Customer Engagement: Rule 1-2-1
To reject the notion that
the impact of social media’s utilization within businesses has played a pivotal
role in our world today would be contradictory to our blog page. In recognition
of its capacity to reach audiences far and wide, social media has changed how
we perceive information.
In spite of our acceptance of social media, we should ask
ourselves what are we using social media for? What are our intention(s) for it?
Does social media engage customers on a personal level? Do we see it as an
intellectual tool for conveying information or a form of communication? Quoted
by Sydney J Harris, an American Journalist born in 1917, an era before the rise
of social media, writes “the two words,
“information” and “communication” are often used interchangeably, but they
signify quite different things. Information is giving out, communication is
getting through”.
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| One of these words will score big |
If you have a look at the
image (sourced from Domo) in my previous article titled “Big Data’s Value for
All Businesses”, you can deduce from the figures that information is in
abundance. Without a doubt, information educates but does it communicate? To
look at it from a different perspective, is to
be serviced slowly turning to self-service?
 |
| I think i prefer to be serviced |
Consumers have the freedom to do their own research and come
to their own conclusions. But is self-service better for both the company and
the consumer? How can we be certain that our consumers understand the message(s)
we are trying to convey?
I believe, even with our deep embrace of social media, we should
still seek to service and engage our customers on an interpersonal level. Surveys,
feedbacks and questionnaires are all different forms of engagement, but they
lack an active presence. That’s why at Fingertec; we are actively engaging our
customers to service them better by conversing with a person either by email or
Skype. We’re here to find out what you want and what solutions we can offer to
help you, personally.
Connecting to the customer is the first step; it’s how you
communicate that makes the difference, offer service without referring to
self-service. What do I mean? Have a look at these two scenarios:
Engagement to
Self-Service
|
Remain Engaged
|
Rep: Hi Sam, I’m contacting you because you recently registered for our
one-day free course.
Cust: Thanks for contacting me, I did have a look at your website and am
wondering what the cost would be to sign up for the full 7 day course?
Rep: No problem Sam, you can find our course fees here at
www.coursefreeprice.com.
Cust: Thanks. And what topics will be covered in the course?
Rep: I’m not in the Department that handles the training, so I wouldn’t be
able to give you accurate information, but you can find all the topics we
cover at www.coursefreetopics.com
|
Rep: Hi Sam, I’m contacting you because our records indicate you have
shown an interest in our 7-day course by registering for our one-day free
course? Can I help you with making a decision?
Cust: Thanks for your email. I had a look at your website and am wondering
how much the 7-day course is going to cost me?
Rep: No problem Sam, well, our 7-day course is $10 a day for a total of
$70 over 7 days. If you’d like to read more on the costing, you can visit
www.coursefreeprice.com or let me know.
Cust: Thanks for the information. So for $70, what topics will be covered?
Rep: The primary focus of our course will be on “Customer Engagement”.
However as I’m not in the Department, I won’t be able to tell you what other
areas are going to be covered. Let me speak to the appropriate Department and
I will get back to you?
|
The great thing about this type of personalized engagement,
is that you can practice it regardless of the industry, department or product
you represent, be it ICT, Construction, Accounting, Advertising, Marketing,
Sales, Hardware, Software etc. Every company has customers, and every customer
is seeking a company.
The move to engage our customers on a personal level came
about with the release of our TimeTec Cloud time attendance SaaS (Software as a
Service). We take the term Saa-Service seriously, and intend to continue with
this approach. You can say, we know what its like to be on both side of the
fence.
 |
| Are you ready to be engaged? |
If you are interested in knowing
how engrossed we are in you and want to experience engagement at a whole new
level, please don’t hesitate to try our Timetec Cloud, not only do
we offer a 30 days free trial, but by registering, you are letting us know who
you are.
Just remember, finding out how your customers think and what
they want will give you valuable insights to further the growth of your
business. Information without communication has no value. Don’t let your
customers walk away.
By Justin Goh, Analyst, FingerTec HQ
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
Reason Why We Should Focus Beyond Biometrics
A number of people tend to get the
impression that our company specializes in fingerprint products and
technologies only. Although this perception is not exactly accurate, it is
observed that the term ‘biometrics’ looks catchier at first glance and this
works in our favour as it becomes the conversational piece for the general
audience, making it a useful ice-breaker for market penetration.
 |
| Everybody becomes obsessed when they realized their fingerprints actually have power |
I agree that without fingerprint
technology, it's rather hard for us to penetrate into certain industries.
Ideally, we should declare ourselves a solution provider, or an expert in time
and attendance, and access control industries. And, biometrics should just be a
credential, or a threshold that presents itself as a more sophisticated
solution.
My advice to customers, don’t place biometrics as their sole consideration when sourcing for time and attendance or access control solution. Biometrics technology is indeed an important aspect to consider but the right solution is even more crucial when buying the solutions. Instead of only considering the performance of the biometrics readers, they should spend more time studying details of the software to match the actual requirements. It is imperative for customers to list the requirements down and test the software inside out, determine whether it could integrate with the existing payroll system and how works as your access control system in totality.
 |
| Pay attention to the solutions more than the hardware |
Often times a lot of customers allow
themselves to be distracted by the fingerprint technology performance when in
reality what they ACTUALLY require is time and attendance system. It has
becoming a common belief that when vendors parade their fantastic fingerprint readers,
the software that comes along is equally fantastic to handle their T&A
requirements. We always receive many questions about biometrics rather than the
software before clients conclude the purchase. This, in my opinion, is very
wrong. When this happen, clients might be happy with the front end clocking
system, but if they are not careful in selecting the software, they might take a
lot of time and effort to handle the backend processing. The system might fail
to handle the payroll system and at the end of the day, the promise of office
automation never takes place.
 |
| TimeTec Cloud getting ready for the future. |
After technology and market
breakthrough in biometrics, FingerTec has been pouring much of our resources in
R&D to complete the time and attendance and access control solutions. We
believe that to compete with the real industry players, we have to deliver the
real solutions and even so, we must deliver it better even though we came it
later. We strongly believe that the advantages of biometrics credential are transient;
the bona fide solution will last forever.
Just like how biometric readers replaced some RFID solutions to becoming the new trend in the past decade, biometrics itself might look less appealing when smart phone has the fashionable tendency as a new clocking credential.
That's why we set forth "Beyond
biometrics” as our motto, urging customers to go beyond biometrics, because
only then they’ll see the full picture and obtain the total solution they have
hoped for.
By Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ
Big Data's Values for All Businesses
For various businesses,
the evolution of big data has improved the accuracy of decision-making and has
opened doors to a world of possibilities. Big data analysis is a practice once
thought to be possible only by corporations capable of sustaining costly analytical
departments, hardware and software.
The term ‘big’ is rather ambiguous. Megabyte, Gigabyte,
Petabytes are all historical references for big data. The true value of data
isn’t in its vast quantities alone, but rather in the variety and velocity in
which data is available. Action Plans can still be made from large volumes of
stagnant data, however without variety to increase the accuracy of your decisions,
businesses are taking a risk by increasing the probability of wasted time and
money. Companies with internal sales and marketing departments are unknowing
recipients of big data, stored in the form of weblogs, customer response from
advertising, promotions and CRMs such as Salesforce.
Domo, a Business Intelligence company, created an info-graphic that illustrates
how much activity web traffic and applications generate every minute. They
determine that for every minute, 517 new websites are created. |
| Image Source: Domo |
The increasing number of participants in social media, such
as Facebook & Twitter, data from web traffic, search engines, with the
availability of open source CRMs and free analytics tools like Google Analytics
are cost effective options available to businesses of any size.
Consistent data that constantly changes is a signal for
growth, an aim decision makers hope to achieve. Regardless of the size of one's business, everybody should begin
exploring big data to/for:
Understand
Customer Needs & Wants
What drives an individual to become your customer? How do you know which area of your business was so impressionable that you were chosen? Have you ever sat down and just patiently observed window shoppers? They move from brand to brand, shop to shop, looking at similar clothing.
What drives an individual to become your customer? How do you know which area of your business was so impressionable that you were chosen? Have you ever sat down and just patiently observed window shoppers? They move from brand to brand, shop to shop, looking at similar clothing.
Target Customers
Insights gained from analyzed data based on demography; geography, gender, culture, country and even beliefs can help tailor your goal(s) in alignment with your customers. For example, if you have had difficulty marketing an anti-perspirant to Iceland, turning to data can help narrow your focus.
Insights gained from analyzed data based on demography; geography, gender, culture, country and even beliefs can help tailor your goal(s) in alignment with your customers. For example, if you have had difficulty marketing an anti-perspirant to Iceland, turning to data can help narrow your focus.
Improve Customer
Service
Customer Service is not just providing after sales support or reactively answering customer queries. Big Data allows us to proactively implement additional ‘value’ added services. Remember, it’s not about what we can do for them when they ask; it’s what we can do for them before.
Drive Research & Development
It's a known fact that large corporations spend financially large sums of money on improving their products. Big data for R&D is more about variety and validity and less about volume. By combining real world data with test data through the collection of big data, businesses can research through failures faster and expedite the rate of success.
Customer Service is not just providing after sales support or reactively answering customer queries. Big Data allows us to proactively implement additional ‘value’ added services. Remember, it’s not about what we can do for them when they ask; it’s what we can do for them before.
Drive Research & Development
It's a known fact that large corporations spend financially large sums of money on improving their products. Big data for R&D is more about variety and validity and less about volume. By combining real world data with test data through the collection of big data, businesses can research through failures faster and expedite the rate of success.
Other Benefits of Big
Data:
Identify Relationships and Patterns
Predict Growth –CRMs
Analyze Social Behaviors – Why they join / leave
Increase Customer Participation – Feedbacks / Reviews
Identify Relationships and Patterns
Predict Growth –CRMs
Analyze Social Behaviors – Why they join / leave
Increase Customer Participation – Feedbacks / Reviews
Since the publishing of our blog post on the 5th September 2013 titled “Big Data: The Race is On” by FingerTec’s CEO, we have been amassing large volumes of data to process, evaluate, analyze and have produced actionable plans to meet the growing demands of the biometric industry and our customers with results to show for it. Have a look at our range of clients.
Big data does not discriminate or segregate businesses based on numbers. The decrease in hardware and software costs, accessibility of social media and improvements in technology have made big data a Big deal.
Big data does not discriminate or segregate businesses based on numbers. The decrease in hardware and software costs, accessibility of social media and improvements in technology have made big data a Big deal.
By Justin Goh, Analyst, FingerTec HQ
FingerTec Websites: Help Yourselves with Our Vast Assets!
We have hundreds of resellers around the world. I can say that all of them know that fingertec.com has a decent website. The question is, how good is our website? I believe some of our resellers are yet to find out the benefits that our website could bring about. So, when I have the chance to meet up with our resellers, mostly I will end up promoting how they could exploit the websites to boost sales and reduce technical supports. It might sound like a broken record, but I believe that this is important.
Many resellers were probably blown away and overwhelmed by the website’s vast ocean of information when they first visited fingertec.com. FingerTec is indeed doing a good job; and usually they will give us thumbs up for the effort. And they would browse, read the contents, but after a while, I reckon the visits become less and quick, hopped from one page to another, and eventually they’d stop visiting. To some, business will continue as it is and nothing is plucked away from the website to better their sales and support. They’ll just praise us for having a strong and better presentation than the rivals in the cyber world. And this is not what I have hoped for.
In fact in the Internet era, the functionalities of a website should be so much more than a mere declaration of the cyber presence. The level of commitment can be varied. For example, like Facebook, website is them. There is no Facebook once you went offline. And for Amazon, this company literally doesn’t exist in the real world, no matter the vast list of merchandizes they’re offering. But for companies like Wal-Mart, even though they began with physical stores, without online establishment, the future looks somehow bleak.
With FingerTec, our brand soared high only when we revamped and re-launched our website a few years back. Bit by bit, we put our efforts into building a resource center, training site, display cabinet, technical helpdesk, service booth, and etc. Whatever you want to call it, potpourri-of-information-website or a salmagundi-website, this website is there for our resellers to unleash the virtual power to boost their sales and reduce supports.
We provide resellers with free passes to a vast variety of information, a member account credential. Without this account, you will only receive discounted benefits from our website. The only thing that is stopping you from digging the information to better the business is you.
As someone who buys FingerTec products for business, always remember to enter the website with a strong motive, and leave with something valuable. What is of value on our website, is depends on what you’re looking for. For example, there are 769 video clips so far, from marketing, product intro, technical supports, user guides and etc. Take the links to help you in your sales bid presentation, user training, hardware repairs, and much more. It doesn’t cost you a thing and it adds value to your efforts.
You have a plan to demonstrate FingerTec at a customer site? Come prepared. Choose your demo set from our website. You need step-by-step Powerpoint presentation materials, search and download them without any cost. If you want raw files to update and insert your company’s information, please do so.
If you want to conduct a proper survey on your customer’s premises before you can prepare a proposal for an access control project, please get the form downloaded from our website.
We have a series of academic research papers for technology and industrial in readily print-format should you want to enhance your professionalism in submitting proposal or pricing quotation.
Don’t forget that we also have a training website with comprehensive materials at your disposal to train both trainers and trainees. After training, they can sit for online exams and receive our print certificates upon passing the exams. For a more interactive online training, we offer FingerTec webinar page to register a course of your interest. You want to train your partners in your region remotely by deploying our webinar platform? You’re welcome to use our webinar platform, cost-free, no-fee involved.
These websites are enriched to assist you in reducing technical supports. Promote and educate the end-user technical modules to your customers. You can teach them to repair hardware through videos and how to claim warranty straight from the websites.
If you need to provide your customers with FingerTec’s souvenirs, require some from marketing material page, we have over ten specially designed souvenirs displayed on our website for you to choose from.
Basically, FingerTec's job is to prepare resources that you can use to better your FingerTec business. We figured that you might need assistance so we extend our support through our websites. Please be hungry for new things, new information and keep coming to the websites and help yourselves with everything that we have to offer.
By Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ
By Teh Hon Seng, CEO, FingerTec HQ
Biometric security can't come soon enough
Cyber-attacks and identity theft seem a realer threat than ever before, but the tools we need to protect ourselves we have carried since birth.
Friday, we made Ryan King the most verified man in Brooklyn.
"Verified," a fingerprint-recognition device chirped back at Ryan after he placed his finger on the reader.
"Verified," a facial-recognition device said to Ryan after scanning his face.
Ryan works at the American headquarters for FingerTec, a Malaysian company replacing PINs, usernames, and typed passwords with fingers and faces we don't need to memorize.
"You can't copy someone's fingerprint unless you chop it off," Ryan said, "which wouldn't work because it has to be attached to a hand."
"One nine, zero, seven, five," Alexy Khitrov said to his phone.
Alexy recited that random list of numbers aloud, while his phone scanned his face, and -- without pressing a single button -- he logged into his online banking account.
"There are over 70 parts of the human body that create the human voice," Alexy said.
And -- for all those impersonators out there -- we can control only 15 of those parts.
Alexy founded SpeechPro, which sells voice-recognition software. He estimates 50 million to 60 million people worldwide already use a voice log-in. And that figure doubles annually.
"Passwords are dead," Alexy said. "They are so 20th Century and we're in the 21st Century."
In a world where nearly every ATM now uses an operating system without any technical support, where a bug can force every user of the Internet to change the password to every account they've ever owned overnight, where cyber-attacks and identity theft grow more menacing every day, the ability to use your voice, your finger, your face or some combination of the three to log into your e-mail, your social media feed or your checking account allows you to ensure it's very difficult for someone else to pretend they're you.
"The system is essential broken," Bionyn CEO Karl Martin said. "The idea that technology uses this secret string of letters and numbers to know who we are and we have to remember [that string of numbers and letters] is archaic."
Biometric innovators like Karl continue to develop new ways for our bodies to sign in for us. Martin's Nymi bracelet, for example, allows users to enter a password with only the beating of their heart.
Whether hardware or software, implementation all of these biometric advances requires an overhaul of infrastructure. The good news about the death of Windows XP is that it forces banks to upgrade the security systems used in their ATMs, allowing at least an opportunity to implement some new technology.
Read more: http://www.myfoxny.com/story/25227738/biometric-security-cant-come-soon-enough#ixzz2yp9G2Mq5
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