COVID-19 has plagued our world for 7 months now, growing out of a remote Chinese province it has spread like wildfire across the world, destroying life with it. As much as it is a healthcare crisis the disease has proved to be a crisis for lifestyles as well. Without a cure or vaccine in sight, strict social distancing has proved to be the only effective measure in protecting your loved ones from the detrimental impacts of this virus. However, social distancing doesn’t come without its complications, most of all for businesses. The days of doing business face-to-face and in an office with your team are long forgotten, and with clients staying at home demand for goods and services world over has taken a hit, pressurising balance sheets. Just as we have changed our lifestyle to protect our loved ones, our way of doing business too must adapt to protect the future of our businesses.
Every successful business has a product or service they believe in, however just belief in the product has never sufficed, communicating this to customers and generating sales is the bottom line to longevity. Sustainable sales culture comes through a variety of practices, well summarised by the Hubspot sales flywheel. The flywheel(Fig 1) is a circle of marketing, sales and support that feeds itself in a loop and grows your client base with every cycle. It is essential to ensure customer satisfaction at each of these steps and progression to guarantee the sustainability of the flywheel. In our new COVID business environment, businesses world over need to adapt their practices in each of these factors to ensure survival.
Hubspot’s Sales flywheel (Fig 1)
Marketing is the first step of the flywheel, with the focus strictly on generating interest and leads. Work-from-home measures and quarantining severely restrict the mediums of marketing available to businesses. Our largest mediums now live on the internet. With people working from home, potential clients now spend a majority of their time on their mobile devices and computers, making digital marketing the new norm. However, this is not a fact missed by many and with a majority of businesses switching focus toward digital marketing, it is no longer good enough to just exist in the digital space it is essential to stand out to succeed. People are now being advertised to at every second of their digital lives, and delivering value is the only way to thrive and build brand value in the minds of potential customers. With people being quarantined interactive value delivery is the easiest way to capture attention and efficiently deliver a message. Webinar based content creating is one of the most effective ways to deliver content in a digital space overcrowded with traditional digital mediums.Value is lacking, advertisements and entertainment are not. Check out Vidphone’s secure platform webinar platform here.
Sales has always been the toughest section of the flywheel. Getting potential customers to spend in a globalised, interconnected economy, filled with substitutes is not easy. This reality extends further in times of a pandemic, with job markets riddled with pay-cuts and lay-offs, sales have got infinitely harder. Pre-COVID a majority of significant sales would happen with face-to-face interactions. Losing out on such interactions can be very tough since it is tougher to understand as well as build a relationship with a client over the phone or on email. The best way to optimise for the changes are video-conferencing solutions. Giving sales executives virtual meeting rooms and other tools like conferencing enable a level of communication as close as realistically possible to pre-COVID interactions. These tools need to also be supported by relevant sub-features like split screen sharing and a team chat to offer an effective level of holistic collaboration. Check out Vidphone’s full suite virtual office space platform here. Effective virtual office tools allow sales people to build effective, sustainable customer relationships that eventually lead to customer success and growth in the client base of the company.
To many, the easiest and most effective way to acquire new customers is referral business, having a good word in about your services from a known contact is always useful when approaching new leads. Customer happiness and effective service delivery are therefore key to new business since satisfied clients are the best source of referrals. In our current environment video conferencing is an ideal solution to servicing needs. With features like screen sharing and virtual meeting rooms executives and product experts can share their screens and simultaneously discuss client problems. The direct nature of video interaction cuts service time and customer friction when compared to other mediums of remote communication. Servicing should be easily and quickly accessible to clients for optimal results, therefore offering servicing interfaces on multiple platforms is a huge benefit to any business. Website integration of servicing features with widgets and SDK’s allows businesses to maximise their servicing reach in today’s digital business environment. Check out Vidphone’s full suite virtual servicing platform here.
As always the goal of all marketing, sales and servicing efforts is to generate customers success, consequently leading to higher sales and larger, sustainable profits. Customer success is achieved when a client looks at your product as a solution to their business problems and needs. This makes the product an essential and builds a sustainable business relationship. Video-based communication is at the heart of all customer success strategies in the post-COVID business environment. With Vidphone you get a platform that understands its role in customer success for your business and provides secure, easy to use, affordable, full-suite solutions for you. Adapt and start succeeding in this new environment with Vidphone by clicking here.