While continuing our efforts to provide our BPO and advisory services fully online, we also seek to change our approach towards our sales channels. To establish a seamless customer experience with the full convenience of online accessibility, we are launching an eShop where our services can be easily purchased – faster than ever before. What is our motivation to develop our own e-commerce channel?
We want to be where our customers are
Without doubt, e-commerce has proved to be a major player when it comes to digital transformation and business models with focus on global reach. But this comes as no surprise when observing the evolution of customer behaviour in general. Just as in other industry sectors, our potential clients are increasingly more interested in opting for non-traditional channels of service purchase – and some of them straightforward switched their preference. This led us to the decision of creating our own eShop.
Shift in preferences towards the online purchase of services
We need to adapt our business to the changing buying habits of our potential customers. Thanks to the eShop, as the orders are processed digitally, the buying efficiency and pricing transparency – both perceived so sensibly by our customers – has improved. Furthermore, the eShop allows for a self-service functionality that is becoming a standard online buyer’s expectation. Showcasing our products and specific pricing on the eShop also enables a customized browsing experience and individual pre-purchase research options.
Millennial shoppers emerging to our focus for the next decade
We expect a rapidly increasing volume of customers who prefer to purchase services online, as the new generation of millennial buyers gain more influence in decision-making and earn a purchasing power within their organizations. Millennial buyers are not picking up the phone to order – purchasing online is more natural to them.
Alternative to website – switching its purpose to a portfolio
We have been intensively building our online presence for over a decade now, inviting our community to engage with our website, however, establishing our own e-commerce channel was a natural next step. We have built the eShop as an alternative for treating our websites just as a presentation of services or products and taking orders via emails or phone calls.
New challenges brought by growing in scale
There have been further drivers that motivated us to establish our own e-commerce channel. Accace operates internationally as Accace Circle, a business community of like-minded BPO providers and advisors who deliver outstanding services with elevated customer experience – covering almost 40 jurisdictions with over 2,000 professionals.
With the aim to ensure a seamless service delivery to our clients across multiple locations, we started to look for a platform that can accommodate numerous vendors to provide a streamlined, unified service – and purchase experience in the next stage.
Expanding our footprint to more locations, as well as growing the product portfolio and range of services, we were also looking for a way how to present specific services – in a better structure and with more functionalities rather than what a standard website can offer.
Eye-opening pandemic experience
After experiencing the impact of the pandemic on all aspects of business, we are now more motivated than ever before to develop our own eShop. We have been busy with the idea for long now, but the crisis has been a real eye-opener. Allowing our customers to shop our services online – anytime from anywhere and safely – has quickly become a top-priority agenda.
Effectivity issues to be solved on both ends
The inefficiencies of the traditional purchasing process, such as arranging phone calls, negotiating the service scope or lengthy discussions about the pricing, had to be solved at our end as well. For example, our colleagues were losing a lot of time with their meetings scheduling. The eShop eliminates a couple of crucial administrative steps for them, by giving the possibility to book timeslots in their calendars directly by the customers and handle the client introduction, payment and invoice issuance through the seamless checkout process.
Main challenge: How to keep close in a virtual environment
One of the best ways to make sure we have the persistent sympathy and trust of our customers is to build a long-term, personal relationship. In many cases, this inevitably involves a personal offline touch: phone calls, coffees, visits and trips. A purely online interaction can seem cold in comparison, but it does not have to be. Our aim is to build a good-quality virtual interaction and offer the same level of comfort and “one-to-one” connection through the eShop as well – just as you would expect when having your dedicated advisor or account manager on the phone.
