What do you think are the most effective strategies that you use to help clients enhance their customer engagement?
You want to get your feet wet doing things that offer a return that eases the organisation into change. You measure, monitor, and poll your customers to get feedback. This helps you to get a core group of people who are going to drive change. Don't sit around because we are too often stuck in the same way of doing things, assuming, "Oh, my customer wouldn't like that." Startups and your competitors are innovating.
Don't focus on things because they cut costs. Let's find innovation, let's drive new revenue, let's make our clients happy. And as a by-product, we'll cut costs by taking busy work off people's plates, and people are expensive. I'm not saying to get rid of people, but refocus their energies so that headcount is more productive.
I can't believe we've been talking about digital transformation for years and years, yet we still prioritise the wrong things. We tend not to see the consequences like cost reductions, increased revenue, and happier clients. Instead, we only think that clients will be unhappy and leave us.
You want to get your feet wet doing things that offer a return that eases the organisation into change.
How has the pandemic impacted your own work, and the way that your company delivers its transformation services?
The cool part about it is that it opens the door. We don’t need an extensive facility. I can work anywhere. There’s nothing like meeting people in person, but this environment allows us to have a gig-style of staffing, to assemble a team I couldn’t afford at other times. I can put together a world-class staff that can compete with anybody in a matter of a week or less. That’s a positive aspect of what’s happening and makes it interesting. The collaboration capabilities now are so amazing; there’s no reason we can’t do the things we need to do. I can even outsource all of your marketing and go-to-market initiatives, a total paradigm shift for most organisations.
The collaboration capabilities now are so amazing; there’s no reason we can’t do the things we need to do.
How effective do you think virtual meetings are for managing services?
As organisers, we need to embrace technology and be creative. If you’re going to sit and drone on at somebody for a day, it’s not going to be effective. You’ve got to find ways to engage people to make that discussion interesting content, and that’s about production.
It’s not for the faint of heart. I’ve heard people say it seems easy, then they take over virtual meetings and quickly learn that it isn’t. When you get criticism back where people say that was a tedious activity, it’s tough. We have to think about applying creativity. That might be about interjecting music and video to make people feel good about this event or workshop. It’s about engaging and how do you increase that engagement.
We have to think about applying creativity. That might be about interjecting music and video to make people feel good about this event or workshop. It’s about engaging and how do you increase that engagement.
JOHN KUNZIER
President
Aerial Digital
Aerial Digital agency is based in Philadelphia, USA. The company’s team of consultants help B2B organisations to drive change, grow revenue and deliver better client experiences. The team helps customers by leveraging technology and implementing cost-effective solutions to marketing challenges. In recent years, Aerial Digital has gained extensive experience in running marketing activities, moving from brute force to highly targeted, niche campaigns based on account-based marketing.