Tag: Assiduus Global

Dr. Somdutta Singh
Business World

Omni Channel Customer Experience – Why I Believe It Matters More Today Than Ever?

Nov 25, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #Assiduus Global, #Dr. Somdutta Singh, #Harvard Business Review

By Dr. Somdutta Singh – CEO and Founder – Assiduus Global

Over the last few years, there haven’t been many marketing concepts that have transformed from an unknown theory to an essential strategy that almost no brand can succeed without and that is omnichannel marketing. Its effectiveness has been proven across industries, and its uses have expanded into many areas, from marketing to customer service.

What Does Omni Channel Customer Engagement Mean?

Pretty much what the name suggests – Multichannel customer engagement refers to companies interacting with customers through multiple channels, such as phone, email, and live chat, with each channel managed in its own platform. ‘Omnichannel’, on the other hand, blends these channels with one another and manages them all from a single, unified console. This provides a cohesive and seamless experience for both the customer and the agent across devices and touchpoints.

Private social messaging has emerged as a significant channel for creating meaningful interactions.  Think about it, we spend a significant amount of time on social media.  We share photos and updates on platforms like Instagram and Facebook, we share ideas and updates via a tweet on Twitter, we connect our professional network on Linkedin.  As consumers, we ALL lead digital lives.

According to a Harvard Business Review, omnichannel customers spend 4% more in-store and 10% more online than single-channel customers. For every additional channel they use, the customer spends more money.

Contrarily, according to Forbes, 80% of businesses believe they provide excellent customer service, but only 8% of customers agree.

The number of channels could increase often. Only five years ago, Facebook was the primary channel of a brand’s concern. You couldn’t even advertise on Instagram yet.  Now, Instagram is the brand leader in channel focus, and TikTok is taking over more and more of a brand marketers’ thoughts daily.

Beyond social media channels, however, an omnichannel customer experience also includes your own website’s UX, lead flow, sales process and customer service.

Simply: Any aspect of your brand that touches a customer or a potential customer is part of your omnichannel customer experience.

Be Where They Are…

Millennials and Generation Z are flexing their spending muscles and quickly becoming dominant consumer groups. Millennials and Generation Z are already trending heavily in this digital-first direction – for example, 60% of them have used private social messaging, such as Facebook Messenger, for customer service, which represents a higher adoption rate compared to their older peers.

Being present in these channels and offering them to your customers creates an incredible opportunity for you to bring your customers closer to your brand.  You’ll increase your interactions and make them more meaningful and in doing so, create strong advocates for your brand.  But this doesn’t mean other generations aren’t using digital channels like online chat and text. In fact, online chat continues to rank first in customer satisfaction on average, across all age groups. Overall, agent-assisted methods, like chat and phone, receive higher ratings than self-service channels.

That might be due in part to the relative immaturity of AI-powered self-service methods, such as chatbots, which today mostly solve straightforward problems. The human touch is still important.

The global omnichannel retail commerce platform market is expected to grow to $11.1 billion by 2023, according to Market Research Future, which also notes that key factors driving the growth of omnichannel retail commerce platform market are the increasing adoption of e-commerce for convenient online shopping purposes and the rising adoption of smartphones and tablets.

Final Thoughts…

A sensible approach to the omnichannel retail strategy is what’s needed for sustained customer experience and improved ROI. This year is going to be a huge year for omnichannel. Other trends to watch out for including instant communication support, removing friction from the checkout process online, and using data better to hyper-personalize the CX. They all have one thing in common: a convergence toward the deliverance of a more intimate, urgent, and emotionally resonant experience. With customer experience becoming the key differentiator in the digital age, slow adopters could soon find themselves behind the times.

Dr. Somdutta Singh
Business World

Witnessing The Rise Of A New Wave Of Entrepreneurs

Nov 20, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #Assiduus Global, #Dr. Somdutta Singh, #entrepreneurs

By Dr Somdutta Singh – CEO and Founder – Assiduus Global

A crisis can at times act as a catalyst or can speed up changes that are on the way serving as an accelerant. The current COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the very nature of our existence. The phrase social distancing that had hardly been searched till February is now topping the charts. But the crisis could open several doors and nations such as India have the potential to become a manufacturing hub in the face of leading countries such as Japan considering moving their manufacturing operations from China.

In the face of the pandemic, entrepreneurs have to face a new reality: that it is not only a huge sanitary and health crisis affecting millions, but also an unprecedented downturn on the global economy. Supply chains are being interrupted, events are being cancelled, and millions of people around the globe have lost their jobs. There is no doubt that the virus is causing problems and grave suffering for many. But is there a chance that it may also harbour massive opportunities for businesses?

Businesses must navigate the financial and operational challenges of coronavirus while rapidly addressing the needs of their people, customers and suppliers. It has given great impetus to convergence, collaboration and co-creation. It has given us the idea that many can act as one and – that we can do so with ease and speed. At present, we face a challenging virus that has shaken our way of life. To overcome it we need entrepreneurship at the societal and global scales working in collaboration for a collective purpose.

All entrepreneurs are, at heart, problem solvers. They bring a product or service to the market to meet a need or a gap. In the fight against COVID-19, entrepreneurship has taken a lead role in developing contact tracing apps, repurposing factories to manufacture ventilators and PPE, creating makeshift hospitals, and accelerating the search for a vaccine, to name a few examples. Within the new social distancing norms, people have learnt to work, exercise, study, celebrate weddings, conduct concerts and do much more using collaborative digital platforms.

We can now explore an entrepreneurial way of life where enterprises can help communities across the globe solve socio-economic problems while being true to market forces. Maybe it is time for individual enterprise and collective purpose to work in harmony. Not only the scope of entrepreneurship will rise across the globe, but there will also be a drastic growth of startups. These startups will also help in bridging gaps between countries of the world. The increase of entrepreneurship will thereby create several employment opportunities for people.

Let’s take a look at the crucial industries that showcase massive opportunities as the pandemic progresses.

  • The Entertainment Industry

We should see opportunities in Online Entertainment (OTTs). Consumers would not be going to cinema halls and concerts for some time. They have more time to watch videos, movies and TV shows at home. I was reading how the engagement time of a lot of OTTs are up from 20 to 50% in India alone during the lockdown period.

Online gaming is also getting a big boost. As kids can no longer play outside, a lot of the physical playtime is shifting to virtual playtime. Usage on some gaming apps has surged 40% during the lockdown. I am more bullish on social games because they are always new and fresh compared to static games. Something makes me feel, this looks like the demonetization moment for the Gaming industry in India.

  • The Health Industry

Like movie theatres, gyms will be shut for a long time too. There have been a surge in online fitness classes and meditation & therapy apps. Again, how do you make these experiences more social and engaging? I have already written about the gym and their customer engagement stratagems in one of the previous articles.

In fact, counter-intuitively, even clinics and hospital revenue and utilisation have reduced significantly because elective healthcare has been postponed and people are afraid going to a clinic/hospital where there could be a high chance of viral infection. People would prefer online doctor consultation over going to the clinic/hospital. Accordingly, we are seeing a boost in teleconsultation and telemedicine.

  • The Education Industry

Consumers have tested the efficacy of learning online during the lockdown and this should continue even post lockdown. Online education should see a huge boost. This holds true both for curricular courses like UPSC, IIT-JEE, CAT etc but also extra-curricular courses like Guitar, Painting, etc.

Unfortunately, a side effect of the economic shutdown would be layoffs. Many skills that made people employable might not be as valuable. There is, therefore, an urgent need for people to reskill and upskill themselves to find new jobs and a that would lead to a shift in job patterns. Maybe the demand for healthcare workers would increase, and so people need to be skilled for those roles. These might lead to more usage of upskilling platforms for grey/blue-collar jobs.

Lots of schools have come online because you cannot conduct offline classes. Large tech companies have high-quality products for schools. A lot of teachers are using technology to this extent for the first time. We are already seeing a surge in remote work tools and Zoom saw a massive increase in adoption in businesses across the world. Needless to say, once people start working from home more, the difference between a remote worker and at-office worker would not be very high. For industries where it’s doable, we should shift to remote work.

A lot of work conferences will move online. After having attended so many conferences over the past year, I personally think online conferences can be a huge improvement from offline conferences.

  • The Retail Industry

The most impacted offline sectors in the market are supermarkets, restaurants and traditional retail. For each of these spaces, we could see new opportunities because, for the first time in many years, we will have assets that are unutilised and partners willing to work with tech companies. Many small and large enterprises have been deeply impacted, and new companies could be created to serve these companies or customers of these companies better.

Grocery delivery has seen a big peak in demand during lockdown already, and it should continue because many people would prefer not to go out to supermarkets to buy because of fear and in search of convenience. Kirana stores will be digitised further.

For restaurants, we should see innovative cloud kitchen models, or enabling restaurants to be more scalable by working with virtual kitchens. Restaurants are badly hurt and would continue to be bleeding for some time. We are already seeing their eagerness to come to all delivery platforms to ensure they have as much visibility as possible, but this would not be enough.

For fashion retail, live streaming commerce models which enable retailers to showcase and present their products on a larger commerce destination could be viable now. Amazon Live is getting traction in the US where brands are adopting the channel to engage with customers.

What Is To Come?

Companies that wish to experience rapid growth in the aftermath of this crisis, can do so if they become competent or re-purpose in areas that are relevant to economic and social recovery. They will do well if they can capitalize on the transformed mindsets, attitudes, perceptions and behaviours of customers and consumers. This is what will enable strategic competitive advantage in a post-pandemic economy.

Companies that did things well and with a social conscience during the lockdowns may be able to capitalize on a new loyal customer base and trust. And crucially, companies that are thinking ahead may reflect more strategically on looming future crises such as further pandemics or climate catastrophe and provide goods and services in a meaningful way to avert further meltdowns. This means rethinking product and process innovations including supply chain resilience, but also thinking about the value-added of businesses or start-ups to society and as well as their environmental impact. This will be hard to do when economies are failing so badly, so resilient leadership, solidarity, institutional collaboration and the sheer grit demonstrated during the lockdowns will be required.

Dr. Somdutta Singh
Business World

As We Adapt To The New Normal, Why Is Innovation So Crucial? : Dr Somdutta Singh

Oct 15, 2020 by Gouri Achary 0 Comments #Assiduus Global, #Global innovation, #innovation, #New Normal’

Crisis generates a lot of energy that, if harnessed constructively, can be a great source of innovation. The COVID-19 response is producing inspiring innovative responses proving that, indeed, necessity is the mother of invention. What has emerged already and during previous crises provide lessons for our near-term response, but also highlight the underlying and more critical long-term need to better resource and institutionalize strategic innovation. New patterns of consumer and worker behavior and expectations have emerged during the first weeks of the crisis.

In the heart of the Ebola outbreak, for example, CII and international experts reviewed over 1,500 ideas and quickly supported the development of 14. Twelve of these innovations have been tested in West Africa, and over half are in use today.

How should we think about the role of innovation in the midst of the current global crisis?

Firstly, innovation is so much more than just developing new widgets. Global innovation can be defined across four categories: 1. Offering, 2. delivery, 3. Finance and 4. process. We are seeing urgent COVID-19 innovation needs across all these categories, such as behaviour change to support social distancing and supply chain solutions, to name a few.

Second, innovation platforms that address immediate needs should also keep sustainability in mind. Sourcing innovation, whether through open competitions, prizes, or otherwise, can have an immediate impact but should be shaped with long-term sustainability in mind.

Companies like Assiduus Global began to come together to work openly at an unprecedented level, putting the ability to create value before the opportunity to make a buck. Collaboration can obviously save human lives, but it can also produce huge benefits for companies — even though it’s often overlooked in normal circumstances.

The recent burst of open innovation, however, reminds us of the massive potential that open innovation comes with — whether you’re in a crisis or not. Open innovation has the potential to widen the space for value creation: It allows for many more ways to create value, be it through new partners with complementary skills or by unlocking hidden potential in long-lasting relationships. In a crisis, open innovation can help organizations find new ways to solve pressing problems and at the same time build a positive reputation. Most importantly it can serve as a foundation for future collaborations.

Final thoughts…

Innovation allows businesses and private individuals alike to solve new problems with innovative solutions as well as offering new business opportunities and avenues, both in the midst of a crisis and beyond. Some innovations are simple: offering new online solutions for customers, for example. Others are more complex.

In some industries, people are looking for new ways to bring in income throughout the pandemic. Companies may turn to new, even unique profit-generating methods to help them achieve their goals in spite of current restrictions and demands.

Through innovation, you will not just keep your organization up and running throughout a crisis. You will also provide your business with greater flexibility and adaptability that can help carry you well beyond a challenge.