GLOBAL Jam, a two-month roadshow of Freshworks, landed in Manila last week. For the Manila leg, customers and prospects heard the success stories of Zalora, 7-11 and IConnect-Convergence, Inc. as they utilized the purpose-built, business software designed to improve customer experiences.
Experience sharing and best practice dissemination are just a few of the benefits Global Jam attendees had. According to Simon Ma, Freshworks Director and Regional Manager of Sales for ASEAN markets the sessions were designed to involve clients and prospects in an empowering manner.
“Global Jam is all about how Freshworks can continually evolve businesses to reach their goals by empowering employees to create delightful experiences for their customers. Sales and profitability are just benefits of creating the ecosystem that is customer-facing and engaging,” Ma said in a sit down with the technology media.
“We discovered Freshworks at a very crucial time in our journey as a company and in the midst of the pandemic,” Thelma G. De Leon Operations and Business Development Head IConnect-Convergence, Inc. intimated as she explained how the pandemic was a logjam to their operations and remote work became both tedious and temporarily unproductive. “Until Freshworks came along. We were able to quickly restart and ensure customer satisfaction was given the utmost priority despite the challenges of working from home. Supervising the agents and managing the queues became extremely easy to do remotely.”
Global Jam attendees took away practical tips, and actionable strategies on emerging IT trends in relation to establishing better customer experiences both from the tech experts and more so from customers of Freshworks who have enjoyed both profitability and growth using the platform.
“I always tell this story of how Freshdesk help us consolidate the many ways we handle our customers. Especially in the midst of the pandemic, when there was no chance to visit stores, they became constantly online. And on multiple devices. They expect instant gratification, which means our brand must be available 24/7 on all channels,” Kannan Rajaratnam -Regional Director Payment and Customer Operations of the Zalora Group.
During the PH leg of Global Jam, he shared with the audience why and how personalization is key to great customer experiences. He said that in the case of Zalora, as a fashion brand, the customers require not only “what you see is what you get” but also “I need it tomorrow.” Since Freshworks is fast to onboard, priced affordably, built to delight, yet powerful enough to deliver critical business outcomes. He also added that before Freshworks, Zalora was using multiple systems and applications which led to data silos and slowed down support agents.
“Sessions will explore strategies for delivering fast and easy delightful experiences, win over customers and employees alike, accelerate sales and take IT to new heights,” said Pradeep Rathinam, Chief Customer Officer at Freshworks. “Attendees will get to meet, engage with and build relationships with other customer-facing and IT leaders in their own community.”
One such engagement was a slew of lesson plans and experience sharing from Allian Marie Sheila Garcia, Business Process Innovations Consultant of the Philippine Seven Corporation. A week after Global Jam was concluded, 7-11 celebrated its 40th anniversary from July 8 to 13 with product bundles, a 50 percent off specific food and drinks.
“Handling that massive influx of inquiries on the website, social media and other channels would have been difficult to manage without Freshworks,” Garcia explains.
“Using Freshdesk Omnichannel, 7-11 was able to streamline customer support activity from instant messaging to social media into one platform. This was really good for us because we can now focus on the more important things like engaging with customers who need a live person to answer them versus those who are happy with an automated response. Agents can engage in more personalized conversations which in turn increases customer retention.”
In all three cases mentioned, the Freshworks platform allows them to monitor customer interaction, view the transaction history across digital channels thus allowing for better planning and execution to prepare for possible challenges that ultimately empower people who handle customer support, sales and marketing teams.
“Our products empower the people who power business,” Ma said, concluding the press conference.
