Manufacturers Have a Lot to Lose: It’s Integrate or Perish in Today’s World of High Customer Expectations

Realize the business benefits of modern B2B customer operations with easy, pre-built integration solutions 

Key Takeaways:

• 96% of people will shift to a competitor if they have a poor customer service experience with your company
• In the manufacturing sector, 59% of customers who have several bad experiences will leave, 17% will leave after just one bad experience
• Without integration, disconnected legacy systems can’t deliver a competitive customer experience
• Agents need a 360-degree view of the customer and accurate, real-time information to reduce call times and provide higher first-call resolution
• Stellar customer service has a great payoff:
  • 84% of enterprises that improve the customer experience increase in revenue
  • 73% of businesses that provide great customer service have a better financial performance than competitors
  • Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable

It’s all about the customer experience these days as companies jostle for market dominance or just simply to survive. The rise of mobile devices, which allow contact any time from anywhere, has lowered the tolerance for bad customer service among both consumers and business buyers.

Just about everyone (an astounding 96%) will move on to a competitor after a poor customer service experience. That is an aggregate total; for manufacturers, a below-par encounter means 59% leave after several bad contacts and 17% will leave after just one. Those numbers can decimate your revenue base if customer-facing systems and employees don’t have access to the information they need to provide modern customer operations.

Challenges abound when it comes to offering the best in customer care, but outdated technology that doesn’t give your CS agents what they need should not be one of them. Today’s pre-built, integrated solutions offer the opportunity to get your agents the information they require to retain customers, impress new ones, and boost company profits, without the risks of old-school middleware solutions. Oh, and in 80% less time. Let’s take a look.

Your legacy systems could put you out of business

Your company has Salesforce, a great, user-friendly CRM. You also have your SAP ERP, which has tons of customer data, including custom pricing, order details, and every other piece of critical configuration and business logic.

This means that when a customer calls for information about their order, the agent has to toggle to SAP to get the information, if they have access to it (and we all know SAP seats aren’t cheap), or they may have to contact another internal team to get what they need. Then there’s that nagging worry about the data in Salesforce. Does it match what’s in SAP?

Without integrating the two systems, vital real-time data in SAP is not available in Salesforce. If something – pricing, inventory levels, shipping delays, etc. – is updated in SAP and the agent is relying on Salesforce, and they don’t have real-time integration between them, then you have a customer operations problem.

It’s a frightening and quite costly scenario. Is the information your agent is giving to the customer accurate? Then there’s the fact that the customer may have been hanging on the phone for quite a while. They are likely to become frustrated if that time is wasted, and not only will they not buy from you again, but they will also spread the word that you are difficult to buy from.

You need an integrated solution that can be implemented quickly and easily that will not only bolster customer service operations but give you tangible business benefits.

A pre-built integration solution offers substantial business benefits – fast

The enosix SAP customer service solution supports a better overall customer experience. You want your call center agents to stay in Salesforce instead of wasting valuable time and testing your customer’s patience having to flip between systems or wait for an answer from another department. With real-time integration, they can keep Salesforce as their primary work screen and get the 360-degree view they need to answer inquiries fast.

Statistics don’t lie: Timely, accurate data is needed for every part of your business. But if you want your company to survive and thrive, delivering stellar customer care powered by the most efficient integration solution should be at the top of your digital transformation list.

5 Reasons real-time Salesforce-SAP integration must be a priority for modern customer operations

1. Real-time visibility

Opacity is never good in customer service. What’s in Salesforce and what’s in SAP may not agree. With real-time integration, every time data is updated in SAP, it’s visible in the front-end Salesforce interface. Customers get the information they need when they need it, and employee frustration is reduced as well. This leads to more frequent first-call resolution, which means agents have time to service more customers.

2. Avoid costly errors

Manual data entry and attempts to replicate information in different systems will always result in errors. It also takes hours, persistence, and patience to figure out which system has the right information if there’s a discrepancy in the data between the two systems.

An enosix SAP-Salesforce integration means both systems have the same data – updated in real-time. That includes order history and status, past invoices, delivery information, and any corresponding line-item details that can make all the difference in your customer operations.

3. Boost customer retention

Bringing in new customers is great, but without integration, you’re not really ready for new customers, are you? You should first worry about the customers you currently have. Can you afford to lose even that 17% of customers who will leave because your customer service experience is awful?

You might have the best sales reps in the business, but if your salespeople or customer service agents don’t have the 360-degree view they need to meet the high expectations of today’s B2B buyers, and even channel partners, where does that leave you? The customer experience has to be accurate and accelerated, or you’re just inviting them to leave you for a competitor who can give them the experience they want.

4. Attract new customers

That same word-of-mouth that can crater your business can also boost it. After all, 72% of customers will share their good experience with others and tell six or more people about it. The payoff will not be immediate, but impressing your current customers with awesome customer service will lead to recommendation after recommendation in the long run.

5. Stellar customer service increases profitability

Bad customer service can cost you business, as the statistics prove, but great customer service can make a big difference in profitability:

• 84% of enterprises that improve the customer experience say they had an increase in revenue.
• 73% of businesses that provide great customer services financially outperform their competitors.
• Companies that are customer-centric are 60% more profitable.
• When it comes to customer service and retention, a 2% increase has the same effect on profits as 10% of cost-cutting.

In addition, companies that provide wonderful customer service also find they have 1.5 times more engaged employees and a 20% increase in employee engagement. Companies with engaged employees outperform their competition by 147%.

Additionally, integration supports those ubiquitous mobile devices, the ability to deliver self-service options and live chat, the ability to communicate over every available channel, lightning-fast and accurate quotes, and it creates a customer-focused business culture that works as a revenue driver.

Provide the best customer experiences with enosix

Speed is of the essence. You can’t afford to wait while your competitors scoop up your valuable business because your customer service is substandard. It’s time to leave the bush leagues and become a real market force.

With our innovative, pre-built solutions that enable real-time transaction execution and access to your SAP ERP data in Salesforce, you’ll be moving with the speed of business today and in the future. And we’ll get you there in 80% less time than any competing approach – weeks instead of many months.

Reach out to our team for a demo today. There’s really no more time (or money) to waste.