The way companies do business must change

Covid-19 has caused significant disruptions around the world. Global commerce has almost ground to a halt. Corporations are in uncharted territory, slashing capacity overnight as employees are unable to physically report to work under new measures to enforce social distancing.

Workplaces have been thrown into a tailspin. As a matter of fact, no one knows when these measures will come to an end. How should corporate leaders act in the face of such an unprecedented crisis? The struggle to save the economy and businesses is unlikely to have quick wins in the short term. Companies that have a risk-based approach will quickly transition their organisations to thrive in the new normal - Working from home or teleworking.

In fact, social distancing is likely to be the new normal at the workplace after this crisis. In this regard, a readiness assessment is a good place to start. Yet working from home need not be a strange experience.  In fact, many companies have transitioned to an environment where their employees can work from home for an extended period, making telecommuting likely to replace physical commuting.

The goal of all successful companies is to find, win and keep their customers in order to generate revenue. In times of disruptions where employees are forced to work offline, it is imperative to ensure seamless operations. One way is to adopt a Customer Relationship Management system (CRM); a system that provides a central place where the business can store all customer data (quotations, invoices, addresses, orders, customer queries, emails, sms, phone calls etc) accessible and actionable across the company. It is designed to help companies improve their customer relationships, track every customer interaction and provide actionable insight that can transform the business.

With a cloud and mobile ready CRM, employees and management can work and collaborate from any location using any device, including their mobiles. In this regard, it is essential that the decision, if adopted, takes a unified companywide approach and the organisation has to identify which part of the business can telework as part of a business continuity plan. To bring the point home, let’s say you are a regional sales manager. You are tasked with sales, service and back office teams that are now required to work remotely. With forced lockdowns, visiting the office is prohibited except for staff on essential duties. However, with a CRM system in place, your sales teams will input their day’s activities directly on their mobile phone's CRM application as they directly head out to visit customers and also automatically generate accurate quotations.

At the same time, your back office team need not wait for the forms to be returned for processing because the system is now automatically paperless. The CRM can be integrated with your financial system allowing both the sales and back office to work seamlessly, giving the sales manager real time birds-eye view of the business.

Customers on the other hand need not physically meet your team as they can sign order forms electronically. They can also log into the CRM customer portal to upload any required documentation, consent to any contracts, setup service requests, file a complaint and request for service.

In other words, the CRM system ensures that they are served with the same level of service. By ensuring all customer issues are tracked, reported and resolved within the stipulated trackable service level agreement (SLAs) ensures customers are happy and engaged.

It is also important to note that the customer service team can work remotely as the CRM provides a 360 degree view of the customer in one location. All data and files pertaining to a customer will be accessible to everyone on their laptops or mobile phones ensuring that the service team is able to respond to any customer queries.

Customer interaction

As companies work remotely, collaboration is key to ensuring continuity. The CRM platform allows all employees to communicate and collaborate on the same record. Equally important, directors will be able to monitor company performance through real time reports and dashboards across all departments. Every customer interaction will be easily tracked and reported on the CRM. As well, each phone call, email, meeting, quotation, customer query logged can be tracked. In addition, management can remotely monitor sales performance, customer satisfaction and employee engagement for all business workflows across the company.

The most important lesson we can learn from this crisis is that it will provide an opportunity to reassess how we do business, perhaps for the better. There is always a silver lining in every crisis.

Mr Sadalla is the CEO of Blue Consulting. [email protected]