 Jeff Korhan |
Companies in all industries are learning they now have to embrace technology to meet the expectations of their customers.
Traditional methods of marketing, sales and service are no longer relevant. Returning all of your phone calls within 24 hours used to be the benchmark of professionalism. Now customers expect immediate access to you and your staff.
Social networking is a platform that gives your customers a voice, and they are using it to be heard.
This is why it will be vital for businesses to establish a presence on the major social networks to monitor what is being said about their brand, and to encourage a dialogue with customers and influencers.
Web forms can be embedded on your website or blog to allow customers and field representatives to make service requests. This is easily accomplished with Google docs. This minimizes time-consuming phone calls, pushes data to a central location and is available 24/7.
Mobile devices will create more opportunities for readily communicating with customers. Instead of print and digital newsletters, timely communications can be distributed to customers through any number of RSS feeds, with blogs being the most functional.
Tips and advice from my blog keeps my community and customers informed on small business marketing practices. Green industry professionals can do the same to keep their clients educated and advised about recommended practices, environmental updates and seasonal enhancements.
Mobile applications make this information even more valuable by making it more readily available. As the functionality of mobile apps increases, they will almost certainly replace websites. Load speeds are faster and the data is available where and when the customer needs it most – here and now. If you have a blog now, you can use AppMakr.com to create an iPhone app for free.
Urgent news can be simultaneously delivered within seconds to multiple mobile devices using a new group text-messaging service provided by GroupMe.com. I can imagine using this to quickly communicate weather related news to crews, or to wish your customers the best for a long weekend, and to remind them that your offices will be closed.
Working from the cloud is a trend that will not only help to enhance and streamline your sales and service; it will also allow you to do more with less. Some of the benefits to cloud or web-based computing – where shared resources, software and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand – are ready access to documents, the ability to update client records from the field, and sharing information among teams in real time.
Most web-based software is available through freemium (free trial) and pay-as-you-go plans.
This eliminates the burden of buying, programming and maintaining in-house servers, and ensures you are always using the most current software version. You may not be ready for some of this technology, but many of your customers are.
You’ll find it is worth the effort, because the time and monetary savings will improve your bottom line – and keep your company competitive in 2011.
Jeff Korhan is a speaker, consultant and top-ranked blogger on new media and small business marketing at www.jeffkorhan.com. Mail korhan@gie.net.
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