps you can take to improve your KYC verification process:
1. Collect the Necessary Information Upfront
When a customer first interacts with your business, collect the necessary information for KYC verification. It includes the customer’s name, address, date of birth, and ID number.
2. Use Multiple Verification Methods
Don’t rely on a single verification method, such as checking ID documents. Use multiple methods, such as phone calls or email confirmation, to verify customer identities.
3. Keep Updated KYC Records
Make sure to keep updated records of your customer customers’ KYC information. It will help you quickly resolve any issues that may arise.
4. Use Technology to Automate KYC
Various software solutions can help businesses automate the KYC verification process. It can save time and resources and improve the accuracy of customer identity verification.
There are some challenges that businesses may face when implementing a KYC process. These include:
1. Time-Consuming and Resource-Intensive
The KYC verification process can be time-consuming and require extensive resources. However, various software solutions can help businesses automate KYC verification. It can save time and resources.
2. Customer Satisfaction
Customers may not be happy with the extra steps required for KYC verification. To overcome this, ensure to communicate with customers about the KYC verification process. Explain why it is necessary and how it will benefit them in the long run.
3. Technology
KYC verification can be complex and require specialized software solutions. Employees need to be properly trained on using KYC verification software and tools. It will help ensure that the process is carried out correctly.
Conclusion
Any business that wants to expand its customer base needs to look closely at its KYC (Know Your Customer) processes. In today’s world of increasing regulation, businesses need to demonstrate that they know who their customers are and that they are legitimate.
Good customer service is a cornerstone of successful businesses, so it makes sense that business leaders want their employees to deliver the best customer service possible. Many of the processes and tools supervisors use are outdated, which makes it difficult to scale customer service satisfaction beyond a fraction of interactions. Giving your employees the tools, resources, and inspiration to deliver exceptional service is a great strategy to keep your clients happy and loyal. In this article, we’ll explain how to increase customer satisfaction through CS (Customer Service) agent coaching.
Customer service is one of the greatest factors in customer acquisition and retention. Great customer service makes businesses stand out among competitors and inspires word-of-mouth brand equity. Businesses use a variety of metrics to evaluate their customer service, and regular training teaches CS agents how to provide great service. But training, while critical, tends to be one-size-fits-all, and metrics such as average handle time (AHT) don’t always address pain points that lead to frustrated customers. This is where good CS agent coaching comes in.
Building Tools for Success
In a world where personalization is expected, it’s not just customers who want personalized support. CS agents also need personalized feedback so they understand howto make customers happy. There are a few steps business leaders can take to make this happen.
First is collecting and analyzing the right data. This is best done using a coaching and quality assurance software such as MaestroQA, which brings all aspects of coaching into one platform. Using a cohesive platform gives agents personalized tools for success by allowing them to track their own analytics. It also allows business leaders to focus on the right metrics.
With the MaestroQA platform, collecting and analyzing data impacting customer happiness is key. For example, while a high first contact resolution rate (FCR) is typically good news, it may not matter as much for a company where customers value relationship-building. If your product boasts individualized customer support, multiple contacts — or follow-up emails saying “Thank you” — may throw off the data. Instead, quality assurance (QA) scorecards should be central to operations, in addition to company-specific metrics.
Once you know you have the data you need, creating a customized data dashboard gets everyone on the same page. It allows agents to practice self-accountability and empowers them to understand their own analytics, leading to a culture of meaningful improvement.
Additionally, automating repetitive aspects of QA scoring enables your team to score more interactions with more efficiency. This also increases the customer support team’s trust of QA data. More QA data points mean more insight on how to satisfy customers.
Ultimately, you want to find a QA program that aligns with your customer service philosophy and values.
Providing Resources Via Coaching
Next comes setting up 1:1 coaching sessions. These should be regularly scheduled to prevent agents from slipping through the cracks or feeling ambushed when things aren’t going well. Every agent needs to expect and receive coaching, however frequency of coaching depends on each agent. Early sessions should include a plan for how to process and implement coaching, taking into account each agents’ learning styles and strengths. Ongoing sessions should be tailored to both agent and customer needs.
To prepare for coaching sessions, QA analysis is helpful. This is because it refers back to actual data from customers. Screen recording also provides valuable insight into what CS agents need. This can reveal simple steps to improve response time and solve customer issues quickly. For example, customers directly benefit from an agent being able to quickly locate relevant internal articles. Discovering gaps in preparation for coaching means you’ll know how to best update your knowledge-base tool or learning management software (LMS), too.
A few times coaching is especially beneficial:
When onboarding new employees
Training is critical for employee success. However, early coaching can provide scenario-based opportunities for agents to apply training in real-time. Early interventions can prevent bad habits and enhance agent job satisfaction. Early personalized feedback means customers are more likely to get a seasoned agent, thus improving overall statistics.
When customer satisfaction is trending downward
Using a holistic analytics and coaching tool makes it easier to catch issues with customer satisfaction. The root cause of problems should guide coaching sessions and guide toward best practices. Resources can also be provided to individual agents to curb low CSAT scores.
When implementing new systems
Providing coaching sessions when implementing new CS systems is crucial, especially as agent roles change to align with new digital solutions. Automation is the future, and agents need to understand how they fit into the customer experience. Customers may bring frustration if they’ve already interacted with a bot and received a bad answer. They may also bring more complex questions if the bot does its job of answering simple frontline questions. Coaching helps agents efficiently adjust to new technologies.
Inspiring CS Agent Success
The well-known StrengthsFinder assessment is based on the formula Talent x Investment = Strength. Taking this formula and applying it to coaching develops agents’ strengths that may have less obvious CS applications, but help in the long run. Finding out what makes employees tick, and what reward systems motivate them, can also inspire excellence.
Tracking individuals’ progress over time is the final step in coaching. If your company already has a smooth annual review system, it may be easiest to borrow elements of that system. If not, start by creating a file for each agent with ongoing coaching session notes, goals, and wins.
Allowing Coaching to Guide Culture
Coaching provides room for honest feedback from agents as well as coaches. It shows agents that supervisors aren’t out of touch with daily realities. Agents should be encouraged to bring concerns about workload, morale, and pain points to coaching sessions. When coaching leads to positive change in both customer happiness and organizational function, it inspires greater buy-in.
Coaching analytics, in turn, provide insight into low CSAT scores and help turn around uninspiring QA performance. Using coaching to improve customer experience leads to happier agents and, ultimately, customers. In the end, everyone wins.
According to Grand View Research, “the customer experience management market worldwide will be worth as much as $7.6 billion in 2020. This is a 16.9% year-over-year increase from its value of $6.5 billion in 2019.”
Businesses are investing heavily in digital customer service since they know the ROI happy customers bring.
HubSpot found that 68% of consumers say they are willing to pay more for products and services from a brand known to offer good customer service experiences.
This blog will go into the nitty-gritty of the future aspects of digital customer service.
1. Live Chat and Chatbots
According to Hubspot Research, 90% of customers rate an immediate (10 minutes or less) response as “essential” or “very important” when they have a customer service question. In times of 15-minute deliveries and no-touch payments, customers prioritize quick first-time responses. Live chat and chatbots are two different tools with different features that enable businesses to keep their FRTs to the minimum.
With live chat, businesses have the luxury to connect visitors and customers to a live agent almost instantly (generally during working hours). It also has advanced video calls, VoIP calls, screen share, and co-browsing features.
AI chatbots, cater to visitors and customers round-the-clock. Chatbots for websites mitigate the need for an agent online unless when routed for a specific query. Online chatbots offer responses to FAQs and thus help agents invest their resources in complex tasks. Moreover, since chatbot software runs on ML algorithms, it offers
personalized experiences to customers, adding a human touch sans live agents.
2. Omnichannel Coverage
A survey by Omisend reports, “Purchase frequency is 250% higher on omnichannel vs. single-channel and the average order value is 13% more per order on omni channel vs. single channel.” Since people now use more than one device, they expect businesses to enable touch points across multiple platforms.
For instance, orders placed on a D2C e-commerce store can be tracked through updates on WhatsApp. Businesses must leverage all platforms available like social media, email, WhatsApp, and SMS in order to create an excellent omnichannel customer experience. Imagine being able to surf and shop on Amazon only through the web!
3. CRM Software Integration
According to resco.net 74% of respondents say that CRM solutions give them better access to customer data, allowing for more personalized service.
A good CRM is already a vital part of any business that prioritizes customer service quality. It helps leverage customer data. CRM software allows you to know enough about your customers to offer a more personalized style of service. For instance, a sales CRM connects customer activities across social networks and other channels into one dashboard for agents’ reference, so they are aware of all information like customer purchases, how long they’ve been associated with the business, past interactions with other agents and more.
4. Intelligent Routing
Routing customers quickly to the correct department adds to customer satisfaction and is important to maintaining customer retention. Inability to do so is a big customer service failure.
AI-enabled intelligent routing and automatic ticketing allow businesses to increase first contact resolution rates and offer excellent customer service.
Here, the queries the chatbot couldn’t answer are routed to a team of agents based on their expertise and availability. The agent then generally reaches out to the visitor or customer through email or phone.
This helps people get all their questions answered and queries solved, which is indeed a great example of customer service.
5. Big Data
Businesses now have the luxury to store and manage their customers’ data (obviously consensually) and also analyze it.
This allows businesses to do the following things:
Targeting The Right Leads
Analyzing data can help you gain tangible insights into the consumer market, which will help you target the most rewarding leads. and help craft laser-focused marketing campaigns to target them.
Predictions of Trends
Big data can help you analyze the purchasing patterns of a given customer and predict when the next purchase will be made, what it will be, and the motivation behind it.
Seamless customer experience
Big data displays patterns in the ways customers use your website and apps to plug-in gaps in customer service. For instance, you can find out the average time a user spends on a particular page of your website, where they click through heat maps and more.
Catering to customer needs
Big data makes predictions about what each individual customer wants based on past actions. For example, Amazon and Netflix use big data to provide product recommendations.
6. AI and ML
AI and ML-enabled tools can perform tasks that humans practically can’t, and thus these technologies will likely become an integral part of the customer service landscape in the future.
Both these technologies will enable automation and remove any chances for human error whilst offering customer service 24/7.
Moreover, they’ll add a human touch to online communications by learning through interaction — offering personalized customer service (71% of marketers find AI could be useful for personalization). This will make the online customer service as warm as it is in stores traditionally.
The Future of Customer Service
In the future, we will see massive adoption of AI and ML-enabled technologies like chatbots and live chat, where customers receive automatic responses 24/7 with the least FRTs. Businesses will invest heavily in offering best customer service to increase customer acquisition, satisfaction, loyalty, and sales.
“Slack has already transformed the way we work at Salesforce,” says Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor. “Since we have deployed Slack internally, we sent 46% fewer e-mails. And in the last 30 days alone, our employees have sent nearly 60 million Slack messages and conducted 500,000 Slack Huddles. We run Salesforce on Slack.”
Not only has Salesforce transformed the way they work with Slack but so are the customers of Salesforce. The company sees Slack as a core platform for powering digital transformation.
“Customer 360 and Slack are powering this transformation for companies in every industry in every region of the world,” said Taylor in yesterday’s earnings call. “Slack outperformed our expectations in the first full quarter as a part of the Salesforce family. The number of customers on Slack who spent over $100,000 was up 44% year-over-year. The adoption of Slack Connect was up an astonishing 176% year-over-year. Slack is not just a product, Slack is a network, and it’s just incredible to see that growth.”
The company seemed pleasantly surprised about how transformative Slack is to the operations of large enterprises. As Slack brought on millions of new users during the pandemic they focused on innovation that has made Slack much more than a simple communications platform.
“Slack also continues to innovate at an unbelievable pace,” notes Taylor. “Slack Huddles, which is Slack’s new real-time audio capability, is already used weekly by over 1/3 of Slack users. And Slack Clips, the new asynchronous video capability, are being played nearly 1 million times a week. And this month at Slack Frontiers, which I hope all of you have watched; and if you haven’t, you can watch it online. Stewart and the team are now the next generation of Slack’s platform, and it’s going to truly transform the way companies think about workflows and automation.”
Customer 360 and Slack are powering this transformation for companies in every industry in every region of the world, according to Taylor.
Slack outperformed our expectations in the first full quarter as a part of the Salesforce family. The number of customers on Slack who spent over $100,000 was up 44% year-over-year. Adoption of Slack Connect was up an astonishing 176% year-over-year. Slack is not just a product, Slack is a network, and it’s just incredible to see that growth.
Slack also continues to innovate at an unbelievable pace. Slack Huddles, which is Slack’s new real-time audio capability, is already used weekly by over 1/3 of Slack users. And Slack Clips, the new asynchronous video capability, are being played nearly 1 million times a week. And this month at Slack Frontiers, which I hope all of you have watched; and if you haven’t, you can watch it online. Stewart and the team are now the next generation of Slack’s platform, and it’s going to truly transform the way companies think about workflows and automation.
“That is definitely what I saw firsthand,” said Co-CEO Mark Benioff. “I was like, how could it be that an airline is basically front-ending their entire system with Slack? That’s a shock to me.”
“Slack is the system of engagement for every workflow, every application, every person on your enterprise,” added Taylor. “It’s really an amazing platform vision. And absolutely watch Slack Frontiers. If you haven’t seen it, I think it will blow your mind.”
“Every CEO and every Board I talk to is focused on how they can succeed in this era of flexible work,” says Taylor. “According to Slack’s research, 93% of workers are looking for flexibility when they work, and 76% are looking for flexibility where they work. Companies need to connect their employees, their partners, their customers from anywhere because we all know we’re not going to be in the office 5 days a week.”
“Our offices aren’t going away,” he said. “It’s just that your digital headquarters is going to be more important because it’s truly the infrastructure that connects all of it, and especially in this new normal. And Slack and Customer 360 together are really powering this transformation.”
Slack Has Already Transformed Salesforce, Says Salesforce Co-CEO Bret Taylor
“Consumers love our product because it represents purchasing power but also budgeting for them,” says Sezzle co-founder and CEO Charlie Youakim. “They feel safe with it just like they do with the debit card. We’re driving a new wedge into payments between credit and debit. I call it the creditization of a debit card. I think it’s here to say because of that safety element that we give to the consumer.”
Sezzle is generally focused on the ecomm space, that’s where we do most of our work. We are present on over 44,000 merchant websites. The Buy Now, Pay Later industry, in general, is typically focused on ecommerce. So as that push back into ecomm occurs (potentially due to increases in COVID causing more people to shop from home) we generally benefit from that.
We compete in this space by really focusing on our stakeholders, focusing on the merchants, focusing on the consumers, and doing the right thing by both of them. We really stand on the high road for the consumer. We are the only player in the space that focuses on credit building which is totally unique. We love it, our consumers love it and our merchant partners love it. By focusing on their needs, these consumers’ needs, and doing right by them and right by the merchants, you have a chance to do a really strong job within the sector.
Sezzle Pushing Into the Enterprise
With SMB’s we’ve been growing like wildfire. It just continues for us. That’s how we have that big count of merchants and we expect that to continue. We’re doing a great job there and the merchants love us. It’s viral in that space. For us now the push is into enterprise and in Target, Bass Pro Shops, those are two great examples of that for us. The reason we’re doing that is that our consumer wants to shop with us everywhere so we have to be everywhere. That means we have to be with SMB, we’ve got to be with mid-market, and we’ve got to be with enterprise.
That will be the push for Sezzle to continue to push in those spaces. If you look at the enterprise players in those spaces, what they want is they want a brand that they can believe in. That’s where you have Sezzle and our halo around doing right by the consumer helping them build their credit score up and being a partnerships player. That’s what really sets us apart.
Sezzle: The Creditization Of a Debit Card
The average order value per customer has been relatively stable. We’re around $100 per order. The only reason it’s been tracking a bit up for us is we’ve been expanding our services. We started with a pure ‘pay in four’ for over six weeks interest-free and so that’s where we tracked right around $100. But as we add long-term into the mix we’ve been starting to track upwards. The order values on a 12-month order or 12-month installment plan, tend to track towards $1,000. We feel it’s probably going to stay stable, it’s just going to be a mixed shift that creates any change for Sezzle.
We see from our consumers that they love our product because it represents purchasing power but also budgeting for them. They feel safe with it just like they do with the debit card. We’re driving a new wedge into payments between credit and debit. I call it the creditization of a debit card. I think it’s here to say because of that safety element that we give to the consumer.
Sezzle Is the Creditization Of a Debit Card, Says CEO Charlie Youakim
“Our digital performance was up 50 percent,” says Target CEO Brian Cornell. “As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. Same-day fulfillment services now represent over half of our digital channel.”
Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, discusses their massive Q1 results in an interview on CNBC:
Digital Performance Up 50 Percent
We’ve had a string of really solid results going back to 2017 but this quarter may be one of the highlights. Our team executed throughout the quarter. We had a great performance from our store teams with a store comp of 18%. Our digital performance was up 50%. It was really a team effort. We had great supply chain support with our merchants and marketers all coming together to support the results which speak for themselves.
We are benefitting from investments we’ve been making for years now. Our investment in our store experience, our curated Home Brand and national brand mix, and then the fulfillment services that we offer. That combined with the investment in our team, I think we are seeing continued strength. We feel really good sitting here right now about our outlook, not just for the second quarter but for the full year.
We’ve Connected With The Consumer
As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. They really connect with our curation of Great Home Brand, national brands, and the service our team provides each and every day.
We are feeling very confident about our position today. I look at the proof point from Q1, we picked up another billion dollars in market share on top of the $9 billion of share last year. That’s just a sign that we’ve connected with the consumer, we’re building relevance, and we’re providing what they need and what they want throughout the year.
Newness Is A Huge Trend In Our Business
When you see the combination of stores comping up at 18%, which to me is just a highlight number, and categories like apparel growing again by over 60%, that combination of store traffic and category mix really benefited us throughout the quarter. We are seeing a resilient consumer. They’re clearly shopping our stores and when they’re there they are attracted to anything that’s new.
Newness has certainly been a trend throughout our business in the first quarter and I think that’s going to continue. That great combination of store traffic and store comps and the continued movement of same-day fulfillment services which now represent over half of our digital channel. We really like that transaction. It looks and feels more like a store transaction which from a profitability standpoint certainly is beneficial for us.
Target CEO Brian Cornell Says Digital Performance Up 50%
“Digital transformation will come out as a faster trend out of the pandemic,” says Workday co-CEO Aneel Bhusri. “What’s been interesting about the pandemic is that for companies that were in the cloud they figured out how to how to thrive and adjust to the new world. Companies that weren’t in the cloud realized that they needed the flexibility, agility, and ability to plan instantaneously. They needed those capabilities.”
Aneel Bhusri, co-CEO of Workday, discusses how the pandemic will drive digital transformation forward at an even faster pace:
Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic
The first three quarters during the pandemic were challenging. The vagaries of subscription accounting models are such that it is a lag indicator. We expect new bookings growth to accelerate this year and that is our primary indicator and the way we run the business. We’re very excited about where we’re headed. That acceleration will probably take at least a year to show up in subscription accounting numbers just because of the way the model works.
What’s been interesting about the pandemic is that for companies that were in the cloud they figured out how to how to thrive and adjust to the new world. Companies that weren’t in the cloud realized that they needed the flexibility, agility, and ability to plan instantaneously. They needed those capabilities. In many ways, companies like Nike that are just such great market-leading companies, recognize that they needed to move this capability to the cloud. So I think actually digital transformation will come out as a faster trend out of the pandemic.
Employee Engagement Rose To The Top Of The List
It comes back to the flexibility and agility that that cloud solutions like Workday provide. We’ve been very fortunate. We’re so happy to have Laboratory Corporation of America become a customer. J&J is a customer. Visor’s a customer. AstraZeneca is a customer. I just feel honored to be able to support these companies who are doing the best they can to save our lives and are just doing amazing work with the vaccines and testing. We’ve always had a strength in the pharmaceuticals and diagnostics role. We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that they’re successful because they’re taking care of all of us.
Coming back to what we learned during the pandemic, employee engagement just rose to the top of every CEO’s list and every head of HR’s list. In a remote work orientation, it was harder to really understand how do employees think about the company they work at, their engagement level, their comfort with their manager, and if they are feeling fulfilled at work. We were already down the path at Workday with something called Pulse Surveys. We recognized that this emerging trend was going to be critical going forward.
We Fell In Love With Peakon So We Acquired Them
We concluded that we had to get in this market now, the market’s happening now, and Peakon is the well-known leader in this category. Peakon is a UK-based company with an amazing management team. We fell in love with the product and the management team so we made them part of Workday. They’re one of the new generations of companies that’s machine learning first.
They really use machine learning in the right way to guide decisions and really give you insight into how employees are thinking about the company that they’re working for and how engaged are they. That is a supercritical set of information that’s going to drive companies going forward.
Digital Transformation To Be Faster Trend Out Of Pandemic, Says Worday co-CEO Aneel Bhusri
“Business is really simple, and people are more productive, and they’re doing things that can lead to growth and opportunity,” says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. “That’s the whole point of digital transformation. Right now, companies are hunkered down with systems that are absolutely wearing them out. It’s time to make the bold move, pivot to ServiceNow, and let’s get in there and fix the job.”
Bill McDermott, CEO, and President of ServiceNow says that only one in four digital transformation projects actually deliver positive ROI due to lack of integration:
Most Digital Transformation Projects Don’t Deliver
We have a situation on our hands where digital transformation, cloud computing, and business model innovation, are all converging at once. ServiceNow is the platform, of all the enterprise platforms, that really makes business work. One of the big lessons that business has right now is trillions have been poured into digital transformation yet only one in four projects actually deliver positive ROI. The reason for that is lack of integration.
Our system integrates with all the existing systems as well as all the collaborative tools in the enterprise. From day one, the customer gets it up and running swiftly because it’s in the cloud. They begin to derive value from it because you automate the way the work is done and ultimately, you’re now in a position to serve your customers the way they want to be served. It’s a speed game and ServiceNow is at the top of its game.
Companies Have To Create New Business Models
We’re an example. If you’re going to grow your company you’re going to take advantage of digital transformation. This is the only way out and it’s the only way forward. In the 20th Century companies put in big heavy on-premise systems. The issue is now they can’t, in a frictionless economy, immediately pivot those business models because they haven’t digitally transformed their business.
About 25 percent of the opportunity of businesses out there today over the next three years will come from white space places they are not in today. They have to create new business models. They have to think about new partnerships and new routes to market. Without the baseline of a platform like ServiceNow they’re not going to get there.
That’s The Whole Point Of Digital Transformation
I am very optimistic that the economies of the world not only are going to recover but actually going to do very well this year because people are going to be investing in digital transformation. We have seen that does not cost jobs. On the contrary, it frees people up to do things like go after new markets, derive new ideas, and so forth, because the AI revolution is also on.
We have built-in machine learning and AI into our platform. So 80 percent of the soul-crushing work people don’t want to do is done by the Now platform. The 20 percent that involves a human immediately gets initiated through a workflow order from the Now platform.
Business is really simple, and people are more productive and they’re doing things that can lead to growth and opportunity. That’s the whole point of digital transformation. Right now, companies are hunkered down with systems that are absolutely wearing them out. It’s time to make the bold move, pivot to ServiceNow, and let’s get in there and fix the job.
Fastest-Growing Pure-Play SASS Silicon Valley Company
If you look at our actual earnings results, they were stunning and obviously achieved beyond expectations performance across the board. We also followed that through in the guide. We’ll continue to be the fastest-growing pure-play SASS Silicon Valley company. We will continue to have the best margin profile of all of them. Obviously, we’re going to continue to gain market share in industries around the world, in geographies around the world, particularly in Europe and Asia Pacific, and Japan.
We will also gain market share on personas. Lots of people are getting the memo now that ServiceNow obviously dominated the IT automation market but the same backbone platform has enabled us to change the employee experience, the customer experience. In these tough times with COVID we can write low-code onto our platform in minutes and roll out new applications to hundreds of thousands of people so companies can move super fast.
We keep the guide consistent with the revenue that we generated in 2020. If there’s an upside to that… fantastic. That’s what good companies should do. They should go beyond expectations when they can but we stand by the guide and we’re looking forward to having a great year.
ServiceNow Was Born In The Cloud
The whole idea of ServiceNow is so different than SAP which was a company that needed to pivot to the cloud in 2010. We did that and that was very successful. ServiceNow was born in the cloud. It’s a very young company with tremendous growth opportunity on the organic front. Having said that, (we would be in interested in an acquisition) if you have a situation where there is a partner out there that has a substantial TAM, that can be highly complementary and synergistic with ServiceNow on the revenue side.
It also would have to do great things for the customer, because we have a precious platform and we jealously protect the integration power of that platform. A lot of things would have to be right but I can tell you as responsible business people we always look at it. We don’t need it to make our goals but you always have to look at it. We do want to be the defining enterprise software company the 21st century. That’s our plan.
“There is definitely no intention to make Slack free,” says Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield. “What we’ve seen in the last little while is the biggest telco in North America is wall-to-wall on Slack. The operator of the largest integrated health care system in the United States is on Slack. The single largest government contractor in the United States is wall-to-wall on Slack.”
Slack Connect Key To Value Unlock Of Salesforce Deal
The simple version of the back story is this is a really unique combination. We believe we can accomplish in the next five years what might have taken us 20 years to do otherwise. That’s the heart of it and it’s a pretty big milestone for us. We’re excited. It wasn’t expected by the outside world but we have a lot of momentum now. We came out of this quarter and we announced our results and Salesforce announced their results. Then we announced the acquisition all at the same time.
A little bit of this got lost but we added 12,000 new paying customers in that quarter. It’s up 140 percent from a year ago. It matches the crazy surge that we saw during the early days of the pandemic. That momentum is coming from product improvements and it’s coming from Slack Connect which allows two organizations to communicate across organizational boundaries. That’s actually going to be key to the value unlock over the next few years. Salesforce is all about CRM. It’s all about customers and Slack Connect is 95 percent customer-vendor relationships.
Engagement Layer: Everyone Will See It Later
This (acquisition) is 100% offense. There are some really unique aspects of this particular combination. We weren’t looking to sell the company. I have a great relationship with Brett Taylor, President, and COO of Salesforce. We’ve known each other for a couple of decades at this point. There’s a way in which we see the world that i think very few people see it today but everyone will see it later. One way to say that is to look at the engagement layer. That’s kind of a weird term but it is the place where the conversations are happening, the places where the decisions are being made, as the perfect place to bring together workflows across organizational boundaries.
Salesforce has a really broad suite. But of course, we have 2,400 apps in the app directory for Slack. We have 700 000 custom integrations that were developed by customers. These are like unique little integrations, some of them very small, just sending notifications into Slack, and some of them are sophisticated workflows that run entire businesses. That’s something that we will see an increasing degree of sophistication in the messaging environment and an increasing degree of work getting done directly where the decisions are made.
No Intention To Make Slack Free
When Brett and I were talking we talked about the opportunity for something that’s one plus one equals seven. If you think back to the 90s and Cisco acquiring small hardware startups and then plugging it into their network of 20,000 salespeople and just selling a lot more of that thing. That’s not it. We will do that as well. We obviously have incredible distribution and incredible reach and incredible relationships across all industries and across all geographies. So we’ll sell more Slack.
Salesforce recently announced their plan to get to $50 billion in revenue and we’ll play an important part in that. We’ll also be an accelerant for the adoption of Salesforce’s core products. There is definitely no intention to make Slack free. What we’ve seen in the last little while is the biggest telco in North America is wall-to-wall on Slack. The operator of the largest integrated health care system in the United States is on Slack. The single largest government contractor in the United States is wall-to-wall on Slack.
We win in media and technology, kind of famously, but we also win in retail and apparel and industries that people don’t imagine seeing us. We have 142,000 customers right now. There’s going to be a lot of overlap with Salesforce but there’s also going to be 100,000 plus of those customers which are SMBs and kind of outside of Salesforce’s purview so far. We think there’s the opportunity to bring them into the fold and to connect them all together with Slack Connect.
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield: No Intention To Make Slack Free
Salesforce announced that it is buying Slack for $27.7 billion in cash and stock. The company says that combining Slack with Salesforce Customer 360 will be transformative for customers and the industry. They say that the combination will create the operating system for the new way to work, uniquely enabling companies to grow and succeed in the all-digital world.
Under the terms of the agreement, Slack shareholders will receive $26.79 in cash and 0.0776 shares of Salesforce common stock for each Slack share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $27.7 billion based on the closing price of Salesforce’s common stock on November 30, 2020.
The transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2022, subject to approval by the Slack stockholders, the receipt of required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield told the Wall Street Journal that he is joining Salesforce and will continue to run Slack as a unit of Salesforce after the deal’s close.
“Stewart and his team have built one of the most beloved platforms in enterprise software history, with an incredible ecosystem around it,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO, Salesforce. “This is a match made in heaven. Together, Salesforce and Slack will shape the future of enterprise software and transform the way everyone works in the all-digital, work-from-anywhere world. I’m thrilled to welcome Slack to the Salesforce Ohana once the transaction closes.”
“Salesforce started the cloud revolution, and two decades later, we are still tapping into all the possibilities it offers to transform the way we work. The opportunity we see together is massive,” said Stewart Butterfield, Slack CEO and Co-Founder. “As software plays a more and more critical role in the performance of every organization, we share a vision of reduced complexity, increased power and flexibility, and ultimately a greater degree of alignment and organizational agility. Personally, I believe this is the most strategic combination in the history of software, and I can’t wait to get going.”
Slack to Become the New Interface for Salesforce Customer 360
Salesforce:
Salesforce is the #1 CRM that enables companies to sell, service, market and conduct commerce, from anywhere. Slack brings people, data and tools together so teams can collaborate and get work done, from anywhere. Slack Connect extends the benefits of Slack to enable communication and collaboration between a company’s employees and all its external partners, from vendors to customers.
Slack will be deeply integrated into every Salesforce Cloud. As the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360, Slack will transform how people communicate, collaborate and take action on customer information across Salesforce as well as information from all of their other business apps and systems to be more productive, make smarter, faster decisions and create connected customer experiences.
Luxury online retailer Farfetch, where product prices start at around a thousand dollars, had a breakout IPO on Thursday, raising $885 million while setting a valuation of $6.2 billion for the company. Then on Friday the stock surged 53 percent above their initial offering price and it’s up again this morning valuing the enterprise at $7.4 billion.
Farfetch plans to use their IPO windfall to dramatically improve their technology which they see as the best way to improve the consumer experience.
Farfetch Founder and CEO José Manuel Ferreira Neves recently discussed Farfetch and the online luxury brand industry on Bloomberg:
Online Luxury is Growing 25 Percent a Year
It’s a very unique opportunity. You have this amazing global industry. It’s $300 billion, the personal luxury goods industry and only 9 percent is online. There are two opportunities here really. One is the growth of online luxury which is going to grow to 25 percent a year for the next seven years. This is a $100 billion opportunity shift in online luxury.
The big question is how is technology going to help brands and retailers really improve the consumer experience in the physical store. This is something at Farfetch that we are very passionate about.
China is an Incredible Opportunity for Online Luxury
China is a very exciting opportunity. Chinese citizens are at the onset of the luxury industry, whether they shop at home or when they’re shopping abroad. Online penetration is very low in China so this means that there is an incredible growth runway for Farfetch in the territory.
That led to our partnership with JD.com where we have our own team. We have the Farfetch China app and website, we have local customer service, local payment systems, and local marketing. It’s a truly localized service. That is what’s driving incredible growth to the Farfetch brand in that region.
José Neves, founder and CEO of @farfetch, told us about the company’s grand ambitions for China at the WWD’s Men’s Wear Summit this week. https://t.co/MrMj7y5VCG
WeChat is an amazing app with over 900 million users. It is the Instagram, plus WeChat, plus PayPal, etc. of China in one app. That is very powerful and very interesting. Now with our acquisition CuriosityChina we are powering the retail presence of 80 luxury brands. We think that is very interesting for the industry and we think that is probably something that we will see for the western world.
Brands Now Using Social and Digital Marketing Extensively
I think brands move cautiously and they choose their marketing channels very carefully. As these newer channels have developed the brands have adapted to them and their now using social media and digital media extensively to create desire, to drive discovery of new products obviously transactions as well.
It’s a gradual pace but it’s really exciting that were at that inflection point where the brands see this as a tremendous opportunity.
“Digital transformation was the opportunity for our generation before COVID,” says ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott. “Now with COVID, it has accelerated and exacerbated all the issues of broken systems and siloed operations. Before COVID they didn’t want to be told to go into a cubicle. Do you think after COVID once this thing clears up at some point in the future they are going to be told to go into a cubicle? No, they’re going to be digital.”
Digital transformation was the opportunity for our generation before COVID. Now with COVID, it has accelerated and exacerbated all the issues of broken systems and siloed operations. People are not realizing that 75% of the workforce by 2025 will be millennial generation people. Before COVID they didn’t want to be told to go into a cubicle. Do you think after COVID once this thing clears up at some point in the future they are going to be told to go into a cubicle? No, they’re going to be digital.
They’re also going to absolutely expect their employer to give them the best tools. The big idea if you want to give the customer a Michelin 3 experience is you have to fuse the employee experience and the customer experience on a common platform. This way most things can be automated for the customer on a self-service basis. The things that can’t be automated can immediately be workflow ordered to get the right person in the right place with the right skill set at the right time. That’s what we do and that’s why this is a thrilling moment.
Now Platform Is the Standard For Digital Transformation
The Now platform has become the standard for digital transformation in business today. If you think about most of these companies they’re grappling with the future of work. They have to accommodate their employees. They have very distributed workforces. How are they going to get them the tools that they need and onboard them properly? In some cases, they never even meet the people they hire. Then obviously, how are they going to manage the experience they have digitally?
This also goes direct to the customer. How do you go direct to the consumer? How do you make sure you give them a great service so they stay loyal to you? The ServiceNow Platform is at the epicenter of all of that. More and more, developers are building new innovation on the fly on the Now Platform. The Now platform has become a standard for large enterprises around the world. The ecosystem and the network effect building on that are truly sensational. We’re extremely fired up because we want to make work… work better for people all over the world. What we’re trying to do is get to the essence of everything.
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott: COVID Has Accelerated Digital Transformation
“The barriers have broken down now in digital transformation because of people working from home and the need to adopt faster,” says Brenda Harvey, General Manager at IBM Asia Pacific. “We see continued growth of hybrid cloud and of cloud services after the pandemic. It’s touching every element of a company’s business processes from the inside out and the outside in.”
The benefits coming from new personalized services, workflow automation, infusing AI to help drive this more personal experience, are actually driving better business impact. When we think about hybrid cloud which enables you to leverage all of your investments across your infrastructure we’re actually seeing two and a half times value than traditional models. We’re also seeing the benefits from regulatory cloud and capabilities that we’re putting into our platforms. We just announced a financial services cloud and we’ll do the same with insurance and healthcare.
We’ll take the costs out of the regulatory risk and compliance while providing more value from a business perspective. We’ve had a number of relationships across multiple industries including BNP Paribas, MUFG Bank, Adobe, across telecom with Vodafone Idea, Bharti Airtel, Verizon, and even Schlumberger and Ernst & Young. Companies are seeing the value of these platforms. In fact, in the study, 94% of the respondents said that by 2022 they would have a new business platform model that would continue to power their business.
Barriers To Digital Transformation Have Broken Down
We see continued growth of hybrid cloud and of cloud services after the pandemic. It’s touching every element of a company’s business processes from the inside out and the outside in. The inside out includes HR, finance, risk compliance, procurement, supply chain. Then the outside in, marketing, sales, customer engagement, and customer service. With marketing at marketing events, we saw a 3X response into our Think Digital than previous years because we could have more reach. So now marketing is taking into account a digital transformation of the clients’ needs.
Customer service and engagement are the number one priority of our clients. They are building and investing in the contact center to improve the experience and drive more value. This cloud platform will bring in new capabilities with 5G such as IoT (internet of things), blockchain, and of course quantum capabilities. We’ll see the technology advance while the cultural change is advancing too. The barriers have broken down now in digital transformation because of people working from home and the need to adopt faster.
IBM: Barrier To Digital Transformation Have Broken Down
“We are in a new digital world―in an ALL digital world,” says Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “The past is gone and it’s not coming back. We are not in the future. We are in the present moment. We are now in this new digital future and we need to rebuild our companies and organizations. This is a moment where if we all decide that we are all going to be successful and that the past is gone, we can create the future that we want.”
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, discusses how we are not living in the past or the future, we are living in the present. He says that the present is a new digital world in an all digital world:
This Is About Helping Our Customers Thrive
We are, of course, in an unpredictable time. There’s never been greater uncertainty in the entire world because you have a global pandemic, you have a global economic crisis, you have a racial justice crisis, you have a global leadership crisis, and you have a global environmental crisis, and they are all happening simultaneously. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world. That’s why we all really have to focus and get really clear on what we want right now and how we are going to succeed through these times.
This is a time that you can no longer do what you were doing six months ago. You have to do something totally new and if you can do something totally new you can have tremendous success. Salesforce is now an example of that success. We delivered a 29 percent growth quarter. It was amazing. That followed a 30 percent growth quarter. We also had record margins and we had record large deals. It was amazing how many very large transactions we were able to close during that time.
Ultimately, this is about helping our customers succeed and helping them thrive during this time. It was a 63 percent increase in seven-figure deals for our quarter. It is really because the largest most important companies in this world are all making dramatic changes and we’re there to help them connect with their customers in a whole new way.
We Are In A New Digital World… In An All Digital World
We are in a new digital world―in an ALL digital world. The past is gone. It’s not coming back. We are not in the future. We are in the present moment. This is a be here now moment. Everyone needs to realize that the past is gone. We are now in this new digital future and we need to rebuild our companies and organizations. Ultimately, we need to rebuild ourselves to be successful in this new digital future.
I just had a Board meeting last week. I had a Board member and they were talking about how great Zoom is and how we participated in this great IPO and successful it is. The Board members said that Zoom is really the future. I said, look, Zoom is not the future. Zoom is the present. This is our present reality. We are in a new world. This is our reality. We need to all make changes and we need to make them now because this is not going to shift anytime soon. If we’re going to succeed through this we need to realize that the past is gone.
We Can Create The Future That We Want
We are never going back to how it was. All of our employees are at home. Even in countries where we are open like Japan employees don’t want to even come in to the office because they have reskilled themselves. We have a whole reskilling engine called Trailhead.com. They use our tools. We have a tremendous salesforce automation tool that lets our employees sell to our customers remotely digitally. Our Sales Cloud is why we have tremendous sales, productivity, and success. Our Service Cloud is why we are having tremendous ability to service from anywhere and market from anywhere. The reason we’re the fastest growing top five software company in the world is because we use our own products.
This is just a minute in time where I say, wow, I didn’t see this coming. Nobody did. But now that we’re here we have to rebuild ourselves. At the same time we have to also augment for our customers what we can do. We are doing now contact tracing for thousands of companies. We run pandemic response management for 35 states. We didn’t have a pandemic response capability six months ago. Now we have to have it.
We have to be there for our customers to help them be successful whether they are public sector organizations or whether they are the world’s most important companies. This is a moment where if we all decide that we are all going to be successful and that the past is gone, we can create the future that we want.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: We Are In A New Digital World
As technology changes so does the way we interact with each other. Before smartphones and ordering online, popping into a shop to search for a particular item or calling around to find it before heading out were both common things to do. The internet and later smartphones changed all that. Now we have access to whatever information we need right at our fingertips at all times. If we are searching for something hard to find we can simply order it online. If we are planning to go purchase something in person or we want more information about an item before we buy it, we often consult our smartphones for further information rather than asking a store employee for help. In fact, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 69% of people would rather search for information on their phones instead of asking for help from a store employee, and the pandemic has just made this practice all the more practical.
All the information and technology we carry around in our pockets has changed the way we interact with the world. We send text messages and emails more frequently than calling now and if we don’t know something it’s just a matter of knowing how to find it. With the spread of the pandemic accessing information has become even more crucial. We can look up mask policies and procedures before we go to a business, find out if a business has special hours for those with disabilities and the elderly, and look up every-changing hours and services.
Increasingly, stores are giving information to consumers that they have never given out before. One of the things customers can look for online with many businesses is not only where an item is located in a store, but also how many of that item are in stock at any given time. Customers want accurate information and they want it now, as their time is becoming more valuable than ever. What’s more, knowing you will find what you are looking for before you leave the house is actually pretty critical during the age of social distancing.
Mobile Communication In Retail
Communicating with customers is changing thanks to the mobile revolution. Answering phone calls from customers is no longer the main interaction with them. In fact, 85% of those who own smartphones prefer text messages to calls or even emails, which means that businesses that aren’t responsive to this type of communication are likely missing out on customers.
Mobile ordering and messaging has also been a boon to restaurants since the start of the pandemic. In many places restaurants have only been open for takeout orders, so having apps and messaging abilities for taking orders and telling customers when their orders are ready has helped them to run on a skeleton crew while making the changes necessary to function as a takeout only business.
As restaurants begin to reopen with new social distancing guidelines in place, mobile messaging helps to keep communication going for reservations, when tables are ready, and more.
Mobile Communication In Medicine
Accessing medical services has been challenging because of the pandemic, and early on laws were relaxed to allow people to access telehealth services. In order to make the transition easier for medical providers and patients alike, all messaging and video call services were allowed so that doctors could get care to those who needed it via whatever means they were able to use. Teladoc saw a 50% increase in use in the first week alone.
When it comes to customer complaints, nothing makes customers angrier than sitting on hold for hours waiting for their call to be answered, which makes it not the best way to solve customer complaints to begin with.
Chats and mobile messaging give customers the ability to initiate contact and then do other things while they await a response. It’s a much less stressful way to deal with contacting customer service, and it’s a lot more effective than airing out grievances on social media, which can come back around with undesirable consequences later on.
But text messaging has to go both ways. It’s not enough to send marketing messages via SMS, businesses also need to be able to respond to messages they receive. One in three customers report sending a message to a company and never hearing back from them, and in many cases it is simply because the company has not enabled two way messaging.
Customers say that businesses that offer messaging respect their time, which makes them more likely to choose to do business with that company. It also means those happy customers are more likely to recommend that business to friends and family.
As technology changes, the ways that businesses interact with customers have to keep up with the times. The first rule of customer service is to meet customers where they are, and if that means hanging up the phone and sending out a text message that’s how it has to be.
Mobile communication is likely to hinge on SMS messages for some time to come, and businesses that aren’t already using this method are missing out on business. Is your business ready to harness the power of mobile communication?
“There’s a real recognition that digitization and transformation are not doing what you used to do in the physical world,” says Publicis Sapient CEO Nigel Vaz. “Digitizing that and translating that is essentially the journey of going from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. Real transformation. How do you reimagine yourself in the context of a world that now is entirely digital? Customers are thinking very actively about how they actually create products and services that essentially create value for customers entirely digitally.”
Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient, discusses how the current pandemic has forced organizations to reimagine their businesses digitally. Nigel works closely with clients such as McDonald’s, Nationwide, and Unilever to deliver transformative experiences and business models:
https://youtu.be/VOKcTLcxHXw
Businesses Being Reimagined In A World That Is Now Entirely Digital
Digitization Has Become Existential For Business
I think Digital has always been important for business. Now more than ever what’s becoming very clear is this has gone from being something that’s important to something that’s existential. How do you support customers to make orders entirely online when your stores are closed? How do you create mashups with other partners to be able to facilitate deliveries when your own deliveries don’t suffice? How do you try to create experiences online through self-service that minimize the impact of people calling your call centers?
All of these things are things clients are facing on a regular basis. Most CEOs I’m in conversation with are acknowledging the fact that this has now got to be a priority, that they have to be ready more so than they’ve ever thought before.
3 Key Things Happening With the Transformation
There are three things happening here in terms of transformation. The first is the change in human behavior where I think there’s a recognizable shift now. We’re seeing significant accounts of over-70s, for example, ordering from retail and ramping that up. We’re seeing a big shift in institutions like schools and educational institutions, which historically had not thought about transformation as particularly applicable to them.
We’re also seeing a shift in industries like leisure looking at creating virtual experiences since physical experiences are essentially restricted and people can’t use them. The human behavior shift is translating to big investments in technology and technology platforms that enable this.
Businesses Being Reimagined In A World That Is Now Entirely Digital
Then lastly, new business models. There’s a real recognition that digitization and transformation are not doing what you used to do in the physical world. Digitizing that and translating that is essentially the journey of going from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. Real transformation. How do you reimagine yourself in the context of a world that now is entirely digital?
Customers are thinking very actively about how they actually create products and services that essentially create value for customers entirely digitally. There are plenty of examples in this from telemedicine and from the educational space with new courses coming online which can scale faster than traditional courses limited by a classroom and a professor.
Accenture announced the formation of Accenture Cloud First with a $3 billion investment over three years. Accenture’s $3 billion investment will be used to continue advancing — often together with its cloud and broader technology ecosystem partners — industry roadmaps, data models, and solutions; cloud AI data and AI architectures; integrated full-stack infrastructure and applications capabilities; cloud tools, assets, and automation to drive lower unit cost and innovation; and research and development in edge computing and related cloud technologies.
Accenture Cloud First is a new multi-service group of 70,000 cloud professionals that brings together the full power and breadth of Accenture’s industry and technology capabilities, ecosystem partnerships, and deep commitment to learning and upskilling clients’ employees and to responsible business, with the singular focus of enabling organizations to move to the cloud with greater speed and achieve greater value for all their stakeholders at this critical time.
“COVID-19 has created a new inflection point that requires every company to dramatically accelerate the move to the cloud as a foundation for digital transformation to build the resilience, new experiences and products, trust, speed, and structural cost reduction that the ongoing health, economic and societal crisis demands — and that a better future for all requires,” said Accenture CEO Julie Sweet. “Accenture Cloud First and our substantial investment demonstrate our commitment to delivering greater value to our clients when they need it most. Digital transformation requires cloud at scale, and post-COVID leadership requires that every business become a ‘cloud-first’ business.”
The idea is to help clients across all industries rapidly become “cloud-first” businesses and accelerate their digital transformation to realize greater value at speed and scale. Karthik Narain will lead Accenture Cloud First and join the Global Management Committee, effective October 1.
Julie Sweet, CEO of Accenture, discusses how the company is investing in helping businesses “replatform” in the cloud:
Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business
There has been this massive acceleration in the cloud. Really what’s happening is a once in an era replatforming of global business. We are 20 percent in the cloud today. We believe we will move to around 80 percent in just five years. What Accenture Cloud First is about is helping companies get there faster by bringing together all of the capabilities with a singular focus of how are we going to replatform at speed.
Pre-COVID we worked with a ton of the digital leaders who have been out front. What we see is that there are three important components. First of all, with our cloud partners across the spectrum it’s really critical to not just move companies but to move entire industries. That takes the road map, the learning, and the data integration about what problems are specific to the industry. We are going to be investing in those solutions often along with our partners.
The second area is the speed, investing in better automation and technology that is going to help not just move these companies faster but actually also be able to operate in the cloud with increasingly more productivity. Think about the cloud becoming a platform for their productivity.
Investing In Making Replatforming Sustainable
The third place is around talent and sustainability. If you are replatforming entire global businesses in the cloud we have to do so in a sustainable way. This means getting out of the datacenter to the cloud and what it does for climate change. It’s around things like supply chain and making sure that you are building in the ability to have the integrity of the supply chain and that you are reskilling.
We will be investing in making this replatforming sustainable. This is core as we think about post-COVID our belief as companies across the globe and government that we need to make a better future for all by building in this view of all stakeholders from the planet to our people.
Accenture CEO Julie Sweet: Once In An Era Replatforming Of Global Business
