Improving the quality of service

The client communicates with the brand where it is convenient for him.He used to communicate in instant messengers and changing the comfort zone for the sake of buying is not the best option for him.

With digitization of communication, we can operate on multiple channels: We no longer need to retell each other the content of messages and ask again what exactly the customer needs. We can always connect another employee to the communication or redirect the client to more competent colleagues in the matter. For example, during the presentation of a product, a sales manager may forward a technical question to an engineer.

The speed of response and decision making also becomes a key factor in the interaction between the customer and the brand. CRM allows you to control missed calls and receive notifications for the customer to call back. In this case, no client will be lost and the call will not remain unanswered.

Analysis of the results and work on possible errors

Information is often the only decision-making tool for improving the quality of service and sales. This requires not only to accumulate data within CRM, but also to analyze it, putting the findings into practice.

The data allows you to analyze the accuracy of your sales funnel, score leads and generally make decisions with greater accuracy.

Transformation of the company’s own culture

Basic automation and patchwork of IT-solutions will never give the same effect, which will provide a comprehensive digitalization of the business . That is why when working with clients through all sales channels it is much more profitable to use CRM and all possible integrations together with constant data analytics. Digitalization of business processes begins with the transformation of processes within the company.

6 success factors for digital business transformation

Digital business transformation is not just another marketing term, it is a new reality that requires a business to radically revise business processes and approaches to working with clients. The ability to quickly adapt to changes and optimize their work “on the fly”, adjusting to the client’s expectations, are the main challenges that the digitalization of the business brings with it.

Customer expectations about the speed and quality of service delivery are growing rapidly. This is especially true of the younger generation of consumers. A high level of service becomes the default requirement. Request for a loan, activation of the service, ordering goods, access to information about expenses, getting advice – customers want to perform all these operations here and now using the devices that they have “at hand”. Consumers increasingly value their time, they need instant feedback, as well as a clear and convenient interface to meet their needs. A good design of information resources, the availability of online chat rooms, an individual approach is a world to which customers have already become accustomed.

In order to meet high customer expectations, companies must speed up the digitization of their business processes. To do this, it is not enough to automate existing business processes. Companies need to reinvent them. The main goals of digital transformation are to increase the speed of decision making, increase the variability of processes depending on the needs and characteristics of the client, and reduce the number of employees involved in the process.

Consumers need instant feedback, as well as a clear and convenient interface to meet their needs.

Digitizing existing processes is an expensive and often quite useless exercise, since all existing problems, shortcomings and crutches are automated. It is necessary to shift the center of gravity towards new opportunities that give the company a competitive advantage. For example, instead of automating the work of employees responsible for working with clients, you need to create self-service systems, minimizing the number of mediators between the client and the final service or product.

Creating digital business processes involves fundamental reengineering and a review of existing constraints. At the initial stage of restructuring, you must select those areas of the process that are related to customer experience. For example, how to reduce the time for making a loan decision from a few days to a few minutes, how to reduce the number of employees involved from X to zero, etc. Below are a few examples from different verticals.

• The bank reduced costs by 70% by introducing an automated mortgage prior approval system. The duration of the procedure was reduced from several days to several minutes.

• The shoe network has implemented an inventory system in its stores, which made it possible to obtain information on the availability of shoe sizes online, which reduced customer waiting times and seller sales at times.

• The insurance company has fully automated the decision-making process for simple operations that take up most of the time of customer service staff. As a result, the number of back office employees involved was drastically reduced.

Digitization of existing processes is an expensive and often rather useless task, since the existing problems and shortcomings are automated.

Another advantage of digitizing business processes is the ability to collect information about customer experience and automatic adaptation of individual process scenarios in accordance with customer expectations. The current level of technology development allows us to fairly accurately predict the needs of customers and the most relevant methods and channels of communication.

Organizational transformation

Traditionally, new business processes are implemented within the framework of the current organizational structure by employees, which have long been working within existing processes. There are big risks in this approach and here’s why:

• Any innovations take time to learn and adapt. As mentioned above, this always causes a certain rejection among employees. Fears for their work, unwillingness to change established practices, unwillingness to learn, fear of the new – these are traditional attributes of any internal corporate changes.

• When moving to new processes from employees will require more effort. It is necessary to maintain operational efficiency and at the same time switch to the new rules of operation. In fact, employees should “change their shoes” on the go, without changing the speed of movement. It can also create a negative background and cause hidden sabotage or open discontent.

The introduction of new processes by the team working on the old processes is the same as changing the shoes on the move without changing the speed of movement.

Therefore, in some cases it is more appropriate to create a new organizational unit or group within an existing unit to work on new digitized processes.As you migrate to the updated processes, employees of the “old” organizational units will move to a new division. This approach allows you to go through a transformation faster and with less financial and energy efforts.

Evolutionary integration with legacy systems

Digital transformation of business processes affects a large number of legacy-systems, from which it is impossible to get rid of simultaneously. Attempts to integrate old systems into new processes are fraught with long-term projects with vague payback periods. After a few years, it may become clear that what has been done is irrelevant. To reduce these risks, it is important to move in very small steps and “eat an elephant in pieces.” The duration of individual initiatives should not exceed 6 months. Sometimes it makes sense to use simple temporary solutions to move to the “new rails”, in parallel creating integration interfaces between new services and old systems, or completely replacing the latter.

Attempts to integrate old systems into new processes are fraught with long-term projects with vague payback periods.

Customer engagement and promotion

Customer habits are changing slowly, it slows down the introduction of new service technologies. For example, a significant proportion of passengers at train stations stand in line at the cash desk, although terminals for self-purchase of tickets are installed nearby. Fostering new models of consumer behavior is an essential element of digital transformation. It is important to identify key reasons that prevent consumers from starting to use new services and develop measures to involve such customers.Training, demonstration of benefits along with stimulation allows to achieve results. It is important that the first experience of interaction under the new rules be successful and emotionally positive.

Below are a few examples of how this might work:

• Bank employees help office visitors make payments through the terminal.

• The client receives a bonus for making an online application.

• The company offers special conditions for making a purchase through a mobile application.

Flexible business process management model

The classical theory of optimization and reengineering of business processes in new realities is complemented by flexible approaches. The description of business processes, divorced from the business processes themselves, is receding into the past. Such a description is rapidly becoming obsolete; serious labor costs are required to maintain its relevance. The best way to have an up-to-date version of business processes is to use the tools for managing the company’s business processes.

Another characteristic feature of the new approach is a reduction in the duration of the process optimization cycle. The use of A / B testing, control groups and other tools for evaluating changes made allows you to quickly check and implement changes in processes with minimal risks to get negative results.

Top benefits of cloud computing

Cloud computing is a big shift from the traditional way businesses think about IT resources. Here are seven common reasons organizations are turning to cloud computing services:

Public cloud

Public clouds are owned and operated by a third-party cloud services providers which deliver their computing resources like servers and storage over the Internet. Microsoft Azure is an example of a public cloud. With a public cloud, all hardware, software, and other supporting infrastructure is owned and managed by the cloud provider. You access these services and manage your account using a web browser.

Private cloud

A private cloud refers to cloud computing resources used exclusively by a single business or organization. A private cloud can be physically located on the company’s on-site datacenter. Some companies also pay third-party service providers to host their private cloud. A private cloud is one in which the services and infrastructure are maintained on a private network.

Hybrid cloud

Hybrid clouds combine public and private clouds, bound together by technology that allows data and applications to be shared between them. By allowing data and applications to move between private and public clouds, a hybrid cloud gives your business
greater flexibility, more deployment options, and helps optimize your existing infrastructure, security, and compliance.

Types of cloud services: IaaS, PaaS, serverless, and SaaS

Most cloud computing services fall into four broad categories: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), serverless, and software as a service (SaaS). These are sometimes called the cloud computing stack because they build on top of one another. Knowing what they are and how they’re different makes it easier to accomplish your business goals.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

The most basic category of cloud computing services. With IaaS, you rent IT infrastructure—servers and virtual machines (VMs), storage, networks, operating systems—from a cloud provider on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Platform as a service (PaaS)

Platform as a service refers to cloud computing services that supply an on-demand environment for developing, testing, delivering, and managing software applications. PaaS is designed to make it easier for developers to quickly create web or mobile apps, without worrying about setting up or managing the underlying infrastructure of servers, storage, network, and databases needed for development.

Serverless computing

Overlapping with PaaS, serverless computing focuses on building app functionality without spending time continually managing the servers and infrastructure required to do so. The cloud provider handles the setup, capacity planning, and server management for you. Serverless architectures are highly scalable and event-driven, only using resources when a specific function or trigger occurs.

Software as a service (SaaS)

Software as a service is a method for delivering software applications over the Internet, on demand and typically on a subscription basis. With SaaS, cloud providers host and manage the software application and underlying infrastructure, and handle any maintenance, like software upgrades and security patching. Users connect to the application over the Internet, usually with a web browser on their phone, tablet, or PC.

How cloud computing works

While cloud computing services all work a little differently, many provide a friendly, browser-based dashboard that makes it easier for IT professionals and developers to order resources and manage their accounts. Some cloud computing services are also designed to work with REST APIs and a command-line interface, giving developers multiple options.

Uses of cloud computing

You’re probably using cloud computing right now, even if you don’t realize it. If you use an online service to send email, edit documents, watch movies or TV, listen to music, play games, or store pictures and other files, it’s likely that cloud computing is making it all possible behind the scenes. The first cloud computing services are barely a decade old, but already a variety of organizations—from tiny startups to global corporations, government agencies to non-profits—are embracing the technology for all sorts of reasons.

Here are a few examples of what’s possible today with cloud services from a cloud provider: