After a year of uncertainty caused by a global pandemic, people are craving the comforting embrace of familiarity—and they’re looking for it in all sorts of places. A 2020 study showed that customers only wanted to buy from the companies that knew them best. Seventy percent said they would do their holiday shopping exclusively with brands that personally understand them. Clearly, there’s a big reward to be had in personalizing customer experiences.
Let’s start with a brief reminder on what mass email marketing is and what it aims to achieve. Also known as bulk email marketing, mass email marketing is a promotion technique where advertisers send out a single email to a large audience in hopes to convert prospects into closed sales.
Self-service options aren’t just nice-to-haves for customers. They’re critical for creating the smooth, fast support experience today’s customers expect. Our Customer Experience Trends Report 2020 found that high-performing businesses were 76 percent more likely to provide self-service options—but only one-third of companies were offering any sort of self-service. That disconnect represented a missed opportunity for a majority of businesses.
Customer experience (CX) has always been integral to a company’s success, but its significance has grown considerably in the midst of the COVID-19 outbreak. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2021, half of all customers say that CX is more important to them now than it was a year ago.
The world is changing and so is the way we shop. A few years ago, consumers made it clear that it’s no longer just about which tee is the softest. They wanted to know if the tee was made in a sustainable way, without using forced or underpaid labor. Now, coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic and social uprisings of 2020, shoppers also want—and expect—brands to speak up for social justice.
Everyone knows customer service is important. Or at least everyone should know. Because we are all customers. And customer service is everywhere. Some customer experiences are obvious. You’re probably thinking about them now. For example, the way the clerk treats you in a store, or a company’s generous return policy.
“Do you want to make that a meal?” It’s the most common offer at a drive-through window, and one most of us say yes to. It’s also a great example of cross-selling hard at work. Next comes the inevitable follow-up: “Would you like to make that a large for a dollar more?” Of course you would. Bam. You’ve just been hit with the upsell.
In late January 2021, CX executives and industry leaders gathered for an intimate conversation with CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria, author of 10 Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World, to discuss the challenges that business leaders currently face. Zakaria’s book spans political, socioeconomic, environmental, and public health considerations and shows us how business and world events are inextricably tied.
Automation got a bad reputation pretty quickly in the customer service world. Since the 1980s, customers calling support have had automated tellers putting them on hold and repeating the unconvincing assurance, “Your call is very important to us.” Automated tellers turned into chatbots. This technology could be just as frustrating with bots conducting clumsy conversations that fail to provide real help.
Sales teams across all industries are facing unexpected changes, including an abrupt move towards remote work. At a time like this, leadership makes all the difference. The LinkedIn State of Sales Report for 2020 found that 70% of sales managers think that being able to navigate change is more important now than it was five years ago.
