People Connect USA » Business Process Outsourcing

Blockchain Technology and Industrial Revolutions

December 9, 2018

Many people think that blockchain is all associated with monetary transactions and cryptocurrency [It’s a subset only of Blockchain tech applications] and this is the biggest myth currently Blockchain technology is facing. We have already made a few posts on various parts explaining the Blockchain technology. Blockchain technology can increase the efficiency, speed, and transparency of entire industry-specific projects. The most positive effect of everything from basic to advance, all is stored in the blockchain repository.

In industrial revolutions, first of all, we should understand the industrial revolution that is taking place all around us and the types of it. We know that currently, the fourth industrial revolution is going on and before it, we have seen the 3 major changes/types in industrial development. What is special about this Fourth Industrial Revolution and other revolutions that have been in effect already?

Emma Whitner Florida

The Past Industrial Revolutions

The First & foremost Industrial Revolution was considered in the late 18th century and termed as a startup movement towards industrialization, i.e. a decent shift from domestic production to a factory-based production. The Second Industrial Revolution held in the 20th century where applied industrialization was employed to

big corporations.

The Third Industrial Revolution which is in recent times i.e. 21st century saw the digitization of the manufacturing processes for the industries which were established as a result of earlier revolutions.

Today we are in the age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and we should welcome it because it’s connecting the technologists, industrialists, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and even marketers all together! Yes, it’s in the intersection of five latest technologies called: Nanotechnology, Blockchain, AI & robotics, IoT, and biotechnology. The ultimate goal of using these technologies is to transform the way of manufacturing, simplifying the business operations, connecting the businesses for a great outcome and achieving the business goals in a productive way.

As this post is specific to Blockchain technology, we are now going to discuss the benefits of it.

(1) Digital Currency Management- The blockchain technology showing its impact on different industries including the financial market with its super first advanced application called Bitcoin. Bitcoin is a mode of digital payment and nothing but a form of digital currency called cryptocurrency [Encryption enabled for security] as well. This can be used in the place of physical money for the businesses. And the underlying technology behind the success of cryptocurrencies is called the Blockchain. There are so many digital currencies are in trade these days and here is a list you can check and go through it. List of Digital Currencies

(2) Cybersecurity- Creating a keyless security system to enable more privacy and strong protection against the theft is very crucial in today’s scenario and at present so many companies are working on this feature. A lot of devices have been configured with and will be done more in the near future. One of the decentralized authentication system REMME works on Blockchain technology where data is decentralized [Not stored on one central server, & shared to nodes on the network] which aims to replace logins and passwords with SSL certificates stored on a blockchain.

(3) Healthcare Revolution- Blockchain has changed the entire healthcare system with more firm records and ability to access them whenever it requires. The best example can be understood as storing the disease outbreak data into a blockchain [Which acts as a never-ending, permanent database], that staying reliability will increase the effectiveness at the time of disaster relief and response.

(4) Hotel Reviews and rating system- This is one of the best examples of Blockchain technology in a real-time world. This facility will help hotel management a lot and create a great place for actual customer centric permanent feedback. This will generate more scope of income for the writers too.

(5) In Manufacturing and Industrial revolution: Blockchain technology has everything at one place i.e. a record keeping, security, decentralized or distributive power that makes it easily available to the staff, or any user in the loop, transparency, and accessibility. The manufacturing sector is improving with Blockchain technology. India’s biggest corporation, Reliance Industries, has said that it is developing a blockchain-based supply chain logistics platform along with its own cryptocurrency, Jiocoin. Further, in the same niche, blockchain can be revolutionary in logistics, tracking and tracing on a real-time basis. There exists GPS but this technology enhances the analytical power along with the existing technology to optimize the cost.

(6) Eliminating the mediator’s role: We’ve seen and come across so many applications, or services that take help of a third party and we know that there is an additional cost associated whenever a third party is involved. The blockchain is getting this removed using a trusted transaction between the users.

(7) In Automation: As many people think Blockchain is only a digital currency system, we can have a further scope of bursting this myth by understanding with an example of self-driving cars. These automated cars can use blockchain technology to keep a permanent record of tracks, obstacles, machine learning on driving behaviors and more! Self-driving cars, sometimes referred to as autonomous vehicles, function by using complicated machine learning algorithms to ensure the safety and security of the car & its commuters. These algorithms go through millions of hours meaningful user driving data and patterns matching which are further used to make driving decisions. As a fact, self-directed vehicles would need to handle all their events – such as an ability to pay for their fuel cost, parking and other general functions such as stopping by a customer’s call & more. This creates an outstanding opportunity for blockchains as they can help with the development of self-driving vehicles in pooling data and also for a machine to machine payment processing.

The opportunity with Blockchain technology implementation is huge & endless. This has been a self-motivating for the technologists and its stockholders. Also, so many businesses, enterprises, technology honchos have started investing in it and a lot of industries are adopting this future technology into their business operations.

We at Kedjja specialize in developing the future world technology solutions that can help your business grow with this competitive market. Our skills in Blockchain consultancy & development, data analysis, IoT and artificial intelligence etc can demonstrate helpful solutions for your business.

Source: Emma Whitner

Artificial Intelligence Impact on Call Center Process

September 2, 2018

Hello Call-center owners! We know that Artificial Intelligence-based machine learning algorithms can understand how human agents identify and solve customer problems by learning & analyzing from the past data over time. So how wonderful it would be if we include an AI module integration or a support agent-like assistant powered by machine learning in the PBX call center phone systems such as 3CX & more?

The Artificial Intelligence module would know who the customer is, more on his/her recent or past activity, and the best way to answer his/her queries based on past inquiries.

That means: Customers get their questions answered quickly, in a self-service fashion with fewer inputs so that support person get more time, allowing them to provide one to one customer support and hence super fast service assistance! As a result, customers are happier, and happy customers = higher revenue= more money for the business!

The modern technology and this fast-changing world are getting more versed technically and this is an ongoing demand to make the business processes more compatible and streamlined with respect to time.

Thanks for reading this post and it would be great and appreciated if shared the same with your friends and colleagues.

Source: Kedjja AI Module Integration and PBX Phone System

Powerful Words of Customer Service

August 20, 2018

There are customer service ramifications of eight commonly used words and sayings that we’ve designated as Killer Words. These eight phrases are normally used with good intentions, yet they are damaging to customer relationships. Let’s look at how we can avoid the Killer Words and see that it’s not how you perceive the phrases but how the recipient interprets them.

#1—Killer Words of Customer Service: “CALM DOWN.”

When a customer contacts you about a problem, they generally are not happy. So, it’s not a good idea to say something that might make them more unhappy. Let’s listen in on a customer phone call.

Jessica: Thanks for holding support. This is Jessica.

Customer: Yeah, your company promised me delivery on Tuesday. It’s now Friday and it’s still not here. Do you have any idea what kind of problems you’re causing me?

Jessica: Ma’am, please: Calm down!

Customer: Calm down?!? Calm down??? Don’t tell me to calm down!!! Thanks for the advice, but if your company would have done what they promised, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation!

Did you see what happened here? Instead of handling the customer’s concern immediately, Jessica chose to change the subject. Rather than dealing with the complaint, she sidetracked it into telling the customer what to do, and all of a sudden it’s an argument. The customer went from upset to furious. This can be handled much better.

Jessica: Thanks for holding. Support This is Jessica.

Customer: Yeah, your company promised me delivery on Tuesday. It’s now Friday and it’s still not here. Do you have any idea what kind of problems you’re causing me?

Jessica: My apologies. That’s got to be very frustrating. If need be, we can overnight your order so it’s there Monday. Now please tell me exactly what happened and I will get to work on fixing this.

Customer: Yes OK. Thanks. …

That was much better. Jessica apologized and focused her efforts on solving the problem and that’s what the customer wanted in the first place. Telling a customer how to act is never a good idea.

#2—Killer Words of Customer Service: “CAN I BE HONEST WITH YOU?”

Chris: Parts. This is Chris.

Customer: Yeah, Chris. This is Darius Jones. We spoke last week and you asked me to call today to arrange installation of the new pump for our hydraulic press.

Chris: Hello, Mr. Jones. Um, regarding your new pump, can I be honest with you?

Customer: No, I want you to lie to me. Yes, of course, you can be honest with me!

If ever there was a useless saying, it’s the Killer Words “can I be honest with you?” The customer assumes that you’re always going to be honest with them. They expect that. There are several variations of these words that needs to be dropped as well, such as:

Let me be perfectly frank.
You want the truth, right?
Look, I’m going to level with you.
Can I be candid with you?

Always choose correct words so that your customers can be fair and polite to you as well! If you liked this blog post, please share it with your friends! Thanks

5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Revolutionizes Customer Service

April 19, 2018

One of the most disruptive technologies of our time is Artificial Intelligence (AI) which makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks. With the capacity to drastically change our entire world, early adopters are already experimenting with the lucrative functions of AI, especially within the contact center world.

As AI continues to perform outside the ways of human capacity, its implementation will only continue to grow as more than 62 percent of businesses plan to integrate AI-fueled solutions this year.

Here are five ways AI harnesses the power to revolutionize the customer experience:

Delivers proactive customer experiences

AI helps customer service teams further distinguish themselves from competitors in today’s highly-saturated marketplace by leveraging new customer data to deliver more personalized customer interactions. AI-fueled technology such as chatbots can fluently translate the information from various channels while determining patterns in customer behaviors to pinpoint customer needs and improve customer service operations on an individualized basis.

With this knowledge, AI conducts more productive conversations as well as anticipates needs based on context, preference and prior queries. As organizations accumulate more data on customers, predictive accuracy will increase and deliver proactive customer service that anticipates and acts prior to an issue arising.

Discovers new revenue streams

AI is the fuel that takes businesses to the next level by streamlining inquiries, assistance and outcomes. By extracting useful information from conversations – whether voice, digital or even an image – AI can predict trends and customer sentiment that could influence retention, loyalty and purchase inclinations.

Data examined by AI can help businesses uncover patterns companies can use to create entirely new and monetizable services for customers. In addition, insight delivered by AI can drive advanced levels of service at a fraction of the cost, saving some call centers as much as 60 to 80 percent in costs while helping them stand out in their industry as the “gold standard” for customer experience.

Increases contact center productivity

AI is not the sole driver of customer service, but it takes contact centers to the next level by streamlining inquiries and capturing resolutions. By extracting useful information from voice and digital conversations, images and machine-to-machine communications, AI can quickly predict trends and customer sentiment that may affect retention and loyalty. AI-infused automation also improves the experience of live agents, allowing them to resolve problems faster, waste less time handling routine inquiries and provide a better customer experience.

Enhances real-time agent training

In contact centers, managers can spend more than 50 percent of their time per week tackling administrative tasks, which drastically reduces the time they spend developing agents. As a result, managers struggle to support their employees who become increasingly frustrated with difficult processes and demanding KPIs. This frustration causes them to leave, pushing turnover rates higher.

AI can mitigate these concerns. By gathering and processing information from employees as well as customers, AI can provide real-time updates to supervisors as well as present in-line training for agents. Managers also can receive at-a-glance coaching objectives based on agent performance, allowing employees to gain feedback and training directly. The cycle of monitoring calls, training agents and improving for the next call is quicker and more insightful because of AI’s ability to gather and aggregate staggering amounts of data.

Improves human interaction

More than 40 percent of contact center decision makers are exploring AI’s uses, amplifying the theory that AI will replace human-powered jobs. Although it greatly enhances data collection and reporting tasks, customer service experts report AI solutions are only able to resolve 10 to 35 percent of customer inquiries without a human touch. As a result, customer service teams must refocus their agents on higher-level customer concerns rather than allowing AI to tackle every role. With these new skills, agents will be better equipped to handle interactions that require more complex insight and analysis to deliver faster and more effective customer experiences.

Final Thoughts

AI is a crucial part of improving both agent and customer experience. It does hold the key to greater customer insights and enabling real-time decision making but contact center leaders will need to cut through much of the hype surrounding AI to determine its real-world value in their settings. Once you assess and research how AI can streamline your business operations, the right vendor is ready with technology and guidance for bringing your vision to life.

Big Trends To Boost Business to Business Lead Generation In 2018

January 4, 2018

If you’re a B2B marketer, one thing’s for sure: You have fought for the lead generation. The challenging and competing B2B aspect makes it extremely difficult to generate valuable leads.

In fact, CSO Insights found that to be the biggest challenge for sales organizations. And to top it all off, B2B lead-generation tactics evolve every year as organizations gain new penetrations that tell them what does and doesn’t work.

It’s little wonder why, then, that keeping your eyes uncovered for upcoming developments is incredibly important. For 2018, consider adapting your strategy based on the following trends.

1. Targeted and Personalized Email Marketing Campaigns
That’s a big reason for the big brands such as Amazon, GoDaddy etc to target the individuals. B2C retailers have already embraced personalization. Definitely, you’ve received personalized recommendations based on your shopping history, Google search results recommendations etc and you’ve probably received an email with personalized offers from your favorite brands. Clearly, personalization has proved its marketing effectiveness, and now it’s catching on in the B2B industry as well.

2. Social Video
Video is an ongoing trend to become an important part of B2B lead generation processes given that an increasing number of B2B customers are accepting this type of content. In fact, 70% of researchers & customers in the B2B industry watch videos throughout for a better understanding of product or services associated with their purchase journey, according to Google. And 48% of them spend at least 30 minutes watching B2B videos for their research.

3. Social Media On the Go or Live Streaming
You might have noticed that going live by the business personnel via social media channels such as FB live, Youtube r Twitter etc has become a popular trend for brands to engage customers and collect the user information via their shopping search trends/history/patterns. This trend has been now getting an attention for the B2B industry, with more and more companies streaming webinars or webcasts to generate leads and engage existing customers. Once this trend for a company becomes popular, it becomes an in-demand for the consumers as they also want to listen to the company updates and more!

4. Collaborations With Industry Players or Influencers
Influencers have taken the marketing industry to the next level. While you mostly see influencer marketing being used to promote customer products, it’s also starting to impact the B2B niche.

If you have liked the article, please share it widely via social media channels with your friends, colleagues.

3 Trends Shaping Customer Service In 2018

December 26, 2017

Is the current business year packing up the way you thought it would? For example, are your support or service centers well in hand, satisfying digital consumers? Or, are they lagging behind, out of satisfaction? How will you decide that? The star ratings? or any other criteria? Well, that doesn’t matter, what’s the important point here is: How well you do a customer retention? To get traction, trends need to be integrated into the business. Optimized to deliver great service and satisfaction. Before the year 2017 ends, let’s review a few trends that got traction—and will gain more ground in 2018.

Trend #1: Service solutions need advancement in technology i.e. AI and IAS

Automated processes including self-service solve simple, online transactions. Customers welcome the convenience. With the artificial intelligence, AI-enabled voice assistants are pleasing the consumers. But, they’re not truly human yet.

Trend #2: Customers are redefining their service experiences

As Forbes predicted for the year 2017 that there will be more retail businesses closing than the opening and this trend will likely to continue in the year 2018. Consumers have started exploring their experience with online dealing and why they should not try when there exists a lot of offers, quality, and varieties for the same type of product they need. Remember, the money back guarantees played a devastating role for the retailers in the decorated and ornamented market.

Trend #3: On-Demand Workforce

This is a trend that is being used by the most of the big businesses. The idea of using this trend is to prepare a fully skilled, technically sound and experienced workforce of salaried professionals those are ready to serve on a business on-demand basis. The best part of it is the flexibility of reusing the workforce on the same day while the worst case is: the cost and structure of the company that hires them. But again, when a business needs fast services, better customer retention and maximum uptime, cost nowhere stands.

We hope you like this blog post. Please share widely to let your friends, colleagues know more about 2018 business trends. Thanks

Automated Response and Business Relationships

December 4, 2017

“It’s time to show” The world is changing very fast and thus the way we do business. The fundamental approach to gain attention from the people to have them focused is to personalize them with the best quality they have. Literally, when you attend any function or program, you notice a lot of people are gathering and celebrating things for the particular program or in an event. Let’s say if you attend the retirement party of your colleague, you notice that people love to call them personally for anything that they have done special and meaningful that can be rewarded.

The first thing which needs to be focused on business communication is how your employees are responding to your business connections or customers. If they send always a scripted response, the customer won’t bother and will think that you have got the services only which is everyone else is providing. What matters for your customer is to have them listened to and act as they want. The intermediatory talk while assisting them makes an impact of more consolidated care. However, there is a variant form of performance that is very suitable for anyone who interacts with their customers and fellow employees.

There should not be any script when you or your employees are serving to the customers. If you are going to be more concerned with their problem and talking in a more personalized way through which you can engage and respond appropriately, that’s the halfway journey has covered being a successful service executive & as a client resource manager.

We will understand this with a real-life scenario. Let’s say one automobile company is assisting a customer who has got some issues with the vehicle he purchased. The ideal way should be to deal that customer is: what his name, his background and job scenario and why he needed that vehicle meaning the purpose for which he bought it next. Then to serve him in a better way, to identify his problems and make a list of them. Meanwhile, you are asking for the details, you must ask him “You will definitely get this problem resolved, have patience and please cooperate with us” Once you are done with the necessary info, the next thing is to tell him the exact solution & scenario to meet with. When your employee gives him a timeline, make sure you are in a connection with him to have him feel a complete satisfaction.

When operators of any type of industry come to work, they get into shape and deliver the best representation they can. The goal should be to improve today or to do better as compared to yesterday. The business should provide training and complete resources to their employees.

Thanks for reading. If you liked it, please share with your friends and colleagues.

Your Customer Service Team Should Be in Every Strategy Meeting

November 21, 2017

It used to be that mistreated customers were often powerless to stand up to a large company or organization, but social media is changing that. Even one wrong move has the power to drum up a massive number of interactions on various platforms, such as the video of a man getting dragged off a United Airlines flight earlier this year. Most of the customers who post their gripes on social media aren’t interested in any sort of refund. In fact, Sprout Social reports that whistleblowing unfair practices are much more important to 80 percent of survey respondents.

Customer service interactions are some of the most loaded for a business. They have the capacity to earn lifetime customers or if handled poorly, a slew of public complaints that hurt business and tarnish the reputation of an otherwise upstanding company.

Which side would you rather be on?

Decision validation

In traditional marketing textbooks, low-cost, immediate purchasing decisions were in a different category than the more complex and intensive buyer decision cycle. When Amazon entered the fray, everything changed. Now, the Pew Research Center points out that up to 82 percent of adults in the United States read online reviews from other customers at least some of the time — of that group, 40 percent report that they almost always do.

Percentages for Millennials are even higher, with only 4 percent claiming to never read reviews. Across demographics and at different purchasing levels, customers are looking for feedback on everything from the latest smart TVs to a new bar of soap.

Things that were purchased in stores just a few years ago needed to have the flashiest labels or the best product marketing on the shelf. The buyer journey has since changed, and businesses need to deliver accordingly. Instead of looking at the customer service team as a cost center that solves issues, companies should recognize it as the key to developing consumer intimacy.

Treat customers like family

Contrary to common belief, the best customer service isn’t about the customer always being right. It’s about adding as much value as possible to her purchase of your product or service, even when it means going far out of the way to make it happen. Treating customers like they’re family is a powerful way to win loyalty, and it goes a long way toward ensuring a company’s future is a bright one.

Customers today evaluate every aspect of a brand, going well beyond the products themselves to include how the service fares against the competition. Because of the hypercompetitiveness of the product market, especially in the technology sphere, brands are realizing that customer service is another way to outdo one another and win over more of the market. It’s not always easy, however, so here are three ways for businesses to incorporate customer service teams into their brand strategy:

1. Hire a chief customer officer.

While it’s tempting to take good individual contributors and promote them to a managerial role, they aren’t always the ideal choice. Instead, look for candidates who demonstrate good leadership skills and the capacity to motivate and engage a team.

And, according to a recent Nasdaq survey, the job of a CCO is not only becoming more prevalent, but it’s also becoming infinitely more important. The survey revealed that more CCOs today are responsible for what was once viewed as marketing key performance indicators. This includes indicators such as search rankings, which 65 percent of CCOs are responsible for; content marketing at 57 percent; web traffic at 65 percent; and customer loyalty at 56 percent.

It’s evident the role is necessary — even the big guns like Mars and Johnson & Johnson have recently hired a CCO and found success doing so.

2. Synergize product development and customer service efforts.

Customer service representatives know customer pain points more intimately than anyone else in the company because they’re the ones who deal with the complaints on a daily basis. Loan some of your veterans to the product development team, and you can eliminate problems at the source.

3. Correlate executive goals and compensation with customer satisfaction.

Incentivize the information sharing described above to ensure the lines of communication between leadership and employees remain open and the latter remain engaged in their work. Paying leadership based on overall customer satisfaction will also lead to a sharp upward trend in company ratings — just as many sales employees operate on a commission basis, the same can be done for customer service representatives. Giving the whole team a goal to work toward will ensure the highest level of cooperation and engagement — and the happiest customers.

Top 5 benefits of IT outsourcing

September 20, 2017

If you’re an administrator of a small or mid-size business, this is for to you. Why? Because it can assist you to make better decisions regarding your business and can also help you understand that IT outsourcing is the fresh breathing your company needs.

In the current age, there are just a few of companies that manage to survive without an IT department. Nothing comes to mind, although I’m sure they subsist. The fact is that almost every company in every work field has IT demands. The only difference may be the complexity of those needs.

So if your company also needs managed IT support or services, what are you going to do? Obviously, you will be hiring IT professionals and invest in resources and workmanship? Or choose the better solution?

1. Keep your financial estimates with you
If you are tight on budget or you are a startup and your concern with your company’s finances, you should know that this is the best option to accumulate your spending.
By choosing to outsource your IT demands you will be able to save money by paying just competitive price & one bill every month, instead of taking care of monthly employee payroll, equipment, licenses, employment costs and other expenses.

2. Focus on developing your business
Why waste your time and money by trying to be a bull of all trades?
Instead, use that time/money to improve your business with innovation, tasks and creative activities you know how to complete better than others and let others think how to do better than you.

3. Get a complete possession of the latest technology

Any business that keeps updated with the latest technology & trends, gets assure growth and success over time. We live in the age of technology, but that does not mean that adopting a technology is cheap when it comes to budget. In fact, the budget of a small or mid-size company might just be too small to manage the costs of adopting the latest technology. In that case, what’s the best option for your business? Guess? Yes, true, it’s outsourcing your headache to the company which has almost all the resources of your needs.

4. Take advantage of skills and better resources
Technology is expensive and so are the cost of hiring an IT professionals. You must need a mechanism through which you can screen the best professional for your tasks. Here comes the concept of professionalism. Professionalism comes with expertise and experience altogether. The best thing for you is to find a vendor that will provide that IT support or managed IT services your business might needs as they already have great professionals specialized on solving your specific problems.

5. Your are available for 24 hours & hence your resources
Let us understand this with a simple example. You have a website and you want to host it on your private server. Now, after successful deployment of your website, imagine there is a server crash happens. Your customers are striving & hitting their heads against the wall until you go online. In such a case, is not buying a server space from top-notch cloud hosting providers such as Amazon web services or so? All your headaches of maintenance just gone away with a simple thought? Your partner will monitor your system non-stop and will resolve fast and efficient whenever you experience malfunctions. Ideally, they will be the ones who set it up for you in the first place, so they will know exactly where to look and what to fix.

Thanks for reading out this post. We hope you love it. Please share this with your friends and colleagues!

Tag: Business Process Outsourcing