kapturecrm-blog

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CRM PROCESS

Understanding Customer Relationship Management

What is Customer Relationship Management?

Did you know that according to a report by Microsoft about 90% of Americans use customer service as a decision-making tool to do business with a company? And according to another report by Microsoft about 58% of Americans tend to switch companies due to a lack of customer service. In the past few decades, customer service has not only become the backbone of many businesses but has also gained a reputation as a profit generation tool. 

Simply put Customer management for customer relationship management is all about handling help desk services and operations that a company offers to their customers. Having the best sales strategies and marketing strategies are not the only things that keep a business running. Customer service is also considered an integral part of business operations. Customer service is the most important tool that maintains a healthy bridge between businesses and consumers. One of the best ways businesses maintain customer relationships is through efficient customer relationship management technology like Kapture CRM.

What is a customer relationship management system? 

Customer relationship management tools or help desk management tools are nothing but tools that help businesses efficiently manage customer service operations like help desk ticket registration, etc. It is important for businesses to choose the right kind of customer relationship management systems as it not only helps them maintain a healthy bridge between the customers and themselves but also helps them increase their profitability at the same time. While choosing a help desk management system businesses have to make sure of many things. Below is a list of must-have help desk system features which help businesses choose the right CRM system for their business. Must have help desk features -

24/7 availability

Providing round-the-clock customer care support to customers is one of the best ways through which businesses can show that they truly value their customers' needs. Having customer service that is limited to office hours can act as a barrier when it comes to registering help desk tickets. Whenever there is a problem with a product or service being provided by the business, customers have to wait till office hours to register the ticket and in this process, a lot of them might end up not registering the ticket at all. But with 24 into 7 availability businesses can provide immediate and quick solutions to their customer's product or service issues. 

Knowledge Management System

Having a knowledge management system that keeps track of customer data and product or service-related data is extremely important and at the same time very useful. With an efficient knowledge management system businesses can easily collect customer-related information and also organize it in an efficient manner. Knowledge management systems are of great help to customer service agents. Main customer service agents have access to a centralized knowledge management system that contains information about your customer base and helps agents to gain more knowledge about the customer's situation or about the product itself. This helps them to better understand the tickets raised or the customer service issues expressed which will ultimately lead them to solve the issue immediately and successfully.

Omnichannel 

As a result of rapid digitization, customers have started to make use of various platforms to conduct businesses, do shopping, socialize, etc. This has provided many businesses an opportunity to increase their customer base and reach out to customers on various platforms. Having Omnichannel facility businesses connect and reach out to their customers through various touchpoints. Omnichannel helps businesses enforce their virtual presence and increase their customer base at the same time without any hassle. Reaching out to customers through a customer-preferred channel is also an excellent way to show that the business really cares about the customers’ product or service issues. Kapture's Omnichannel facilities help businesses integrate help desk operations across various platforms into a single screen.

AI chatbots 

Artificial intelligence chatbots are excellent service desk tools that help businesses in various ways. These artificial intelligence chatbots are driven by machine learning capabilities and natural language processing abilities that help them provide the most contextual responses to customers' help desk tickets. They are capable of registering and solving a huge number of customer care tickets within a matter of hours. This helps businesses easily solve help desk tickets in less time. Since these chatbots don't require infrastructural facilities for salaries they also act as cost-saving customer service tools. These bots also help businesses collect customer data which can then be used to gain valuable insights into customer trends and customer preferences. The collected data can also be used to build better marketing and sales strategies that will lead to better and profitable results.

Self-service

Not every customer loves the idea of calling up a customer care agent and registering a help desk ticket. A lot of customers these days prefer solving their queries or issues related to the products or services all by themselves. A lot of customers hesitate while registering a help desk ticket over a call or a text message and this is where self-service portals come into the picture. Self-service portal integration can be very beneficial to customer care operation teams. By setting up a self-service portal businesses help customers help themselves. These self-serve portals help customers become more independent and informed. They can also be used as new product/service promotion tools to inform customers. 

Automated ticket assignment 

In traditional customer service management, there is always a lack of efficient ticket assignment or agent assignment. This can cause a lot of issues and confusion among customer service agents and can also lead to higher levels of unproductivity and inefficiency among them. Having a CRM system like Kapture that helps businesses easily assign help desk tickets to their customer service agents through automation can be extremely helpful. Kapture's automated ticketing feature combined with a round-robin facility helps businesses resolve tickets in a timely manner. It also makes sure no tickets go unattended leading to better customer satisfaction levels. 

Principles of good customer service to keep in mind 

Maintaining a polite attitude 

A good way to start a customer interaction and also end one is by maintaining a polite attitude. No matter what the customer sounds like it is always expected of the agent to keep his/her calm. Failing to do so will not only lead to unhappy customers but might also significantly impact a company’s CSAT scores. In addition to this, it might also lead to increased help desk tickets being raised due to unsuccessful remediation of the previous ticket. Maintaining a polite attitude goes a long way in solving help desk tickets. 

Speed

Everyone wants to save time. Customers get agitated and even display a lack of patience when customer care assistance is being delayed. Delaying customer service can also lead to other problems like negative brand image, lower customer retention, decreased customer onboarding, etc. Doing everything in the agent's capacity to speed up the ticket remediation process not only aids in immediate remediation but also improves the customers’ satisfaction levels. 

Doing research on your customers 

It always benefits customer service agents to have information on their customers. Having knowledge of customer data like previous tickets raised, products purchased, etc. helps agents get a better hang on the customer's current product issue and also helps them understand what exactly the customer is expecting out of that customer interaction. This not only helps them solve customer issues but also helps them do it quickly. 

Customer service response time 

Customers not only appreciate but also expect quick responses to their help desk tickets. This can easily be achieved through efficient customer relationship management systems like Kapture. Kapture's automated customer relationship management tool helps help desk agents work effectively which leads to quick responses. Immediate remediation and quick responses increase customer satisfaction levels. In addition to this lower response times also increases positive brand image. 

Personalization 

One of the best ways to get through a customer's heart is by adding a hint of personalization. From last names to purchase history various little pieces of information can help customers feel valued and special. Customizing customer interactions is one of the best ways businesses can make their customers feel like they are receiving special treatment. Adding hints of personalized touches here and there normally makes the interaction fruitful but also increases brand positivity. 

Connecting with customers on various platforms 

Thanks to rapid digitization customers are now making use of various platforms to conduct business. This can be seen as a great opportunity for businesses to reach out to various prospects and work towards building bigger customer bases. But for this businesses need to have an omnichannel approach. Having an Omnichannel strategy helps businesses build a bridge between themselves and customers across multiple platforms or channels.

How having an efficient CRM like Kapture helps 

Increased efficiency 

By facilitating features like that of round-Robin ticketing management and hassle-free lead categorization that help customer care agents handle and resolve help desk tickets easily Kapture helps businesses increase the efficiency of their customer care support teams in no time. The system also enables a better contextual solution to all the customers' tickets leading to not only higher efficiency levels but also higher customer satisfaction rates.

Increases productivity 

With the help of Kapture's customer relationship management systems businesses are able to easily automate all customer care support operations leading to higher levels of productivity. From increased registration of help desk tickets to lower first call resolution time Kapture's customer management tools help businesses conduct help desk services in a smooth manner that ultimately lead to better productivity levels. 

Helps in making better decisions 

When businesses don't take advantage of efficient technologies making better decisions that result in profitable results can be challenging. Kapture's efficient data collection and data management allow customers care agents to get a better understanding of a help desk ticket. This not only helps them gain knowledge but also helps them make better decisions when it comes to resolving customer complaints. 

Helps you increase customer onboarding and customer retention

For businesses to stay on top of their games it is important to retain customers and at the same time onboard new customers. With the help of Kapture's efficient ticket management tools, customer retention and customer onboarding not only becomes easy but also significantly brings down customer service operation costs. 

Helps you increase customer satisfaction

Quick help desk assistance and immediate remediation are the two most important things that customers value the most. Kapture's CRM not only helps you step up your first call resolution game but also helps your customer care support agents provide the most contextual responses resulting in efficient solutions for your customers’ problems. 

Helps you build a bigger customer base

One of the best ways businesses can show that they value customers is by enforcing their presence where the customers are and this means having to connect with customers across various touchpoints. Kapture's omnichannel facilities make this not only possible but also a hassle-free process. Having an omnichannel strategy helps businesses get in touch with more customers which ultimately leads to a bigger customer base. 

Better first-call resolution

By automating various customer care operations and by providing easily accessible knowledge management systems Kapture enables customer service agents to function to the best of their capabilities. This not only leads to higher efficiency levels among customer care agents but also improves first call resolution times which in turn results in better CSAT scores.

Better customer service

Customers no longer have to wait for agents to help them resolve their product-related problems. In addition to this customer service becomes more accessible to customers as a result of an omnichannel strategy. With tools like self-service and omnichannel, Kapture's CRM helps businesses provide the best customer experience possible. 

Handling customer care support operations can be very challenging especially if there is a lack of efficient technology. But with the right customer relationship management tools handling customer tickets and other help desk support operations can become smooth and easy. To know more about efficient customer relationship management tools like Kapture CRM click here for a demo.

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Customer Data Management- Integrate Your Customer Data

Being customer-centric is not only one of the best ways to serve your customers but also an amazing way to create efficient products and services. In order to run a successful and customer-centric business, it is essential for organizations to put themselves in the shoes of their customers to get a better idea of what their customers expect. Putting themselves in the shoes of their customers not only provides a better idea of customer expectations but also helps them create a customer-centric business model that enables them to create better products and services. One of the most common things you witness in major customer-centric businesses is the way they efficiently handle and organize their customer data. 

What is customer data Integration? 

Be it the purchase history of a customer, customer preferences, their likes and dislikes, last names, etc. Handling such customer data can be chaotic if it's not organized properly. Efficient track of customer data and storing it in an organized fashion not only helps businesses create better customer-centric models but also helps them effectively structure their sales strategies to achieve higher profitability. This is where customer data integration comes into the picture. In simple words, customer data integration is the process of efficiently processing and consolidating customer-related information that is available. This data can be contact details, financial data, customer’s usage information gathered through various apps or website history like links clicked on or product preferences, etc. 

Why is it important?

Be it product-related data or customer-related data, organizing the data in an efficient manner is always useful and necessary for businesses. Customer data integration particularly is essential for businesses as it plays an impactful role in the company's customer relationship management. With so many options available for any given product or service one thing that helps customers choose your brand or business over the other is an excellent customer relationship management system. And an effective way to manage your company’s customer relationship management systems is through customer data integration. Data that you want to integrate into your databases can originate from a range of interactions like website history, app history, social media handles, search behavior, etc. Not having an organized customer database can not only lead your business to lower profitability but also create a negative brand image. 

Benefits of integrating customer data 

Helps your business reduce costs

Having an organized database helps your customer service agents generate leads in a cost-effective manner. With already existing customer data it is easy for your customer service agents to target specific customers based on their preferences. This not only a low-cost lead generation tool but also helps agents target specific customers who are more likely to be interested in the product. 

Helps your customer service agents

With such an organized customer database, it becomes easier for help desk support agents to access any kind of records like a customer's purchase history or order canceled history. This allows them to be more aware of a particular customer and helps them provide the customer a contextual response when they raise a help desk ticket. With the help of an organized database customer service agents are able to efficiently solve help desk tickets and also reduce ticket remediation time. 

Helps you create better strategies

Collecting and consolidating information related to customer behavior or preferences is extremely useful as it can be used as a tool to help you better understand their expectations when it comes to products or services or even prices for that matter. When you have an already existing integrated customer database it becomes extremely easy for your marketing team to structure effective sales strategies around the customer information available.

 To know more about how you can integrate your customer data with the help of efficient customer relationship management tools like Kapture click here for a demo.

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B2B Customer Support Management System

What is B2B customer service?

B2B is short form for “Business-to-Business” meaning that you are a business and the product or the design or the creatives you sell are also designed for companies to use rather than a customer. Customer service is the act of providing timely and empathetic responses to your customers when they are in need.

B2B companies – or businesses that sell to businesses – expect a more hands-on approach when it comes to customer service. In fact, it is very common in B2B customer service to have ‘Success Managers’ mapped to certain high ticket accounts, instead of just assigning support agents. 

How it impacts revenue and growth

When creating a strategy for B2B customer service, remember that though B2B customers require higher effort, they also offer higher returns in your business. Creating a more hands-on approach with the customer so that improving the lifetime value of each customer and bringing your business in competition.

Depending on the industry, one sale can have a significant effect on the revenue and margins. Similarly, providing delightful and dependable customer service will ensure that the customer not only renews his contract with you but will be more open to buying your other offering as well.

How it impacts your brand

The fastest way to gain a good reputation in the market is to let customers do the talking for you.  But you have to earn the trust of your customers. This means ensuring that you give best to customers and they are treated well.

The name and rewards you get by giving your customers your best service is that your customers will become brand loyal. Offering good customer service gives you the reviews that give other potential customers to make a purchase decision. 

The power of promotion also has a direct connection with the name and value of the brand. It's a win-win situation for customers and sellers. 

The Differences Between B2C and B2B Customer Service

B2B customer issues are highly complex

B2B companies are more likely to have problems that are more complex to each unique customer. Solving their problems usually requires a strong solution amount, time, efforts and most often requires multiple teams to get solved.

Even when it’s a new problem, it usually takes a little longer than usual to solve. For example, problems involving a server issue, or a product functionality issue usually take hours to resolve and require coordination with the product and IT teams. 

 5 ways to Improve B2B customer service 

Use conversational history to maintain relevant information

B2B issues can be extremely mind boggling, which makes it significant that everybody engaged with tackling the issue knows the historical backdrop of the issue. Clients likewise expect that the specialist definitely knows the setting of his issue regardless of whether this is their first connection with them.

Collaborate effectively with other teams to solve issues faster

When managing B2B client issues, you may have to include different groups relying upon the sort and intricacy of the issue. Yet, joint effort can be troublesome and tedious when there are numerous subtleties to speak with various individuals in a short measure of time.

Allow customers the flexibility of choosing their communication channel

Clients ought to be given the alternative of picking how they can connect with you. Mail, visit, call or online media are various channels you can open up to clients as a method of reaching your help group. 

To give an omnichannel experience you need to keep a solitary form of all your client data.

Proactively deal with customer issues

It's anything but enough for associations to simply be responsive to issues. Clients can be left baffled in the event that they are made to hang tight for an update after the issue has effectively happened. 

Being proactive methods you are expecting an issue occurring and you connect with clients in advance to illuminate them about it while additionally expressing how your help group is attempting to fix it 

For instance, in the event that one of your workers is down and you expect a deferral in getting it back up, you can advise your clients about the equivalent with a proactive effort email before they come to you with a grumbling.

Improve the speed and quality of customer service with automation

Given the significance of building client connections in B2B, support groups ought to have the option to devote a decent piece of their opportunity to it. In any case, frequently, excess, tedious undertakings wind up burning through the client service group's time.

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Best Ecommerce CRM in 2021 – Pros and Cons

In the e-commerce business context, CRM helps in lead generation, conversion, and interactive customer journeys. Let’s start with the description of the tools.

You can find everything you need from one CRM. Here you will get CRM software, Marketing Automation, Help desk software, and live chat software in one place.

CRM Software: You can store unlimited leads and data on their CRM Software. The sales and marketing team can track and review all the data in one place.

Marketing Automation: Their automated marketing software does all backend work so that you focus on business only. You can send customized emails to your target audience easily with their automated platform.

Helpdesk Software: Their helpdesk software has been designed for the best UX and UI.It provides prompt and human responses in time.

Live chat software: Clients can also avail their live chat software service for customer interaction. It will boost customer trust and eventually conversions for the business.

Intended to associate brands to the customers 

The present web based business industry is tied in with contacting likely clients in a more customized approach. Prospects today aren't searching for pushy or attempts to sell something, rather they are searching for a more intuitive and customized promoting message that they can identify with and get associated in a flash. 

 Simple to utilize 

Cutting edge online stores require coordinated and intuitive programming that can be utilized by all colleagues like an expert with no specialized glitches. The Ecommerce CRM accompanies an instinctive UI, vigorous, and effectively safe highlights and all day, every day client care, to augment the effectiveness and efficiency of the business and increment deals and income. 

 Created with current innovation 

Calls and messages aren't adequate correspondence diverts in the present advanced time. All things being equal, brands are hoping to get associated with the intended interest group over however many stages as could reasonably be expected and in the most intelligent way. Present day internet business CRM empowers brands to computerize multi-channel promoting procedures to get associated with the clients over different mediums like online media stages to customized presentation pages, and from customized email missions to designated Google Ads. With incredible logical instruments, it's simpler than any time in recent memory to reveal the clients' inclinations and purchasing behaviors and concoct much more designated and customized advertising efforts.

Pros

Customer Segmentation 

Have you at any point seen that the second you sign into your social profiles or make a pursuit question of Google, how you are overwhelmed with profoundly pertinent and designated promotions, nearly pushing you to click? Presently, have you considered how they can target such designated promotions? That is on the grounds that web crawlers and social stages gain from our inquiry examples and exercises to study our inclinations and present us with the most pertinent Ads, which we are searching for. 

Essentially, internet business CRM programming empowers you to make sections of your customers dependent on past activities, sexual orientation, spending history, interests, and needs of the customers. This along these lines assists you with making a customized advertising effort for each section and improving transformation rates.

Access detailed information

You need profound examination and information from your store to have the option to make proper moves. For example, what number of guests arrived on your site? What number of them added an item to the shopping basket? What number of deserted trucks? Furthermore, substantially more. 

The entirety of this information gives you crucial bits of knowledge into the clients' inclinations and shopping designs, which you can therefore use to configure tweaked advertising efforts and recapture lost clients by sending them pleasant updates or even bait them back for certain motivating forces.

Time efficiency 

As per one examination, the majority of the useful season of sales reps are spent on settling regulatory or specialized issues, though, they are just left with a 10% chance to focus on dynamic selling. 

This isn't only an immense worry for sales reps yet for the whole association, which straightforwardly converts into lower deals and income for the business. 

In such circumstances, an expert and strong Ecommerce CRM programming acts the hero via computerizing the different cycles associated with the business pipe. This leaves sales reps with more opportunity to zero in on their primary duty for example deals and in this way produce better outcomes for the organization.

Social media interaction

Today, an enormous segment of online traffic is coordinated to web based business stores through web-based social media stages and along these lines it's imperative to keep a successful presence on different social stages. This will not simply assist you with improving your arrival enormously yet in addition empower you to associate in a more customized way with your clients and assemble your image's picture. Online business CRM offers online organizations with a coordinated web-based media the executives stage, which can only end up being a distinct advantage for your business.

Payment data

If you want more sales from your online business, you need to have multiple online payment gateways, as a means to offer customers more flexibility. A comprehensive Ecommerce CRM system enables online businesses to integrate all major transaction gateways into their business, thus building credibility and improving conversion rates.

Cons

Minimize the human element in your business

While everybody supports the advantages of computerizing the frameworks and cycles for your online business (which we additionally suggest as an extraordinary alternative), one of its drawbacks is that it nearly avoids the human component from the cycles. 

This may come as an antagonistic point particularly when managing clients, where you generally need a human touch for more personalization. That is to say, there's consistently a distinction when a client gets associated with a computerized chatbot or a genuine individual as a client agent. Subsequently, organizations may have to keep up in any event an insignificant presence of human components in their business measures.

Security Concerns

While much has been done to address the network safety concerns and make the web based business stage as protected and conceivable. All things considered, since it's an incorporated cloud storehouse there remain worries for breaks consistently. And keeping in mind that an expert and powerful online business framework has inherent security highlights to nullify such endeavors, still it's essential to keep a reinforcement for all the information put away in the CRM; to guarantee your business progression even if there should arise an occurrence of a security break.

Employees training

Despite the fact that modern-day ecommerce CRM software developed and designed to offer intuitive user-interface and interactive user-experience, still understanding the full functionality of the CRM will require a thorough employee training program, which will help businesses to squeeze the most benefit from the CRM.

Click here to book a demo with Kapture.

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Successful Customer Support Amidst COVID-19

As a result of the pandemic, a lot of businesses started switching to virtual spaces to conduct business and make.  During such unprecedented times, businesses tend to lose customers because of making the shift to virtual platforms. When businesses shut down physical doors customers no longer interacted the way they used to. In times like these, businesses have to work on various things like communicating clearly with their customers and informing them about their products and services, making attempts to better understand customer problems related to products or services being provided, making cancellations easy, educating customers about new product releases, making customer care support more accessible, etc.

How businesses are providing customer support amidst covid

Offering 24/7 help desk support

Offering round-the-clock help desk assistance brings a lot of advantages to businesses. 24/7 customer service availability helps businesses register more help desk tickets and also helps them in immediate ticket remediation. Unlike traditional customer service that is limited to office hours, 24/7 customer service availability helps businesses cater to their customers and their needs at any given time of the day. This not only showcases a positive commitment to their customers but also helps them increase their customer satisfaction levels.

Personalization 

When businesses shut doors due to the pandemic a lot of them saw a loss of customers-business bond. Situations like these lead to a lot of chaos and even now and then can result in customers switching to other businesses and brands. This not only brings down customer loyalty but also lowers profitability. In times like this adding a hint of personalization goes a long way. When customer service agents add a touch of personalization into their conversations it makes the customer feel special and valued. This helps businesses build back the lost connection with their customers. 

Omnichannel 

Did you know that according to a report by Aberdeen group businesses with extremely strong omnichannel customer engagement retain on average 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for companies with weak omnichannel customer engagement? This is the power of having omnichannel support. Having omnichannel facilitation not only helps businesses cater to a huge number of customers but also helps them maintain consistent customer engagement levels. During times like these when customers are switching to so many new platforms, it gives businesses an opportunity to increase their brand awareness on multiple platforms. 

Self-serve portals 

Another way businesses are able to provide efficient customer care support facilities to their customers amidst the covid-19 pandemic is through the integration of self-service portals with CRM systems. From password resets to finding information on how to use a specific product or service self-serve portals help customers help themselves out. As Self-service portals help customers solve a huge number of help desk tickets on their own it helps businesses reduce the number of customer service tickets being registered.

Feedback channels

Enabling feedback channels for customers and collecting feedback regularly has become necessary. With so many new things to learn due to the rapid digitization and virtual space adaption, there are chances of possible mismanagement or unsatisfactory purchases. In times like this collecting feedback becomes even more important. The collected data helps businesses structure their sales and marketing strategies in order to achieve the most optimal results. This will not only help businesses increase customer satisfaction rates but will also help them increase profitability due to efficient sales strategies. 

To know more about customer management systems like Kapture CRM click here for a demo. 

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Principles of Good Customer Service

What is Good customer service? 

With great customer service comes great brand visibility. Having good customer service has become a necessity now. With hundreds of options for the same product, brands now have difficulty making sales, and the only thing that helps businesses gain a competitive edge over their computers is having the best and the most efficient customer service operations. Having great customer care teams helps businesses build a unique bond with their customers which in turn helps their customers trust the brand even more. Businesses invest and focus on improving their help desk management operations; it not only helps them increase sales but also helps increase profitability.

Here are 7 Commandments of Great Customer Service that will help your business stay on top of the game- 

1. Adding a hint of personalization 

From remembering last names to remembering their previous orders or complaints, adding a hint of personalization is one of the best ways to make a connection with your customers. When customer support agents add a hint of personalization in their customer interactions it helps them make the customers feel special and valued. 

2. Being empathetic

Forming a bond with customers is not always limited to adding personalizing elements. Sometimes it's also about putting yourselves in the shoes of your customers to get a better understanding of their needs or troubles. Customer care agents being empathetic takes them a long way. 

3. Sense of familiarisation 

It is important for help desk support agents to create a sense of familiarisation when interacting with their customers. This leads to customers believing that the agent truly understands their issue or problem with the product which in turn leads them to trust the brand even more. Creating a sense of familiarisation can not only make the customer feel understood but can also facilitate a fruitful solution to the help desk ticket.

4. Being a good listener

Listening is one of the most important skills that help desk support agents must possess. In addition to being a good listener, having an immense amount of patience also helps agents go a long way in the ticket remediation process. Carefully listening to what the customer has to say or express not only benefits the customer but also the agents themselves. It helps them better understand the ticket issue and helps them come up with efficient solutions.

5. Feedback 

Feedback is one of the key factors that show that businesses care about their customers. Receiving regular feedback from customers for products or services is essential. Implementation of suggestions from the feedback is also important. It not only showcases that the brand is trying to improve but also helps businesses keep their customers happy and satisfied at the same time.

6. Knowing your customer 

Having prior information about the customers is always helpful. It is crucial for agents to know their customers before an interaction. When help desk support agents keep an eye on information like the customer's previous purchases, order history, tickets, etc it helps the agents provide a better and more contextual understanding of the customer's ticket or issue. This not only helps them resolve the problem better but also helps them save time.

7. Maintaining a positive attitude

Maintaining a positive attitude helps customer service agents solve queries or tickets in a much more efficient manner. Having the right mindset and a positive attitude is extremely important for help desk support agents. When agents fail to maintain a positive attitude during customer interactions not only decreases customer satisfaction levels but also drinks in a negative brand image for the business itself. 

To know more about effective customer relationship management systems like Kapture that can help you serve your customers better click here for a demo.

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How to Make your Virtual Customer Service Hit the Mark

What is virtual customer service?

Virtual customer care assists organizations with performing customer assistance distantly, either by telecommute representatives, or through an outsider supplier. There are sure advantages and disadvantages to this plan of action that one should think about prior to submitting.

A virtual customer service representative provides your solution with complete business support from agents to management. This group is housed outside of the business however is prepared in the organization's items and brand to convey a degree of administration customers can't separate from the "genuine article". Customer talk, email messages, calls and web-based media DMs are regularly utilized arrangements of interchanges.

While virtual customer care is seen by some as an enchantment slug for tackling their help issues, for other people, it is a misconstrued choice that they dread will cost a ton and assume away responsibility for their help. In this article, we desire to assist you with conquering the misinterpretations and answer some regular inquiries encompassing this business choice.

The uses of virtual customer service:

Organizations with insufficient workers to fulfill need 

Businesses welcoming on new innovation, as live visit messages, or who need to more readily deal with their email accumulation 

Organizations who need to scale and keep up current cycles 

Care groups that need to rapidly add more dialects to offer new administrations 

An organization that necessities a better quality of specialist management 

An organization needs to grow their all out addressable market or investigate new business openings

Virtual service tips to implement in your business

Over Communication: 

Very much like with your virtual specialists, your customers can't investigate their desk area divider to check whether you are occupied grinding away. When you acknowledge a task let them know. This can be through a computerized message or an individual one. Another type of this is "thank you for your request" affirmation messages.

2. Timely Response:

As well as telling customers that you have acknowledged their request make certain to pose any inquiries or return things in a suitable time interval. For instance, as a substance composing administration we ask customers inquiries during the initial 24 hours of tolerating an undertaking. That way a customer realizes we have acknowledged the undertaking as well as are effectively chipping away at it. Envision having a multi day turnaround and afterward posing inquiries 3 hours before the cutoff time. That says a lot to your customer.

3. Make a Personal Connection:

With web-based media this is quite straightforward. A speedy output of any friendly stage tells you the customer's advantage. In the event that you work with customers everywhere in the country as we do, influence their actual location. Possibly they appreciate similar games you do or they live in a similar spot as an old school pal. Setting aside the effort to make those associations, any moment can have a major effect on a customer.

4. Establish Boundaries:

At the point when you work online you are allowed to have any timetable you like. Building up customer support hours or telling customers when to expect a reaction can go far in showing your customers you regard their time. Is it true that you will be out of the workplace for a couple of days? Make certain to utilize your out of office email message. Is your organization in EST however for reasons unknown you just work for the time being? Whatever your timetable, let your customers know.

5. Broadcast Effectively:

At the point when you maintain an online business you have numerous scenes of advancement. Blog, email, online media takes care of, and so forth. On the off chance that you have organization news make certain to post it all over. Try not to accept that your customers read your blog and your Facebook and your email pamphlet. Most customers are simply going to focus on one sort of medium. Particularly for things that impact customers like a site being down for upkeep or an adjustment of charging, make certain to post all finished and habitually.

6. Ask for feedback:

At any point can't help thinking about why large box organizations send you those criticism messages after a buy? This is on the grounds that it works. Furthermore, it works in two totally different ways. One, the organization gets input on an item or administration. This is incredible in light of the fact that the organization can adjust if essential. The other explanation is significantly more significant – customers feel like they have been heard. Whenever you give a chance to criticism you are making an association. You are sending the message that you care about this opinion.

7.Goodies:

Regardless of whether you send Christmas cards or present bushels, sending actual treats to your customers is an amazing asset for keeping current customers returning. Coupons, reference limits, and so on are incredible too if actual endowments are out of the financial plan. Since your business is virtual doesn't mean you are restricted to virtual corporations. Envision client assistance as the folding paper over your item. The actual item is significant, however the client support regularly establishes the greatest connection. In this speedy virtual world the main thing you can do is remind your customers they are in excess of an email address.

Click here to book a demo and get brief about Kapture with our expertise.

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5 Elements of Great Customer Support

In this era of digitization one of the best ways you can win people's hearts is through not-so-common human touch. With so many options for the same products or services, it becomes even more challenging for businesses to make profits and build better and huge customer bases. In an era like this having a competitive edge over competitors has become essential. It is now required more than ever for businesses to have efficient and productive customer support services. Providing good quality customer support services normally gives businesses a competitive edge but also helps them increase their profitability and customer satisfaction levels. 

Here are 5 principles of quality customer service -

Being available 

Customers don't like to wait. When customer sources are limited to specific hours it can cause a hindrance in help desk ticket registration. It is essential for businesses to be open round the clock for customer service purposes. 24/7 availability helps businesses register more tickets and cater to customer needs at any point of the day. Being available round the clock not only gives businesses a competitive edge but also improves customer satisfaction levels.

Reaching out on all touchpoints 

Having an omnichannel strategy is one of the best ways to ensure there is good quality customer service being provided to customers. An omnichannel strategy helps businesses to get in touch with their customers through various touchpoints that are preferred by the customer itself. It helps them reach out to customers via multiple platforms of the customers choosing which not only shows that they really care about customers were also helps in increasing their customer base.

Contextual responses

For efficient and effective customer service to take place, contextual responses are necessary. Contextual responses show that you are well aware of the customers’ situation and history and that you are capable of giving them the most appropriate advice or situation based on their profile. Context is always necessary as it provides a better understanding of the customer service ticket. Not wearing a contact cell response might reflect poorly on the business itself.

Feedback 

It is necessary for businesses to collect feedback from their customers and use that information to better enhance business operations. After collecting feedback from customers businesses should make sure that the feedback is used to gain insights on various things like customer trends, etc. This not only gives a better idea of how sales strategies and marketing strategies should be structured but also helps businesses better understand what exactly the customer is thinking or how they feel about their services or products.

Personalization 

Adding a hint of personalization always helps. When customer service agents personalize their interactions with customers it helps create a bond. Personalization of interactions can happen through little things like their preferences, likes, and dislikes, etc. This makes customers feel special and cared for which in turn increases the customer satisfaction levels. Efficient customer relationship management tools like Kapture CRM help customer service teams collect customer data which can then be used for personalized marketing.

Providing great customer service can become very challenging if your business doesn’t have the right tools for it. With the right and intelligent technology like Kapture, your business can not only provide better customer support service but also optimize business performance. To know more about customer service management tools click here for a demo. 

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The Utmost Importance of CRM Analytics

Customer connections are the core of each business. It doesn't make any difference what size or sort of organization you own, there is no substitute for making enduring and solid customer connections. 

It is not, at this point, about making a deal on the grounds that a distant memory are the days when customers obliged to straightforward item commercials and deals indexes. Pitching an item straightforwardly to customers doesn't work any longer, basically in light of the fact that they have developed. 

To such an extent that, customers nowadays, are significantly more mindful of their necessities and careful about promoting tricks, which necessitates that organizations be more open and straightforward with their methodologies. 

Particularly with the blast of web-based media all in all, thinking of new highlights each day through which customers can reach out straightforwardly with brands, they anticipate more customized and custom-made administrations. 

For a similar explanation, the idea of personalization has likewise changed. It goes far past tending to customers by their first names in an email or sending them some nonexclusive offers and arrangements. It is more about investigating and understanding customers profoundly and proactively tending to their necessities. Besides, it is about immediately reacting to their correspondence endeavors and charming them inside and out. As such, it is tied in with drawing near with them and being a companion for them, as opposed to simply a brand. 

What is CRM analytics? 

CRM investigation, otherwise called customer examination is a sweeping term that is utilized to depict advances and cycles pointed toward catching, gathering and dissecting a wide range of customer related information, and introducing them in a simple and easy to understand interface. The ultimate objective of customer investigation is to furnish advertisers with the fundamental data to comprehend their customers and settle on information driven choices to give the best customer experience. Particularly for B2B where the worth of every deal is high and where there is more in question, CRM examination fills the main need of giving the perfect information at the perfect occasions in the business pipe. As the purchasing cycles are longer in B2B, with more than one individual associated with the dynamic interaction, it is critical to achieve applicable conduct investigation identified with their advancement and strike when it's the ideal time.

Along these lines, CRM investigation successfully helps fill the hole between plain numbers and customers, giving an enormous open door for organizations to acquire the cutthroat edge. By utilizing the gathered information sagaciously, you can undoubtedly stretch out beyond your opposition to serve your customers. It furnishes a more profound degree of knowledge with which to acquire a particularly driving benefit. And this is facilitated by an efficient CRM analytics software solution.

Lithe CRM is one such element-stuffed CRM arrangement that accompanies a rich CRM investigation apparatus. It gives significant experiences into prospect conduct and movement occurring on your site and portable application. It permits you to catch and break down customer interests just as commitment levels viewing your site just as your online media across the board place. That, however, gives adroit action reports, timetables and continuous cautions with which you can settle on constant choices to initiate activity. Similarly, it assists you with watching out for customer purchasing behaviors and permits you to take the correct actions to impact good activity. In the master plan, it gives you access to customer action on the entirety of your computerized stages consistently.

The need for a data-drive approach

Once upon a time, before the coming of trend setting innovations, organizations regularly used to depend on incorrect presumptions and mystery for personalization and for other advertising programs. In any case, mystery is a long way from success today. 

customers' requirements must be tended to proactively, and not responsively any longer. Really at that time you can stay in front of contenders. 

Organizations are progressively utilizing savvy CRM frameworks to get leads, create and support their advantage and transform them into paying customers. This implies that the rivalry also is getting harder continuously.

On top of everything, it is also quite difficult to grab the attention of an increasingly digital savvy generation of customers. Guesswork is simply not good enough to produce proactive and relevant content or products.

It is accurate and insightful numbers that help get a clearer picture. Analytics give direction and purpose to the entire marketing team and help businesses figure out exactly what they need to do to stay ahead and establish better customer relationships.

And this is why you need CRM analytics – to make better, more informed data-driven decisions to surge ahead of competition.

Importance of CRM analytics 

CRM investigation helps organizations from multiple points of view. It gives a specific incredible perceivability that reaches out past the numbers. It successfully goes about as the Seeing Eye Dog to a generally visually impaired and mystery situated methodology. 

 Here are a couple of things that make the CRM investigation inescapable for business.

Effective segmentation

CRM examination gives itemized data about customer socioeconomics and conduct in regards to various computerized channels, which permits advertisers to assemble customers with basic variables. By adequately portioning customers dependent on various standards like age or purchasing conduct, advertisers can create important showcasing efforts to target explicit gatherings and get more transformations.

Benefit examination 

CRM examination helps see which gatherings or kinds of clients are getting the most ROI. Because of division, it is simpler for advertisers to decide clients with basic qualities and thusly decide the most beneficial gathering. With time measurements like Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) can be set up to quantify benefit, all of which permits advertisers to predict the measure of income that a client is probably going to get for the organization. This further permits organizations to choose the amount to put resources into client maintenance too. 

Proactive client assistance and experience 

CRM investigation helps see in front of client needs and issues. This offers an advantage for organizations in changing those issues, and building up trust and believability. It permits organizations to be more proactive with content just as with items and administrations and gives a benefit to organizations offered by no other channel. 

Mission streamlining 

CRM examination offers point by point and clever reports on how extraordinary promoting efforts fared. Regardless of whether it is your email advertising efforts or your web-based media crusades, investigation gives you within information on things like how well your missions were gotten by clients, which of your missions got the most commitment, which of your missions created the most transformations and so on This permits you to choose which of your missions to put further in, which channels to use for future missions and so forth 

ID of market holes and new deal openings 

CRM examination offers the remarkable and amazing component of social tuning in. It dissects discussions and patterns inside your informal community and your industry, and it permits you to recognize market holes. It additionally permits you to perceive how your rivals are getting along. With this data, you can create proactive substance and address client gives that are not addressed to you. You can likewise make or update items and administrations to more readily serve clients. 

Prescient demonstrating 

CRM examination helps in prescient display too. Point by point information driven expectations on income, item insights and client concerns permit you to demonstrate better than ever items and administrations progressively. Set up with precise social tuning in, you can accomplish market initiative by making items well in front of your rivals.

Progressed personalization 

CRM investigation gives a huge load of valuable data identified with client interests and inclinations. It likewise permits you to perceive what could be keeping them away from making a buy. This sort of information assists you with creating and utilizing progressed personalization strategies to command client notice and build up better client connections. It indeed gives you the fundamental information to sort out what sort of substance would actuate the choice to purchase in your client. By utilizing personalization strategies, you can likewise cause a client to feel esteemed and tuned in, which further improves trust and steadfastness.

 Most CRM examination arrangements offer all encompassing and itemized bits of knowledge identified with and large clients conduct all through advanced channels. It doesn't restrict its range to simply promoting channels or simply the site. For instance, it gives applicable examination to a client who is now a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) and who is now in the business channel. By utilizing the correct data, examination permits advertisers to successfully consolidate showcasing and deals endeavors to give a bound together awesome client experience. 

 Far reaching approach 

CRM investigation helps receive a more complete methodology towards client support also – an encounter that reaches out past tending to client questions and objections on schedule. It receives an Omnichannel complete way to deal with giving an upgraded and all unavoidable client experience.

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The Importance of Customer Product Training

What is customer product training? 

Did you know that according to a report by Brandon hall Group Extended Enterprise about 55% of businesses improved their customer relations by providing customer product training? 

The number of new products or services or versions of the same products or services coming out in the market is always on a rise. During situations like these it becomes essential for businesses to provide training tools to customers to better help them understand what exactly the product or service can do for them or how exactly it can be used. 

By using customer-facing knowledge bases or on-demand training materials businesses help their customers better understand their products and services. Online training programs that are self paced are one of the best ways to provide customer product training to customers. By providing customer product training businesses are helping customers receive all the information and materials that they need in order to use this service or product in the most efficient and satisfying way. 

Reasons to incorporate product customer training -

With customers already having information on the tip of their fingers they no longer feel the need to raise customer service tickets for information related issues this not only brings down the overall number of tickets being raised but also decreases the workload of customer care service teams.

With a significant decrease in customer service tickets being raised, businesses no longer have to employ extra customer service reps. Not having to employ extra customer service reps helps businesses cut down on huge costs on salaries and infrastructural facilities.

Consumer product training helps customers understand what exactly the product can do for them and this leads to an increase in sales. It helps brands in business and increase their profitability.

Product training also helps customers understand how the product works or how the product or service can be used to achieve ultimate success. This helps businesses increase customer satisfaction levels which ultimately increases profitability. 

Information on how exactly the product or service can be used to help customers use the products or services in the way it is meant to be used. The right customer product training makes sure of the most efficient use of the service of the product being offered. 

How to create an amazing customer training program -

Make use of an efficient knowledge management system like Kapture that will help resource persons and trainers store and organise customer training modules that require a lot of space. Knowledge management systems like capture not only make sure that the training models are organised but it also so helps

Take feedback seriously. While creating customer product training modules it is essential for businesses to understand and identify issues through feedback. A proper analysis of existing feedback can help businesses identify where exactly customers are facing difficulty. This not only helps them build better products and services but also helps them build better product training modules.

While creating customer product training modules it is also important to gather and identify gaps in the current modules. Keeping a regular check on any gaps or challenges in existing models not only helps businesses stay on top of the game but also helps them build a better customer base that is more aware.

Even before implementing customer product training programs it is essential for businesses to gather from the users or consumers itself. This not only helps businesses for resource persons better understand the needs of your customers but also helps them create a fruitful customer product training experience. 

Another important aspect of creating a good and comprehensible customer product training module or product training content is by taking insights and inputs from all the departments like product development teams, human resources, etc. This helps learners gain a better understanding of the product or service itself.

Know more about how you increase profitability through building a better and a more aware customer base click here for a demo.

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Automated Help Desk: 7 Ideas for Ticket Management

Regardless of what ticketing system we use and how we operate, we end up ensuring that it's helping, not hamper our customer service team. Thus, we support customers in a fast, effective and professional manner. So if you ever had issues with the company's website or the product you have probably interacted with help desk software without even realizing it. As a customer, raising a helpdesk ticket provides a quick way for you to flag an issue with the company and hopefully receiving a response which is suitable for both the ends. 

As a managed service provider (MSP), help desk software provides you the ability to see the unseen benefits of making customers queries and lives easier.

What is help desk software?

A help desk or a service desk is one of the one-point place contacts that provides focus information and supports management service to handle the company's internal and external queries. A help desk automated software helps the company to resolve customers' outrage faster and efficiently by simply automating the complaint resolution process with the ticket management system.

What are the advantages of automated customer service?

Automated customer service is a great advantage that can help you improve the efficiency of your MSP and pass benefits back to your customer. Here are some important advantages.

Reduce human error

Reduce the wait time for customer, which will help the customer satisfaction

Minimal supervision necessary 

Reduce the need to hire more employees as you scale up

How do you automate help desk?

The following seven optimization techniques/ideas can help to improve their help desk operations, making them more efficient and less resource consuming. Doing this helps both the parties of the help desk.

Ensure you give proper agent training : The effectiveness of your ticket management system largely depends on how well your agents are able to manage the tool and how well they can communicate with different scenarios. If you are just starting out with ticketing software, proper onboarding and training so that communication both ways get easier. Why? To ensure agents can effectively grip the tool and all of its features easily. Thus, being able to provide a seamless service experience to customers.

Decide which tickets to be prioritize : Depending on the size and complexity of your business you can choose the priority of the tickets based either on the order they arrive or urgency or how many times they have called. The first come first serve method is generally used or preferred in most support teams. It can help the workflow and provide faster response time and prevent clotting of ticketing. However, it lacks the flexibility of the ‘pick and choose’ approach. This approach will allow agents to give more attention to customers with more tough and urgent problems with easy solutions.

Make sure you are using right use of ticket tagging : Another main function of ticketing is tagging. However, often this feature is being underutilized by support teams. Tags are extremely important and helpful in adding more factors to tickets and can easily assist agents. They also help in managing and customizing the workflows of the agents. To get maximum outcome from tagging, it's important to keep tags clear, accurate, consistent and well-structured.

Monitoring and setting the status of tickets : Any ticket management software allows you the tracking progress of tickets and viewing the updates on the dashboard. Make sure the ticket you are assigned to has the right status. For example tickets are unanswered, priorities aren’t set properly, requests are not answering or getting ignored or agents duplicating behaviour that can be frustrating for the customers.

Creating templates for better communication : Messaging each common question is time consuming and impractical. Creating a catalog template for common queries and situations. It will increase your team efficiency and save time on both the ends. Thus, responses should be used wisely and according to the customers' needs. 

Keep records of each customers past tickets : Having past records can show that you do care about your customers and their problems. Keeping records is easier for the agents to dig into what the issue the customer is facing currently. A lot of times agents receive tickets which have already been solved in the past. Thus, being able to refer to the cases from where they left is a lot easier to solve the queries.

Track and record how agents are communicating with customers : Ticket management system provides you with a wide range of reporting and analytical tools. It helps in tracking various metrics such as blockage tickets, number of new tickets, pending tickets, answered tickets etc. Thus, whoever is performing well, you can reward them accordingly and whoever needs more training you can train them and give them a chance to perform.

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Top 4 Must-Have Qualities Of A Skilled Customer Support Agent

Who is a Customer Support Agent? And What does a Customer Support Agent Do?

One of the most efficient ways through which businesses can keep increasing profitability is by making sure that their customers are happy and satisfied. Happy and satisfied customers equal an increase in sales, which means there will be an increase in profits. One of the best ways businesses can keep their customers happy is by providing the best customer care support assistance that they can.

Customer care support agents or help desk support agents are representatives who help businesses provide customer care assistance to their customers. They make sure that the customers are satisfied with the products and services provided by the company.   Customer care support agents help provide support and assistance to existing as well as prospective customers. The answer customer questions reply to their emails regarding the services or products being offered by the company.

Top 4 Qualities of a Customer Support Agent

Tech-Savvy

A good customer service agent is tech-savvy and is always adapting to new and advanced technological changes. They know their way around efficient customer relationship management systems like Kapture CRM. They make use of all the features and facilities of the customer management tool in order to provide customers the best help desk support service that there is. When they are tech-savvy they are capable of using up all facilities like redirecting customers to self-service portals, making use of Omnichannel support, etc. It helps them serve customers and resolve their tickets in a much more efficient manner.

Good Listener

Another most important skill that a customer support agent must have is good listening skills. The best way businesses show their customers that they really care about them is through good agents who are great listeners. Helpdesk support agents need to have an incredible amount of patience when they are trying to attend or resolve a ticket. Customer care agents have to be extremely involved and focused on hearing what exactly the customer is trying to express. This not only helps them better understand what exactly the customer is experiencing with respect to the ticket raised but also helps them show that they really care for the customer's well-being.

Efficient Time Management

With the influx of customer service tickets, most of the time properly managing time becomes crucial for customer service agents. When help desk agents are trained to manage time in an efficient manner it not only improves that time management skills but also improves the overall productivity of the business itself. Being tech-savvy here also plays a huge role. When agents are tech-savvy it helps them utilize the necessary and available tools in order to save and manage time. Failing to manage time not only reflects poorly on the company's customer care services but also brings down customer satisfaction levels.

Communication Skills

Being tech-savvy and having great time management skills are of no use when the customer care agent has poor communication skills. Help desk agents should be able to communicate efficiently to customers. Being able to convey what exactly the problem is can be extremely important and poor communication skills not only put a halt to ticket remediation but also builds on a negative brand image. Great communication skills are a must-have for customer care agents. It not only helps them create a good impression on the customer itself but also helps them increase customer satisfaction levels.

  What Makes a Good Customer Support Agent?

 They use the right technology like efficient customer relationship management tools to cater to help desk tickets which helps decrease wait time.

They tend to spend time analysing the ticket efficiently in order to provide contextual responses.

They add a hint of personalization and should possess the ability to step into customer’s shoes and show empathy.

Making sure customers are given enough care and assistance can be challenging. It is essential for businesses to make sure that they provide customer service agents with the right tools that will help them provide the best customer care experience possible. To know more about efficient customer management tools click here for a demo.

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Essential security features of an efficient CRM tool

WHAT IS CRM?

CRM means a combination of business strategies, software and processes that help build long-lasting relationships between companies and customers.

And refers to all strategies, techniques, tools, and technologies used by enterprises for developing, retaining and acquiring customers.

This software ensures that every step of the interaction with consumers goes smoothly and efficiently in order to increase the overall profits. The software gathers customer data from multiple channels. Hence, CRM stores detailed information on overall purchase history, personal info, and even purchasing behaviour patterns.

Who can benefit from CRM

CRM software allows businesses to focus on their company’s relationships with customers, colleagues, suppliers, etc. With a professional CRM in place, it becomes much easier to find new customers, win their trust, provide qualified support, and provide additional services throughout the relationship.

The best part about a CRM system is that almost any organization unit can benefit from it- from sales and marketing and business development. Good CRM software gives a better way to manage external relationships.

Storing all customer information in one place, recording service issues, identifying sales opportunities, managing marketing campaigns - these are just a few of the capabilities that CRM features.

Since CRM provides easy access to data, it also becomes much easier for the users to collaborate within different departments and increase productivity. Another strong argument in favour of CRM is that it is suitable for business of any size.

HOW DOES CRM WORK?

CRM solution includes functionality that allows users to track customer and company interaction through various available channels. These channels include contact forms, emails, phone calls and more.

CRM software provides sales and marketing teams with a set of tools to manage the entire sale and marketing funnel, from leading qualification to opportunity management, forecasting and deal closure. It enables customer service terms to manage customer requests and automate service operations by following predefined processes for customer care excellence.

CRM systems are packed with tracking features that record numerous customer interactions online. In addition, CRM automates routine processes and provides managers with tools that allow for the tracking and measuring of the company's performance and productivity for example, CRM software can remind you of tasks that you need to complete the given time you can make it perform pre-scheduled activities like sending emails and initiating phone calls. Everything done with the CRM is recorded, giving you enough time to make better actions plans to close any potential sale. Some CRMs also offer analytics capabilities, allowing users to track the efficiency of various marketing efforts to generate leads and conversions. Take a look at the key benefits of Creatio CRM products to get a better understanding of how CRMs work.

CRM security management

CRM security management is critical to creating and maintaining an effective CRM system. Any CRM system worth the name will offer you powerful tools to control access and privileges within your records, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales is no exception.

In this article, I will introduce the core concepts behind the Microsoft Dynamics CRM security management model.

This is by no means an exhaustive guide. Were I to write an exhaustive guide to security in one post, it would be exhausting for all of us!

Instead, this article focuses on the basics, and offers a jumping-off point from which you can take deeper dives into specific aspects of Dynamics 365 CRM security management.

To that end, I’ve divided this article into three parts: 1.) defining your organization in CRM, 2.) understanding access rights and privileges, and 3.) the three most common layers of Dynamics CRM security.

Part 1: Organization

Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM divides your organization into business units, teams, and individual users, much like most businesses do for their day-to-day operations.

When you create an organization in CRM, Dynamics automatically sets up a root business unit: this is your organization as a whole, and it cannot be deleted or disabled (though you can rename it).

Once you have your root business unit, you can create other business units, teams, and user roles to mirror your organizational divisions and hierarchies.

These organizational elements are the building blocks of your CRM security settings.

Business Units

Beneath your root business unit, you can create additional business units to represent the important divisions and departments within your business.

For example, you can create business units for your sales, marketing, customer service, and accounting departments. If your company is organized by region or specific location, you can break those business units down further.

When you create a new business unit, you must specify the parent unit. Your highest level will be your root business unit, but you can create multiple child business units beneath it, and then multiple child business units beneath those, and so on. Essentially, you can re-create your org chart in Dynamics 365 for Sales.

Your teams and users will be associated with one business unit each, so build your business units with that in mind!

You can also set some of your security parameters by business unit if you so choose.

Teams

Owner teams and access teams allow you to share and collaborate on records across business units. Unlike business units, a user can be assigned to as many teams as you wish. A user and their teams do not all need to be assigned to the same business unit.

You will need to set permissions and access levels (see Part 2) for each of your teams. Keep in mind that users gain all the rights granted to them by all the teams they are assigned to.

When you create a business unit, Dynamics will automatically create a default team for that unit. But just like with business units, you can add additional teams to your organization.

For example, you can create sales or service teams within larger business units, or teams dedicated to specific tasks or events.

Users

Users represent the members of your organization in CRM. Each user must be assigned to a single business unit, but can also be assigned to one or more teams.

Each user must be assigned a role, which is important for role-based security (more on that in Part 3).

Part 2: Access

Once you have built your organization in Dynamics 365, you can use that structure to add rights and restrictions at the unit, team, and user levels.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales uses privileges and permission levels to set those rights and restrictions.

Basically, a privilege represents something a user can (or cannot) do with a record. An access level represents which and how many records that user can exercise those privileges on.

Privileges

Dynamics 365 uses 8 basic record-level privileges:

Create enables a user to make a new record.

Read enables a user to open and view a record.

Write enables a user to make changes to a record.

Delete enables a user to permanently erase a record.

Append enables a user to associate another record to the current record.

Append enables a user to associate the current record to another record.

Assign enables a user to give ownership of a record to another user.

Share enables a user to grant access to a record to another user.

Access levels

Dynamics 365 uses 5 access levels:

Global allows access to all of an organization’s records.

Deep allows access to all records in their business unit and in subordinate units.

Local allows access to all records in their business unit.

Basic allows access to records they own or that are shared with them or their teams.

None allows no access to records.

Microsoft recommends a few basic best practices for Dynamics CRM access levels:

Part 3: Security

Microsoft Dynamics CRM security management can appear quite complicated at first. But it’s useful to break it down into three parts: role-based security, record-based security, and field-level security:

Role-based security controls access by entity type.

Record-based security controls access to individual records.

Field-level security controls access to specific fields.

Role-based security

Role-based security enables you to restrict or allow access to record types by entity.

When you use role-based security in Dynamics 365, you create roles with specific privileges and access levels, then assign those roles to your users and/or teams.

You can also use default security roles provided by Microsoft. Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Sales comes with 14 pre-built roles:

CEO-Business Manager

CSR Manager

Customer Service Representative (CSR)

Delegate

Marketing Manager

Marketing Professional

Sales Manager

Salesperson

Schedule Manager

Scheduler

Support User

System Administrator

System Customizer

Vice President of Marketing

Vice President of Sales

You can customize existing roles or create new roles, but we strongly recommend you avoid changing the out-of-the-box security roles.

Instead, we recommend you copy an existing security role and modify it to fit your needs.

Record-based security

You can also set security for individual records by business unit, team, or role. This enables you to restrict or allow access to individual records in ways not covered by (or contrary to) your role-based rules.

For example, if your salespeople would normally only see lead records they own, but you want your sales team to be able to work on some leads together, your sales manager could use record-based security to give users access to those lead records.

Keep in mind, though, that record-level access rights apply after privileges. So if you share read access to a record with a user who does not have any read privileges for that record type, the user will still be unable to read the record.

Field-level security

Even more granular than record-based security, field-level security enables you to restrict or allow access to specific fields within your records.

This is extremely useful in ensuring data integrity for records used by multiple business units.

For example, if you have a credit approval field in your account records, you probably want to restrict write access to members of your accounting department. Field-level security allows you to do so.

Ways to Secure Your CRM and Avoid Security Risks

One security breach can cause irreparable damage to your brand image. Data breaches hurt your internal and external relationships, and, ultimately, your ability to generate revenue.

Hackers can even engage in competitive espionage by stealing financial information, and details about planned projects.

The bottom line? When hackers maliciously hack into your system, your company pays the price.

If you’re looking to be more proactive and less reactive, start with an inspection of your Customer Relationship Management System (CRM). This is where the majority of your private data lives.

How To Prevent A CRM Data Breach

The burden of responsibility for securing the sensitive data in the CRM belongs solely to the companies who requested, or accepted, this personal data.

When the request for data is made, there is a reasonable expectation that data will be kept under lock and key.

Here are a few tips to help prevent a data breach by securing your CRM.

1. Secure Your Servers

If you have physical servers at your office location, make sure your servers have secure points of entry, and your routers and local networks are secure as well. This can be accomplished many ways; here are a few best practices:

This can be accomplished many ways; here are a few best practices:

Lock down the SSID of your router. Don’t use easy-to-guess names that a hacker could easily figure out.

Disable your router’s SSID broadcast. Prevent unwanted visitors from finding you by turning off this broadcast.

Create and continuously update your administrative login credentials, for any application where data is stored or accessed. Set a calendar to change the password regularly, use a strong password, and keep a log of who has credentials.

Eliminate or limit remote access to your server. It might be inconvenient, but doing so can help to strengthen your wall of security and prevent outsiders from accessing your server remotely.

Ensure your browsers are updated to support the latest security updates.

Enable firewalls for all computers on your network.

Ensure your cloud storage provider follows strict data storage, encryption, and security measures like redundancy.

2. Ensure CRM Administrators Follow Best Security Practices

Managing internal administrators can be one of the biggest challenges to implementing CRM security.

Staff members want to feel they can be trusted, but you have to manage    access and access-levels to your CRM – even if that means limiting admin access.

Ensure employees are using their own individual accounts to login, instead of share logins. Additionally, when an employee leaves the company, make sure their login is expired or restricted.

A commonly overlooked CRM security risk is the ability to download information. While many employees need access to reporting to do their jobs, broad access can pose risks to the precious data that lives inside your CRM. Limit the number of individuals who can download data, and make sure everyone knows your company’s  policy on how to properly handle the information.

3. Stay Up-to-Date

One of the biggest security missteps? Not staying up-to-date on the latest versions of your CRM software! With each update, you’ll gain deeper protection from data breaches and risk of vulnerability of your system to hackers, viruses, or bad actors of any kind.

CRM security risks are real and could threaten the very lifeline of your business, not to mention leave your business exposed to legal threats if negligence exists. In lesser scenarios, it can damage your brand, hurt your bottom line, and impact your internal culture – all things that can take years to rebuild.

Be proactive and empower your employees to support your CRM security goals to help you succeed in this area.

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How Customer Personas are Helping Businesses

What is a Customer Persona?

With the ever-changing needs and wants of consumers, it becomes difficult to keep up with the changing consumer trends and user needs and this is exactly where customer personas pop up. For businesses to stay on top of their A-game it is essential to keep up with such ever-changing consumer trends and user needs.

Customer personas are fictional and imaginative characters that help represent a particular demographic of customers. There are two types of customer personas firstly the buyer Persona and second - the user persona. The Buyer Persona describes ideal target customers for buyers who are responsible for purchase decisions. Whereas a User persona helps businesses better customize their products and services according to the needs of users. For businesses to thrive and create better products or services, creating fictional representations (digital personas) of ideal customers has become absolutely essential.

How Social Media Personas Help Businesses-

They help businesses improve their target strategies. Businesses employ social media personas on various social media platforms to help them by bringing in valuable audiences in huge numbers. Your day work towards creating a small community for a customer base that is interested in the very product itself. This also helps businesses sell their services to a target audience who already have an interest in the product being sold. This normally helps businesses their services to a target audience but also helps them increase brand awareness on search social media platforms.

Creating social media personas helps businesses better understand their customers and prospects. Manufacturing a product or providing a service that sells and is able to generate profits is a tedious job. Manufacturing a product or providing a service takes a lot of time and involves a lot of effort to understand what exactly the customer needs. Sentences create social media personas there are able to put themselves in the shoes of their customers and understand what exact preferences their customers expect from them. Creating such personas not only helps businesses create needed or expected products and services but also help them connect more effectively with their customers.

When businesses create customer personas it helps them gain valuable and new insights on customer preferences and customer trends. They tend to gain a better understanding of what is the need of the hour. This helps them structure their marketing strategies and sales strategies according to these valuable insights. Social media personas helps businesses track various trends that are popular in a certain demographic. Businesses reverie a better understanding of how a certain demographic views their services or products. It helps them analyze behaviour trends which can later be used for creating more demographic-centric marketing. This not only personalizes the experience being provided but also creates a positive image.

Various advantages businesses gain when they make use of customer personas -

Customer personas help businesses improve and increase their conversion rates.

Having a proper customer Persona helps businesses better understand their customers.

It helps marketing teams understand what specific issues they have to address in their content.

User personas help manufacturing teams to design products and services according to customer needs and expectations.

Social media personas increase brand awareness and customer engagement levels.

They help service desk teams provide better customer care services.

The businesses target interested individuals which increase sales rates.

To learn more about how you can improve your marketing and sales strategies with the help of customer personas click here for a demo.

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Things you Need to Consider While Resolving a Ticket

Whether your business is a startup or a Fortune500 company one of the most prevalent goals in customer care support is efficient remediation of help desk tickets. In times like this where businesses are witnessing an influx of digitization, an influx in customer care tickets is also witnessed. These days it has become even more essential for businesses to explore ways to properly handle a support ticket. With so many options being available for the same kind of products and services customers now have millions of options.

 One of the most important things that determine where the customer purchases a certain product or service is an efficient desk support system. When businesses work towards building on the best customer care experiences they tend to increase customer onboarding as well as customer satisfaction. For businesses to maintain a positive brand image and create profitability in the 21st century it has become essential for businesses to have a customer-centric approach. When businesses work towards efficiently resolving their customer care tickets they not only opt for a customer-centric practice and efficiently handle ticket escalations but also increase customer satisfaction levels.

  Ways to Properly Handle Support Tickets

Pay attention to repeat tickets

While resolving help desk tickets it is essential for help desk agents to identify and pay attention to repeat tickets. This not only helps identify solved tickets but it also contributes to efficient help desk management. Repeat tickets can waste a lot of help desk agent time and can also cause inefficiency. After identifying repeat tickets they can later be used by help desk agents for future references. Keeping track of such repeat tickets in knowledge management systems not only helps agents solve future problems in an efficient manner but also helps them do this quickly. When businesses have efficient customer relationship management tools like Kapture CRM they not only facilitate an efficient round Robin ticketing system but also are able to speed up the remediation process.

Work towards efficiently prioritizing your tickets

As the global digitization process speeds up the influx of help desk tickets also goes up. In times like this helpdesk teams witness tickets coming in at every hour of the day. With such an influx of help desk tickets becoming essential for businesses to not only prioritize these tickets will also become expensive for them to properly assign them to help desk agents. When service desk teams fail to properly assign and prioritize tickets it not only reflects negatively on the company itself but also reflects on profitability. By employing CRM systems like Kapture businesses can now leave ticket prioritization and automated ticket assignment efficient customer management tools.

Maintain a centralized knowledge management system.

It is important for businesses to facilitate a centralized knowledge management system that holds all customer data and is accessible by all the help desk agents. When help desk agents have access to such centralized knowledge management systems it not only helps them identify repeat tickets it also helps them escalate the entire remediation process itself. Maintaining a customer data knowledge base helps help desk agents to provide customers the most contextual responses. Providing such context to respond not only makes customers feel special but also increases customer satisfaction levels.

Tips for a Successful Ticket Escalation Process

Make sure that you are keeping your customers updated about the remediation process.

Keep a constant check on the ticket resolution process.

Maintain an efficient knowledge management system that keeps track of customer data.

Make sure that you have a centralized knowledge management system that is accessible to all help desk agents.

Make sure you follow up with customers even after you resolve the ticket.

Setup customer feedback portals. After connecting with customers, analyze feedback, especially negative comments.

Make use of the right CRM tools that help agents efficiently prioritize tickets.

Efficiently resolving tickets in a timely manner can sometimes be hectic especially when there is an influx of help desk tickets. But with the right customer relationship management tools like capture CRM businesses can not only effectively resolve customer care tickets but can also increase customer satisfaction levels. To know more about how you can efficiently resolve help desk tickets click here for a demo.

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Understanding the Common Customer Service Problems and Solutions

Why providing superior customer service is important.

Did you know that according to a report by Glance it is said that about 78% of customers tend to back out from making a purchase due to a negative customer experience? Customers are seen as the most important elements of a business. To run a successful and profitable business it is important for organizations to prioritize the customer experience. When businesses adapt to more customer-centric approaches it not only keeps customers’ satisfaction rates up but also improves the profitability of the business itself. It is essential for businesses to take up steps to improve problem-solving skills in customer service because with increasing virtual facilities there is also an increase in customer service challenges. In a time like this if businesses fail to take steps towards fixing customer service issues businesses will not only encounter losses but also experience low customer satisfaction and customer retention rates.

Common Customer Service problems and how to resolve it

1. Not having a customer-centric approach

When businesses lean too much towards profits and expansion it can lead to a less customer-centric approach. Not having a customer-centric approach can also stem from other reasons like weak and inefficiently trained help desk agents who don’t meet customer service expectations. To create a more consumer-centric approach business should work towards proving efficient customer service training to help desk management agents along with creating a more holistic picture of your customer service needs. It is also necessary for businesses to take customer feedback into consideration and make necessary adjustments with respect to evolving customer needs. This will not only increase customer satisfaction rates but will also enable superior customer service.

2. Increased customer service response time

Did you know that according to a report by Superoffice about 88% of consumers expect a response to their customer care complaints within an hour? Not providing immediate responses can lead to a delayed ticket response which can make customers impatient. Good customer service practices are driven by small elements like less customer service response time. Increasing response time will also lead to a decrease in customer satisfaction levels and this will affect the profitability generated in the long run. To tackle such issues businesses need to use the right customer service tool like CRM systems that facilitate round-robin scheduling. Kapture’s CRM system not only helps improve customer responsiveness but also increases customer retention rates.

3. Not having answers to customer questions

Customers hopefully reach out to help desk systems to find answers to their queries and questions that they are not able to find by themselves and when help desk support agents don’t have answers to these questions it not only upsets customers but also reflects poorly on the organization itself. It creates a negative brand image and shows how poorly organized and uninformed the company is. This happens due to reasons such as service agents not being trained properly or poor data organization due to which service agents are not able to find answers to a customer’s question. Having a CRM like Kapture helps agents stay informed because of the organized data and will also enable them to use that information in an efficient manner.

4. Not having an omnichannel

Not having a customer relationship management system that integrates all the service channels on one platform can make the agent’s job a little chaotic and challenging due to which the agent’s performance might be hampered. Integrating an omnichannel setup in your help desk will enable your agents to handle queries from various channels all in one screen. It will also reduce ticket piling and help in lead generation as well. This will also improve the agent’s first call resolution and decrease customer waiting time. Having an omnichannel not only paves way for excellent customer service but also increases agent productivity and efficiency in the long run.

To learn more about how you can increase your company’s customer experience by using the right customer relationship management system click here for a demo.

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Know more about increasing CSAT scores to improve profitability.

Top 5 Customer Support Practices That Guarantee Increased CSAT Scores

What is CSAT ?

Customer satisfaction is the key to keep any business running. Improving customer service and customer satisfaction should be made a priority as it not only retains customers but also increases profitability for the business itself. CSAT is one way of measuring satisfaction rates in consumers. In simple words CSAT is a measuring tool used by businesses to measure a product’s customer satisfaction rates. Using CSAT helps businesses in understanding different Ways to improve customer satisfaction and boost loyalty. 

How to improve customer satisfaction in 2021?

Below are 5 Customer Service Tips to improve customer satisfaction -

Provide omnichannel support 

One of the best ways to increase satisfaction is by being available for your customers on multiple platforms they use. Integrating an omnichannel support service helps businesses bring conversations happening on different platforms all on one platform. It helps businesses streamline their conversations and helps them seamlessly engage customers. This helps companies to reach out to customers even better as it is the customer’s preferred channel. And this leads to a unified brand experience which also brings in a positive brand image. Apart from streamlining it omnichannel also helps in increasing first call resolution rates of customer service agents.

Facilitate 24/7 chatbot assistance

Customers prefer round the clock assistance. When customer care is limited to office hours it might lead to less tickets being raised. This means that customers have to wait till the office hours to seek assistance and a lot of them might opt out of it or have a negative brand impression due to lack of all time customer care service. Having a help desk management system 24/7 can be very expensive and time consuming. But a one-stop solution to this problem is having a chatbot facility through which customers can seek product assistance at any time. Apart from 24/7 assistance Chatbots like Kapture chat also collect customer information that can be later used to structure marketing strategies.

Assess customer satisfaction rates regularly

Did you know that according to a report by McKinsey about 70% of the purchases are based on how the customer feels they are being treated? Assessing customer satisfaction rates regularly is considered as one of the best CSAT practices. This helps them identify any loopholes in their marketing strategies. Measuring satisfaction rates provides businesses valuable insights that helps them understand their overall business performance. It tells businesses how and where exactly they have to be improving. This helps businesses rectify faulty strategies and helps them increase their profitability in the long run while keeping their customers happy and satisfied.

Take customer complaints and  negative reviews seriously

Did you know that according to Hosting tribunal about 89% of consumers don’t take action until they read customer reviews?. Negative reviews and complaints are a form of communication. It showcases errors or loopholes in the services being provided. Analysing such negative reviews is very important for businesses. Analysing and understanding negative customer feedback helps brands bridge the gap between them and their customers. This also showcases respect that the brand has for their customers. Customers feel valued when their reviews or feedback are taken seriously and this ultimately leads to an increase in satisfaction levels.

Provide self-service facilities for customers 

Help customers help themselves. Most of the time customers prefer solving issues on their own. Facilitating a self-service portal will not only help customers solve problems on their own but also reduce help desk agent time.  Self service support is an efficient  alternative to increase customer care support. will also help businesses build more independent and smart customers. Since Self-service systems are round the clock facilities they will help customers to educate themselves at any given time. Apart from being used as quick assistance tools Kapture’s self-serve tool can also be used as data collecting tools that collect data related to  customer needs.

To know more about how businesses can improve their CSAT scores by using best customer relationship management tools click here for a demo.