Become a Business Your Customers Can Trust

Marc Benioff opened this year’s Dreamforce with a talk entitled “Welcome to the Trusted Enterprise”, in which he explored how and why every business today needs to transform to become one that their customers can truly trust.  

This has always been a crucial element of retaining customer loyalty, but it has become increasingly difficult as businesses have had to transition to an entirely new way of working. More business than ever is being conducted online – meaning more often than not, there is a technology barrier between customers and customer service agents. While technology is now key in helping agents to provide a good service, we can’t forget the crucial nature of having a real person at the other end of the line – one that is empathetic and can provide a great customer experience by putting the human touch at the heart of any interaction. 

That’s why, in addition to thinking about investing in new customer experience technology, such as a cloud telephony platform, businesses need to place huge emphasis on hiring the right people in 2022. 

With a record number of vacancies currently open in the UK, this is proving more difficult than ever, as businesses are fighting tooth and nail for the best talent. It’s therefore crucial that organizations think about some alternative routes they can use for hiring the people and skills they need – instead of just focusing on those candidates with university degrees. 

This means looking for the right qualities, not qualifications. Knowledge can be taught, but skills like empathy, problem-solving and patience are much harder and more time consuming to develop and are therefore harder to teach. These are the qualities business leaders should be on the lookout for continuously. 

I once got talking to a young person behind the till in a petrol station. She demonstrated great, personable characteristics and I just knew she had potential to be a great candidate for a role I was currently hiring for, so I gave her the opportunity even though she didn’t have the usual qualifications for the job. She soon became one of our highest performing sales agents – leveraging her people skills while learning the specifics of the role on the job. 

These are the kinds of people we need to help form bonds with our customers and build their trust, and these are the kinds of people that companies should be on the hunt for. So, why don’t you be the first to stop battling for the same university graduate talent that everyone else is fighting for and look in some places you normally wouldn’t? It might just be the key to helping you build a trusted enterprise that can withstand the test of time, and pandemics.