If we walk back a few years, the word Cloud could be spotted in the weather reports and in the stanzas of romantic poets. But in the past couple of years, CLOUD has become an integral part of the techno commercial world and business community around the globe is vying for it. The market leaders in providing this new computing renaissance was spearheaded by the tech honchos like International Business Machines (IBM, Financial), Google (GOOG), Oracle (ORCL, Financial), Microsoft (MSFT, Financial) and many others.
In the tech world the CLOUD frenzy is catching up fast, but since it is a totally new concept, a very important part of CLOUD vendors is to handhold their customers through their experience of CLOUD server-based functionality. Let us take a closer look at how CLOUD vendors should walk their clients through the CLOUD and the impact of such nurturing.
Often what happens is that, CLOUD being a totally new concept, we are still not aware of the pros and cons of walking through the CLOUD; generally the vendors enter into a contract with the end users and then again contact them at the time of contract renewal. This makes the end users jittery as it’s an absolutely unknown territory that they have to walk through alone. From the customer’s perspective, taking this renewal call after such a prolonged period of non-communication from the vendor's end can be like an estranged parent they haven’t heard from in years trying to get in touch.
Need of the hour for CLOUD walkers
It is evident from the fact that the users need handholding from the CLOUD vendors to walk through the unknown sphere initially which means the CLOUD vendors have to develop a strong customer relationship management system through which they need to focus on active customer lifecycle management (CLM). With the change in business pattern where more and more users are looking to move from fixed-term contract to subscription-based usage pattern or SaaS customer retention is becoming a key critical area for the vendors. Hence vendors need to cultivate loyalty among their customers to keep their clientele intact.
Here are my three nurturing steps to "raising" CLOUD customers to be happy and healthy members of society who will, perhaps more importantly, return every month to renew their subscriptions!
Educate the CLOUD walkers
Vendors will have to spend quality time with their clients and take them through the different layers of the CLOUD and conduct regular follow-ups with them on their experience. Through this process the vendors can go through building trust and confidence among their clients. CLOUD is very effective in terms of data analytics and not just a data storage system; taking a leaf out of this the clients can be guided as to how to effectively analyze data from CLOUD and work towards optimizing their respective business output.
Long-term relationship building
Customer relationship building, like any other relationship, is not a quick fix but a long-term proposition. The vendors need to consider the fact of retaining customers with the same poise as acquiring new customers. The best way to do this is to walk the path along with them. This can be done by checking in regularly with the customers to find out what they need and how they can be assisted throughout the relationship. Only by nurturing the relationship over a long period of time will it be possible to build the trust and confidence required to ensure loyalty.
A step back to take a forward leap is worth it
Customers also need to be provided their own space, and this where the vendor needs to take a step behind and allow the customers to exercise their trial-and-error methods and wait until they get stuck so that we can rescue them from the corner and instill the air of customer confidence in the vendor. Taking this step back and allowing yourself to be more of a strategic partner is a long-term sign that you have built a successful relationship and a sure sign that your customer values the relationship that you have worked so hard to cultivate.
Outcome of handholding your customer
Adopting these simple steps can add a lot of flying colors to your balance sheet in the long run and can play a significant role in improving the hit rate of customer retention. Building any kind of meaningful, long-term relationship can be a thankless task at the best of times, but in the new era of subscription-based economy, it’s a philosophy that is bound to yield results. Indeed, studies have shown that effective management of the CLM, coupled with these customer-handling tactics, can increase the level of recurring CLOUD revenue by at least 15 percent.
Hence the focus of CLOUD vendors in this age of subscription driven solution should be to have enough soft skill arsenal in their garrison to increase their grounds in the face of intense competition. All vendors are essentially providing the CLOUD computing feature with its standard protocols, but what customers look for is what am I getting more than the standard? This is where the vendors can cash in by providing that extra in the form of handholding their customers and win their confidence and subscription renewals.
