As competition becomes the norm in many digital and application spaces, the consumer’s interaction with a company becomes increasingly important. Customer experience is essential to a company’s ability to retain customers and grow its customer base through organic referrals.
According to data, approximately 37% of Filipino digital service consumers are new and 95% intend to continue using at least one digital service post-pandemic. As e-commerce emerges, entrepreneurs and consumers must continuously adapt and learn how to utilise digital platforms and technology to their maximum advantage.
“Businesses may have already put their foot down digitally; the next question is – how will they retain and adapt to the ever-evolving environment?” says the Head of Strategy and Partnerships of a Philippine start-up platform that supports local entrepreneurs. “Our dependency on technology has tremendously increased during the pandemic, and we will continuously rely on it even after the pandemic. It now plays a vital role for individuals and for businesses; we need it to adapt and innovate.”
In line with its efforts to support start-ups with business-to-business (B2B) models, the Philippine start-up platform in collaboration with a foundation and with the support of a tech giant’s philanthropic arm launched an incubation programme aimed at assisting start-ups that enable businesses in the Philippines to grow and digitise.
Following a successful screening, the platform company announced the top three incubates in the Philippines who then received intensive training from the platform and its programme partners. More than a dozen industry experts took the time to mentor the start-ups one-on-one and host exclusive workshops on mega-branding, product marketing, channel management, brand philosophy and essence, futureproofing, and professional sales 101. The start-up founders share their insights on how businesses can improve their digital platforms and use technology to boost and scale up one’s business:
Consolidate business processes for efficiency
One Philippine start-up that provides digital solutions ranging from simple sales monitoring to more complex challenges such as dispatch and logistics has assisted over 1,200 superstores and 70,000 sari-sari stores in digitising their businesses and consolidating their processes.
“The power of our platform is in providing visibility for the entire business. We leverage the power of data through topline summaries and dashboards so that the owner can be away from the store and make running businesses a liberating experience,” stated the CEO of the start-up.
Expand customer reach via mini-applications
Another company that provides a programme for businesses to have an end-to-end platform within a social media messaging platform and its e-wallet recognises the significance of assisting small businesses in going digital. The CEO of the company mentioned that that they recognised that many small businesses have limited knowledge and resources to go digital, so they determined their needs and unique value proposition fit together. They are also the most vulnerable sector, in need of guidance on how to go online as soon as possible at the lowest possible cost.
Customers will have fewer friction points with the company’s platform because they will not need to download and manage a specific app to engage or purchase from your business. This establishes a direct connection between the brand and its customers.
Make business accessible to customers
With contact centres relying on digital channels, a Philippine-based artificial intelligence (AI) company recognised the need for smarter tech-enabled solutions and developed a voice centre artificial intelligence that specialises in the Filipino language to assist contact centres and their agents in adapting to overwhelming call volumes and continuing to deliver customer experiences across multiple online channels.
These various digital sales channel strategies can play a variety of roles at various stages of your digitalisation. All of them have the potential to be extremely valuable. What matters is that you begin with a technological foundation that will support you through each stage of any organisation’s growth.
