Summary: When it comes to offering customer centricity, industries like Spa and Salon compared to E-commerce look like poles apart. One is a pure brick and mortar operation while the other is primarily a business conducted through the virtual medium. However you would be surprised to note that Spa and Salon appointment booking services plays a role similar to e commerce call center outsourcing when it comes to offering customer engagement for the brand. Same goes for a hospitality call center when it comes to running a hotel operations.
Customer is the king is now an old adage. For customer centric industries like Spa/Salon or a chain of hotels, this looks like the obvious truth. However it is almost paradoxical as to how the same holds true for new age businesses like e-commerce that is using the virtual medium of internet to conduct their trade. In this blog post let’s take a look into what commonalities exist between Sap and Salon appointment booking services when compared to a hospitality call center and then deep dive further as to what sort of similarities can be found with these two classes as compared to an e commerce call center outsourcing.
Outsourcing of support function for businesses is not a new phenomenon. The business world witnessed its first emergence in the post-World War II era when business started experimenting with a new business strategy of outsourcing non-core functions like making and receiving inbound and outbound customer queries. This was the time when both hospitality industry, that is business operators running a hotel chain or a standalone property experimented with hospitality call center, where in a third party was engaged to provide expert services for making and receiving calls by customers. These outsourced service providers consisted of a team of experts that had good domain knowledge when it comes to serving customers in the hospitality industry and hence whenever a customer sitting in a remote location sought the advice, the solicitation was such that they felt that they are directly interacting with the brand itself. The level of engagement for the clients went up and almost all the brands which sought out such services witnessed an increase in footfalls with direct dollar value translation as far as their revenue pipelines is concerned.
Based upon such glorious results, even today you will find that most of the successful hospitality brands have hospitality call center as part of their value offerings. If you do some basic research over the internet and look at the compounding impact on the bottom line of the balance sheet of these companies, you will be astonished to see the sheer impact. As per numerous studies conducted by various management bodies, the result is in north of 20 percent. This kind of impact has never been created by a standalone intervention across classes for a single industry stream.
Similar phenomenon has been observed for Spa and Salon industry. The Spa and Salon appointment booking services is one standalone factor which has been guaranteeing success for the brands for more than half a century now. Even though on the face of it Spa/Salon industry is quite different from hotel industry but Spa and Salon appointment scheduling services brings the much needed customer centricity which is the connecting value system for both of these industry classes alike. In both the industry categories, customer has to be treated as the king and consumer experience or the typical sales cycle begins with a client dialing up a particular number to seek appointment or reserve a booking. The kind of engagement s/he feels at the starting point of such cycle, often has the final impact of such mundane enquiries getting translated into final revenue.
Till now we have been discussing two set of industries which have been present from centuries and are completely brick and mortar application of business. You need a physical client to come visit your store front for your revenue cycle to move positively. However since the advent of internet during the eighties, a new market opportunity arose as instant communication became a possibility. Just about a couple of decades ago likes of Alibaba and Amazon made the business world realize the immense potential that e-commerce has showcased. Now through few clicks it became possible for a customer to have a look into inventory or service offering of any brand and complete the sales cycle without ever leaving the comfort of the home. Brands that realized that if they desire to have a loyal customer base, introduced e commerce call center outsourcing for the very inception. The phenomenon called e-commerce call center outsourcing ensured that customers felt physically connected with the brand 24/7 round the year.