Establish Effective Customer Relationships in a Hybrid World

The pandemic has changed life as we know it, with some changes being irreversible. So how can ‘hybrid’ work translate to managing customer advocacy and relationships as efficiently as in the pre-pandemic times with most offices functioning on a ‘partially offline’ or ‘fully offline' mode?

A product or service is only as good as its post-sale customer service experience. The pandemic brought challenges across all customer touchpoints, and like all companies, we turned to Technology for answers to manage these interactions.  We kept our goal the same – to provide customers with the services they need, at the time (when) and place (where) of need, with the same kind of professionalism, centricity, and empathy that the brand represents in a face-to-face setting.

Our Approach:

Multiple interventions were needed at various levels to ensure that quarantine mandates did not impact touchpoints while people were able to communicate face-to-face virtually. Our post-sales support went through an unprecedented digital evolution as we focused entirely on customer enablement and safety - determined to satisfy and meet customer requirements.

 A range of solutions and process changes were adopted quickly with laser focus on implementation, as mentioned below:

·       Field staff were provided with protective gear to visit customer locations

·       We deployed our products & services  to connect across customer platforms

·       Cloud tools enabled contact center connectivity from home locations  to serve customers

·       Mass VPN (Virtual Private Network) solutions were purchased to ensure data security

·       Digital order processing journeys were enhanced

·       All customer life cycle processes were enhanced digitally

 As the pandemic receded, the ‘Hybrid’ world emerged. While certain practices proved to be sustainable, the need to manage the business through a hybrid model, developed over time.

Exit ‘Online’ and enter ‘Hybrid’

Read to know How Vi Adapted to and is managing this change:

Enterprise customers have always demanded high levels of engagement, centricity, personalisation, and expectations to be invested in their success. Relationship management traditionally indulged in in-person meetings for insights into their customers' requirements, and to suggest prototypes or solutions. While we ensured connectivity with customers through online collaboration tools in the online world, the challenge was to adopt a combination of online and offline (or hybrid engagement) to complement the transactional engagement of self-care.

At Vi Business, we have resolved to keep the ball rolling whether the mode is offline, online, or hybrid - as required by the customers. Each engagement plan is customised to the requirements of customers. While we ensure that we meet every customer at least once a month, we respect the customer’s choice on how they want to meet - whether online, offline or even hybrid by connecting some locations physically and some online. We have our internal benchmarks on the offline: online ratio and we aim to observe this unless mandated otherwise by the customer.

Technology has also enabled us to work faster by taking over routine work and leaving us free to focus on engagement and giving us more time for advocacy-building exercises.

Some insights into our work:

We support hybrid customer engagement, whether it is platforms or people, as mentioned below:

·       Infrastructure has been scaled accordingly to address hybrid meetings with customers. Meeting rooms are equipped with large wall screens that facilitate hybrid meetings and are more eye-friendly than laptops

·       Quality systems that switch to video on a voice prompt, enable visuals of the speakers who are in the office during hybrid meetings - thus enabling clear views for online attendees.

·       Our contracts with service partners have inbuilt clauses that mandate emergency stay facilities, compliance with the industry's WFH norms, and options to switch over from online or offline to ensure minimum disruption

·       Our bots respond to almost 80-90% of interactions with ticket creation and updates, leaving employees free to engage in relationship management during meetings with customers, without focusing on transaction management

·       Our apps enable end-user customers to route requests to authorized signatories within their offices, thus enabling customers to work without switching between apps and emails  

·       Our self-care platforms offer network tools that allow customers to troubleshoot, diagnose issues, and check whether the point of failure is in their network or ours

·       We enable our customers to raise tickets simultaneously in both their and our CRMs thus minimising efforts

·       Our engagements with customers are tracked digitally with reminders to ensure that we do not miss out on connecting offline at minimum intervals  

·       Our onboarding process has a mix of digital and personal elements to maintain our personalization goals

·       We use chat as a conversation medium for every new order so that our sales teams and partners can communicate customer needs during meetings with our order management teams, thus avoiding mail trails that may delay

·       Meeting notes that were mailed earlier post meetings, are now recorded on phones with the consent of the customer.  We follow systems that enable easy tracking & due diligence

·       We have enabled the RAG methodology to know if a customer is in RED and can activate the service machinery through both online and offline modes to engage and listen to customers

These are just some of the process changes which facilitate hybrid work with the customer in focus.

Lasting Relationships in a Hybrid Future:

We live in an evolving world and the challenge is to keep going up the curve to facilitate engagement between our customers and personnel. All the above-mentioned interventions are bound to turn obsolete, calling for more evolving interventions and improvements. To ensure that we do not miss out on opportunities to make the customer's life easier, we encourage regular offline leadership meetings with service teams, at least once a fortnight to discuss what went well and address challenges together. Our learning is that engagement demands by customers can be online, offline, or hybrid and we need to enable our employees to meet them in every way. 

MSMEs are the driving force of the Indian economy. At Vi Business, we believe in equipping them with the right digital tools and technology to thrive in today’s business world.

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