Intuitive and digitized interactions with your future customers facilitate customer onboarding, create a positive start for the mutual relationship and lay the foundation for long-term cooperation. This is usually the first point of contact with your company for your customers and is groundbreaking as a first impression. Therefore, this phase of the customer journey should be given a lot of value. From customer onboarding to master data management to quality management, automation supports you in maintaining an overview of all relevant data and using it profitably. We will show you two ways in which the automation of business processes improves your customer onboarding and makes the customer journey successful.
Service providers or agencies are often faced with individual inquiries and needs from customers that require complex processes even before the actual order is placed. At this point, the customer journey is just beginning. The customer relationship can be automatically supported and strengthened from the moment contact is made.
In customer onboarding, the individual request from the customer and the relevant customer data are recorded, these must be available and available and, if necessary, a first appointment will be arranged. Additional customer data is collected and bundled over the entire process. This process is initiated again and again and is usually maintained manually by employees or the customers themselves.
All of these steps can be completely automated. Online forms enable your potential customers to enter the data intuitively, which is then automatically processed. Relevant data is automatically bundled and is always available at the right time. By storing it in the cloud, you can individually decide which steps you want to share with your clients, where you or the help of your clients are asked. This saves personnel resources and avoids the interruption of core tasks due to recurring data maintenance.
In the next step, client communication can be automated. If additional documents, such as images or texts, are needed, your clients can be reminded to upload them. Invitations to telephone calls or video conferences can be sent automatically and participation in the course of the project can be enabled via project management tools such as Asana.
This strengthens the customer relationship and the customer is included in the process from the start. In this way, problems or misunderstandings can be identified and resolved at an early stage, so that a successful deal and a long-term customer relationship can be created. Bad surprises after completion of the project are successfully avoided.
Automation can also be used for quality management. When customers make a purchase, they usually already receive an automated order confirmation and shipping notification. However, this is usually not enough to strengthen customer loyalty and to shape the customer journey.
The purchase is accompanied by timed e-mail notifications. After two weeks, for example, you can ask for feedback on the order and opportunities for improvement. After six weeks you will be asked about quality defects or other complaints. Finally, after six months, a product experience and a positive rating on the relevant portals are requested. This creates a positive and proactive customer journey without tying up working hours.
Customer onboarding, quality management, customer journeys - they are all part of a close and successful customer relationship. If they have the best possible shopping experience with you, chances are good that they will remain loyal and become regular customers. But in times of decreasing customer loyalty and increasing competition, innovative and forward-looking methods are needed to achieve a competitive advantage.
The possibility of automation is still considered by too few companies on the market and yet it holds enormous potential - massive time savings, simplified processes, identification of sources of error with constant support in day-to-day business. In return, you and your employees have more time for the really important tasks, the workload is reduced and excessive demands are avoided.
Would you also like to take the next step to make your company fit for the future? Set out to lead your company successfully into the future and make a free appointment for automation & IT consulting today. We will be happy to support you in uncovering potentials, illuminating possibilities and implementing automation.
Cloud Integration, iPaaS, SaaS, BPA… Ough, hard to keep track of all these terms. They are currently used frequently (and increasingly) in the context of automation, and it is sometimes difficult to make a clear distinction and distinction. We have already written blog posts on the terms iPaaS, SaaS and BPA, but we’ll take them up again here to make the difference.
But let’s start with cloud integration, because that’s the central umbrella term in which we embed all the other technologies in this blog post.
Arrange a free cloud integration consultation now
Arrange a free cloud integration consultation now
To illustrate these advantages, an example is suitable that we know well from our everyday work as an automation agency:
The central data to be used here is the data of a major customer. This can be the simplest information, such as the address. This address is required in numerous but completely different processes in the company: on the one hand, for correct invoicing in accounting. On the other hand, in the CRM system, where all the data of the large customer is also stored. But the address is also important in sales, for example, when employees go to the sales meeting on site.
Now the customer announces that the address of the company has changed after a move. This information will reach you by e-mail. There are now two options:
01. The e-mail is forwarded to all affected departments, accounting, sales, customer service, marketing… All persons open their corresponding program, CRM, accounting software, marketing tools (such as newsletter marketing) and change the data already stored there of the customer. This means that in multiple applications, different people do exactly the same thing: change one address.
02. But there is also an alternative: By connecting your applications, thus by integrizing them, the customer’s e-mail, or rather the information it contains about the address change, is automatically passed on to all affected applications: CRM, accounting, marketing, ERP. This does not require any clicks, because the cloud integration detects a trigger, i.e. address change, and thus automatically starts the process.
What sounds unimpressive in a single process becomes more effective when such a process occurs several times a day or weekly. Because there is a lot of data that is available in different applications and should always be correct. If these applications are cloud applications they are suitable for cloud integration.
But cloud integration doesn’t just happen. There are now a variety of applications that enable and implement this. Such tools usually allow us to link the relevant cloud applications on a central platform and define clear rules on when, how, where, how much data should be passed on and what happens to them.
To realize cloud integration, there are various applications and technologies that are sometimes used interchangeably.
We have made a first distinction between iPaaS and BPA here.
We explain the term SaaS in more detail here.
Cloud integration is rather an umbrella term that includes numerous technologies, such as SaaS, iPaaS and BPA, and this is also absolutely necessary. Cloud integration is a concept that is made possible by appropriate technologies.
However, all terms share the commonality that they are cloud-based and thus offer enormous potential for growth and scaling. In addition, they are often cheaper to implement and maintain because changed requirements are easy to implement.
As an independent automation agency, we implement cloud integration according to your requirements. We use a variety of SaaS tools and iPaas (strictly speaking BPA) software. Together we find individual solutions that are flexible and scalable.
