“For eCommerce sellers (Amazon Sellers, Shopify Sellers, eBay Sellers, Lazada Sellers, Shopee Sellers, Online Stores, etcetera) that want to take traditional foreign trade international in order to successfully integrate into global markets, it is vitally important to consider the challenges that come along the way; while unprecedented international eCommerce sales opportunities exist, localizing customer service and providing products that native consumers desire is difficult due to cultural differences. With Callnovo’s Global Omnichannel Cloud CRM platform (customer relationship management platform), successful integration into foreign markets is guaranteed – ensuring global eCommerce brand reach, strong customer acquisition, and long-term customer retention.”
Successful Cross-border Market Expansion – Challenges
While international market expansion provides many excellent advantages for eCommerce companies when it comes to beating global market competition, it can be accompanied by cultural challenges – such as:
- Cultural Complexities –expansion to foreign markets requires a deep understanding of cultural purchasing trends – what consumers’ purchasing values and interests are, how they spend their money, and also what payment methods they use, for example; to overcome such complexities, eCommerce companies must consider collaborating with local service providers that can tackle these challenges, assess market strengths, and point out what customers want to buy and are willing to pay for goods and services, where customers want to buy, and also how they prefer to make their purchases.
- Communication Barriers –successful foreign market integration involves localizing customer service and tech support that offers native communication which exhibits an effective and efficient streamlined customer experience that doesn’t make it difficult for native customers to receive the service that need; whenever local communication is difficult, it can damage sales relationships with prospective and current customers because it effectively hinders consumers from receiving the products and services that they need when they desperately need it.
Callnovo’s Global Omnichannel SaaS Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform
The Advantages of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform
Overcoming the cultural challenges that are purported by international market integration and the localization of native customer service and sales support can be a daunting task without the usage of an advanced customer relationship management (CRM) platform that can exceptionally manage all sales relationships between e-Commerce stores and their customers; by utilizing a state-of-the-art CRM platform, e-Commerce sellers can save time and facilitate communication, offering customers top-notch services, as well as intuitive solutions to the issues they are forced to confront while shopping. There are various advantages to CRM software utilization for expanding e-Commerce businesses / corporations; here are a few:
- Superb Local Customer Service – in a nutshell, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms allow eCommerce customer service teams to provide uniform multilingual and personalized communication throughout all communication and telecom channels (phone calls, SMS messaging, email, live web chat with integrated conversational AI, and social media) within one fully-integrated platform; this is important because it allows businesses to connect with all their prospective and current customers at all times and in the languages that they speak, eliminating miscommunication, as well providing customers all the information that they need – whether it be pre-sales info. – such as inventory checks and product info. / services info. or sales quotes – or solutions to post-sales inquiries / post-sales issues – such as order status updates and shipment tracking. Furthermore, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms provide the feature of keeping full track of customers from the beginning to the end of each relationship, evading hiccups in effective service.
- Minimized Sales Costs – customer relationship management (CRM) platform integration minimizes the cost of sales by allowing sustainable sales efficiency through the prioritization of international leads and sales opportunities that are highly likely to successfully convert and close due to the quality of customer interactions; likewise, customer relationship management (CRM) platform integration can boost sales effectiveness, increase up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, and uncover business referrals.
Callnovo’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Platform’s Highlighted Features
Our advanced customer relationship management (CRM) system and state-of-the-art technology is a win-win opportunity for any and every eCommerce seller that is looking to expand overseas and improve its brand reach in international markets; the highly-efficient platform itself integrates a multitude of features into one software program, allowing operations and customer service teams to maximize on their local sales opportunities. Some of our CRM’s most highlighted features are:
- 35+ UI Languages and Global Time Zones – providing multilingual customer service in the world’s most highly-spoken languages (English, Spanish, Mandarin / Cantonese, French, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, German, Turkish, Arabic, Portuguese – amongst others) – perfect for engaging with native leads and existing customers
- Omnichannel Communication and Telecom Platform Integration – so that a fully interactive customer experience can be promoted, building strong brand advocation amongst local consumers
- Activation and Hosting – ensuring the easy facilitation of active communication between eCommerce companies and their cross-border consumers
- ACD Queues – to facilitate a pleasant customer waiting experience while active calls are being handled
- IVR with Time Conditions based on Artificial Intelligence – for faster routing of customer inquiries which mitigates the lowering of caller abandon rates and improves customer satisfaction experiences, as well as provides constructive customer feedback
- Role-based Ticket Assigning and Monitoring –ensuring the successful flow of customer service roles in order to provide faster serviceand evade customer service agent confusion
- KPI Monitoring and SLA Monitoring – to protect businesses and their customers from issues and to also provide operations detailed data on how to improve the customer service experience
- Other Features:
- SCAT and Q&A
- Team-based Manual and Smart Notifications
- Knowledge Base
- Micro-learning and Quizzing
- Multi-client Shared Agents
- Amazon Seller Central Integration
- Shopify Back-end Integration
Client Case Highlight: Shenzhen’s “F” Brand
Please note: Our confidentiality agreement with this specific client does not permit us to provide the client’s actual name.
As a young 3-year old eCommerce business that inspires consumers to live a more convenient lifestyle, Shenzhen, China’s successful “F” brand has been distributing high-quality products to consumers in more than 50 countries throughout the Middle East, South East Asia, Northern and Eastern Europe, Latin America, as well as throughout the United States. With several patents, their main distribution channels are Amazon, Wal-Mart, eBay, and Shopify – as well as other third-party international eCommerce platforms. Since the brand is committed to becoming a successful local and international entrepreneurial leader for China’s cross-border e-Commerce industry, they have understood the extreme importance of providing localized sales service and native customer service in the countries that they sell their products to and had begun to work with our business directly at the outset of their market expansion.
In the beginning, due to time zone differences, the “F” brand had to find a way to provide top-level customer service to consumers throughout the various eCommerce sales target countries to which they have intended to sell to; in order to accomplish this feat – and even up to the current day – we had and have successfully deployed for the brand a nearshore outsourcing strategy so that the brand could provide 24/7 customer service without limitations in order to maximize on seller success. Specifically, we at Callnovo had and have been selecting a number of professional bilingual and trilingual customer service representatives that speak the native languages found in each sales target country so that the “F” brand can provide such service. As we had done in the past and are still doing, we normally invite business clients to participate directly in the interview process with customer service agent candidates in order to select qualified representatives based on certain factors – such as: service attitude and enthusiasm, logical thinking skills, native language proficiency, and product and troubleshooting service experience – amongst others; with regards to the “F” brand specifically, Callnovo has been able to successfully help the brand resolve problems that hinder the provision of international customer service so that the “F” brand could can provide 24/7 service without obstacles as well as ensure clear and effective communication. Furthermore, since we at Callnovo have been able to activate and host international toll-free phone numbers for the brand, the business has been able to successfully fulfil all the daily tasks – which include but are not limited to: after-sales hotline customer requests, email replying, order inquiries and order fulfillment, logistics tracking, basic troubleshooting, product complaint resolutions, the handling of live chat, and the answering of inquiries via Facebook.