Cloud computing offers the business world several benefits from its unique solution for application hosting. Its platform can increase productivity and efficiency, while also reducing carbon emissions. Cloud computing may also be able to save a business money, by offering application hosting as a service. Applications offered as a service require less initial investment than companies who must purchase servers and other associated hardware to run necessary applications. Companies who utilize cloud computing simply pay a monthly subscription that covers maintenance and hosting. The cloud computing vendor handles the remaining responsibilities and expenses.
While cloud computing offers many benefits to individual businesses, perhaps one of the most important of all benefits is better customer service. Cloud computing applications, including customer relationship management (CRM) services and sales force automation (SFA) tools, can streamline the way a company talks to its customers. Take a look at the following processes, which represent just a few of the total CRM benefits provided by cloud-based apps:
- Custom-built applications that allow consumers to report a problem at the click of a button, or to instantly access a live chat session with a representative who can provide immediate and targeted assistance.
- Collect data from the server or PC when the problem occurs. The problem will be resolved faster if data is sent directly to the technician when a problem occurs.
- The ability to track a complete picture of each individual consumer, as well as a broader snapshot of demographics, in order to simplify and improve marketing campaigns, sales measures, troubleshooting or customer service, and follow-up.
- A wide variety of venues that a consumer can use to gain clarity into his or her problem, including knowledge base, user-driven forums, social networking sites, live chat, and automatic reporting applications.
- Information that is continually updated in real-time, and available across all channels to authorized users, which eliminates confusion and waste.
Each recommendation is geared toward improving customer service to promote the organization’s brand image. When a client speaks of the company, they will have a more positive opinion of the company’s business practices if he or she received quality customer service. Businesses should make every effort to provide the best customer service possible, since “word of mouse” advertising is a powerful phenomenon, fueled by Twitter, Facebook, blogs and online forums. By staying abreast of the buzz that its customers are creating in the social media sphere, and by using those same venues to reach out to customers and show responsiveness, companies can alleviate a potentially cancerous problem, before it spreads to the entire community.
Successful companies are also integrating current software applications with Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook and other sites, to provide a more streamlined experience for the customer. The idea is to reduce wait times and resolve customer issues in the least amount of time possible. Customers whose problems are addressed in a timely fashion will remain more loyal to the company. There are numerous benefits to customer service provided by cloud computing and cloud-based CRM applications; isn’t it time you explored some of them?
