Website Chat Software - NOWism in Modern Marketing
Search for the term in Google and you will find a number of results, including several links to Kat Dawes, the self-proclaimed founder of NOWism, extolling on the importance of integrating the spiritual practice into everyday life. But there is also a webpage from trendwatching.com that takes the philosophy and ties it in with the modern consumers need for instant gratification.
The latter description continues to have a big impact on our industry and is directly related to what Click4Assistance website chat software and our customers strive to deliver. Let’s have a look at the website’s definition:
“Consumers’ ingrained lust for instant gratification is being satisfied by a host of novel, important (offline and online) real-time products, services and experiences… Consumers are also feverishly contributing to the real-time content avalanche that’s building as we speak.”
As per forecast, the NOWism trend (which peaked in 2009) has swamped the 21st century with up-to-date multimedia content, all of which is aimed towards explaining to readers the immediate and tangible benefits of their latest product. Themes of NOWism, include abundance, experiences and the internet. While Kat Dawes is a big advocate of integrating this concept with our personal outlook on the world, the movement can also teach us practical business lessons.
The culture of NOWism has firmly taken root in western culture, no more so than in the online arena where customers seek immediate satisfaction to their purchasing, support or information needs. The old days of referring customers to FAQs and using half-baked automated solutions are behind us; e-commerce sites need to instead rely on a well-drilled army of customer support agents to satisfy their customers’ demands for interactive support.
This new model presents new problems, especially when it comes to tackling responsiveness and scalability issues
Companies are forced to walk a tight line between an affordable but adequate level of support. This is why recognising when, where and who to support should be a top priority.
For example, shopping carts were identified as one of the biggest pain points between 2009 and 2013. A cocktail of cart abandonment, complex payment processes and lack of shopper confidence in security is to blame for losing out on revenue at this critical stage.
The solution to this problem is complicated by the fact that, unlike high street shopping, the relative anonymity of e-shopping makes it difficult to provide personalised support. As a result, businesses are adopting intelligent customer service software to engage more customers and improve the bottom line.
Traditionalist VS Modern
Traditional customer support systems are something of a failure when it comes to gathering information. For example, a phone operator might know the customer’s location and have an understanding of the reason for their call but that is the full extent of their knowledge. This means customers become frustrated through continual redirections and canned robotic responses.
The modern-day marketing idyll strives to eliminate this problem
There is a big drive towards contextual marketing; a knowledge-based system that is capable of giving customers a high degree of instantaneous and personalised engagement (the very essence of NOWism).
Largely driven by the prohibitive cost of maintaining customer service agents, innovation has paved the way for more intelligent and dynamic customer support solutions. Businesses are now striving for a synergy between self-service customer support options and live agents. Adoption rates suggest that this is most viable through website chat software, which has enjoyed a greater technological leap in the last decade than any other support tool thanks to increased UK broadband coverage and competitive data rates.
An e-Commerce site’s profitability rests largely on its ability to reduce shopping cart abandonment and on how satisfied its customers are. Obviously, these two aspects are closely intertwined. Website chat software is modern marketing’s answer to the NOWism trend:
- Ability to offer product discounts and promotions in real-time
- A fuller customer experience that acts as an extension of the brand (not just the website)
- Instant accessibility to a real person
- Ability to share the browsing experience with the customer
- Access to the keyword that brought the visitor to your website
- Track visitor progress through website in real-time and push chat invites instantaneously
The NOWism philosophy might seem quirky and superficial, but businesses stand to reduce their customer support costs and increase customer satisfaction by moving from a traditionalist to a dynamic system. Only then will it be possible to meet the high demands of 21st century customers.
At Click4Assistance we believe that the ability to instantly meet customer demands is vital to success. Why not try one of the best live chat software solutions on the market and see if your business can benefit from the NOWism philosophy?
