Webinar series: stay connected and engaged with customers

Social distancing has forced us all to rethink the way we engage with customers. At every customer touchpoint—from marketing to sales, service and support to finance and distribution channels—companies should use the opportunity to reinvigorate relationships by delivering personal and empathetic communications. COVID-19 has put pressure on companies to start taking advantage of technology to decrease complications. The silver lining of our current challenges is that leveraging insights from your newly-optimized digital customer experiences can lead to significantly improved customer service over the long-term.

As part of Microsoft Business Applications’ commitment to supporting your company through this tumultuous time, we’ve developed a three multi-part webinar series to help you make sense of the changing customer state and show you how to best utilize technology that can optimize customer experience in the present and well into the future. Explore each webinar series below, and be sure to stay tuned to our blog for more expert advice on how to stay connected to customers in a changing world.

Keep consumers connected with your business

Every organization needs to adapt and adjust its operations to the current business landscape. In this three-part webinar series, we share tips to maintain business continuity and build ongoing, high-quality customer engagement for long-term success. All three episodes are available on demand now.

Episode 1: Earn Customer Trust Through Personalized, Timely Outreach

According to data from Episolon, 80 percent of customers are more likely to purchase a product or service from a brand who provides personalized experiences. But how exactly does personalized CX look and work? For this first episode, we’ll answer that question by sharing how to personalize customer experiences with multichannel campaigns and use data-driven insights to drive revenue.

Episode 2: Deliver Seamless Customer Experiences

AI will enable business to obtain or sustain a competitive advantage, and that couldn’t be more true than during this global pandemic. In this episode, we’ll explore how to take action based on AI-driven recommendations, create virtual interactions that mirror in-person experiences, optimize delivery, and remove purchasing barriers with end-to-end data solutions.

Episode 3: Identify and Prioritize Customer Needs at Scale   

Customer experience is as much about renewals and retention as it is about engagement. In this episode, discover how to use intelligent insights to respond quickly to customer feedback, deliver personalized support with every customer interaction, and improve customer loyalty.

Watch the three-part series.

How to foster customer relationships at a critical time

Customer experience is about more than getting them what they need in one instance, it’s about fostering a supportive relationship with them for the long haul. During COVID, it’s absolutely vital to prevent any potential disruption for your customers, to maintain the quality of your products or services, and to continue building strong customer relationships.

With that in mind, we’ve created this webinar series to help your organization respond to changes in real time and achieve long-term customer experience success. All three episodes are available on demand now.

Episode 1: Understand and Engage Customers in Uncertain Times 

In this episode, learn how to better understand and serve your customers, send timely communications, and use digital tools to make working together and hosting virtual events amid social distancing protocol easy, engaging, and effective. This episode also includes tips on leveraging insights in order to gain a 360-degree view of your customer and helping customers with digital tools to better support collaboration and event planning. Lou Pelosi, Vice President of Business Development & Partnerships from ON24 joins us for perspective and sharing tips.

Episode 2: Lead Your Sales Team Through a Crisis Today and in the Future  

Leading a sales team during a crisis is not necessarily about doing more, but about doing things differently. In this episode, we’ll show you what exactly leading “differently” can look like. This episode conveys leadership through the four phases of a crisis, challenges business leaders to empower sellers with actionable insights. Gartner guest speaker, Alastair Woolcock, Senior Analyst Director, shares ideas on how to transform training and operations to complement these management innovations.

Episode 3: Adapt to Customer Needs to Earn Loyalty and Trust  

At its basic level, an AI-powered virtual agent can almost everything that a live agent can do—and during COVID, using conversational AI virtual agents to automate the routine and repetitive call types handled by live agents can take your business from surviving to thriving. In this episode, hear from Microsoft and Ed Grant, Chief Financial Officer, Solgari as we share how you, too, can meet surging demand with virtual agents, respond to customer feedback and deliver remote support, and use personalized communications to increase customer loyalty.

Watch the three-part series.

Adapt to a rapidly changing environment

As Charles Darwin once said, “It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.“ Therefore, the ability to adapt quickly in today’s uncertain environment—particularly when it comes to changing and strengthening engagement with employees and customers—is absolutely critical to your business success.

In this three-episode culture webinar series I hosted with Microsoft leaders Chris Weber, David Carmona, and Mala Anand, they shared firsthand experience for driving change management with positive results.

Episode 1: Remote Selling Accelerated

Businesses are quickly adapting during COVID-19, including moving to a videoconferencing, phone, or web sales model, which can lead to equally effective sales models used before COVID-19. If you’ve transitioned over and need support or want to transition to a web sales model—this video will teach you how to put your customers’ needs first with collaborative sales techniques, how to leverage collaboration and communication technologies to tackle remote selling challenges, and how to foster a safe and secure environment for your sales team to boost morale and productivity.

Episode 2: AI in the New Normal

AI capabilities help when quick insights and predictive decision-making are needed in a rapidly changing environment. In this episode, learn how your team can integrate AI to gather quick insights, bolster real-time responses around-the-clock, and assist in predictive decision-making to increase efficiencies and generate new revenue.

Episode 3: Why Agility and Care Are Critical to Great Customer Experiences

Virtual interaction poses a challenge for the service industry to create real human connection. Learn how to foster responsive and empathetic customer service experiences through transitioning and managing your remote work force with empathy, and creating a positive, morale-boosting remote company culture to inspire agents.

Watch the three-part series.