Q&A with Jessica Thompson, COO at 8Squad

How have customer expectations changed over the last two years?

The pandemic has played a significant role in shifting customers’ expectations. More than ever, customers now expect organisations to be highly responsive, proactive, agile and compassionate. Increasingly, customers want to engage with trusted and caring brands that consistently deliver on their promises.

What has changed for Sales and Service teams?

Increasing customer expectations in a highly competitive landscape are impacting sales and service teams, who need to adjust continuously to remain relevant.

Customer relationships are no longer built in the traditional way because virtual meetings have replaced most in-person interactions. These ‘new ways of working’ still challenge sales professionals who were used to in-person interaction and communication. Since the beginning of the pandemic, sales professionals have been heavily reliant on intelligent technologies and digitally enabled teams to help them understand the customer, build trust, optimise efficiency and maximise conversions.

Contact Centres have quickly become more than just service and support centres. Customers now want to engage with these teams for retail purchases, sales enquiries, issue resolution and help & support. Contact Centre teams have been increasingly adopting collaborative and intuitive technologies to manage higher workloads, provide expert support, enable increased self service and adjust to rapidly evolving customer demands.

How can Sales and Service teams help their organisations stay relevant and competitive?

Your ability to stay nimble and adapt to constantly changing environments and requirements will provide you and your customers with ongoing long-term benefits. 

Here are my four top tips:

• Always have the customer at the centre of your decision making. Continuously align processes, technology and teams around your customers and their needs
• Understand what customer success looks like. If possible, bring the voice of the customer into your continuous improvement programs
• Leverage the power of AI and ensure that digital channels are frictionless, dynamic and easily accessible to provide a consistent and integrated customer experience 
• Empower cross-functional teams to ensure that you have a diversity of thought and cover all customer touchpoints. Working together yields better outcomes.

About Jessica Thompson

Jessica Thompson is 8Squad’s COO, and she has over 13 years of enterprise leadership experience. Jessica has led many strategic transformation programs throughout her career, working collaboratively to build strong teams that thrive in complex environments. 

About 8Squad

At 8Squad, we specialise in delivering complex technology projects that put humans first. Whether you’re scaling up, staying up or surging ahead, we can help you achieve your business goals with Salesforce faster.