Tech Comes Crashing: Is Your Business Afloat?

Want some advice on how to make your brand stand out in the new technological era? Read on.

By Mary Hanula, IFA

Everyone knows that what’s new today was yesterday’s news for technology. With every aspect of the digital industry changing so rapidly, we wanted to find a fresh take on what your franchise should be doing to stay on top. The two contributors to this article are Eddie Trujillo, Vice President of Operations for uBreakiFix, a technology franchise that specializes in fixing appliances such as cell phones, tablets, computers and more. The other is Dan Monaghan, co-founder of WSI, a digital marketing business that takes your franchise right to the customers. Both of these leaders provided insightful answers as to what your business should prepare for with the new era of technology that we now live in.

What is the biggest anticipated change in technology that franchises should be made aware of?

Eddie: “Point of sales systems provide a tremendous opportunity for franchisors, as the more advanced systems on the market today offer integration with CRM platforms, loyalty apps and other customer touchpoints, allowing for more personalized marketing efforts. Being able to identify your customer and make an offer that is specific to them is a huge opportunity to increase sales with software. Aligning operational and marketing technologies not only supports franchise scalability, but also allows for robust KPI tracking to inform business strategies and decisions across the entire franchise.”

Dan: “There are many emerging technologies that franchise systems should be aware of and prepare to leverage. In the near term, virtual reality and augmented reality will be used more broadly by franchisors for training franchisees and by franchisees to train their employees. Currently we are helping franchisors leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) with technologies like Amazon Alexa to enrich their client relationships. In the midterm, there is a move towards the democratization of machine learning and AI. Franchisors need to be preparing their system data to take advantage of these new technologies to optimize the efficiency and effectiveness of their systems. In the same way that we now access email through cloud services (instead of an email server in the closet like we did in years gone past), franchisors will begin using machine learning and AI as a service through emerging services being offered by Amazon, IBM and Google. In the longer term, block chain will impact franchising through the use of smart contracts and block chain enabled supply chains.”

How do you maintain personal relationships with customers as technology shifts?

Eddie: “Today’s customers often desire convenience over connection, but the most successful franchise brands have mastered both. Relationship-building requires a delicate balance  — interactions must create value for the customer without inconveniencing them. Many brands make the mistake of thinking that technology advancements and customer relationships are mutually exclusive when you can, in fact, use technology to foster even deeper relationships with customers. A few examples include:

Personalize each customer’s experience. Train your associates to use the customer’s name many times throughout a transaction to personalize the experience. They should essentially serve as the customer’s personal assistant throughout each interaction. In addition, personal touches like having emails sent from the associate’s company email address, rather than a general email account, when appropriate can improve the overall experience.

Email marketing. Maintaining a customer email database with personal data points like name, age, location and birthday, as well as business data points like purchase history, can enable you to deliver customized content that provides value to the customer and a sense of familiarity.

Loyalty apps. Loyalty apps can be used to reward repeat visits with special offers and incentives, streamline the customer experience with appointment scheduling or order-ahead functionalities, communicate updates directly to customers and collect feedback and reviews.

Social media. Social media allows brands to own their voice and persona and engage with customers in real time. It’s also a great customer service tool, and, when used effectively, has the power to turn a disgruntled customer into a raving fan.

Dan: “While many believe that technology is creating a chasm between the brand and the client, the truth is quite the opposite. As businesses move from a collection of distributed platforms (i.e. CRM, various digital marketing and campaign tools, analytics etc.) to Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), brands will better connect with their customers by delivering personalized interactions customized to who they are and where they are in the customer journey. NLP will also provide brands with a way to forge closer connections with their customers.  In years gone past, the customer would have a one to one conversation with a local merchant. Today, with modern ecommerce, that personal connection was lost. NLP will allow brands to deliver personalized conversational commerce that brings us closer to those real human connections that we've seemed to have lost. Today, all brands have a logo and a tag line. But, in the future, brands will have a unique personality and signature voice added to their branding strategy.”

Find out more about uBreakiFix here.

Find out more about WSI Digital here.