It’s not often that one can equate digital transformation with feelings, but when it comes to the customer’s experience, a great digital transformation will leave them feeling completely wowed. That’s because information gathered across the job process, like real-time data, will make them feel heard, understood and communicated with throughout their journey. And if the customer is happy, they’ll keep purchasing and referring, which will in turn make your bottom line very happy too.
It makes sense that the customer experience is at the heart of digital transformation - when you think about the amount of effort it takes to not only get customers into your sales funnel but finally convert, it would be very frustrating to then lose them due to lax processes and miscommunications.
This radical rethinking of how organizations should be using their technology, processes and people for digital transformation hasn’t been slowed down by the events of 2020 either. Last year, Data researcher IDC determined that global spending on digital transformation technologies and services would grow 10.4% in 2020 to $1.3 trillion, and an IDG Research business impact survey conducted in July 2020 found that 59% of the surveyed IT decision-makers indicated that pressures stemming from the pandemic had accelerated their digital transformation efforts.
Customer expectations are at an all-time high. By embracing digital transformation, you’ll be able to consistently meet your customers’ needs and wants, while directly and positively impacting your business outcomes. Start your journey today towards digital transformation by considering the below benefits for your customers:
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People do business with people – not machines
You know what doesn’t help your business grow? When customers feel ignored. If your technicians are constantly fighting bottlenecks like missed paperwork, wrong delivery details and cancelled jobs, they won’t really be in the position to effectively deal with much else. That means your customers will be left dealing with voicemail and email, and delayed responses – which becomes very frustrating, very quickly.
By streamlining your systems with a job management tool, these bottlenecks will be highly visible and allow you to amend your processes so that they don’t happen again. And if they do happen, job management software lets you focus on managing the exceptions as the jobs that are on track manage themselves. This will free up large chunks of your employees’ time so that they’re available to meet your customers’ needs and build those key lasting relationships, while also being able to focus on finding new customers and opportunities to expand your operations.
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Better personalization and agility
Customers across the board are demanding personalization but without the right platforms to capture their requests, it will be tricky to meet their expectations at every touchpoint. Enter digital transformation and all the data that it offers you. With a powerful job management tool at your fingertips, you’re able to build a complete picture of what’s important to your customers – right down to the small details like which of your employees they prefer to deal with and how they want to be communicated with. This data means that you can send them appointment reminders and technician progress texts as they’d prefer – and it can all be automated. It also allows you to be more operationally agile as you’re able to recognize opportunities - like new services and products that are repeatedly requested by customers – or risks that allow you to act before it becomes a major problem.
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Better communication – in real-time
Life comes with curve balls like heavy traffic and unexpected weather disruptions – so delays will happen and jobs will get canceled. But it’s more how we manage these issues that can make or break an ongoing business relationship. When everyone is operating inside a job management tool, the whole team is across what’s happening and can proactively act to manage the situation. Customer updates are then in real-time, meaning solutions can often be found before the situation escalates. It’s all about communication at the end of the day, and if the customer feels like they are being kept in the loop, they’re less likely to feel frustrated and completely unsatisfied with the outcome – and more likely to keep doing business with you.
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Quick access to clear and unbiased information
With options available like attaching images to completed jobs, and ePOD’s (signatures recorded via sign-on-glass and time stamped), a good digital job management tool can help prevent disputes before they become problematic. When there’s some uncertainty about whether a job has been fully completed or delivered, this sort of evidence provides an unbiased place to start a conversation that will hopefully move towards an amicable outcome for all parties. It’s also a quick and easy way to respond to any client queries where additional information may be required for their own records.
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Meet all your customers’ needs – whatever they might be
There is no ‘one-size fits all’ approach to managing customer relationships. But with a job management system, you’ll have the ability to meet a range of requirements across a diverse list of customers. If reporting is important, you’ll be able to provide relevant and timely reporting as pre-agreed in your SLA’s. If the customer experience is key, by maintaining excellent customer profiles you’ll be in the position to surprise and delight at every opportunity. And with integrated task management, there’s no risk of misplaced information, double entry or human error, saving your customers time, energy and money – which is a big plus for anyone in business.
The impact on customer experience is only one part of the business case when planning a job management digital transformation project. If you’d like more information on the other areas, download our latest e-book on ‘Making the case for digitizing job management’ and be ready to embrace the opportunity to make better decisions on your business’s growth and profitability.
