The digital economy is booming, and there are a lot of businesses being left out due to their inability to adapt to this new way of living. It can be tricky knowing where to start with making new technologies work for us.
But, with a few simple pieces of advice, you can transform your way of working and make your business more efficient, successful, and enjoyable for both you and your customers.
Table of Contents
1. Customer Service is Key
Your business could be doing everything perfectly, but if the customer service isn’t there, then it can make everything else seem insignificant. If people leave negative reviews about your lack of good service, then not only will your customer retention numbers slip, but so will your new customer numbers.
If your business is primarily digital, it’s important to spend some time and resources investing in methods of communication between your customers and a service team. For example, ensure that there are multiple routes that visitors to your business site can use to get in touch with your team, such as email addresses, contact forms, phone numbers, or chatbots.
This way, you’re not going to leave people feeling frustrated that they cannot speak to a customer service representative when they have an issue or question.
There are lots of industries who are prioritizing customer service, and are seeing a boost because of this. For example, many apps in the online casino sector—like those seen here—are now offering 24/7 live chats and phone support to ensure that their customers can have help on hand whenever they need it.
Many ecommerce sites, such as clothing brands, also make use of this 24/7 chat feature, so that any queries or complaints that customers may have are dealt with almost immediately.
2. Make Use of New Digital Technologies
Take advantage of everything that big data and technology has to offer us, and create a unique and personalized journey for each of your customers.
You can use tools such as customer analytics dashboards or see insights on marketing platforms to build a picture of your customer base. From here, you’ll be able to see what your audience wants, what they are and aren’t enjoying about your business, and what you can offer them to optimize their experience.
3. Don’t Underestimate Social Media Marketing
Social media is still a relatively new phenomenon, and every day there is a new trend to keep track of. Whilst not everyone’s forte, it’s well worth investing in a social media expert to manage your channels and optimize them for your target market.
The beauty sector has benefited immensely from social media marketing, tapping into the strengths that influencing and paid social ads can bring. Many beauty brands build up a strong presence on social media channels such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
They devote time each day to checking up on competitor social media channels, tracking any new hashtags or trends, partaking in community engagement, and even creating new trends that link back to their products. Whether it’s replying to comments, liking posts, or replying to direct messages, you’ll need to stay active on social media to succeed these days.
Another crucial aspect of social media marketing is working with influencers. Influencing is such a new industry, and now is the perfect time to tap into everything it has to offer. Influencer marketing involves working either directly with content creators or with their management, and arranging for them to promote your product or services, either for a fee or as part of a gifted experience.
4. Be Flexible With Payment Options
It’s becoming rarer and rarer to see a business only accept cash, and for good reason. If you want to widen your customer pool and see an upturn in profit, you have to be flexible with your payment options. This means allowing customers to pay for your products or services digitally, and being able to accept all major credit and debit cards.
Making this change will place you within the digital economy alongside your competitors. Refusing to take American Express, for example, will guarantee that you lose out on sales, and that those potential sales are made elsewhere.
Additionally, setting up an ecommerce site for your business means that sales can be made 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even when you’re not actively working.
Final Thought
There’s a common thread running through all of the advice we’ve put out there, and it’s to stay adaptable and agile. Being a business owner is never going to be easy, but in this day and age, it’s essential to be able to work alongside new technologies and manipulate big data and social media to work for you, rather than resist the change.
