A lot of experts have discussed the importance of using big data and artificial intelligence in the customer relationship management discipline. However, few experts actually evaluated these benefits before.
Leonardo de Lima Francisco, a researcher from Spain, and several of his colleagues discussed this in a report titled “Big Data as a Customer Management Relationship Tool.” Lima Francisco and his colleagues showed that big data technology is invaluable for enhancing customer relationships.
Further Research Shows Importance of Big Data in CRM Technology
They say that the only things certain in life are taxes and death. Well if you operate a company that runs a support system, you could probably add a third thing to that list – support requests will never stop. Fortunately, using big data can make this easier.
One important element to running a successful business is how it handles customer support. In the modern world we live in, where everything is in the cloud and online, it’s imperative that you have a good system in place to deal with customer support, and you manage it in an effective and timely fashion. If you are not properly dealing with the requests of your customers, you might soon find they will start taking their business elsewhere.
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There are a lot of ways that companies can leverage big data to achieve goals. However, they need to be used wisely. As FreshDesk points out, you need to have a viable strategy to incorporate data into your customer relationship management policy:
“If you’re collecting data only to use it for the occasional discount or coupon, you’re throwing away opportunities to great remarkable customer experiences. Thankfully, there are a number of efficient ways you can start using your big data to dramatically improve your customer service.”
There are many reasons why a company may struggle to keep control of their support system, such as lack of experienced personnel, bad organization and management or even a poorly planned ticketing system for your support department. Whatever the reason there are a number of things that you can do to make sure that your support system is offering your customers, and potential clients, the best possible experience.
Take a look at your infrastructure
You need to use the most sophisticated data technology to the get the most of your CRM. This means that you should have versatile data servers, a Hadoop data mining tool and a GUI analytics dashboard.
Are you using an outdated method of dealing with customer support? Is the hardware and data servers you are using old and limited in its abilities?
The infrastructure of your customer support department plays a huge role in determining how it functions, and if your equipment is out of date, how do you possibly play to stay on top of the issue and manage your support requests in a timely manner. You can find a lot of good information online for dealing with this, and a quick search for something such as support management made easy can bring you a great selection of resources to go through.
Create roles and departments for your support based on data competencies
If you are dealing with a large number of support requests, for a variety of different products or services that you may offer, then it is very important to create a set of roles for your support staff.
Some staff can use data tools to accomplish their jobs more easily. However, many of them lack an understanding of big data technology. You need to segregate roles based on their knowledge.
You could have a department that deals with various technical issues if you are dealing with hardware such as network systems or servers. You could also have a department that deals with pre-sales support and questions, where potential clients could come and ask basic questions about your service or product.
By creating internal departments for your support system and creating roles for the personnel, you can make sure that the correct people are dealing with the support requests that they can help and deal with. There is no point having a technical developer answering pre-sale questions about your product.
Allow other agents to take over requests
This ties in with the point above where you can create different roles for your support staff. It is very helpful for both the client and your staff to have the ability to invite a more senior person to join or take over a ticket request if the initial member of support is unable to deal with the problem.
If you start asking the client to make a new support ticket, so that another member of staff can help them, this is very cumbersome for the client, and to be fair, is not their responsibility. They have to come to your support department with their request, and are now being asked to resubmit their ticket simply because the person who picked up the original request is unable to help.
Place emphasis on good communication
Good communication with your clients is vital. For your support system to work well and deal with people’s questions and issues, it is vital that you communicate in a helpful and functional manner. Make sure that during the initial request stage the client has the ability to describe in as much detail the questions they have, and which department they want to be connected with.
Not only does this cut down on wasted time for both the client and the support staff, it will also ensure that the support request is sent to the department that can best deal with it. Poor communication with the client will inevitably lead to a poor response time and experience for them.
Have the ability to scale
It is very important that whatever ticket support system you put in please to deal with support requests is one that is flexible and has the ability to scale over time. The main aim of any business is to grow, and with an increase in growth will inevitably come an increase in the demand for support.
If your current system cannot be scaled to handle greater demand, you could be looking at the possibility that it will need to be completely replaced at some point in the future, which will cost time and money.
This is one of the ways that big data can be most helpful. If you have the right data infrastructure in place, you can increase your customer numbers and the amount of data that you retain on them easily.
Big Data is a Vital Component to CRM
Customer relationship management is highly dependent on new technology. Big data has made this easier than ever.