WWEMA Window: Personalization And Innovation — The Keys To Successful Business Digitalization

By Emile Musallam

It's safe to say that 2020 has transformed the world. For all the social upheavals, however, the business environment has experienced a mere acceleration of an anticipated change — the digitalization of the customer experience. In today's business environment, customers expect personalization and innovation. In recent years, business attempts to meet customers' expectations have become a key differentiator and metric for success. The latter half of 2020, a period of limited in-person contact, has fortified digitalization as the emerging strategy for engaging customers. Simply put, today's businesses strive to use digital technologies to maximize the customer experience. The emphasis on "experience" is essential. According to recent research, "84% of customers say their experience is as important as the products and services."¹

Online articles and guides about digitalization often refer to digital tools as the path to a successful modern business operation. Of course, the same guides emphasize the need for an agile and flexible staff. As the consulting firm Deloitte recently noted, "To truly pivot to a more digital organization, companies must have an agile backbone of organization, people, and systems that can easily shift gears, adapt to new technology, and take on what's yet to come."²

However, while recognizing the value of technological tools and agile processes, businesses must also maintain a singular focus. Data is of little use without a persistent focus on the customer. So how can we use technology to "make water easy" for customers during a period of limited contact? And how can these same technologies prepare our industry for the future? 

Below three guiding strategies for digitalization are discussed. These strategies maximize innovative processes while maintaining a focus on the customer experience. 

Personalized Communication

As more companies use technology to increase efficiency, customers expect an increasingly fast and tailored customer service. Customer support applications like Salesforce or Zendesk automate much of this process with features like canned responses³ (as opposed to "auto" responses), streamline views of existing support cases, and of course, provide analytical insights to improve service. 

The key to utilizing automated processes is maintaining a personalized approach to communication. As Ana Khlystova notes in a recent article for the customer communication platform, HelpCrunch,"Canned responses shouldn't be impersonal, non-descriptive, irritating even. They should be witty and helpful, and always personalized."³

However, even without applications, businesses can use simple approaches like email and chat features to maintain speedy, personalized communications. Of significant note is organizing communications between your various technologies, so that channel-surfing customers⁴, who use several communication platforms such as email, chat, or phone, receive consistent and helpful messages from your company. The end goal is to offer a service experience that matches your customers' expectations of your outstanding product. 

Remote Customer Assistance

A big part of the new digitalized approach to personalized service is meeting customers on their terms. The adage "the customer is always right" could be stated more succinctly in modern terms as "the customer is always connected." A survey also found that 72 percent of customers expect companies to meet their needs and expectations.⁴ A significant recent customer expectation (that has become a need) is remote assistance.

Of course, much has been made recently of the advantages of remote business strategies, including reduced overhead, flexibility, and increased productivity. Many firms are incredibly excited about the possibilities of remote assistance, which empowers our agents to peer over our customer's shoulder, interacting through visual cues on a phone, tablet, or augmented reality headset, while guiding solutions safely from home. 

Working remotely, we can instruct customers to solve their issues, from simple to complex, while engendering trusting relationships. Taking advantage of the new remote business environment's assets allows the best of such initiatives by deepening connections with customers. 

Turning Data Into Actionable Insights

The new digitalization era fostered by the pandemic is simply an evolution of the emphasis on data. The popular term "Big Data" refers to our capacity to manage and process troves of data with relative ease and efficiency. Of course, recently, more companies have learned to analyze this data to understand customer's needs and challenges. 

Unfortunately, too often, companies use analytical insights to justify the same old business decisions. The key for any enterprising company is using data to be proactive and not reactive. 

Each company will develop different methods to accomplish this goal, but the basic template will likely be similar. Engineers must analyze data to discover hidden trends. Key stakeholders must see the "big picture" within these trends. And finally, the company must transform the data into actionable insights. 

Today, companies in the water industry are challenging their sales teams to fuel business intelligence with precise data points. Using artificial intelligence to discover purchasing trends, the industry has started a Key Account Approach for key customers. By leveraging insights across a customer base, it is possible to anticipate customer needs. 

Digitalization For Tomorrow's Customers

No business can capably predict the future — especially now. However, as an industry, we can meet the demands of a changing world with enthusiasm and intention by meeting our customers on their own terms. 

Right now, connection is all about, well, connection. By using digitalization tools to create an outstanding customer experience, we engender more comprehensive connections, literally and figuratively. Implicit in the customer's outstanding experience is the parallel experience of our industry — the employees who make the water world go around. By making life better for our customers, we make work better — and more meaningful — for ourselves!

Emile Musallam is Regional Sales Manager at De Nora Water Technologies, LLC and a member of the Board of Directors of the Water and Wastewater Equipment Manufacturers Association (WWEMA).  WWEMA is a non-profit trade association formed in 1908 to represent water and wastewater technology manufacturers and related service providers. WWEMA is made up of many of the most prominent and influential companies in the industry who are working together to shape the future of water and wastewater technology in the U.S. and around the world. For more information about WWEMA, go to www.wwema.org. Interested in becoming a WWEMA member? Contact WWEMA Executive Director, Vanessa Leiby at vanessa@wwema.org.