As we strategy the tip of 2021, I’ve been reflecting on how corporations have managed to maintain their customer-first strategy regardless of the difficulties of working throughout a pandemic.
Final yr, when the pandemic hit, companies world wide shortly realized the significance of being extremely digital, and people that have been digital-first actually had a head begin in responding to clients’ altering wants.
Companies that had arrange their construction with all customer-facing groups intently aligned have been capable of make well-informed and quick choices. The mixture of digital instruments and processes, and well-aligned groups set corporations as much as shortly feed information into advertising, communications, training, product and digital responses to clients.
Small companies are embracing digital instruments
In 2020, being extremely digital was thought-about a ‘new means of working’. In 2021, it’s merely what number of companies now function and can proceed to take action properly into the long run.
The advantages of this transfer to extra versatile, remote-style working was evident in latest analysis carried out by Xero. It revealed that digitally-enabled small companies have been considerably extra resilient all through the COVID-19 disaster, and outperformed their friends in most efficiency metrics. The analysis additionally revealed that the pandemic considerably boosted expertise uptake.
From a buyer expertise perspective, I’ve all the time believed that buyer help was transferring in the direction of a brand new age of specializing in digital content material and self-service info. The pandemic merely accelerated this timeline.
A proactive help expertise
Small enterprise house owners typically do all of it – customer support, social media, accounts, logistics – on high of their day-to-day enterprise. They’re more and more time-poor and increasingly are counting on expertise to assist remedy their issues. It’s faster, extra personalised, and is out there at any time of the day or night time.
With this in thoughts, we’re beginning to see a shift from quaint reactive buyer help to a mannequin that predicts what clients’ wants are. Companies like Xero are empowered to evolve their buyer help frameworks. As a substitute of offering solely reactive one-on-one help, extremely developed buyer help platforms not solely have practically each reply out there with the clicking of a mouse, however they harness expertise resembling machine studying to assist reply their clients’ questions, earlier than they even know they’ve them.
Schooling outdoors our core enterprise
The pressures and stresses of the pandemic prompted many customer-facing organisations to delve extra deeply into what different areas their clients wanted help. Further paperwork, grant functions, and determining authorities restrictions all added to the day-to-day load that small enterprise house owners consistently carry.
For us, this implies growing new sources to assist enterprise house owners navigate utterly new hurdles, together with understanding and making use of for presidency help schemes, creating enterprise continuity plans, and taking care of their wellbeing. Clients and companions can select from programs, programmes, stay webinars and classroom occasions.
Xero buyer expertise in 2021
2021 has actually seen its share of challenges for the client expertise group, together with lots of of our help employees working from bedrooms, garages and eating tables world wide for greater than 12 months. However I’m happy with our group and the way they’ve overcome the challenges of working by way of the pandemic. Some highlights within the buyer expertise area this yr embrace:
- Xero clients visited our digital buyer help platform, Xero Central, greater than 20 million occasions.
- Not each question can be resolved on-line, and for the 5 p.c who had extra advanced questions in 2021, our group gave knowledgeable and personalised recommendation to those clients.
- Our group continues to make hundreds of outbound calls to clients that want telephone help.
- Xero clients and companions accomplished greater than three million on-line training experiences.
As we glance in the direction of 2022, I’m excited concerning the alternatives we’ve got to proceed to evolve our buyer help mannequin, and supply much more worth to our clients and companions. Within the meantime, I’d prefer to want you all a really completely happy holidays.
