It’s a fact: poor communication holds businesses back.
How productively your business runs, relies on how well your teams can communicate and collaborate by collecting and using data. Sounds simple, right?
If your business loses focus on seamless communication; it’s not only performance which could plummet, but customer experience too.
52% of businesses rank increasing collaboration amongst teams as a priority.
Does yours?
We conducted a survey, of over 200 telecoms and CRM decision makers from across the UK and the US.
We put all our findings into an eGuide, especially for you! It’s aptly titled ‘Why poor communication is holding your business back…and how to fix it’ and it’s available now, for free. We’re nice like that.
You can take a look at some of our insights below:
Working in ‘The Cloud’
Businesses were looking to increase their use of Cloud Communication before the move to remote working, but obviously the events of the last year or two have amplified this.
In fact, half of organisations increased the use of cloud communication solutions to cope with the changes brought by Covid-19.
CloudCall CEO, Simon Cleaver, saw this growth first-hand: “During Summer last year, we started to see an increasing number of new customers asking for our services, in comparison to so many businesses we’ve been incredibly fortunate.”
This growth came from businesses wanting to stay better connected. They wanted to ensure colleagues can easily contact each other and share their data easily, in a remote environment.
Businesses, maybe ones like yours, have the solutions they need to communicate data between teams, but that doesn’t mean that they’re communicating effectively.
68% of businesses are not capturing or sharing the live data they have on customer needs, to inform their business decisions.
Despite nearly three quarters of businesses saying they are a more collaborative business than they were two years ago, over half are still struggling with how they should approach collaboration to fix their poor communication and improve their business.
It’s clear that there is a gap in the results businesses want to see from their communications and the results they are getting.
Using a solution that doesn’t meet the unique needs of your business, could actually be a hindrance, rather than a help.
It’s vital for businesses to find a system that is right for them and one that provides useful data insights into their communications.
The power of data
With knowledge comes power, and the same can be said for data insights!
81% of businesses agree that data and insights are critical to understanding how to improve customer experiences.
Data is crucial to helping you achieve your goals as an organisation – but the stress of traditional methods of collecting, storing, and analysing it can make businesses reluctant to do so.
Without data insights, it’s difficult for a business to assess or understand what needs to change in order to improve. Without clear facts and figures, it’s near impossible to pinpoint what’s currently holding your business back or what’s working well.
At this year’s UK Recruiter’s Recruitment Technology Showcase, we hosted two webinars. We were joined by our partner Ian Moyse, Chief Revenue Officer at OneUp Sales. He said:
“It’s not the data, it’s the insight it gives.”
“Data is the necessary evil to get the insight. You hear of these mega corporations collecting data, but it’s not the data they want, it’s what they can do with accurate data, what insights you gain and how it can influence your business decisions.”
The solution
So, what’s a business to do, ey? A good choice would be to implement a quality CRM integration, which turns your conversations into insights. The results? Business growth in a complex world.
Here’s a couple of figures our research found:
- 8 in 10 businesses agree that data about your company is critical in understanding how to improve customer experience.
- However, almost 7 in 10 aren’t capturing or sharing their live data to help inform business decisions.
- Only 46% of businesses are inviting their customers to share ideas on how to improve as a business.
And not to toot our own horn, but totally tooting our own horn; our customers say we’re pretty good at capturing data for them.
Leighton Grant, IT/IS Manager at Oakleaf Partnership Limited said: “CloudCall has enabled us to capture the vital information we need from our calls, and they do it efficiently. We had to get smarter, more intelligent with the way our telephony system integrated with our CRM.”
Stronger business performance, stronger success
You may think that when a business collaborates well internally, that the business performance would reflect that, right? Correct.
56% of companies agree that having their telecoms and CRM in a single system would improve their business performance.
Collaborative organizations can:
- Outperform competition
- Function more efficiently
- Ensure team members stay better aligned
In our research, we found one key factor which sets aside the success stories from the strugglers: integration.
52% of high performing businesses had strong integration between their CRM systems and communications platforms, compared to just 39% on average.
It’s a pretty big deal when almost six in ten businesses lack a high degree of integration and 11% barely have any at all.
A few benefits of having an integration:
- Boosts efficiency and functionality
- Helps keep teams aligned to wider company strategies
- Provides massive amounts of all-important data insight
When CRM systems and communications platforms operate in silo, you miss out on crucial information and data about the way your business operates, and whether your strategies are effective.
Having the ability to regularly check the performance of your business and your teams is key, and with a well-integrated system, you’ll be able to view an instant, live snapshot of how your business is performing.
Which might be why 46% of businesses without a highly integrated CRM system plan to do further integration in the future.
After all, if calls and communications can be captured directly into your CRM rather than inputting it all manually, you can free up valuable time and energy to focus on the tasks that are of most value to your business.
Time for change
Talking at our Purple Panel event in June, Charlie Voller Barnes, Project Manager at Northstar Innovation Group said: “It’s a great time right now for businesses to be looking at tech. Things are changing, we’re all analysing our businesses and where we want to get to. It’s a good time for change.”
When 3 in 4 companies have increased their use of communication tools in the past 24 months, it means something is changing.
Right now, agility is key and having quality communications between your teams is essential. Our eGuide is here to help you detangle your crossed wires.
Our eGuide will explain:
- The importance of communicating effectively
- How your systems can affect your customer service
- Why you should be paying attention to your data
- How using your data effectively will help you to save time and money
Don’t let poor communication hold your business back in 2021. Download our eGuide ‘Why poor communication is holding your business back…and how to fix it’ to find out more.
