Author: Olga Kamylevich

Marketing Manager

5 Ways To Turbocharge the Impact of Your Customer Meetings with Data

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

Top companies are leveraging data and analytics to maximize the impact of their customer-facing meetings. SUMO Scheduler, a customer engagement platform that includes online appointment scheduling, event scheduling, and queue scheduling, has seen firsthand how its customers have benefited from leveraging data in their day-today customer engagements. Check out a few ways they’ve identified how data can be incorporated into a company’s automated appointment and event scheduling process to increase sales, ensure customer retention, and improve employee satisfaction.

1. Know Thy Customer

Gathering key customer demographics during the appointment scheduling process provides your sales and service teams with critical information that can help them plan more impactful meetings. Salesforce native applications, such as SUMO Scheduler, can push information from your custom scheduling flow to the Salesforce record for easy reference and reporting.

2. Educated Buyers Are Active Buyers

Knowledge is power, especially in the sales process. Companies are leveraging file upload/download capabilities within their appointment scheduling processes to provide prospective clients with the information that they need to make informed product decisions or to apply for services. By doing so, they are removing decision-making barriers and speeding up the sales process.

PRO TIP
Implement a Salesforce native appointment and event scheduling application that offers file-sharing capabilities. Not only will you see the direct benefits of an educated customer but you can store files directly within your org for easy access.

3. Meet Your Customers Where They Live

Today’s customer expects companies to provide them with multiple methods for scheduling a meeting with a live person. From online chatbots to website scheduling portals to social media listings, tech-savvy buyers want to engage with your team on their terms.

4. Optimize Your Sales/Customer Engagement Process

Leverage Salesforce Analytics and reporting tools to drive improvements in your sales customer retention processes. By analyzing appointment data trends such as the number of meetings, status, and outcome and pairing them with key sales metrics such as stage duration and conversion rate, sales managers can pinpoint opportunities for improvement and drive meaningful change in their organizations.

PRO TIP
The changes that result from this data can lead to a significant boost in productivity, employee/customer satisfaction, and profit. Make sure that your scheduling application leverages Salesforce object reporting to maximize your reporting capabilities.

5. Maximize Your Most Valuable Resources

A company’s most valuable resource is its people. Nothing is more frustrating to a sales or customer service manager than underutilized talent. By combining Salesforce analytics, dashboards, and appointment scheduling software, managers can have a real-time view of staff appointment availability and utilization so that they can make informed decisions regarding staffing and role assignments. This optimization, in combination with empowering customers to schedule directly on staff calendars, ensures that sales and customer service representatives spend more time in front of clients.

PRO TIP
In order to maximize staff utilization, a scheduling application should utilize advanced appointment assignment logic that offers employee availability such as skill, role, availability, territory, and location.

Original text: SalesForce AppExchange

Meet SUMO 15

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

SUMO Scheduler, a top-rated appointment scheduling software application has announced the release of SUMO 15.

The latest release delivers new capabilities aimed to simplify customer engagement and includes the following features:

Invite Manager

  • Room & Resource Search: Users can now assign rooms & resources to email invites and appointment links. In admin, the “User Search” tab has been updated to “Search”, and now includes the ability for administrators to include Column Headings and Criteria to search for Rooms or Resources.
  • Hide Rooms and Resources: Admins may now turn off the Room & Resource sections.
  • Auto-Assign Room: Added ability to auto-assign rooms based on capacity, location and availability within appointment modules.
  • Buffer Time Enhancement: Admins may now disable the ability for Pre and Post buffer times to overlap. Settings are available at the process level.
  • Quick Create New Records: Added ability to quickly create new records for Lead and Contact from the Instant Booker New Appointment button.

Multi-Calendar

  • Display Buffer Times: Buffer times are now visible on the Day View calendar.
  • Community Registration Widget added for Events: New Registration Widget is available for Communities that allow attendees to register for an Event directly from the Community.
  • Appointment Source: You can now track where an Appointment was booked from Instant Booker, Email Invite, Appointment Link, Online Scheduler, Event Link, Multi-Calendar.

Admin Updates

  • Advance Notice to Cancel/Reschedule Appointments: New setting that allows Admins to limit when a participant can cancel/reschedule an appointment.
  • Limit # of Times a Participant Can Reschedule an Appointment: You may now define the # of times a participant can reschedule an appointment based on type.
  • Country and State Dependent Picklist: Admins now have the ability to add State & Country Picklists to the Online Scheduler and Invite Manager Templates.

You can view the full release notes for SUMO15.

How To Keep Your Prospects Hot Through Automated Appointment Scheduling & Engagement

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

As your sales team works closely with marketing to establish a steady stream of prospects, you may ask yourself if the leads it generates are qualified and how long it takes to convert them into customers. It’s a well-known fact that not every lead is a good quality lead. In the end, your success largely depends on the responsiveness of your account managers and their ability to quickly schedule appointments with potential customers.

Overcoming Sales Hurdles

According to Glenister Research, only 25% of marketing-generated leads are typically hot enough to become sales qualified. Additionally, there’s a 10X drop in lead qualification when you wait longer than 5-10 minutes to respond. That’s why instead of spending time and energy working with prospects who aren’t ready to buy, you need to have an efficient system that prioritizes highly-qualified leads and offers clear and error-free lines of communication.

SUMO’s Appointment and Event Scheduling tools are designed to bridge the gap between your sales teams and future customers, generate more qualified prospects, and reduce lead response time. Our Salesforce-native platform eliminates manual effort allowing your staff to schedule calls fast enough to keep prospects interested and efficiently move them through the sales funnel.

Automated Self-Scheduling for Lead Management

In today’s age of digital transformation, many businesses are still relying on manual lead capture processes, antiquated spreadsheets, and multiple calendars to manage their sales funnels.

SUMO modernizes your sales process by automating lead, contact, and record creation directly in your Salesforce CRM as prospects book appointments directly on your sales reps’ calendars. This drastically reduces the amount of time that sales reps spend on administration tasks, eliminates scheduling conflicts, and frees them up to do what they do best, meet with customers.

SUMO Scheduler goes far beyond its simple and easy-to-use interface. Our self-scheduling feature helps your prospects automatically set up appointments without having to wait for a rep to call them. They can easily schedule appointments, reschedule calls, select staff availability, and upload attachments on their own time and from any device.

Every action taken by your prospects inside our intuitive web-based platform is automatically linked to their Salesforce record allowing your sales team to accurately estimate their lead status and prioritize meetings based on a prospect’s level of interest.

Our customers report that eliminating the manual aspect of lead management with SUMO has saved their teams 35% of their time which they can now spend on what matters the most – selling and engaging with prospects!

“The amount of appointments that we are able to make has increased by over 70%. My agents no longer have to play the game of back and forth to try to find a time that works for both parties. This app has been a game-changer for our organization. My agents are now able to concentrate on other clients and communications knowing that they can send the scheduling message and the client is able to self-serve.”

Kerry Hoisington
Director of Customer Experience, Careerstep

Helping Marketing Generate More Leads

SUMO not only simplifies lead nurturing by removing lengthy manual tasks from the scheduling process but also centralizes lead generation by extending its integration across all marketing channels helping your advertising campaigns achieve better results.

For example, your marketing team just launched a social media campaign to showcase your latest product with a call to action to schedule a demo. SUMO offers a custom scheduling link that matches the prospect with an appropriate staff member immediately upon submitting the contact form. As soon as the request for a demo has been received, your sales rep gets notified to reach out to the prospect.

If your company uses paid advertising to attract potential clients, SUMO can help here too. Our online scheduler can be easily embedded into paid ads banner, encouraging prospects to schedule a meeting at their key point of interest. You can also redirect your prospects from an ad to a custom landing page so they can learn more about your brand and convert faster. The possibilities are limitless.

Bottom Line

SUMO offers a white-glove automation service that elegantly hands prospects to your sales team from any inbound channel. The only obstacle that stands in the way is an outdated manual process that must be eliminated if companies are serious about improving their lead generation and nurturing. Now is the time to make the change and raise the standards.

At the end of the day, providing excellent service is what matters the most, and it all starts with the very first interaction a potential customer makes with your brand. SUMO is here to help build a trustworthy relationship with your prospects from day one. Ready to make the shift and bring your scheduling process to the next level of success? Click here to learn more or book a free consult with an expert!

We are excited to announce our SUMO 14 Product Release

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

SUMO Scheduler, a top-rated appointment scheduling software application has announced the release of SUMO 14. The application includes new features and enhancements.

SUMO is the only appointment scheduler that helps organizations grow their business with automation. Through a combination of smart booking modules, advanced scheduling features, and powerful analytics tools, SUMO offers a simple, fast, and effective user experience that results in significant productivity improvements for both service providers and customers.

The latest release delivers new capabilities aimed to simplify customer engagement and highlights the following areas of focus:

Microsoft Teams Connector

  • Microsoft users can now connect their Microsoft Teams account to SUMO to dynamically generate a Microsoft Teams Meeting when an Appointment is scheduled or rescheduled.

Multi-Calendar Updates

  • The multi-calendar continues to be enhanced and now includes the ability to mirror users connected calendars, showing appointments/events that were created both on the connected calendar -AND- via SUMO.
  • Also, we’ve made additional performance updates to the Multi-Calendar, further improving speed to load.

Analytics

  • This release includes new Event & Course reports to help you easily run analytics on Event & Course usage and performance at Company, Manager and User level.

Admin Updates

  • Limit the number of appointments that customers can book with users, resource pools, services, and more.
  • You may now merge fields from the “SUMO Additional Info” object (formerly “SUMO Event” object) into email templates.
  • The ability to associate an Event to a Category was previously required, and is now not required.

You can view the full release notes for SUMO 14.

ABOUT SUMO

SUMO Customer Engagement Platform is changing the way organizations engage with their customers. By offering cutting-edge technology and automated appointment scheduling solutions, SUMO allows enterprise-level sales and support teams to focus on what matters the most – generating new business and improving customer experience instead of managing existing appointments and routine administrative tasks.

SUMO’s omnichannel platform with powerful features such as automated reminders, customizable self-scheduling sites, and Salesforce-native analytics tools, guarantees an appointment with no overlap on any device and in any time zone. Trusted by leading organizations such as Amazon, Concur, and First Data to deliver an exceptional customer experience, SUMO completely automates appointment scheduling and delivers simple yet effective solutions for continuous business growth.

Want to start using SUMO? Click here to schedule a demo.

SUMO Launches Powerful New Features for Its Automated Online Scheduling Applications

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

SUMO Scheduler, a leading provider of Salesforce native appointment, event and course scheduling software, has announced its latest product release,  SUMO12.

The company has made significant enhancements to its Invite Manager, Online Scheduler, Event & Course Scheduler and Multi-calendar modules.

The latest release underscores SUMO’s mission to provide the most powerful and user-friendly online scheduling tools available. Through a combination of smart booking modules, advanced scheduling features, and powerful analytics tools, SUMO offers a simple, fast, and effective user experience that results in significant productivity improvements, higher customer satisfaction ratings and increased revenue.

With a customer engagement strategy that focuses on acquiring leads and building brand advocates, enterprise-level organizations can now achieve the maximum return on their digital investments. This is possible with SUMO’s appointment event and course automation platforms – designed specifically to help organizations thrive in a competitive business environment.

The latest release delivers a broad spectrum of capabilities aimed to simplify customer engagement:

Online Scheduler

  • Automate ‘field-service’ bookings
  • More custom fields
  • Use participant’s video conference
  • Upload attachments
  • Let customers add participants

Invite Manager

  • Room and resource search
  • Use participant’s video conference
  • Time-shot intervals
  • Recurring appointments
  • Enhanced mobile functionality

Multi-Calendar

  • Single and recurring appointments
  • Drag-and-drop capability
  • Cancel and update reasons
  • Hover details
  • Right-click Menu

CEP Platform

  • ZOOM connector
  • 24-hour format
  • Duplicate rules
  • Limit appointments
  • Embed SUMO in Salesforce communities

Click here to view the full release notes for SUMO12.

Customer Engagement Secrets From Disney, Hilton, and Other Top Brands You Can Use Today

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

Many businesses claim to offer excellent customer service, but only a few stand out for genuinely exceptional customer service. You’re about to find out the processes and methods some of the world’s most successful brands use to deliver above-average customer service. Before revealing those secrets, let’s answer a question you’re probably thinking about right now:

 

Why Focus On Improving Customer Service?

A significant amount of industry research has found high levels of customer service lead to more successful businesses.

  • Increase Profits. A 5% increase in customer retention in financial services products more than a 25% increase in profit, according to Bain & Company. Improving the quality of customer service is one way to boost customer retention.
  • Several Industries Have A Customer Service Opportunity. Several industries have low customer satisfaction scores. For example, the airline industry has a 75 score according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index. The video-on-demand industry has an average score of 68 according to the same index. As a result, companies in those industries that invest in better customer service will have an easier chance of overtaking their competitors.

 

How To Use These Customer Service Secrets

Improving customer service doesn’t have to be painful. Review these case studies from both large and small businesses and look for inspiration to adapt to your company. Remember, you can constantly adapt ideas from other industries. For example, Steve Jobs took inspiration from kitchen appliances to inform Apple’s design approach, according to Fast Company.

 

American Express: Exceptional Customer service during the COVID-19 pandemic

Delivering high-quality customer service in the good times is one thing. Sustaining outstanding service during a global pandemic is another challenge altogether. That’s why American Express is impressive.

The credit card company was the top-ranked national card issuer in the 2020 J.D. Power U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study. The company’s high customer service is driven by several key factors. The company offers a financial relief program to allow customers to make lower monthly payments and avoid penalties. In addition, the company committed $200 million to help hard-hit businesses through the Shop Small campaign. Finally, the company rolled out a “Freeze Card” feature on its mobile app so that customers can stop purchases if they lose track of their American Express card.

Learn from the American Express example by changing your customer service practices when times are tough for your customer. For example, look for ways to offer payment flexibility or empower them to use the product more effectively.

 

Rolex: Creating Confidence with a Service Guarantee

Rolex has a unique status as a luxury brand in the watch industry. At the low end, a pre-owned Rolex watch can sell for approximately $4000 while brand new watches have a much higher price.

Several factors contribute to the watch company’s outstanding reputation. Customer service is part of the package. First, the company offers the “Rolex guarantee: Rolex guarantees the proper functioning of its watches for five years from the date of purchase. By setting expectations upfront, the company reassures customers that their watch will stay working for years.

Rolex also stands out from the competition because it explains the Rolex servicing procedure in detail. There is less anxiety about sending a multi-thousand watch in for servicing by explaining the step-by-step customer service process.

The lesson from Rolex is two-fold. Start with the company’s customer service guarantee. If you are confident in your products’ quality, prove it by offering a multi-year guarantee. Next, think about revealing your customer service procedures to the public like Rolex. This might feel scary if you have never disclosed information like that before, but Rolex shows it can be done.

 

Hilton Wins Recognition For Its Reward Program

Maintaining high levels of customer service for travelers around the world isn’t easy. Yet, Hilton Hotels has managed to achieve just that. In 2020, the global hotel business won the FlyerTalk Awards for the second year running.  Specifically, the company earned recognition for its customer loyalty program beating dozens of competing loyalty programs. In addition, Hilton won recognition for the quality of its breakfast program.

Offering a customer loyalty or rewards program is a long-established practice. Yet, the details make a critical difference. Hilton has invested in creating a contactless digital key in its app, for example. Further, the company provided greater flexibility in reward redemption due to travel disruptions in 2020.

The customer service lesson from Hilton is simple. Take an existing part of your customer experience, like rewards, and look for ways to make those programs better for customers. Can you offer customers more choices in how and when they do business with you? Can you make your rewards and loyalty programs more flexible?

 

Disney eliminates customer service problems before they happen

Over the past year, Disney has earned attention for its highly successful Disney+ streaming service. It is helpful to keep in mind that digital services are just part of the Disney business model. Hotels, theme parks, and cruises are other critical parts of the Disney experience. Those parts of the business have customer service lessons for all of us.

Disney took a different approach to the theme park industry from the beginning. Walt Disney set a rule that guests should not have to walk more than thirty feet to a trash can. In recent years, the average distance to a trash can fell to less than thirty feet. As a result, the company ended up installing a large number of trashcans which helps the parks to improve cleanliness.

Aside from trash, the company also takes extensive measures to detect and prevent mosquitos from harassing guests in Florida. For example, the company has a mosquito surveillance program that includes surveillance chickens!

There’s much more to the Disney customer experience we haven’t touched on, but these two examples are easy to apply. Take pride in your company’s physical spaces and keep them clean. In the short term, a strong focus on cleaning can help to prevent the spread of disease.

If cleanliness is not a top concern for your business, there’s a different way to apply Disney’s customer service secret. Invest time and resources into processes and equipment that cause customer complaints or discomfort.

 

DHL wins with customer onboarding and mystery shopping

DHL operates in a highly competitive shipping and logistics market. Despite competing against well-established brands like FedEx and UPS, DHL has distinguished itself through customer service.

As of 2019, the logistics company has won eight Stevie® Awards for customer service. In particular, the company has won recognition for developing a customer onboarding program. As a result, the company has eliminated time-consuming back-and-forth emails with new customers.

DHL is also focused on improved the customer experience for its existing customers. The company uses a mystery shopping program to improve the way it quotes rates and related processes.

Thinking in terms of the entire customer lifecycle is the key lesson from DHL. Look at the processes, forms, and activities involved in onboarding a new customer. Look for ways to make that new customer experience faster or easier. Finally, consider using a mystery shopping process (i.e., calling your company and pretending to be a customer) to detect possible gaps in the experience.

 

How Agiloft wins with a 90 day satisfaction guarantee

Based in California, Agiloft offers process management software. As a smaller company, the business has to make thoughtful decisions on where to compete. For several years, the business has focused on customer service quality and won.

In 2019, the company won the 2019 Excellence in Customer Service Award from Business Intelligence Group. The company won the award by making several significant commitments in customer service. First, the company has provided a same-day response to customer inquiries that came in during business hours. Further, the business also provides a ninety-day satisfaction guarantee to customers. If a new customer is not satisfied for any reason in their first 90 days using the product, they can request a refund. Ultimately, the company has only had three refund requests out of hundreds of customers.

Some companies might feel nervous about offering a ninety-day refund guarantee. Fortunately, Agiloft shows that refund requests tend to be relatively low. If a business already has a high customer satisfaction rate, consider making a public pledge. For example, if your business has the lowest error rate in your industry, consider making a promise about your commitment to errors.

 

The One Change That Always Improves The Customer Experience

Across all of the industries and companies we’ve studied, there is one common thread that underlies most customer service improvements. Efficient, seamless customer communication makes the difference.

When customers can get answers to questions quickly, request technical support, and more without having to wait for response from customer service or navigate complicated phone queues, life is better.

How does SUMO help companies improve the customer experience? Consider the experience of one of our large customers, a multinational healthcare insurance provider with 2.9 million members. As a result, customers can make appointments with the company that suits their schedule and receive appointment reminders.

Discover how your sales and customer service can improve customer service with every customer by contacting SUMO today.

AppExchange Mavericks features SUMO

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

Did you know that SUMO Scheduler was recently featured by the Salesforce AppExchange Mavericks?

This short video includes:

Overview
Our VP of Customer Enablement and Sales, Todd Adams discusses with Salesforce MVP, Mary Tagler what’s new at SUMO Scheduler and how it is changing how customers automate appointment and events scheduling on the Salesforce Platform.

Product Demonstration
Todd provides a product demonstration of SUMO Scheduler, featuring both the Appointment Scheduler and Event & Class Scheduler working together.

Meet the Multi-Calendar

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

After strong demand, SUMO has released our next generation calendar.

The Multi-Calendar is a new feature-rich module which enables SUMO users powerful calendaring capability for hosts, locations, and resources.

SUMO Scheduler Multi-Calendar

Connected Calendaring

Aggregate all of your users connected calendars into a single calendar interface for optimal control.

Supports connecting:

  • Microsoft Office365
  • Microsoft Exchange
  • Google Calendar
  • Salesforce Calendar


Hierarchy

Built for the enterprise, buy easy to use for any size organization, the Multi-Calendar allows organizing full user and non-user / resource calendars in any hierarchy you define.

  • Areas
    • Sub Areas
      • Locations
        • Hosts
        • Rooms
        • Resources
      • Unassigned
        • Rooms
        • Resources

For example, ABC Company may configure the Multi-Calendar to aggregate calendars as follows:

  • North America
    • New York
      • Manhattan Office
        • Hosts
        • Rooms
        • Resources
    • San Francisco
      • North Beach Office
        • Hosts
        • Rooms
        • Resources
  • Canada
    • Toronto
      • Toronto Office
        • Hosts
        • Rooms
        • Resources

Filters

SUMO Users may use the powerful filters to save collections of calendars by Team, Location, and more. The Multi-Calendar includes support for custom fields also.

Auto-Availability

Use the “Generate Schedule” feature to auto-generate a schedule based on availability of the host, location, room, and more.

Additional Features

The Multi-Calendar comes packed with a ton of additional features, including:

  • Color Coding by Category or Custom
  • Day View, Week View, Multi-Week View, and more.
  • Advanced Search
  • Create Appointments, Events, Classes, or Blocks
  • Support for Hosts & Co-Hosts
  • Custom Fields

5 Tips for Successful Customer Experience in Times of Crisis with Scheduling Software

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

During times of crisis, service providers often struggle to connect with their customers. Many companies have recognized the significant risk that the resulting communication and customer service missteps pose to their businesses and are turning to customer engagement software platforms for a solution. Engagement tools, such as online appointment scheduling software, are helping to bridge these gaps by connecting providers and their customers via virtual, call center or in person meetings.

Online customer engagement software enables service providers to control the number of customers that attend appointments or events at their brick and mortar locations. This capability has enabled many financial, retail and healthcare businesses to remain open during the COVID 19 pandemic, while adapting to new safety protocols and ensuring that the appropriate staff resources have been assigned to meet specific customer needs.

Here are a few tips that can help you to deliver a positive customer experience in times of crisis:

1. Encourage rescheduling and pre-booking

In times of crisis, it is important to provide your customers with the option to cancel or reschedule appointments with a service provider. By doing so, you are creating an opportunity for a positive customer interaction while making it easy for them to move the appointment to a later date. This ensures that the appointment remains a priority and is not put off indefinitely. It is always a best practice to encourage customers to reschedule by waiving rescheduling fees. By doing so, you can distinguish your business as one that is considerate and understanding of its customers’ needs

2. Adjust your cancellation policy

Make your customers feel valued by sending email or message reminders about their upcoming appointments. This way, you can avoid no-shows and receive notices whenever your customers need to cancel their appointments. In addition, you can adjust your cancellation policies in cases where your customers cannot keep their appointments due to emergencies.

For example, during regular operation, your cancellation period is 7 days before the appointment date. Whereas, in times of crisis, you can adjust this cancellation period and make it even shorter to ensure that customers can cancel their appointment anytime if emergencies arise without charging them additional fees.

3. Enhance your availability across channels

Online abandonment is one of the most common complaints from customers who attempt to schedule an appointment with a service provider via their website. This problem is typically caused by a poor virtual customer support experience that fails to connect website visitors with a company resource. A recent survey performed by Statista shows that 44% of U.S customers stopped doing business with a company due to its poor customer service.

This issue is further exacerbated during times of crises when both service providers and consumers have no choice but to utilize an online booking process. By integrating customer engagement software tools such as live chat, direct call and video appointment booking into their online customer experience, businesses can overcome this challenge while improving the overall online experience for their customers. In this model, the customer who once felt lost and unsupported is a click away from talking to a live person.

4. Provide improved interaction with Automated emails and reminders

A recent survey from Statista reveals that 20% of customers interact with businesses via email. By improving email response time and content, businesses can greatly improve a customer’s experience and ensure that they remain engaged with your support team. This can be accomplished through automated email and text messaging communications that reduce the risk of missed appointments and lost opportunities for one on one connections. Furthermore, an intelligent scheduling software platform can be used to imbed a hassle free self scheduling link into emails. This puts the customer in the driver seat and encourages continued interaction with your team.

5. Offer personalized recommendations

Personalized customer service makes your customers feel valued and fosters brand loyalty. During a crisis, many people turn to the internet to conduct their business. This offers a great opportunity for savvy business owners who utilize personalized marketing campaigns in order to reach prospective buyers.

Many online browsers offer the ability to use ad words and retargeting tools in order to analyze a customer’s browsing behavior and to generate relevant ads for products and services that align with their specific interests and needs. These tools save customers time and target them at the peak moment of interest during their buying journey. Many companies use this method to advertise special rebates and promotions during a crisis in order to show support and to compel buyers to act.

How to provide a successful customer experience in times of crisis?

A customer engagement platform can help to maintain and grow your business during times of crisis. Intuitive and interactive automated communication tools can ensure success by empowering your customers to connect with your support staff in a safe, consistent and reliable manner.

When using an online customer engagement platform, consider the 5 tips outlined above to ensure the best possible customer experience and retention.

How Omni-Channel Software Platforms Drive Success In the Financial Services Industry

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

Today’s consumer behavior has undoubtedly changed in the way people interact, work, and shop. As global financial institutions continue to adapt to new economic trends, they are using an omni-channel approach to ensure a customer-centric focus on business. How will financial service providers adjust their customer success strategy to meet the demands of today’s world? What engagement tactics will they use to ensure customer satisfaction and retention?

This article offers insight into possible developments and suggests methods that can help your company remain at the forefront of customer success and innovation.

Navigating The Change

With physical distancing affecting every aspect of today’s life, consumers are getting used to the idea of doing business remotely. They are more comfortable using online services and mobile apps to engage with financial institutions and will be doing so in the future. According to a recent study by The Financial Brand, 31% of 1,000 American consumers indicated they will continue to rely on online payment systems and mobile banking for their financial needs. 45% of the survey respondents prefer mobile wallet platforms as they move away from using cash and going into physical locations.

Another recent study by McKinsey indicates consumer willingness to reduce in-person purchases, cash transactions, and ATM usage. It anticipates a future shift from physical to virtual banking. As a result, financial companies will be required to adopt real-time payment infrastructures and other personalized technologies that help create a stellar customer experience.

It’s clear that a successful customer engagement strategy largely depends on the technology a company chooses to implement. Even customers who were reluctant to use apps and software in the past are now gaining comfort and confidence with this next wave of digital transformation.

Although most cutting-edge technologies are quite mature and are readily available, it takes knowledge and a creative approach to implement them. Let’s take a look at a few innovative ways in which you can adopt customer-centric technologies and ensure continuous business improvement.

How to Engage with Customers through Technology

1. Opt-in for Contactless Banking Solutions

With physical distancing paving the way to increased demand for remote interactions, contactless payments are becoming widely adopted by consumers around the world:

Clearly, contactless payments are here to stay as consumers continue to apply a more focused approach to purchasing. Selecting a contactless banking solution that enables digital onboarding and secure authentication, facial and voice recognition, as well as fast payment processing, will help satisfy the demand for remote interactions and will increase customer retention.

2. Focus on Virtual Customer Servicing

Chats and voice bots have been around for a long time. Today, they are becoming increasingly important due to their ability to handle a large volume of customer requests in a physically distributed environment. If your company relies on remote call centers, you can leverage services such as virtual and in-person appointment scheduling, virtual queue management and virtual events to manage all types of customer requests, from simple queries to the most complex issues.

Industry leaders such as Bank of America and Capital One are already evolving their chats and voice bots into advanced “virtual assistants” that can send alerts and payment reminders, provide financial tips, recommend products, and ultimately help customers manage their finances better. By using predictive analytics and proactive algorithms, virtual customer servicing will soon become a go-to solution for personalized financial experience and innovative banking.

3. Find the Right Omni-Channel Customer Engagement Platform

It’s no surprise that consumers are becoming much savvier in the ways they interact with financial institutions. With the continuous shift toward digital transformation, your customers are more aligned with technology and innovation than ever before. Choosing the right omni-channel engagement platform to drive meaningful customer interactions will help to increase brand loyalty.

In the context of the “new normal”, superior customer experience means clarity, fulfilled expectations, and improved retention rates. The right platform leverages an interconnected set of communication and scheduling tools that drive an improved customer journey across digital channels, remote locations, and call centers. A robust customer engagement platform will also help you offer a personalized experience that connects customers with experts and services in the right place at the right time. Above all, it will help you earn customer loyalty, generate more business, and improve the quality of your services.

4. Offer Secure Remote Access to Your Employees

A recent study by MIT shows that roughly half of the US workforce is now working remotely. Furthermore, many tech companies, including Facebook and Twitter, intend on allowing their teams to work from home permanently. As companies realize remote employment boosts productivity and reduces overhead, they will be driven to create a more robust and distributed virtual office environment.

To achieve this goal, the financial industry will be required to deploy innovative cloud-based technologies focused on business continuity, security, and collaboration. These solutions must ensure 24/7 access to critical systems such as Citrix and Microsoft Outlook and employ out-of-band authentication methods that minimize the risk of intrusions and cyber attacks. Using secure cloud-based technologies to support seamless access to systems will also help scale your business up or down depending on the transaction volumes.

5. Embrace Continuous Improvement and Efficiency

Finally, the economic uncertainties of today’s world challenged financial firms to maintain a delicate balance between successful customer service and operational efficiency. To increase efficiencies, companies can choose to employ digital self-service programs that are far less expensive than phone-based education and in-branch selling. Enabling self-service techniques helps capture a myriad of opportunities to engage with customers on a deeper level while maintaining high service success rates and improving the bottom line. For example, a well-organized and searchable help center content can assist in resolving issues and provide financial education even before the customer reaches live support.

An absence of a well-designed self-service strategy not only misses out on an opportunity to fully connect with your customer but it also makes it difficult to fully utilize existing technologies and improve critical metrics like share of wallet and efficiency ratios. This can be easily avoided by implementing self-service programs backed up by support content from major digital channels.

Conclusion

Today, banks and financial companies are at the forefront of change. In tough economic times, and beyond, they play an immediate role in helping customers make important financial decisions geared toward improving quality of life. With the main focus on providing superior customer experience, financial service companies that utilize the right customer engagement platforms can turn the tide and build the economy of the future. As a result, they can create a raving following of clients that are more loyal, use more products and services, and cost less to retain.

Here at SUMO, we offer a Customer Engagement Platform that helps drive customer conversations, improves communication and generates more business at the point of purchase:

  • Personalized experience based on customer needs and communication expectations (email invites, “front of the line” and “we’ve been waiting for you” services)
  • Improving in-branch customer journey with unique features (“Meet with an Expert”, Waitlist Manager, experiential marketing events)
  • Customer engagement and data insights for making better data-driven decisions (analytics builder with unlimited reports, in-app analytics discussions, mobile access, and more)

The Value of Customer Engagement in Government

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

At the federal, state and local levels of government, the interactions a citizen has with a government agency is an opportunity to be shown their government understands and can meet their needs. The value a citizen perceives in an agency lies in the quality of their interactions. It can mean getting connected to the right person on the first attempt or not spending their day waiting in a line. It can trigger a positive shift in their experience.

Citizens define good customer experience in different ways. A few of those ways are service improvements, the speed of access to information or knowledgable staff and resolving complaints.

Better Experience Starts with Better Engagement

Most times, citizens are engaging with an agency because of a life event. They are looking for assistance with their retirement, an application for financial aid or accessing survivor benefits. Imagining the experience from the standpoint of the citizen and employing tactics from the private sector, such as automation and analytics can help.

Automation can help deliver real-time, relevant information with every interaction by engaging citizens in channels they prefer like self-service, chat, and social media. Appointment self-scheduling and automated meeting reminders deliver convenience and increased quality of service to the citizen. Other experiences like online check-in or front-of-line service can reduce citizen frustration and negative public opinion.

Better Engagement Drives Organizational Value

An engagement solution like SUMO helps connect functional and channel-based silos that can create roadblocks in the citizen journey. Appointment automation removes the manual burden of staff checking calendars, phone tag and other agency resources being wasted on no-shows. Online check-in and front-of-line service increase speed of service.

Data is another resource that can improve the customer experience. Government staff does not always have a full picture of the citizen or the various services and departments they have already interacted with when they encounter them. The challenge of serving citizens effectively lies in determining who the individual is and what is it that they need. Attaching important citizen data with a scheduled meeting can reduce friction, provide immediate access to a citizen’s history and help staff better understand their needs.

Many agencies using Salesforce can better utilize the data stored in the CRM platform in this manner. By being able to send out appointment information directly from a case, all citizen information is centralized, reducing the need for staff to cross-reference other sources and can deliver service quickly and effectively.

Siloed data obstructs the view of the citizen journey. Collecting and using data from these channels – service type and time spent with the citizen can help managers make informed decisions to improve service efforts. They can spend less time searching for related information to a citizen’s case and spend more time serving.

Customer Engagement Connects the Dots

Agency leaders are beginning to recognize the connection between employee and customer experience. An engagement solution can directly trigger benefits for both the agency and its citizens. A Salesforce-native engagement solution like SUMO can help government agencies at every level transform their existing processes into individualized citizen experiences across many touchpoints. Good citizen engagement is good customer engagement and it drives success internally and externally. SUMO’s platform enables agencies to speed appointments and better meet citizen needs and behaviors.

Branch Appointment Scheduling is Vital Now More than Ever

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

Customer engagement and appointment scheduling apps now help to keep customer service running smoothly as branches adjust to meet changing consumer demands. The apps show their ability to offer more personalization, while adapting to consumers safety needs.

No one could have predicted how retail banking could be turned upside down in just a matter of a few weeks. The entire country started to practice social isolation to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus, followed by strict stay-at -home rules implemented by several states and cities in close succession.

Of course, the need for financial transactions continues as consumers pivot to working from the safety of their homes.

Banks, financial services organizations, and credit unions are rapidly adapting to consumer needs to tackle the unexpected crisis and to keep their retail operations stable and growing. Financial institutions of all sizes have cut walk-in visits, and are relying on teller and private appointments only.

New Protocol is to Limit In-Person Visits & Offer Virtual Options

Converting from a walk-in model to “by appointment-only” is essential to guard consumers’ safety, while servicing their needs.

The “by appointment only” model has a number of advantages for financial institutions. One example is to use SUMO Scheduler’s Analytics Builder to monitor the volume and service type of branch traffic. With this understanding, you are able to guarantee that staffing levels and skill training match consumer demand on a branch-by-branch basis. In a fast changing environment, this is particularly critical to monitor, in order to adjust week to week. Furthermore, financial institutions are limiting the number of consumers onsite to comply with social distancing requirements and staffing accordingly.

Another option that is in high demand, is offering virtual options. In the past few months, we’ve seen our financial institution customers more than double their “Virtual Consultations” using SUMO Scheduler’s Online Scheduler, by offering appointment scheduling for video or phone conference calls via their website and mobile apps. The Online Scheduler automatically matches the customer with the right banker, at the right location, at the right time, and auto-adds the video or phone conference details.

“SUMO Scheduler’s online scheduler has proven pivotal in helping keep our customers happy and operations running smoothly. Configuring the online scheduler to limit in-person appointments with buffers and turn on Virtual Appointments was simple and enabled us to adapt quickly. Honestly, I can’t even imagine how we would be surviving right now without SUMO’s appointment automation.” states a VP of a large U.S. Bank.

Purchasing & Engagement Data is Root of Personalization

Financial institutions benefit from understanding the historical needs of their customers. Why did the consumer schedule this appointment, what were their previous needs, we’re they met or are they still outstanding? Data gathered from SUMO Scheduler, gives bankers the capability to offer more personalized experiences, necessary to deliver and keep customers happy.

Anticipating consumer needs and matchmaking them with the right specialist, at the right location, at the right time vastly helps to efficiently deliver fast personalized solutions. This is also important to ensure regulatory compliance is met for more complicated banking products, such as mortgages and loans.

Having the capability to aggregate appointment data and identity trends at the brand, regional, or national level is critical in staffing consumer needs as they evolve through this coronavirus pandemic.

The Future After the Pandemic

It’s uncertain when or if the world will return to “normal”. Leading experts believe that when the current challenges of the pandemic are behind us, a new normal will emerge of how consumers engage financial institutions and retail.

For the past several years, there’s no denying the growing trend to engage customers in more personalized and meaningful ways both online and in person. It’s believed this priority will continue to grow in order to continue to attract and retain customers post-COVID-19.

Deloitte’s 2019 Banking Industry Outlook report confirms the trend to digital will continue, stating: “The importance of the branch in attracting and retaining customers, contrary to conventional wisdom, should remain…branches will continue to have value, especially with greater digital enablement”. Deloitte goes on to state how customers are likely to increase use if they offered more virtual services:

  • Extended service hours through virtual remote services with a representative 36%
  • Ability to schedule a personal appointment for a virtual video meeting with a representative 31%

Regarding future customer engagement models, it’s clear brand loyalty is being driven by consumers’ expectation of both personalization through matchmaking with specialists and flexibility to choose Virtual or limited In-Person meetings, all of which SUMO Scheduler excels at.

Best Buy Plans to Reopen Some Stores by Appointment Only

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

With SUMO Scheduler’s “Curbside Pickup” and “Schedule Private Consultation” features, retailers are quickly adapting to meet consumers safety needs.

Starting in May, Best Buy plans to gradually reopen its stores to customers with appointments, CNBC reported. Shoppers will be able to schedule a time to meet with a sales associate to discuss a potential purchase of an appliance, talk through technology needs, and more. Best Buy, which has 1,000 U.S. stores, will begin by offering this service in about 200 locations. Consumers will be able to make an appointment online, by phone or through Best Buy’s app, and prior to the appointment an employee will call the customer to explain how the consultation will work. Once in-store, a specific employee will shop with each customer while remaining socially distanced, and if the customer requests to try a product, it will be wiped down before and after use. The customer will be escorted to the register and out of the store by the employee, CNBC reported.

Best Buy will also be resuming in-home delivery, installation and repairs in early May, but with new safety precautions. The retailer’s employees will be required to wear masks and gloves provided by the company, and will need to do a health check before working their shift via an app developed by Best Buy. During the COIVD-19 pandemic, Best Buy temporarily shut its stores, suspended all in-home services and shifted to a curbside pickup model. Best Buy also furloughed about 51,00 employees earlier this month, CNBC reported.

Total Retail’s Take: Best Buy is one of the first retailers to release a reopening plan since the COVID-19 pandemic began, and not many have shared what the shopping experience will look like post-coronavirus. This announcement shows that the consumer electronics retailer is prioritizing getting its stores open and some of its employees back to work. The consultation aspect of the stores reopening may even boost in-store sales for the retailer. It will be interesting to see how consumers respond to Best Buy’s reopening plan, and how other retailers’ reopening plans compare as they start sharing them with the public. Best Buy’s reopening will be closely monitored by other retailers eager to see what works — and what doesn’t — as they look to bring their own physical stores back into the fold.

Post contributed by Total Retail

SUMO Scheduler offers $10m COVID-19 Software Care Package

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

SUMO Scheduler Offers $10m COVID-19 Software Care Package to Enable Remote Workers

UPDATE: May 1, 2020 — Due to strong demand, the SUMO Scheduler COVID-19 Software Care Package deadline has been extended until May 31st, 2020.

ATLANTA (April 1, 2020) — SUMO Scheduler pledges to donate up to $10M of software to organizations impacted by COVID-19. The Care Package is immediately available and includes one year of software to qualified organizations at up to 80% OFF regular pricing. This $10M will be realized through deeply discounted software coupled with rapid implementation services and is available to organizations who sign an annual contract before April 30th, 2020.

“We recognize the current economic climate is challenging for many organizations. We’re grateful for our unique position to have software that enables remote workers and drives revenue in this time of need. My implementation and support teams are currently working overtime to help impacted companies transition to a remote workforce by automating virtual meetings, video conferences, and phone consultations.” – Shazia Khan, VP of Customer Success

SUMO offers a host of cloud software solutions that automate appointments for in-person and virtual meetings. Demand for SUMO Scheduler has surged amid the Coronavirus outbreak, due to the emerging trend of “social distancing” and the need for organizations to transform to a more remote workforce model. The software is proven to increase appointment volume, employee utilization, and drive revenue.

SUMO is currently helping:

  • Sales & supports teams automate the scheduling of remote video conferences from home.
  • Healthcare clients transition to telemedicine phone consultations.
  • Financial services clients automate phone consultations.
  • Call centers smart-route phone consultation requests to the right field rep.
  • Retail clients automate “Talk to an Expert” buttons on their website and social media profiles.
  • Government agencies to transition to phone consultations.
  • Interpreters to automate scheduling of video conferencing.
  • And more…


SUMO’s CEO, Jason North, explains “For years our software has been adding up to 4X more appointments to our customers calendars, including remote appointments. This capability is in even greater demand due to COVID-19, since it has a reputation to help enable remote workers and drive greater appointment volume, necessary to stabilize and grow revenue. I’m happy to announce our $10m COVID-19 Care Package to help. If your organization is impacted by COVID-19, I encourage you to apply today.” – Jason North, CEO

CLICK THIS LINK TO APPLY TO SUMO SCHEDULER’S COVID-19 CARE PACKAGE.

Demand for SUMO Scheduler Surges Amid the Coronavirus Outbreak

Posted on by Olga Kamylevich

ATLANTA (March 11, 2020) — Appointment Scheduling software company, SUMO Scheduler, is seeing a huge spike in demand in 2020, amid corporate concerns about the spread of coronavirus. Similarly, demand for video conferencing and collaboration tools from Microsoft, Google, and Zoom is skyrocketing and expected to increase more as the number of cases rise.

The increase in customer demand demonstrates one organization flourishing while others are seeing a downturn on account of the worldwide outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Recently, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authorities proposed that, given the opportunity of the coronavirus being announced a pandemic in the nation, individuals working for organizations can use tools like SUMO Scheduler to book virtual meetings over voice or video conferences as opposed to meeting face to face.

In February so far, 77 public company transcripts mention “work from home” or “working from home,” according to financial data platform Sentieo. That’s up from only four mentions of the phrase around the same time a year ago. The vast majority of those documents also mention coronavirus.

SUMO Scheduler’s 10-year partner, Salesforce.com even announced this week, “Along with our employees in Washington State, we are strongly encouraging all employees across California to work remotely for the month of March.” Further, Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang told investors on a recent earnings call, “the crisis is a very, very big challenge to the society,” but it also gives people a “chance to try a new way of living and new way of work.”

SUMO CEO, Jason North states, “It’s critical to our customers’ success that they are able to keep utilization up as workers transition to work-from-home and this is exactly the strength of our software. Our appointment scheduling automation software adds up to 75% more appointments to our users calendars and does a fantastic job facilitating remote meetings.”

SUMO’s VP of Product Architecture, Nick Zenko adds, “As a heavily customer-focused organization, SUMO Scheduler is even taking it a step further to work closely with key customers and ensure additional priority is put on any product enhancements that may further support remote workers.”

SUMO is currently running promotions to help prospective customers during these uncertain times and encourages interested organizations to contact us to use SUMO to schedule a virtual meeting with our product experts and learn more”.