Microsoft released the first version of its Office suite in 1989, the 486 processor was driving new computers, and The Berlin Wall came down. The Internet was still a dream that was two years away and the idea of a connected business was total fantasy.
Forty years on, we have remote working, interconnected UK data centres, and ultra-fast broadband in cities and towns throughout the country. Business needs today are more complex than forty years ago, when all you looked for was a phone line and a fax number.
Forty years ago, none of these five essentials would have appeared in the index of a business reference book: Today, they drive business success.
1. Superb Quality Customer Relations
Customer expectations have skyrocketed. ‘Take it or leave it’ is a dead concept, and one that would not serve any service provider well in 2019.
Customer relations management (CRM) software is a necessary investment for any modern business. A CRM app is the best way for a team of employees to keep track of a customer’s buying journey through the labyrinth of possible touchpoints.
The graphic below from McKinsey.com shows how little direct influence a company has over a customer’s buying journey. No one piece of software can ever give you control over the entire customer decision-making processes.
Customer relations policy has many subtle influences on customers’ buying decisions, so the are a must be a priority for every business. Everyone in your operation must understand and love your target customers, and they must communicate these feelings in every email, phone call and SMS message they send.
2. Leased Line
You cannot run a connected business using a domestic-quality internet connection, even if it is optical fibre broadband.
A connected business, no matter what the size, needs asynchronous, high capacity and ultra-low latency leased line internet connection. Having your own leased line means it is all yours. Choose.co.uk says that a typical domestic broadband connection has a contention ratio of fifty. That means that fifty homes all connect via the line you think of as your own, 49 families, each with multiple devices all hogging ‘your’ internet connection to do unimportant stuff like stream TV and connect to social media sites.
High contention ratios are the reason your internet connection becomes unusable on a Friday evening and when school students get home at about 4pm. Nobody can run a business that depends on its internet connection that is shared by fifty premises: You must have your own leased line that is exclusively yours.
The cost of a leased line is higher than a standard business broadband connection because you get so much more. The higher monthly charges are just part of the cost of being a connected business.
Leased lines have other desirable features that help justify your investment:
- Synchronous (Upload and download speeds are the same)
- Ultra-low latency (Near-instant response times)
- Improved reliability and service level agreement (SLA)
- A second (shared) connection as a backup
3. Reliable and Fast Hosting
A slow website tells every visitor that you have opted for cheap, slow, and unreliable web hosting. Visitors can see that you prioritise saving a few pounds a month, even if it means website users suffer and have to wait longer for pages to open. Webpages that are slow to open are also penalised in search engines, further damaging your business.
You need to pay a bit more for fast and reliable hosting, and finding it can be tricky unless you use a hosting comparison site with thousands of user reviews. However, it’s like putting a GTi badge on the back of your car instead of a 20 MPH speed restriction warning sign.
4. Personality
Even in the B2b world, people buy from people they feel they know, like and trust. Your personality is your secret weapon against all your imitators who can only offer an inferior service or by undercutting your prices.
5. Social Media Management
Customers expect to find you on their favourite social channels, so you have to be there for them. Being there for them can take every minute in your day, and there are ways to use your time more efficiently.
You need to:
- Delegate social media to an employee
- Use scheduling apps
- Monitor mentions of your brand on social channels
Delegation – Give one person overall responsibility for all social content, and assign others to help with the workload when necessary. Social media channels are too important to your customers to de-prioritise them totally, even though that might be your first instinct given the vague role they play in buying decisions.
Scheduling – Use apps such as Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule posts in advance, so they go out when customers are likely to read them rather than when it is most convenient to post.
Monitoring – Social channels can work for or against your best interests. You must know what people are saying about you so you can choose to join the conversation if appropriate. Social Mention is one tool that monitors all social channels for your brand or keywords
Overview
Your technical requirements as a connected company are paramount in your long-term planning; a top-of-the-line connection, hosting that is up to the job, and policies, including PR, CRM and social media engagement that will all drive your sales.
Customers have higher expectations every year. Investing to meet and exceed these expectations cannot be optional if you intend to be around for the future.