Retail stores has thousands of choices for fashion and the salesperson may influence you in your decision but with the help of AI and Machine learning your experience is going to more simpler and engaging.AI monitors the browsing patterns of any customer and give product recommendation according to that.AI powered chatbots can work more smarter and intuitively than humans. Machine learning in AI is improving product search capabilities on e-commerce sites.With the tremendous potential of AI, it can revolutionize the retail and e-commerce sector.Read more at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/296657

Getting people to visit your website is not so easy especially today. If you are using the payment the third party or payment redirection then you are giving opportunity to your customer to go away and never come back. This article by Sandra Wrobel-Konior(Content marketing manager) discusses about the cons of payment redirection. Cons of Payment redirection:

1. Client’s reaction: When a customer adds some product to the cart and goes to payment button and then if it is redirected to an external website with different logo and URL, then it may discourage, creates a confusion and frustration.

2. Control and customer support: In case the payment process goes wrong, then due to third party you may have limited access over what is happening and you can’t fix it immediately.

So, for customer satisfaction, attraction and retention you should create your payment gateway and ensure the security, seamless and hassle free operation. Read more at:

http://www.business2community.com/cybersecurity/payments-redirection-affect-business-01744133#I2bbOtz6T6YdoQ6G.97

Nowadays, organizations need to increase a good enterprise resource planning system or ERP that can help in increasing productivity without increasing workload. Sometimes, small business owners think that they don’t need an ERP system but, many issues can quickly get backlogged without a good ERP system. This article explores the benefits of having an ERP system. They are: Instant access to information, accurate financial reports, and less need for other software systems. Moreover, a good ERP system will help in increasing sales, better customer support, higher customer satisfaction and retention. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/inside-erp/erp-systems-what-to-look-for-and-why-you-need-one-in-your-business-73573

Just when customer satisfaction has become a very important issue, the introduction of User Explorer took place. With user explorer you can now analyze what action an anonymous user has taken on your app or site. You can also get a visitor’s insight who spends quite a lot of time within a given time frame and analyze each of their journeys to your site in that given span. Using User Analytics, a Google Analytics “Segment” can be created which can be applied to the group of users and understand how this group reacts across your site. These features will help gain the insight that is needed to build amazing experience for your consumer thus improving your relationship with them. Read more at: http://analytics.blogspot.in/2016/05/better-insight-into-your-customer.html?m=1

Cloud marketing is influencing many industries including marketing. The banner ad and pop up you see online is stored in the cloud. But, marketing cloud also needs to upgrade itself in a few areas. They are – Security, Customer Satisfaction, New Technology, and many more. Read more at - http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/tech-advances-business/5-aspects-of-the-marketing-cloud-that-need-foolproofing-71413

Businesses nowadays are consolidating customer data, from the sales contact history of service data into one place. Everything from the customer's service history of sales records is pulled together in one place. A single view of the customer has many advantages. It keeps everyone up to date and on the same page with the customer, for one thing and thereby increase customer satisfaction, build customer loyalty and allow contacts with the customer to proceed much more easily. Read more at - http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/a-single-view-through-crm-70579

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a management tool that gives businesses the opportunity to engage and interact with current and potential customers. The advantages of CRM are numerous. It streamlines customer service, provides customers with a channel for communication, and allows businesses to manage and control interactions in different ways that benefit the organization and their clients . CRM increases customer satisfaction and improve clients' experiences, integrating CRM with social media provide several benefits to businesses and customers. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/using-social-media-integration-to-optimize-crm-70291

Any business needs to sell products and answer the need of their customers in order to grow their business. Every business need to quantify customer satisfaction, but, you need to collect data first to quantify customer satisfaction. This is where CRM comes in. CRM helps you pull in more profit and also helps in maximizing marketing tool. CRM can also look into the customer trend. A CRM system can record all your past interactions, meetings and even business presentations. It will not just collate and analyze data, but it can also group your customers into different segments based on their budget or preferences. So, CRM as a marketing tool, not only relies on the products or services you offer, but it also relies on actual customer feedback. Read more at: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/how-to-maximize-crm-as-a-marketing-tool-70038

Customers are most important for any business. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and U.S. Small Business Administration, nearly 70% of customers leave a brand because they were unsatisfied with the overall service they received. This dissatisfaction leads to lower revenue and brand’s negative publicity. It’s important to maintain a good relationship with customers. To know more about how you can increase customer satisfaction, while boosting both sales and your bottom line, follow: http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/insidecrm/utilizing-customer-relationships-to-build-on-small-business-profit-69960

Customers or clients are important in today’s world. If a customer doesn’t have a good experience, they will not only leave your company, but also tell about their negative experience. That is why customer experience has become important for any competition. Jeanne Landau (Director of Marketing, 800response), in her article writes about four things companies need to do to satisfy their customers and earn repeat business. They are: Engage in a dialogue with customers; properly train your employees; provide a seamless cross-channel experience; and invest in the right tools. Read more at: http://www.callcentertimes.com/Home/tabid/37/ctl/NewsArticle/mid/395/CategoryID/1/NewsID/1020/Default.aspx

Businesses have started to realize that understanding the social media is of prime importance. However they often make the mistake of not utilizing the social media in the proper way. It is not only necessary to provide the customers with the requisite information and the various goods and services but also it is important to listen and help the customers if the need arises. So learning and understanding everything about the customer is of utmost significance. It is crucial for every business to do something which the customers are eager about so that they would be able to share their incidents through various social media channels. This however helps the organization to earn trust and cooperation of the customers.

Read more at: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/how-social-media-is-the-key-to-customer-success-01258473

Most of us must have heard these sayings – “Customer is the King” or “Customer Satisfaction should be the Top Priority”. We surely focus on satisfying customers but, what we sometimes fail to remember is the fact that the route to customer satisfaction goes via employee satisfaction. Thus, essentially, employee satisfaction should be considered as “the key focus area” for any organization.

Satisfied and loyal long term employees are an asset for the organizations. One way of enhancing employee satisfaction and thus customer satisfaction is by creating a digital workplace with intranet as its hub. Kevin Conroy, Founder and President of Blue Rooster, in his article at cmswire.com, has talked about the importance of employee satisfaction and has also listed out few steps that need to be taken before creating intranet for the organization. They are:

• Talk to employees
• Consider the user experience
• Map the top priority use cases and how they affect customers
• Define metrics
• Build an employee and customer-centric culture

So, creating a digital workplace with an enthusiastic consent of employees will eventually lead to gain of customers for life.

To know more, please visit the following link:

http://www.cmswire.com/social-business/creating-employees-for-life/

Maximizing ROI has become the ultimate goal for Marketers. Increasing visibility, likes, followers and tweets seems to be the major indicators. Daniel Newman, author of The Millennial CEO and a Forbes contributor, in an article in Forbes term these indicators as vanity metrics which distract marketers from the actual story. Rather than measuring likes, focus should be on how many of the likes were converted into new customer and other measures which go beyond customer acquisition and sales that will help discern their real growth story. 

He lists out 7 things that marketers should measure: 

• Top of funnel conversions

• Engagement

• Customer satisfaction

• Customer Retention 

• Employee satisfaction 

• Employee retention 

• Attributable Revenue

For more on this, follow the link http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2015/05/12/7-things-marketers-should-measure-big-data-can-help/

Paul Mandeville, Chief Product Officer, QuickPivot, in his article at cmswire.com has given 3 C’s of modern retail marketing. They are:

• Context
• Content
• Customer Experience

Combining these three with big data, can do wonders for retailers. All they need to do is to clean up their organization’s database and find a common thread between these three C’s of retail marketing.

The retailers need to realize the power of these C’s for capturing their customers’ hearts. To know more, please visit the following link:

http://cmswire.com/digital-marketing/the-3-cs-of-modern-retail-marketing/

Live chat is the best way to boost overall satisfaction with your customer service

- Zendesk Benchmark Report

Live Chat has emerged as one of the most satisfying customer service channels. This is because of the following reasons:

• Live chat moves customer requests away from web forms and feedback tabs to real time interactions, which enable questions to be answered directly
• Customers like the back-and-forth style of conversation

But, customer service providers should not forget the fact that customers want an accurate, relevant, and complete answer to their question upon first contact. Live chat agents sometimes fail to satisfy customers because of the following issues:

• When the customer has to wait more than 30 seconds for a customer service agent
• As agents start handling more and more chats, the increased workload may impact their ability to respond quickly and thoroughly

According to the Zendesk Report, “To optimize customer interactions, companies should monitor the ebb and flow of their live chat request volume by day and hour”.

To know more about the results of the Zendesk Benchmark Report on Live Chats, please read the following article by Noreen Seebacher, Chief Editor, at cmswire.com:

http://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/we-should-talk-how-live-chat-improves-cx-029235.php

“Predictive analytics have the potential power to produce remarkable services and longer lives”

-James Heskett

All of us must have heard of uses of predictive analytics in marketing i.e. it helps to understand the needs of the customer. But, have you ever wondered that the scope of predictive analytics can be much more than that.

“Predictive analysis applied to humans is now one of the hottest concepts to come along.” It can now be used in the following situations:

• Development of concepts such as 30-minute package delivery
• Big Data analysis of target customer's and others' purchases, combined with related information to identify their needs even before they arise
• Personalized logistics

These situations seem to be amazing but turning them into reality is what that needs to be done. To know more, please read the following article by James Heskett at HBS Working Knowledge:

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/7527.html

The latest trend in e-commerce industry is the use of usage-based billing. Digital service businesses should be looking to integrate at least one method of usage-based billing in their business model in order to tap into new revenue streams and maintain customer satisfaction in this competitive environment. James Gagliardi (Vice President of Product and Innovation at Digital River) writes in his article link about two models businesses should consider – subscription and freemium:  http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/e-commerce-digital-marketing/the-recurring-revenue-revolution/1413

It is generally said that “happy agents=happy customers”. But it is found that organizations generally make little effort to drive happiness and also less effort is taken to allow the agents who are happy to properly transfer that satisfaction to the customers. So, ultimately the result is that the interaction between agents and customers are inefficient and ineffective and instead customers impose their own frustration on the agents. Organizations must make an effort to attract more customers and this must begin with an investigation of the 5 Ws. To know more about 5Ws, follow article link of Brian Cantor (Contributor) at: http://www.callcenter-iq.com/agent-engagement/articles/5-ws-of-contact-center-agent-engagement/

Organizations should keep their marketing strategy flexible. Goals and strategy should be different. Caroline Melberg (Chief Engagement Officer, Small Business Mavericks) writes in her article about some ideas of different goals and strategies that a company should follow. Read more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/your-marketing-strategy-flexible-0

A European Telecommunications company wanted to lower its customer service operation costs but worried from the loss of revenue by doing so. In investigating its options, the company learned that 70 percent of existing customer-service contacts could be delivered through digital solutions that had proved effective in other industries. E-care involves the delivery of customer service via web-based user accounts, social networks, mobile phone, and the Internet rather than call centers or facilities open to the public. Such digital services are increasingly demanded by customers, who are already using digital platforms to research and review products, as well as broadcast their service frustrations. And it makes sense from a financial perspective, too. It has the potential to significantly lower the cost of customer service operations while increasing customer satisfaction. Not only this, but e-care also brings a company closer to its customers. Adopting e-care is worth the effort and that virtually every consumer-facing industry that has high customer-relationship needs can benefit from it. Read more at: http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/why_companies_should_care_about_ecare