Welcome back to another OCRGCC business video. The next one is the sales process and customer service. So customer engagement is simply the contact between the business and customer.
Click and collect, I'm sure you've all done before. Purchasing online and collecting in store. After sales service, what is the level of support and advice that a customer gets after buying a product or service?
Product knowledge, you know, what is the level of knowledge of the employees within a business? Do they support us? Do maybe they persuade us to buy more products? how do they help potential customers e-commerce is buying a physical item online this can have an impact on business activity as well because it may create specific departments for example online sales there will be different delivery options for the customers that we might have to deal with things like click and collect we might train staff but we'll be able to be able to now sell 24 hours a day seven days a week By doing online we may then get less physical customers as more people are buying online. Pros and cons for the business of offering e-commerce, you get easy access to the market because you can now sell you know worldwide, it can reduce your overheads your fixed costs because you need less physical stores, there's potential for rapid growth as you sell a lot more, you can widen your market like I said a minute ago you can export to different countries and you're open 24 7 so that's more appealing to customers.
disadvantages as soon as you compete on a worldwide level you compete with all of the worldwide businesses you may experience more delivery and return costs you might be more susceptible to being hacked and you need to make sure you've got decent online security which comes to a cost and there's also advances in technology and you've got to keep on top of that otherwise you can be left behind there's also pros and cons for the customer for e-commerce good things you can compare prices really easily you've got seven day availability 24 hours a day so even if you work during the day you can still access things by buying online late at night there'll be more of a range of products to buy online however there's that lack of contact especially things like clothing you can't try on until it arrives and things like that and then you may have problems with returning and transport and things getting lost and stuff like that the second type of sales you need to know a method of selling i should say is face-to-face selling This is when we sell directly face-to-face with the buyer and seller. You need to know pros and cons for the business and for the customer of doing face-to-face selling. So for the business, there's potentially gonna be less returns, so less cost involved there.
There's a chance to upsell. If you've ever gone into a store and bought shoes and they try and sell you things like polish and stuff like that, they're doing that because that's them upselling, trying to sell you other things. It enables us also to offer click and collect if we've got a face-to-face store. Shops are very expensive, they have high fixed costs, and more and more shoppers are now buying online. For customers, it's great to do face-to-face because you can receive advice and support, you get to see and try on the product.
Negatives though, some shops don't offer good service in stores, and also you've got travel costs involved if you get into the store. The third type, or third method of selling, I should say, is telesales. Now this may sound like television, but it's actually a telephone.
So it's to do with buying something over the phone. So for the business this is good because again similar to e-commerce you don't need as many premises so you can cut down on your fixed costs. You can potentially target older customers because they're probably more likely to do telesales. Negatives to the business, this is a smaller business, may lack staff.
We will also need to train your staff on how to do telesales. Positives to the customer, older customers quite like it. They feel more comfortable than doing online.
They can still gain a bit of advice and support on different items. If you're cold calling, which means you're simply calling up people who haven't asked for the phone call, some customers don't like that, and customers still can't see the product, and therefore that's a disadvantage to the customer. Customer service is all about how do we deal with customer inquiries.
So benefits, if it's done well, it builds trust and brand loyalty, keeps custom, repeat custom, so customers keep coming back, and it also builds up. Builds our brand awareness so people become more aware of us If you do poor customer service, then obviously the drawbacks are all the opposite of those points on the left hand side So if you're not doing it, well, there's less trust less custom less brand awareness, and that's the end. Thanks very much