MarketStar Blog

Key Insights

No matter which industry you’re in, the issue of customer experience is likely your focus area for 2022 and beyond. 

Customer experience was rising to the surface, even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

But the disruptions and uncertainties brought on by multiple lockdowns has made one thing very clear: people want to be heard. 

This concept forms the core of customer experience. 

People want to be seen and appreciated by the companies they buy from. They want these companies to alleviate their pain points and offer solutions that are tailor-made for their needs. 

Solving customer pain points becomes a critical factor of success in this context. 

The customer engagement landscape has transformed significantly over the past decade. Customers no longer rely solely on emails or call centers for support; instead, they tweet, send in-app messages, or engage via chatbots, expecting quick and seamless responses. They also demand support on their preferred channels, rather than being restricted to company-designated ones. 

An omnichannel strategy enables businesses to provide a unified, seamless customer experience across all communication channels. According to Aberdeen Research, companies with well-defined omnichannel programs experience a 91% higher year-over-year increase in customer retention¹. However, one of our earlier studies found that 75% of businesses have yet to implement omnichannel support in their contact centers². 

Here are five key steps to successfully implementing an omnichannel support program. 

Introduction 

As we slowly come to terms with the reality of living in a COVID-19 world, there is growing recognition that the pandemic will for better or for worse permanently change the way we live and conduct business. For sales organizations that adapted to the demands of physical distancing and work-from-home by merely executing existing processes through remote conferencing tools, there is a need to recognize that remote work is the new normal within which they must transform themselves to function effectively in a totally new paradigm. Not only do sales operations have to be restructured, but so do other processes such as onboarding, training, and coaching of sales teams.  

The traditional on-premises software distribution model is fast becoming a thing of the past. While it’s still relevant in some contexts, it has been largely upstaged by the advent of SaaS. The rise of the subscription economy, driven by the numerous benefits of adopting SaaS, including lower costs and greater flexibility regarding upgrades, means that SaaS is here to stay; it has firmly established itself as the business model of the foreseeable future.

In a survey conducted by Demandbase, an Account-Based Marketing (ABM) company, as many as 80% of marketing executives said they believed that AI would revolutionize the marketing industry by 2020¹. AI applications are already transforming various aspects of marketing. Harnessing AI to power your ABM efforts can produce amazing results. The question is, how do you leverage AI in ABM? Here are four ways AI can help. 

Every sales professional needs a little sales motivation now and then. Successful selling is about staying positive and being motivated to win, but keeping that positive energy flowing can be tough sometimes. When it’s hard to get motivated and you need a pep talk, there are plenty of online resources and motivational podcasts to keep those juices flowing.

With more companies looking to create recurring revenue models based on subscription sales, the impact of customer churn is higher than ever. The only way that a recurring revenue business model becomes sustainable is if you have happy customers who continue to buy what you have to sell. What we have learned is that having a Customer Success team as part of MarketStar’s Sales as a ServiceⓇ offering is essential to reducing customer churn.

If a customer is unhappy with your brand, it is very likely that they have not had a seamless experience during their interactions with the brand across multiple touch points and devices. A ‘unified customer journey’ approach holds immense potential for brands. Having a well-orchestrated omni-channel strategy will ensure that customer convenience is always treated as topmost priority.

Understandably, 2020 has been a unique year for many sales reps. Many businesses have delayed or canceled investments in products and services until the COVID-19 pandemic is over and they can more accurately plan for the future, others have seen a surge in demand and require quick action and product education. In both scenarios,, the business-to-business (B2B) market is growing increasingly competitive. 

The opening scene of Mission Impossible 2 featured Tom Cruise climbing a sheer mountain face, only to receive a mission embedded in a pair of sunglasses that activated after a retinal scan confirmed his identity.