July 2022 - RSI Concepts - Top IT Solution Provider Company in Dubai, UAE

July 21, 2022July 21, 2022

How to Choose the Right Software Development Vendor for Your Business

For any business the top priority is its customers. Thus businesses invest huge amount of resources in the customer satisfaction solutions. However, there are several other factors that contributes to a business’s success such as the market trends, competition, internal processes and employees. Today’s world is heavily dependent on digital and information technology. The technology have completely transformed our lives, from our smartphones to vacuum cleaners and from our vehicles to electric switches everything is becoming smarter day by day. Businesses also have to keep up with the pace. Especially here in Dubai and in fact all around the UAE a common consumer is far much educated and well-versed with products or services than anywhere else in the entire middle east. Savvy customers not only demand high from the businesses but eventually such markets tend to have tougher competition too. That is why businesses also need to become smart and more efficient. Which is achieved by utilizing a variety of software systems and solutions such as ERP, HR System, CRMs, CMS, Smartphone Apps, Websites, Accounting Software, HR Management System, Performance and Appraisal software, etc.

In order to keep up with the market needs and to improve efficiency, each business function has to be connected with each other. The flow of information makes business processes smooth and fast. Now a day’s businesses are adopting a fully centralized information center which connects everything within the organization‘s eco system and make businesses more efficient and profitable. However, when a business has to choose a software or a solution they always have two options. One is COTS which stands for commercial off-the-shelf software solution and the other is the custom software development. If you are reading this article that means I don’t have to convince you that custom software development is far superior to the COTS. In fact since past few years the custom software industry have witnessed a sudden spike in the growth. That is all because the COTS have failed to offer much needed maneuverability for the businesses to journey across fast moving markets.

When a need arises for a customized software development the biggest challenge is to find a reliable software development vendor who can not only meet your needs but also assure the success of the software or tool you are developing. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE there are hundreds if not thousands of software development companies which makes it very difficult to choose a right vendor. On top of that most of the businesses and the managers are not experienced enough in the custom software development which further clouds their judgments. In this blog we will discuss all important steps that a business should take in order to find a best custom software development vendor in Dubai, UAE.

Step 1: Define your Goals, Objectives and Project Timelines

Before starting your search the very first thing that you need is a goal and objective of the custom software development project. I am not saying you should have a full fledge plan of action, just an abstract of what you need would be enough.And the end-goal should be crystal clear. Let us take an example of document sharing and processing tool. For example, currently your employees are manually processing documents for internal processes. A document that is being generated by a clerk and it needs approval of his superintendent or supervisor, then it might require another signature of the manager and even several other internal authorities could be involved. Preparing the document, taking its prints, then moving the file upward could be time consuming and it could cause delays, especially when cross-function tasks are involved where managers or employees from different business function has to approve a single file before submitting it for final approval to a general manager or eve CEO, the manual process could take a week or so.

However, when a digital system is in place which provides a semi-automated or fully automated framework to push the files from one point to another, this could be done before the afternoon. The clerk could prepare and push it to his/her immediate manager, then it could be reviewed by them and pushed to the next level, and so on. If anyone wants to hold the document, they can hold it, if the approve it, it will automatically appear in the next manager’s dashboard. This is super-fast and it can have a significant impact on your internal processes and performance. In case of this example, our goal was to ‘minimize the file processing time’. Which can be achieved with the help of a small software application. Similarly whatever you need, you should have a clear goal in mind and you should know what you want to achieve with your custom software development project.

You are not required to have an in-depth work flow at the beginning but just a brief understanding of how you want to utilize the software. Let us take the same example, in case of custom document processing or file processing software, you should know what hierarchies you would be needing to achieve the required work flow. What will be the approval process, who would be able to edit the document and/or who will be creating it and who will be the final authority for the approval, etc. Just the simple and basic things about the project. Since we are dealing with internal documents which might contain some sensitive information so would you be comfortable to host it at a remote hosting or would you like to host it at in-premises data center. Will you be needing to integrate that software with any other existing software and how the users will sign-in to the system, etc.

These all details will not only help you achieving the desired results from the custom software development project but even a basic plan could save you a lot of time and cost. You can set milestones and dates which will obviously be revised but it will provide vendor a clear picture of what is expected from them. That is why having a clear end-goal and strategic objectives with a basic project plan and scope of the application must be laid down before you even start looking up for a custom oftware development vendor.

Step 2: Search for Customer Software Development Vendors

Searching for a custom software development vendor is not an easy task in Dubai and in fact anywhere else in UAE. If you search in Google, it shown you hundreds of custom software development vendors. The Google search is the easiest way to find some custom software development vendors. Check out the websites and try to learn about the business, its customers, work and other details. You can click on both ads and the normal search results too. You can also look up in the popular listing sites such as Clutch and GoodFirms, etc. These listing directories also provide a variety of filters such as location, industry focus, hourly rates, project size, etc. These tools can help finding top rated custom software development vendors. Surfing their websites will provide you more clarity about the company, its size, and its expertise. However, the website might not provide you enough information, each company build their website is a different way, although there would be a lot of similarities but still you might find some useful information about on one vendor’s site which would not be available on the other.

Don’t make rules here, just judge a custom software development vendor on the bases of their website and whatever the information they are publishing on it. The best way is to start with smaller companies with adequate work experience. It could minimize the cost a lot and they would be more agreeable on a lot many things. Try to look up for case studies on the vendor’s website, this will provide you much better understanding of the capabilities of the custom software development vendor. At this step make a list of at least 10 custom software development vendor who are located closer to your business and request them all to share their portfolio and experience in relevant industry. The reason of going through the case studies and the portfolio is to find a project that closely resemble to your requirements. The biggest drawback with the larger vendors is that they usually have multiple layer of management which could make processes and communication a bit more time-consuming that is why a smaller or medium sized custom software vendor could be a good choice, but remember, that is not an ultimate criteria.

Step 3: Analyze the Relevant Experience

It is crucial to analyze the portfolio and relevant work experience of the short listed custom software development vendors. This will provide you a better understanding of what they did in past and what you can expect from them. You can also learn if they have ever did something similar to your custom requirements. As if they have already done something similar to your requirements, it would be a lot convenient for them to do it again and most probably they will do it even better. From technical point of view, the skills and the level of expertise that is required to build a project might be sufficient to build several other totally different projects, but for a business owner or a manager it is very hard to understand those technicalities. That is why it is better to see if they have done something in past that resembles your requirements. If a custom software development vendor is saying they have done something similar but couldn’t provide the proof or sample then it is better to avoid them.

Sometimes businesses do sign a NDA or non-disclosure agreement which prevents them to share some of their work a good company will be able to share enough samples of work to let you understand their capabilities and level of their skills. In case if a custom software development vendor is unable to provide you relevant experience due to NDA then at least they will be able to provide you a broader outline of their previous projects. Which would be enough for you understand if they are telling the truth or not. The point here is that if the custom software development vendor will have relevant work experience they will be able to deliver a good quality product.

Step 4: Consider their Location

Usually business don’t consider this much but the geographical location of the vendor is very important. It is best to have the custom software development vendor from your Emirates or from a nearby city. For example, if you are located in Abu Dhabi and you chose a vendor from Ras Al Khaimah it will take them almost half day to reach you out, which will make difficult, however, if you are located in Sharjah and the company you chose is also located in Sharjah or Ajman, they could easily come to you. Here in Dubai and all across UAE there are vendors who only have sales office in UAE and their technical teams works from outside of the country, mostly in India or Pakistan. Such custom software development vendors are very hard to work with. Since the team is overseas which makes communication difficult and it could create a lot of problems during the project execution.

There is another type of custom software development vendor very common in UAE, those are completely off-shore companies, and they neither have sales office nor any other establishment in UAE. Since they are not bound to UAE laws so you will not get any protection in case of dispute. Working with off-shore companies and sharing confidential information with them could be very risky and it can compromise your security in future too. It is better to completely avoid off-shore companies.

Step 5: Compare Different Custom Software Development Vendors on the bases of their Proposals and Quote

Make a short list of all the custom software development vendors who have passed through above all steps and request them to submit their proposals and quotes. Comparing different proposals and quotes is a very critical process. It is better to prioritize the technical aspects over financial aspects. However, the cost of the custom software development project is also a major rating factor when comparing different vendors. The primary rating criteria should be the features of the system and the value it can add to you businesses and not the price. But make sure you are not overpaying for something. Sometimes some features might sound very fancy, it is important to focus on your pre-determined needs and only consider the features which are meeting to those needs.

Here are a few important points that you should consider while comparing different proposals and quotes from different vendors:

The age of the company, how old is the company?
How many projects they have delivered so far and who are their customers?
How much staff they retain and what is the qualification and experience of their staff?
Did they expressed the offered solution clearly along with your requirements?
What technology they are proposing you, and how experienced they are in it?
Does their proposed timeline meets your timeline?
What project execution method they are using?
What service, maintenance, AMC or SLA they are offering?
What other relevant services they offer?
What are the payment terms and costing of the project?

Once comparing all those aspects re-arrange a list while best on top. At this stage you should ask them to provide some other important details too such as:

If the new system has ability to integrate with your existing infrastructure, tools and systems?
What is the integration method?
What kind of training and skill set is require to operate the new custom software system?
What training and user manuals they are offering?
What is the support and escalation process?
What will be the renewal cost for any time-bound agreement? (Usually for AMCs & SLAs)
What will be the customization and scaling cost in future?
How the upgrades and updates will be managed during the warrantee period or under AMC?
How the upgrades and updates will be managed after the warrantee period or AMC?
Is there any cost for the upgrades and updates in the software?

Sometimes some of the above concerns are already addressed in proposal or correspondence. But it is important to clarify all these details. This will further help you to accurately estimate the operational and upgrade cost for the software in future.

Step 6: Consider the Technology and Scalability

Hopefully by now you have already made up your mind, however this is a very important aspect of custom software development. There are several technologies available in the market which are used to develop tailor-made software solutions for businesses. It is important to understand some of these technologies are compatible with each other and some are not. The compatibility is usually for the integration and data transfer/sharing. If your new custom software and your any of existing tool are not compatible then the integration between such platforms will be expensive and might not meet all needs. That is why the integration compatibility is also very important. There are two major types of software that are most widely used, not only in Dubai, UAE but all around the world. One is the native software application building and the other is web-based software and tools. These two are completely different from each other and also require a completely different development skills. Usually the scalability is not an issue with the customized software, however, it is important to discuss this point briefly with the custom software development vendor and see how easy and cost-effective scalability their solution is offering.

Step 7: Get into the Agreement and Sign Contracts

The agreements, contracts and sign-off is the final stage of selecting a custom software development vendor. It is also a very crucial step. The contracts and agreements lay down the foundation of the future relationship. It is important that you go through each and every clause of the agreement. Whether it is data privacy, payment terms, delivery and milestones, communication process, complaint and escalation matrix, just go read them thoroughly and don’t leave a single stone unturned. Most of the time these agreements use legal or technical terminologies, so if anything confuse you, immediately ask the vendor to explain it. Keep all of the correspondence official and maintain full record of all emails. These cautions are not because the vendors are not trustworthy, in fact agreeing on all these points is mutually beneficial. The custom software development process is a complex and lengthy processes where an average development phase could last for a month or so. So, it is important to avoid disputes and unwanted delays in the project completion. That is why it is crucial to fully understand and agree on each and every clause of the agreements. Once you are satisfied then do the sign off and initiate the project.

Conclusion

No matter what your requirements are the above step-by-step guide will help you finding the best customized software development vendor in Dubai or anywhere in UAE. The success of a custom software development project heavily depends on the vendor. Good vendors always help their customers and provide them great advice, which also help customers to further improve their software. Furthermore this is a long term relationship, and a business will require services and support from the custom software vendor too, so it is important to choose your custom software development vendor wisely. RSI Concepts is a leading custom software development company in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you with your custom software development project, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: Modern Methods of Performance Appraisal

July 20, 2022

Modern Methods of Performance Appraisal

The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very competitive and vibrant market which demands businesses to perform well to defeat competition and sustain a long term growth. The performance appraisal and performance management is a standard practice for large businesses in the country. However, now a day’s even local businesses and SMEs are also implementing performance management frameworks to boost their productivity, profitability and to sustain growth. The employee performance appraisal system provides a structured mechanism to deal with obstacles, resolve problems, improve employee engagement, boost their morale, monitor progress, and above all align all the resources to achieve the high-level business goals and objectives. Whether you are a local or small business, a medium size enterprise or a large-scale business the biggest challenge is to select a suitable performance appraisal method. This blog will help you understand the modern methods of performance appraisal.

What is Performance Appraisal?

Basically the employee performance appraisal is a process of evaluating employee performance against clear and quantifiable goals and objectives that are aligned with high-level organizational goals and objectives.Traditionally the appraisal are done on annual bases. However, more and more businesses are adopting continuous monitoring and more frequent appraisals. Actually the problem with traditional employee performance appraisal method is that it is done annually, and in some cases twice a year. Whatever the case is, the traditional appraisal methods doesn’t support the modern fast-paced and ever changing market and business needs. The traditional performance appraisal methods lacks adequate communication and they also don’t support the managers in process of making timely course corrections and taking steps to deal with problems or in taking preventive measures during the appraisal period. By the time when the manager become aware of a problem, it is already too late, the damage have already been done. Hence, more and more businesses are now leaving traditional employee performance appraisal methods and are more inclined towards modern appraisal practices.

8 Modern Methods of Performance Appraisal

In Dubai and all around the UAE the competition is very high and the customers are too demanding, which pushed businesses to take drastic measures in order to boost their performance and by improving employee management processes and performance appraisals. That is why selecting an appropriate employee performance appraisal method has become a challenging task for the businesses and the HR. In this blog we will cover top 8 most effective and modern employee performance appraisal methods to provide our audience a brief understanding of each method which will help them selecting the best performance management system as per their needs.

Modern Performance Appraisal Methods: 1. Management by Objectives (MBO)

The simplest definition of Management by Objectives (MBO) is that the high-level organizational goals are defined and determined first then according to those goals and objectives, employee and managers mutually identify/define, communicate, plan and manage employee goals and objectives for success. This enables each individual to see their progress and accomplishment in connection with high-level organizational goals and objectives. It gives employee a clear understanding of what is to be expected from them in order to achieve their individual goals and what is their contribution in the high-level business goals and objectives. This helps each individual employee understand the top priorities of the business and let them align with the high-level goals and objectives while carrying out their daily tasks. Aligning the employee and all resources with the high-level organizational goals while providing them with a clear understanding of the organizational and their individual goals can drastically boost performance and increase the quality and quantity of the outcome.

Modern Performance Appraisal Methods: 2. Psychological Appraisal

All traditional employee performance appraisal methods only evaluate the past performance of the employees, even the most modern methods only consider at most the ongoing performance however, the psychological appraisal method is a very unique evaluation process, it help businesses and managers understand and evaluate the future performance and potential of an employee. The psychological appraisal method focuses on the intellectual and personal traits of an employee which can either improve or deteriorate their performance in future. The psychological appraisal methods is designed to meet the modern needs of the workforce, as now a day’s employees are more vulnerable due to balancing their work and personal life, which could result in frustration and poor performance at both work and also it can impact their personal life. That is why the psychological appraisals are conducted by qualified psychologists who held several personal sessions, in-depth discussions and interviews and perform various psychological tests to understand the true potential of an employee and the result/feedback is used to project their future performance expectancies.

Modern Performance Appraisal Methods: 3. 360 Degree Feedback

The 360 Degree Feedback is simply feedback and performance data which is systematically gathered from the all relevant connections of the employee such managers, peers, team leads, cross function managers, and even customers or any other external source too. That is why it is called 360 Degree feedback. Naturally every employee likes the communication and continuous feedback, this help them understand their performance better and encourage them to make improvements. Since the 360 degree feedback collects feedback data from all internal and external raters who interacts with the employee, so it provides a variety of different aspects and prospective of employee performance. It increase transparency of the appraisal process and keep employee motivated. That is the reason the 360 degree feedback is one of the most widely used appraisal method. This method can effectively highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the employees and help them make improvements in right direction. Furthermore the 360 degree feedback is a great tool for the businesses and managers, it help them forming high-performance teams to achieve critical strategic goals and to work on important projects.

Modern Performance Appraisal Methods: 4. Critical Incident Method

The critical incident method is a very useful employee performance appraisal tool it evaluate and provide analysis of the employee performance when a critical incident happens, the employee’s manager provide the details of the incident or gather information about the incident and the employee is evaluated to understand if he/she performed very well, or very bad or the incident where he/she could have performed better. Basically the critical incident method is used to analyze the KSAO – knowledge, skills, abilities and other indicators/attributes required to perform their task. The critical incident method is widely used by the businesses to analyze if the employee meets the required KPIs (key performance indicators) associated with his/her job role. Businesses wants to understand if the employee is performing his/her job role as per requirements or if the management intervention is necessary who can enroll the employee for a training, held consoling sessions, compensate them for their achievements or terminate them for very poor performance. Essentially a business wants to know if it is getting what it is paying for or not.

Modern Performance Appraisal Methods: 5. Assessment Center Method

The assessment center appraisal method analyze employee’s abilities, competencies, skills and personal characteristics by asking them to participate in in-basket exercise, simulations, test groups, and role playing exercise where employees are put in various roles with various responsibilities and asked to do the tasks or to solve real-life problems. Basically the assessment center appraisal methods are used for in-depth analysis of employee’s emotional behavior, response, problem solving skills, ability to deal with pressure, adoptability, collaboration, judgment, etc. and several other traits. There could be several tests and simulations to reach to a conclusive result. Usually the assessment center method is applied when a business wants to hire a new candidate or if a candidate is up for promotion, etc. however, since past few years it has become a popular appraisal method. The assessment center appraisal method is done under a trainer who evaluate the employee and he/she also discuss their performance with the other raters.

Where it provide a great tool to boost the morale of the high-performers and motivate the average-performers the assessment center method could also have negative impact on the low-performing employees. Hence it should be done by professional trainers only.

Modern Performance Appraisal Methods: 6. 720 Degree Method

Basically the 720 degree method is a modern and more evolved form of the 360 degree method. The 720 degree appraisal method consists of two rounds of 360 degree appraisal over a pre-determined time period. The employee evaluation is done by two groups, internal stakeholders and external group who interacts with employee such as customers, suppliers, investors, etc. This is what made 720 degree appraisal method the most crucial for the employees and for the business as well. The main objective of the 720 degree appraisal method is to meet the expectations of the employer, employee and the customers too. In the first round the aim is to build an effective employee development program or individual development program. Then after a certain period of the time the employee’s performance is analyzed again to understand how their performance is improved and how potential they have for future. The results of the second round also help evaluating the effectiveness of the employee development program and help organizations make improvements for future.

When employees notice improvements after the development program they got motivated and business can gain their trust which help to improve performance in the long term and also reduce employee turnover.

Modern Performance Appraisal Methods: 7. Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

The behaviorally anchored rating scale or also known as BARS is one of the best employee performance appraisal method. It help businesses to leverage the both quantitative and qualitative performance data during the appraisal process. The behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) enables the rater to measure the performance of an employee against pre-defined behavioral responses anchored to a quantifiable rating scale or numeric value. This method can accurately measure the quality of the work as well as the quantity. Poor quality with more quantity and good quality with less quantity are both not good, in fact an employee performance should be balanced between the quality and quantity. The behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) is a numeric scale from 5 to 9 where 5 means poor and 9 mean good performance. The manager who conduct BARS analysis must write down all the tasks that an employee is expected to perform, then they should define the appropriate behavior that goes along with those tasks. All these behaviors can be assigned a numeric value which can be used to determine the employee behavior hence the business can get a highly accurate data. Which helps improving employee performance and allow businesses to form high-performing teams.

Modern Performance Appraisal Methods: 8. HR Cost Accounting Method

The HR (human resource) accounting method consider employees as an asset and it measures the cost a business had incurred to recruit, hire, train and develop the employee. The HR cost accounting method also determines the financial impact of the employee performance and their economic value to the business. In simple words the HR cost accounting appraisal method determines the value of the cost of retaining an employee and the revenue it is generating for the business. It improve various human resource processes and help businesses understand the cost of the human assets. This is done to ensure the employees are delivering the value as per the expectations form their job role. It not only help determining the cost and returns of the human assets but it also help businesses in evaluating the output of the human resource, training programs, and other relevant facilities. The HR accounting appraisal method enables businesses to measure the employee performance against the monetary benefit or value generated by their service.

Why Performance Appraisal is Important?

Before we discuss different performance appraisal methods it is important to understand what are main objectives of deploying an employee performance appraisal method? Here are some key objectives a business can achieve by implementing an effective employee performance appraisal system:

Sustain Growth and Increase Profitability
Improve Performance and Operational Efficiency
Increase and Facilitate Communication between Managers and Employees
Define and Communicate High-level Business Goals and Individual Goals Clearly
Align all Resources and Individual Goals with the High-level Business Goals and Objectives
Increase Employee Engagement, Improve their Morale and Reduce Turnover
Collect Real-time Employee Performance Data
Design Effective Employee Development and Training Programs
Implement and Improve Employee Competency Building Process
Improve HR Processes and also Evaluate HR Programs
Improve Employee Feedback, Compensations, Rewards, Recognitions and Accountability
Achieve Short-term and Long-term High-level Business Goals and Objectives with Higher Success
Optimize Cost, Effectively Utilize Resources, Increase Output and Gain a Competitive Edge

An employee performance appraisal system enable businesses to make improvement in each and every function. It just not improve employee performance but it also improve the entire internal culture of the organization and help improving brand identity by providing good quality work and satisfactory services to the customer. Businesses can gradually achieve their performance goals and develop a very reliable and efficient workforce which can help them even in a very competitive market such as in Dubai, UAE.

Conclusion

The employee performance management is essential for businesses and organizations who are seeking a sustainable long term growth. When it comes to employee appraisal methods, all methods can be classified in two groups, the traditional employee performance appraisal methods and the modern employee performance appraisal methods. In this blog we have covered only the best and modern employee performance appraisal methods because the traditional appraisal methods are getting less effective over the time, their accuracy is not enough for the modern needs and the processes mostly involve manual steps too which reduce the accuracy and increase chances of errors, mistakes and even bias. These modern performance appraisal methods are designed to meet the modern needs and provide highly accurate evaluation. RSI Concepts is a leading performance management system provider in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want to enquire about our employee performance appraisal solution please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this : Employee Performance Appraisal System for Small Businesses

July 19, 2022July 20, 2022

Employee Performance Appraisal System for Small Businesses

Here in Dubai and in fact all around the UAE the small businesses often think that the employee performance appraisal systems and enterprise performance management tools are only for large businesses and big corporations, however, that is not true at all. In fact a proactive performance management strategy can significantly boost the growth of the SMEs (small and medium size enterprises). Effective performance appraisal and employee management is essential for any businesses whether small or large. The performance appraisal systems help businesses aligning their resources, employees and processes with their long term goals and strategic objectives. The employee performance appraisal system is a great tool to improve communication, employee retention and employee satisfaction. The performance appraisal systems are a great tool to boost productivity and they also serve as an early warning system and alert them to take actions and make course correction to continue the progress in the right direction.

For small businesses usually the business functions are small, sometimes a single employee is performing multiple tasks, and so on. The impact of individual employee performance is relatively larger in case of small businesses. That is why the employee performance appraisal systems is even more important for small businesses. However, most of the local and small businesses doesn’t have an employee performance appraisal system. This means all such businesses are not operating at the full operational efficiency. An employee performance appraisal system allow small businesses to set up a top down mechanism to achieve strategic objectives. The employee performance appraisal system is a framework that enable organizations to successfully implement strategies to communicate and achieve top level objectives to effectively improving daily activities of their frontline employees. For small businesses the biggest challenge is the resources and funds. Here is how a good employee performance appraisal system can improve their return over investments, reduce their expenses and increase their profitability by allowing them to intelligently manage their resources and ensure maximum outcome.

What is Employee Performance Appraisal System?

The employee performance appraisal system is a systematic approach to evaluate the ability of an employee to complete the required tasks. The employees are evaluated across different performance dimensions such as the quantity of their work, the quality of their work, the value added to the business’s goal, the financial aspects of sustaining the employees and the true cost of their service to ensure the employees are delivering what they are hired to deliver and the business is getting what it is paying for. However, all these efforts are useless until the employee is properly communicated the high-level organizational goal and objectives, and what they should do and how they should do to achieve the required performance that can contributes positively to achieving the high-level organizational goals buy achieving the individual performance goals. Doing this manually is not a simple tasks that is why the employee performance appraisal system is used by businesses to improve the performance.

What are Different Types of Employee Performance Appraisal Systems?

Earlier the businesses and organizations were following the traditional employee performance appraisal system. However, things have drastically changed in the past two decades, especially the last 10 to 15 years lead to a rapid transformation of traditional business practices and industry standards. The traditional employee performance appraisal systems were mainly manual and require a lot of resources too. Furthermore there are several loopholes and other factors which can reduce the accuracy of the results. Therefore businesses started to digitalize their performance management systems. The digitalization, automation and innovation resulted in a significant change in the results and help businesses to boost their productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Here are the types of employee performance appraisal systems:

General Appraisal

The general appraisal is a continuous communication process between the employees and the managers. The final evaluation is done at the end of the year, where manager and the employee hold a meeting to discuss and determine if the goal and objectives are met for the last year. On the bases of this meeting the manager prepare a feedback and then new goals and objectives are set for the next year.

360 Degree Appraisal

The 360 Degree Appraisal is a more in-depth analysis it includes feedback from supervisor, line manager, peers, customers, cross function management, direct reports, feedback from relevant stakeholders (both internal and external) and comprehensive review of behavioral competencies. The feedback data is collected throughout the year and then it is reviewed by the manager at the time of appraisal period.

Project Based Evaluation

The project based evaluation is one of the modern form of employee performance appraisal system. It boost employee engagement and keep them motivated. The evaluation is done on the bases of employee performance and contribution to a particular project. The manager or project manager gives the feedback on the bases of employee performance during the project execution process.

Employee Self-Assessment

Employee self-assessment is a good performance appraisal process it keeps employee motivated. The employee evaluate their performance by themselves and then the evaluation report is compared with the evaluation done by the manager. The manager held a meeting with the employee and discuss the differences and try to understand employee’s prospective which help motivating them more.

Manager Performance Appraisal

The manager performance appraisal are very crucial for any business. It is the managers who are responsible of keeping the employee motivated while ensuring customer satisfaction. The manager performance appraisal is usually done by feedback from the clients, teams, and even individual employees, some are kept anonymous to prevent repercussions in future.

Sales Performance Appraisal

The goals and objectives of a salesman and sales team have huge impact on the high-level financial goals and objectives of the business. Hence their performance evaluation is very important. The sales performance appraisals is the result produced by a salesman or sales team comparing to the pre-set goals and objectives (SMART Objectives) for a certain period of the time.

Technological Performance Appraisal

The technological performance appraisal is also a modern form of performance management. The individual employees are evaluated for their technical proficiency and understanding. These days the since most of the regular business functions and operations are heavily digitalized and the technology keeps evolving, so technical know-how has been given high importance along with other competencies.

These are the most common employee performance appraisal methods. A small business or medium size enterprise can implement several methods to monitor and boost its performance. For large corporations and big businesses the impact of individual performance is not so strong. However, small businesses might only have one or two salesman, maybe only one accountant and one or two administrative staff along with junior level workforce and staff. So, for such businesses poor performance from the accountant could put the entire business in murky waters. Hence the employee performance appraisal system and active performance management is extremely crucial for long term success and profitability.

What is Employee Performance Appraisal Cycle?

The employee performance appraisal cycle or performance management cycle is based on four stages. These stages start with setting up goals and objectives, developing strategies and making plans and then closely monitor the performance and progress through the execution of those plans and at the end employee development and rewarding process. Here are the four stages of employee performance appraisal cycle or performance management cycle:

Planning
Monitoring
Reviewing
Rating & Rewards

The planning is the very first step any small business will have to take. The manager, owner or stakeholders determine the high-level business goals. On the bases of these goals the managers set goals for individuals, different teams and business functions. For employee goals and objectives the managers should apply the SMART Framework, where the S stands for Smart, M for measureable, A for achievable, R for relevance and results, and T stands for time-bound.

The continuous and pro-active monitoring is a key to success. Traditionally managers and supervisors don’t follow up much frequently, however, that makes the entire employee performance appraisal process ineffective and businesses couldn’t get desired results. That is why continuous monitoring and more frequent (monthly) follow ups are important, especially for small businesses and medium sized enterprises. The reviewing is also a very important stage in employee performance appraisal cycle. The review provide comprehensive data on employee performance and what factors are impacting their performance in positive and negative sides of the pre-set requirement. It also highlight the areas of improvements. The final step is rating and reward process.

The small businesses or even any size or kind of businesses must have a fair rating and reward process. The employee who underachieve should be warned, or trained or even terminated if necessary and the achiever or over-achiever should be awarded fairly. This increase the morals of the employees and overall workforce and encourage them to perform better in the next employee performance appraisal cycle.

What is Employee Performance Appraisal Software?

An employee performance appraisal software is a technological solution to streamline the performance management processfor businesses. The small businesses and medium size enterprises always have limited resources. The employee performance appraisal software is very easy to operate and it automates maximum performance management tasks. It provides a centralized dashboard and enable the management to continuously observe the performance. It automatically collects employee performance data and offer various modernized features which not only make performance management easier but more effective. The performance management software can help businesses implementing various employee appraisal methods and provide in-built data analytical tools which make analysis easier and improve the accuracy of the process. It increase employee engagement, save time and efforts, and improve communication between the employees and the management which are crucial for achieving better performance.

Why Small Businesses Need an Employee Performance Appraisal System?

The employee performance appraisal system can be game changer for small businesses and medium sized enterprises. For every small businesses the biggest goal is to grow and scale over the time. For a long term growth a business needs a long term strategy and plan to maintain a certain level of performance, productivity and profitability. It is a very common belief that in order to raise the quality and quantity of the work a businesses must have to increase resources which means more expense. For a small business investing too much of its hard-earned cash into expanding team and operation is not always an option. However, a good employee performance appraisal system or performance management system can significantly boost the capabilities of the workforce which means more high quality work can be done without raising your investments or expense. Here are some key benefits of utilizing an employee performance appraisal system to streamline the growth of a small business.

Employee Performance Appraisal System: Boosts Morale

Let us admit, everyone likes being praised at work. If my boss highlight some of my achievement in an internal meeting, I will feel proud. This will raise my morale and it will make me more passionate about my work and performance. An employee performance appraisal system provides a framework to document and formalize admirations and praises. This not only impact on the individual employee who is being praised, but it also inspires others to perform well. Everyone like being recognized for their efforts. The fair recognition not only help boosting the morale of the employee but it also impact on the entire team, if people knows that whoever will genuinely perform well will be praised and recognized, they do well. When someone is awarded with adequate credit to their efforts they feel happy and satisfied. It improve employee retention and happy employees tend to perform well.

Employee Performance Appraisal System: Increase Employee Retention

Employee retention is crucial for a small business. Hiring a new employee, letting them integrate in the team and investing precious resources on them and then losing them could cost a lot to a small business. It also impact on the other team members and it impacts on the overall organizational culture of the business. Higher employee turnover could cost a lot of resources, time and lose of work also. That is why the employee retention is much more important for the small businesses. The employee satisfaction and happiness is a key to employee retention. Several independent studies and market experts suggests that employee can perform well and be loyal to the employer even if they believe they are earning less, if and only if they are happy and satisfied.

The employee performance appraisal system increase communication between the employees and the managers, it provide a framework for recognition and appreciation which help managers to resolve any problem their employees might be facing. When the employees are being heard, their problems and complaints are taken seriously they become more loyal and satisfied.

Employee Performance Appraisal System:Highlights Training Needs & Sets Career Path

The employee performance appraisal system provide in-depth insight of employee’s skillset. Regular and more frequent reviews and discussions enable managers to understand the capabilities of the employees and also highlight their flaws. Fluid communication and providing a forum to employee to better express themselves which helps managers understanding the employee and it also enable them to identify any needs for the training before even it start impacting the productivity and performance. In the modern world the technological advancements and changes in the market trends are more often which means the business must have to keep improving its workforce all the time. The frequent discussion whether formal or informal among the employees and the managers can help identifying any shortcoming and future requirements.

Furthermore it clarifies the career paths for the employees and make them more passionate about their work. Which boost their morale and provide them a sense of purpose and a goal within the organization which also reduce employee turnover. When the managers are well aware of the technical and behavioral competencies of their employees, they can chose right candidate for the promotion which helps improving the performance and productivity and also boost morale of the employees.

Employee Performance Appraisal System:Higher Employee Autonomy

The biggest advantage of an employee performance appraisal system is that is simplify the communication between the employee and the manager, this enables businesses to clearly communicate the high-level organization goals to the employee. Which help setting up clear individual goals and objectives and set clear expectations from the employees while providing them complete understanding of their contribution in the high-level business goals. Hence the employee and the mangers can make better plans which increase achievements of strategic objectives and result in a better overall performance. This also boost employee’s morale by proving them more freedom in making their own decisions which results in more commitment, productivity, loyalty and satisfaction. More frequent reviews and communication ensures employee satisfaction and provide managers a chance to quickly solve problems, resolve disputes and remove obstacles from the business processes. Freedom, trust, and loyalty drives innovation and fosters a culture of growth and productivity.

Employee Performance Appraisal System: Rewards, Recognition and Accountability

The employee performance appraisal system sets clear path for reward and recognition programs. It ensures fair process and reduce employee complains, in fact it help gaining their trust. For any organization whether a small business or large enterprise a healthy and productive environment is a key to growth and success. When the employees are passionate, satisfied and committed to their objectives the business can achieve the high-level goals and objectives. Where the rewards and recognitions are important the accountability is also crucial. Awards and recognition is for achievers and over-achievers however the accountability is for the under-achievers. Usually here in Dubai and all around the UAE the employees think that the accountability promotes a culture of blaming, however, that is not true at all. In reality a fair and effective accountability is absolutely necessary to explain the business goals, objectives, mission and vision to the employees and it clearly communicates the role of individual employee and the expectation from them in order to meet those goals and objectives. Which inspire passion, commitment and personal growth amongst the employees and boost their performance.

Employee Performance Appraisal System: Raise Profitability and Boost Growth

Every small business in Dubai or anywhere in the UAE or even in the world would want to raise their profitability and boost their growth. That is the most natural goal of any small or large business. However, for smaller businesses the journey is slightly different. Each businesses have its own niche, category or industry, however, everyone wants to grow. An employee performance appraisal system can play a crucial role in ensuring long term growth. The growth lies in customer satisfaction and quality of work a business delivers to the market. These both factors fully rely on the employee performance unless you owns a fully automatic machine which take raw material in and produce 100% perfect product from the other end, which is a nice fictional story but in reality that is not possible. As a business can’t survive without satisfied customers similarly a business can’t operate without a proper workforce. The employee satisfaction and happiness is equally important, it ensures good quality work and great services for the customers which makes them happy and satisfied.

Improving employee performance, keep them motivated and passionate about their work and gradually improving their skillset and capabilities is what drives success. An employee performance appraisal system is all about it. It help businesses communicate with its employees, it provide an intuitive framework of feedbacks and it help businesses identify the areas of improvements. The employee performance appraisal system doesn’t only help improving employee efficiency, performance and competencies but it also help improving the managers and eve higher staff as well. The employee performance appraisal system help businesses optimize efficiency and performance at every single bit of their organization. Which optimize cost and expense, enable employees to deliver more, improve quality and ensures happy and satisfied customers. Collectively it help businesses generate more sales, profits and grow on a continuous pace.

Conclusion

The purpose of this blog was to provide our customers and audience a basic understanding of employee performance appraisal system. I tried to highlight its importance for the small businesses. All small businesses and medium sized enterprises in Dubai or anywhere in UAE can leverage the employee performance management system to boost their growth and profits. The main objective of deploying a performance management software is to boost employee performance, increase their satisfaction and loyalty and to maximize their output. Quality work and efficient workforce results in happy and satisfied customers. Which are a key to long term success. Small businesses need higher customer retention in order to grow. Studies have revealed that acquiring a new customer could be 5 to 25 times more expensive from selling to an existing customer. Poor quality products and sloppy services repel your customers and make it even more expensive to build a good brand reputation that attracts customers.

That is why for small businesses and medium sized enterprises an efficient and effective employee performance appraisal system is absolutely crucial to achieve long term goals and to sustain growth. RSI Concepts is a leading custom software development company in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to build a custom, cost-efficient and very effective employee performance appraisal system or performance management system for your business. Please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: The Concept of Queue Management and Crowd Control

July 16, 2022

The Concept of Queue Management and Crowd Control

Managing queues and crowd control is not only herding customers and visitors from the entrances and placing them in waiting lines, it is far complicated than that. The crowd and queue management is crucial to ensure a smooth customer flow which have huge impact on customer experience and customer journey. For businesses customer journey and satisfied customer experience is a key to success. However, there is no prefix or how-to-guide for effectively managing the queues and crowds. That is why we are writing this blog to provide our audience a better understanding of the matter. Various businesses need queue management and crowd control especially services based sectors and the event organizer companies require a proactive approach for queue management and crowd control. For every business the queue management and crowd management is slightly different however the basic principles are the same.

No matter what business sector you belongs to, the most important thing for any business to understand is that the slower customer flow and long waiting time just not only harm your service quality but it results in a huge loss in sales and revenue as well. In long term it have even more serious impact which is at the brand reputation and credibility. Once people start getting bad experience from a brand, they tend to talk about it, whether it is with coworkers or family or even social media platform, people tend to express their feelings and bad experiences which could be very dangerous for the brand reputation. A negative brand identity not only make new customer acquisition harder and expensive but it also repel your existing customers and reduce customer retention. That is why it is extremely important for businesses to manage their queues effectively and have a proper crowd management and prevention strategy in place to avoid such scenarios.

What is Queue Management and Crowd Control?

The queue management is managing the customer flow to ensure a smooth customer journey. The queue management helps improving the customer waiting experience by effectively optimizing the customer flow throughout the customer journey. The old manually managed waiting line methods are obsolete and replaced with more sophisticated digital queue management systems. A queue management system consists of different software and hardware components that help businesses effectively managing the customer flow and enable them to improve the customer experience and customer journey. The term crowd control is self-explanatory, it means management of the crowd at any waiting area or venue where the business needs to serve its customers in any way. If the queues are not managed properly the crowd formation is inevitable. When the queue management and customer flow is well-managed the chances of crowd formation are slim to none, however, in some cases due to some unexpected events or disruptions a businesses could still face situations where crowd is formed. In such scenarios a business must have a crowd control policy as well. Which can also be implemented by the digital queue management system now a days.

What is Queuing Theory?

The queuing theory is basically a mathematical presentation of how the queues and waiting lines are formed and how they naturally function and why and how they malfunction. As the queuing theory is a mathematical understanding of the queues, it measures and analyze all elements of the queue management and customer flow. Basically the theory was first developed for the purpose of learning about the computer systems and the data communication between those systems. However, later the theory was also applied to the actual customer queues instead of data packet. The queuing theory has a lot many other real-life applications. For the queue management systems and crowd control the queuing theory majorly measures and analyze the customer flow, waiting lines or queues, the method or mode of arrivals, the types and number of services, the service processes, number of counters/servers, and the number of customers. The primary objective of queuing theory is to understand and determine the causes of congestions, delays and the crowd formation at the waiting areas. Businesses implement queuing theory to achieve a balance between the queue management efficiency and cost.

What is Queue Management System?

A queue management system is a tool consists ofseveral software and hardware components which are used to improve customer flow, customer waiting experience and customer journey by optimizing efficiency and introducing automation to various internal business processes. The queue management system improve customer experience by managing customer journey and improving the operational performance. This is achieved with the help of various tools which automate various touch points and reduce human efforts to maximize the efficiency of the system and the staff which results in quicker and better service delivery. A queue management system is a very effective tool for crowd prevention and management as well. Basically the prime objective is to keep your customers happy, and a queue management system is a perfect solution to improve customer experience at all steps of customer journey. Another great ability of a digital queue management system is that it can collect valuable business intelligence data which help businesses in making informed decisions and do improvements in their current strategy and policy to further improve customer happiness and customer retention.

What are Different Types of a Queue Management System?

That is the most obvious question a business faces when they decide to acquire a queue management system. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE there are so many different service providers and vendors who are advertising a lot many different queue management systems and solutions. Which could get confusing for a lot of the businesses. You might find a variety of different types of queue management systems in the market such as:

Queue Management System for Banks
Bank Branch Transformation Tools
Queue Management System for Hospitals, Pharmacies and Healthcare
Queue Management System for Restaurants
Queue Management System for Government Offices
Queue Management System for Students/Collage/University
HR Queue Management System
Virtual Queue Management System
Retail Queue Management System

And a bunch of more. That is why it become a very challenging tasks to decide which queue management system will be suitable for you. Regardless of industry or application, all queue management systems work on same basic principles. That is why you shouldn’t have to worry about different types. If you need a queue management system for your business the best solution is to acquire a customized solution from a well-reputed queue management system provider in Dubai, UAE such as RSI Concepts. The tailor-made queuing solution tends to perform many time better than ready-made/off-the-shelf solutions.

A queue management system majorly consists of two distinct types of components one is software and the second is hardware. The queue management system software have further more components or modules and similarly the hardware also have more modules. All different types of the queue management systems can be classified on the bases of components they are using or their application for a specific industry. However, the best is to utilize as many components as you can to facilitate each and every step of the customer journey. Here are some examples of different modules of queue management systems:

Queue Management System Software

Basic QMS Software Modules

Server Software Application
Back-office or Administrative Control Panel
Agent Dashboard
Customer UI (For signup or ticket dispensing kiosk)
Reporting Module

Advanced QMS Software Modules

Virtual Queuing
Online Appointment Booking Module
Queue Management System Smartphone Application
Integrated Notification and Alerts Module
Separate Head Office and Branch Manager Dashboards
WhatsApp Enabled Queuing
QR Code based Queuing
Customer Feedback and Survey Collection Module
Performance Monitoring and KPIs
Business Intelligence Collection Module
Comprehensive Reporting and In-built Analytical Tools
Report and Alerts Automation Module
Mobile Sign-up Function
Third-party System Integration

Queue Management System Hardware

Basic QMS Hardware Modules

Interactive Self-Service Ticket Dispensing Kiosk
Digital Signage Displays
Counter Displays
Smart Media Players & Drivers
Audio Announcement System
Customer Calling Unit (These days agent dashboard is used more often for this function)

Advanced QMS Hardware Modules

Emirates ID (EID) Reader
Passport Scanner
Boarding Pass Scanner
Barcode/QR Code Scanner
RFID Reader
Biometrics Scanner
Document Scanner
Payment Gateway and POS Integration
Cash Deposit and Coin Acceptors
Customer Feedback Touch Screens/Tablets Integration
IP Camera and Intercom Integration

These all are most widely used components and modules. Obviously everyone doesn’t require all of them but businesses should offer as many features as necessary to make process simpler and convenient for the customers. These components also help optimizing various customer journey steps and reduce the overall service delivery time. Which not only help improving customer experience but also reduce the workload of the staff and service agents and results in a significant improvement in employee performance.

How Queue Management System Helps in Crowd Control and Crowd Prevention?

A queue management system enables businesses to automate queuing process and various other business processes. This expedite the customer flow and reduce customer wait time. The sign-up for the queue is completely automatic either by the interactive self-service ticket dispensing kiosk or by several other regular and remote channels. Furthermore there is no problem that staff usually faced with manual queuing, which reduce the workload of the staff as well. The queue management system is capable of automatic customer flow management as well. Usually at any service center or business there are several counters, some could be exclusive for some services, some could be for VIP or Premium customers, and some could be for other priority needs and so on. A queue management system can automatically understand all these different customer routes on the bases of customer needs and customer priorities. Hence the customer flow is fully automatic.

This not only eliminates confusion but it also frees the staff to focus more on their primary tasks.Which in result improves staff performance and further speed up the service delivery process. The queue management system helps reducing the average wait time and average service delivery time which means a single service agent can serve more customers in a shift. Hence the chances of crowd formation can be further reduced. With a good quality queue management system the chances of crowd formation are very less even then if any situation arises where a crowd is formed the queue management system can be very helpful in controlling the crowd and expediting the service delivery by automatically managing customer flow and customer routing. The queue management system also have ability to monitor the queuing process in real-time and it can also record analytical and monitoring data in its server which enables it to take decisions in real-time and increase its crowd management and control efficiency.

The smart algorithms of the queue management system can do heavy lifting in the crowd management. However, businesses can also install extra measures to get more control over customer flow during the crowded situation. For example, the stanchions, floor stickers, wall-mount and floor-standing signs, belt barriers, chain posts, rope barriers, etc. The queue management system can be used to automatically route customers through these paths and direct them to the right service counter without any delay. This helps management to reduce crowd quickly and provide them more control and visibility during such events.

Key Benefits of a Queue Management System

A queue management system is a great tool to improve customer experience and customer journey. These days in Dubai and all around the UAE the queue management system have become an essential for the service based industries. A queue management system not only help improving customer satisfaction but it is also very capable of monitoring each and every touch point throughout the customer journey along with ability to gather employee performance data and various KPIs. A good queuing system such as RSI Queue Management System offers in-built data collection and analysis tools. Which can provide you a great competitive edge. Businesses can also monitor the branch performance remotely from the head-office in real-time. A customized queue management system can be customized to meet the needs of the business and it can help them improving the entire customer journey and also the employee performance which assures higher productivity, performance and profitability.

Here are some key benefits of using a good quality queue management system:

Reduce Customer Wait Time
Improve Customer Waiting Experience
Automate Various Customer Journey Processes
Integrate Queue Management System with Third-Party Systems
The Real-time Data Synchronization and Integration Improve Management and Control
Collect valuable Business Intelligence Data
Monitor and Measure Employee Performance with High Accuracy
Automatically Feed Statistical and Analytical Data to Relevant Departments/Personals
Comprehensive Reporting Module
Simpler Third-party System Integration
Easy to Commission, Low Operational and Maintenance Cost
Long Lifecycle with Ability to Scale and Evolve over the Time
Widely Available Hardware and Software Modules

These are some of the key benefits of a queue management system. A business can leverage queue management system to improve its various internal processes. The business intelligence data and ability to collect customer feedback further provide a highly accurate and valuable insight to the customers’ mindset and help businesses understand them more effectively. Which help businesses to keep improving their internal processes to enhance customer experience which help businesses in gaining customer trust and loyalty.

Conclusion

For any business in Dubai or anywhere else in UAE the queue management system has become an essential. The UAE is a very rapidly growing economy, the markets are very vibrant, the competition is high and the customers are savvy. In such scenarios the customer satisfaction has become fairly difficult. However, businesses should realize that these days’ the customers not only evaluate a brand on the bases of their products/services but they weight experience almost equal to the quality of the products and services. That is why the queue management is used to improve customers’ experience and customer journey. The biggest challenge for any business is to reduce the customer wait time and quickly deliver the service. That is why it is crucial for businesses to have adequate understanding of the concept of queue management and crowd control. The purpose of this blog was to provide our audience and customers a brief overview of the subject. If you want to learn more or if you want us to help you with your queuing needs, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: Queue Management System for Banks in 2022

July 13, 2022

Queue Management System for Banks in 2022

Managing guests and customers at a bank branch is always challenging. Apart from other service sectors the banks have certain challenges that other businesses might not have. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE there are several banks which offer great value products for businesses and individuals. However, when it comes to services, every bank is different. That is why the customer values experience the most. The customers love to be treated like a VIP. Although offering VIP protocol to each customers is neither practical nor necessary. But a good branch experience could be a turning point for the customers. The way they got treated and the experience they had at a bank branch can influence their decision very heavily. If a customer had a bad experience then they will immediately switch to a competitor. These days it is lot easier, in fact almost every other bank is offering registration via online or from the mobile apps and then their representative will meet you at your office or home to do the formalities. That is why customer retention has become a huge challenge for customer experience management team. And dealing with long waiting lines, unhappy customers and crowded waiting areas could be a nightmare for the branch management.

A queue management system is a key to digital branch transformation. The customer’s experience in the branch will impact on their relationship with the bank. The customer retention for financial institutions is a very sophisticated work. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the market trends are slightly different from the rest of the world. The UAE as a country is a leading economy in the Middle East with a very attractive market, favorable government policies and great infrastructure for the businesses. This resulted in a huge growth in the banking sector as well. The customers here are from all around the world. The overall community is very well educated and the market is extremely competitive which leads to even higher expectations from the banks. A queue management system provides excellent customer experience and more control and visibility of the customer flow process and customer journey.A queuing system can provide a greater competitive advantage and let your bank stand out of the crowed. A bank needs a flawless customer journey, smooth customer flow, great customer experience and very comprehensive intelligence data in order to monitor and keep improving everything. Here is how a queue management system can solve all those problems:

Queue Management System Reduce Wait Time at Banks

Let us admit, no one likes to wait in the long queues or congested waiting areas. People just don’t like waiting. As much as their waiting time increases their stress level also increases. Which leads to further inconvenience for both the customer and the staff as well. Think a customer had to wait for almost 45 minutes to reach to a service counter, where a service agent had already dealt with 2 out of 5 angry customers who were also annoyed by the long waiting time, what will happen next? It is no brainer that the chances of a satisfactory experience for this customer with this server are slim to none. No matter how hard you trained your staff or how experienced they are, one can only suppress a limited emotional pressure and stress, eventually it will start reflecting on their behavior. The waiting time for banks or any other business is way too damaging than usually businesses anticipate. That is why the waiting time is considered to be the most important aspect of any customer journey. A queue management system is a great tool to reduce waiting time from somewhere 30% to even 80% in some cases.

A queue management system digitalize many steps of customer journey. It streamline customer flow with in-built features that enable banks to automate various processes and utilize resources more efficiently. This alone can reduce the burden of your staff by up to 60%. Imagine you have manual queues where people are waiting in lines, the least your staff would want to deal would be the line jumpers and disputes among the customers. In order to improve customer flow the bank will have to deploy more resources, which is also expensive. Even then if more staff members are deployed in the waiting areas, the service agents will still have to deal with a lot of irrelevant stuff. For example, there are several counters, some are dedicated for certain services, in manual queuing the chances are a few customers will always end up in wrong queues. Which will result in delay, and the agent will have to do extra efforts to adjust them in the right queue. There are tons of other things that both the customers and the staff will have to deal with if there is no proper queue management system in place.

A queue management system automates the ticket issuing process. Usually it comes with an interactive kiosk machine which dispense the tickets. The customers and visitors can be asked to choose which service they are intended to use. This prevent any confusion among the customers and also save prevent a lot of unexpected delays in customer flow. Furthermore it frees the service agent from additional work and let them focus on the service delivery instead. Which improves their efficiency and productivity and results in quicker service delivery. The quicker service delivery means less waiting time for each customer. As the queue management system is a digital system so every customer will know that their ticket numbers, the customer flow and everything is controlled by the computer, hence no one will have any complaint and no one will cause any interruption. Which significantly reduce waiting time as well. If a single customer had a complaint, it will take more time at the counter while debating with the server, hence the waiting time will add up to all of the remaining customers. A queue management system prevent all such problems and reduce the customer wait time.

Queue Management System Automates Customer Journey

For a service based business such as banks it is crucial to manage the customer flow and customer journey in a well-organized manner. There are several services that a bank can offers, some of them are pretty straight forward and some are not. There are two major classifications of the services, some services can be delivered through a single counter, and some require the customers to go to more than one counters. Such scenarios can add up to the complexity of the customer journey and it can also result in disturbances and mismanagement in the customer flow. A queue management system is a digital tool powered by a very intelligent and capable software. The queue management system comes with several customer flow management tools such as AI powered smart software engine, signs and stanchions, line dividers and barriers, floor stickers, physical signs, digital signs and much more. Which not only automates customer flow but also effectively manages customer journey without any intervention of the staff. In case of stepped services the queue management system can automatically direct customers to the right counter.

In the banking sector the customers are of different value, priority and importance. Some customers are more important and are entitled to special treatment and exclusive customer journey. A queue management system can effectively manages all those customer segments with different priority levels with 100% accuracy. Furthermore there are usually exclusive counters for such customers which are used to improve the customer journey of the priority customers without disturbing the regular customers. A queue management system can also handle all these needs with 100% accuracy. A modern queue management system is powered by AI and advance smart technologies which enables it to automatically analyze the historic and current data and on the bases of these analysis the queue management system can make decisions in real-time which further help improving the customer journey and customer experience. All this is done by the smart algorithms of the queue management system and doesn’t require any human assistance. Although the management can program a variety of flows in the back-office or administrative control panel of the queue management system software.

Queue Management System Enhances Customer Experience

Reducing customer wait time and automating customer journey in itself is a significant improvement in customer experience. However, a queue management system is capable of much more. A standard modern queue management system can offer a variety of engagement features to the bank customers which keep their interest and reduce their boredom of waiting. The most important is the usage of digital signage. A queue management system includes digital signage which run entertaining content, marketing materials or any other eye-catchy multimedia content which keeps customer busy during their waiting time and it reduces their stress as well. Furthermore these days in Dubai, UAE the audio announcements are also considered to be an industry standard now. The audio announcements comes with a very attractive tone or small ring which immediately capture customers’ attention. It announces the next ticket number and the designated counter number, which keep customer distracted from the waiting and improve their waiting experience.

One of the most important feature of a queue management system is that it intensively gather business intelligence data and it can also perform analysis on the data in real-time. Usually these analysis are done on a server which makes the system super-efficient and eliminate any latency. On the bases of these analysis the queue management system can predict the estimated time of turn for any customer. Usually that time is printed on their ticket and it can also be displayed on the digital signage screen. The estimated time to turn might looks like a small feature but it has a huge psychological effect on the customer. The studies have revealed that our brain is programmed to fear the unknown. That is something which is embedded in our DNA. You must be thinking what does a harmless queue management system has to do with the fear of unknown. Well, it is the human psychology. No matter if it is dangerous or not if something is unknown to us it will make us uncomfortable. In case of waiting time, when the time is not known, one can only speculate, which add more to their stress and discomfort. That is why it is very important to provide estimated time to turn and it can significantly improve customer experience.

Virtual Queuing Offers Ultimate Customer Satisfaction

The primary goal of improving customer experience is to achieve the maximum customer satisfaction. A happy and satisfied customer is most likely to spread good words about the bank and it could also attract more customers. Furthermore the loyal customers are tend to tolerate several bad experiences before they decided to switch to a competitor. The loyal customers are a great asset for a bank and they can generate a huge revenue as well. That is why it is crucial to keep your customer happy and satisfied. One of the most modern form of queuing is the virtual queuing. The virtual queue management system integrate modern technologies to further enhance the customer experience. The main aim here is to reduce the wait time and customer journey. The virtual queuing uses a variety of mobile mediums to allow the customers and visitors to sign-up remotely for virtual queues. That mean the customer can sign-up for a queue without even physically arriving at the bank.

The queue management system offers WhatsApp, QR code, websites, mobile applications, customer portals and a variety of other digital channels which enable a customer to sign-up without even physically arriving at the bank branch. Hence they have freedom to arrive only when their turn will come. This literally eliminates the wait time completely. There is no customer wait time at all. The virtual queuing also provide more flexibility and control to the service agents by enabling multiple communication channels between them and the customers. For example, the WhatsApp can be used for communication where the customers can also respond or ask questions to the assigned service agent. Similarly the agents can send SMS to notify the customers about any change and the virtual queue management system can also send alerts via SMS, Email, Online Customer Portal, Mobile App – Push Notifications, etc. The virtual queuing can offer a great value to customer experience.

Queue Management System Integration with Third-Party Systems

A queue management system can offer a variety of innovative features if it can be integrated with other existing software and systems. Usually banks have a centralized information center. The queue management system can be linked with customer database, customer relationship management tools, centralized information center, sales data, performance management system, etc. The third-party integration is not only limited to the software, in fact a modern queue management system includes an interactive self-service kiosk machine. Banks can have additional peripherals and hardware devices linked to this kiosk to further improve the customer experience and customer journey. For example, banks can link Emirates ID card reader, or a document scanner for self-service registration process or it can linked a fingerprint scanner, etc. The customer identification can help improving the service quality and it can also push customer data and required service at the agent’s computer beforehand which can significantly reduce the customer wait time. The queue management system supports all API based integrations and automatic data synchronization.

Queue Management System Mobile Apps & Appoint Booking Modules

The same way a queue management system can be integrated with other software and hardware tools, it can also be integrated with a mobile app and online appointment booing module. The mobile app allow users to perform all basic queue management system related tasks as well as some additional features which make customer experience more convenient and satisfactory. For example the most widely used queue management system mobile app feature is its bank branch finder. The bank branch finder in a feature that is integrated with maps and queue management system of the bank and when a user searches for a nearest branch, it can show them all branches that are located in the searched area. That is not all, the queue management system mobile app can also display the queuing data in real-time from each branch with estimated time to turn at each nearby branch. This help the customer decide where they should go. Furthermore the appointment booking module can be integrated in the customer portal as well as the smartphone application. The appointment booking module also provide additional details about the expected traffic at the selected time and day based on the historic data and analysis.

Queue Management System can Collect Customer Feedback Data

The customer feedback data collection is very important for customer experience management. Banks have multiple channels to collect customer feedback, these days mostly the digital channels are used as the traditional and manual feedback collection is difficult, require a lot of resources, the data collection and processing is difficult and the response rate is also low. However, the queue management system can not only collect customer feedback but it can deliver both high quality and quantity data as well. Furthermore the queue management system also facilitate the customer feedback campaigns by making them super-easy for the customers. Hence huge data can be accumulated easily. Usually banks use small touch screens, tablets or iPads to collect customer feedback data from inside the branch. Majorly this feedback is related to their experience, overall journey, the service agent, or the product they are using. The queue management system have ability to link customer profile with their feedback without asking them to enter their name, phone number, email or any other detail. For the customers, it is just one or two taps on the touch screen and their feedback is submitted. That is why the queue management system is a great tool to collect customer feedback data from customers and visitors.

Queue Management System Collects Valuable Business Intelligence and Performance Data

Modern day businesses are heavily relying on the IT (information technology). Banks and every other business collects a huge amount of data, which is processed, analyzed and then utilized in their decision making and strategy building process. This data is called business intelligence data. A queue management system can capture data from all touch points at the entire customer journey. For example, the number of customers signed-up for the queue, what services got most requests, what was the customer churn rate, individual and average wait time, individual and average service delivery time, the service agent performance and much more. The beauty of a digital solution is that such type of data collection is a very simple tasks, however, the data processing and analysis could be trickier. A queue management system collects a huge amount of data on daily bases, it automatically stores it in relevant segments or data repositories and made it available for the bank management. The queue management systems are built on a very smart and intelligent software engine which has capabilities to automatically analyze the data, derive results and then take decisions in the real time to impact the queuing process.

Furthermore all that data that is collected directly from the queue management system and all other data that is collected by other systems is combined and made available for the management. This data can be accessed in the system, various types of analysis can be performed within just a few clicks, and reports can be generated. There is no chance of mistake or error in automatic data collection and processing. The queue management system can monitor and measure the employee performance with great precision. How much time a service agent spent on the counter, their complete activity record, how many customers they served with each individual service time and average performance of the day. The queue management system’ performance data can also provide information about employee performance such as which employee is good at what service? Which services take more time for them and so on. All this data can be channeled to the HR for the HR purposes as well and it can be used to initiate training and employee development programs as well.

Banks can also configure the queue management system so it automatically direct the customers to the counters where the chances are they will get quicker service delivery. The business intelligence data and the performance data a queue management system collects can be automatically channeled to the relevant departments for their perusal. Management can incorporate the queue management system data in their policy making and strategy building process to efficiently utilize resources and to ensure the maximum outcome can be obtained with the limited resources. Furthermore this data can be used to highlight the areas of improvement which can be addressed to boot the customer experience.

Conclusion

A queue management system is not just a customer flow management tool for the banks, in fact it is a full-fledged bank branch transformation tool. It has ability to digitalize and automate several internal processes which not only help reducing the resources but at the same time these features can enhance the customer experience and customer journey. The queue management system can significantly reduce the customer wait time, improve churn rate, reduce employee workload, it keeps the customers engaged and happy throughout their entire journey. The queue management system can be easily integrated with other enterprise tools and bank’s internal systems to further introduce innovative features.

A queue management system is a great source of valuable business intelligence and performance data. The data quality and accuracy is exceptional. The queue management system can also be customized to match the bank’s needs and offer them a tailor-made solution which aligns completely with their internal business processes and help them improve the overall productivity, profitability and growth. RSI Concepts is a leading queue management system brand in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you with a completely customized or ready-made queue management system for your business please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: 5 Advantages of Custom Software Development

July 2, 2022July 2, 2022

5 Advantages of Custom Software Development

In Dubai or anywhere else in UAE businesses need to offer an excellent experience to its customers and they will have to establish their brand very well. In competitive markets businesses will have to offer something special which makes them unique and genuine. Over the time businesses establish their internal processes, methods and unique approaches to handle things differently, which gives them a great competitive advantage. It is this unique experience that distinguishes them attract more customers. Businesses these days heavily rely on the software and digital solutions. Furthermore the businesses grow over the time and their internal needs for the IT infrastructure and software solutions also grow. The UAE market is very vibrant, the market trends are changing rapidly. This requires businesses to keep up with the market as well as manage scalability and in addition to that they also have to maintain a balanced productivity and efficiency. That is why businesses in Dubai and all around the UAE are always seeking software and solutions to support their journey.

Whenever a business decide to acquire a new tool or software solution, the biggest challenge the management faces is to decide between the commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) and the custom software development. These software and solution can have a huge impact on a business’s performance, growth, productivity and profitability. The commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) might seem fairly reasonable in terms of initial cost, however, in long term they cost more than the customized software. The biggest disadvantage of commercial off-the-shelf solutions is that it is designed for masses hence it is built to be a general purpose tool. That mean it would never fit in as per the expectations. The custom software development on the other hand offers a fully customized and tailor-made solution to your problems. Here are some key advantages of custom software development:

1. Custom Software are Developed Exactly as per the Needs of the Business

The biggest problem with COTS is that they are designed for a mass audience. However, the biggest advantage of the customer software development is that it is exclusively designed as per the requirements, needs and specifications of the business. The solution is designed precisely to address the issues of the business and it is not a general purpose, one fit for all kind of application. The customized software are extremely efficient as they are tailor-made to solve certain problem for a business only. There is no unnecessary or unwanted component, which makes employee’s user experience very pleasant and satisfactory. In fact the user interfaces are also exclusively designed to meet the needs of the users which results in great improvements in the performance and usability of the software.The biggest problem with the commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) is that it is designed for a wide range of audience hence business usually don’t found all the features they need.

Talking about features, it is worth mentioning that the custom software development offer full freedom to include as many and whatever features a business wants and needs. This approach is very supportive for innovation and modernization. Business can gain a great competitive edge by including features which enhances their business process, produce better results and optimize the expenses. Whereas the commercial off-the-shelf software doesn’t provide this freedom. In fact they usually comes in pre-packaged format, different versions or plan type have different sets of features. The upgrading and modernization process is very slow and mostly it costs additional fees and charges. Most of the time it is very difficult to get all the needed features. Businesses always have to make compromises in order to keep the cost under control.

2. Custom Software Development offers Full Ownership Rights to the Business

The commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) are still owned by the vendor or service provider, the business doesn’t have any right or authority over it. The policies and protocols are not managed by the business who uses the COTS. So the business is just paying fees and using a product which is owned and controlled by someone else. Obviously the commercial off-the-shelf software does offer some value and control to their customers but the ultimate control is not in business’s hands. The custom software development on the other hand offers complete ownership rights, the software a business built for themselves is fully owned by them as well. Unlike COTS there is no monthly or rental fees. The business have to pay one-time to build the software and then there is just the running or operational cost. There is no additional cost. On top of that the ownership allow businesses to manage, update and scale the software as per their needs and requirements. Which provides them more freedom and control.

Here I would like to give an analogy of a rental and owned house. The difference between the commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) and the custom software development is the same. Businesses hire a customer software development company in Dubai, UAE who build the software and deliver it to the business. The business is not even dependent on the same software development company for the maintenance, further customization and scalability of the software. Business in Dubai and elsewhere in UAE also kept in-house teams to manage their customized software, which significantly reduces the maintenance cost and allow them to keep updating and upgrading the software without any additional cost. For those who don’t or can’t manage in-house software development teams, they can always hire a third-party or the same vendor to manage and improve their software at a very reasonable cost. The ownership of the custom software also enables businesses to allow their partners, customers, and subsidiaries without any additional licensing or any other cost.

3. Customer Software Development Offers Higher Security

For any business the data protection and security is a matter of life and death. In the modern data driven world the data security and protection is at the at most priority. If a data breach happens, the first thing a business will lose is its reputation and credibility. It will can have a long lasting impact on your customers and reputation. Mostly businesses couldn’t fully recover from such incidents. The data threats are very abundant and there has been millions of attacks at corporate and other sectors each year. The commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) are not inherently insecure or less capable, it is the fact that they are widely available all around the world and their structure and technology is also well-known. The fact that thousands if not millions of people are already using the COTS solution which makes them easy target for these data pirates and internet hackers. These people usually target COTS to gain access to their customers, employees, and financial data which they can use for their own agenda.

However in case of custom software development, someone will only attach it if they want to attach a specific company or business which significantly reduces the threat level. However in case of custom software development, someone will only attach it if they want to attach a specific company or business which significantly reduces the threat level.Mostly the software structure, backend programing and various other technical details are concealed which makes it even more difficult to attack and breach it. On top of that it is only the business who have access to their data, there is vendor, technical team or anyone else can possible access your data. Your data will be stored on the servers of your choice, and only the business and its designated employees can gain access to the data. This makes customer software development more desirable for businesses. Businesses can always higher a cyber-security professional in-house or they can do cyber-security testing and analysis from a third-party company to further improve the security and safety of their precious data.

4. Customer Software Development Offers Flexible Integration with Third-Party Tools

Every business has multiple layers of digital and IT infrastructures. The accounts must be running a financial software, the production must be running their tools, and the marketing department would be using different sets of software and tools, and so on. There is always an ERP or a centralized information center which converges all these tools and software to a single unified data base which is utilized by the decision makers and the senior management. All these tools are linked to each other at some extent. This link is established using integration techniques and technologies. A commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) also provide data synchronization and integration, however, with a very limited scope. Usually it is very difficult and expensive to link the COTS with other systems. As they are built on a pre-defined structure which the business can’t alter and it means the desired or optimum level of integration can rarely be achieved.

Businesses always have to alter other tools too, which add up to the cost and make the integration a very costly and difficult task. Sometimes in order to achieve the optimum level of integration businesses might have to introduce intermediary tools which are commonly known as middleware. These tools took the data from one software or database and make it workable for the other and vice versa. That is also a costly endeavor and even then the desired level of integration is very difficult to achieve. However, with the custom software development businesses have a chance to build the application as per the requirements and limitations of the existing IT infrastructure to achieve the maximum level of integration. Furthermore it is very cost-efficient to modify the custom software and upgrade them to improve their compatibility. This provides businesses with a greater advantage and allow them to introduce innovative features to maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of the custom software without worrying about the cost.

5. Custom Software are Easy to Scale with Ability to Extend Lifecycle

The custom software are far superior then the commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) in terms of scalability and longevity. It is all about the ownership of the software. The off-the-shelf software are developed by the service provider and the business have almost no control over it, if the service provider decided to pull the plug, business have no choice but to move on with an alternate. For example, Office 365 is a popular Microsoft tool for businesses, let say in coming 5 years, the Microsoft decided to replace it with a new one and within another couple of years they stopped support for the tool, the businesses who are using it, can’t do anything. They must have to switch. However, in case of custom software development the business owns the software, it have full control and authority over it. If the business wants to modify it or upgrade it they can do it and if they want to use for extended period of time, they can do that too. There is no barrier, limit or restriction.

The commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) offers good scalability but with a very hefty price tag. The custom software doesn’t require any additional cost and offer excellent scalability support. Each business is growing, for example, last year the business had 250 employees and now they reached to 300, they will have to acquire the licenses for the new employees which will cost them a lot. However with the customized software there is no such limitation, businesses can add as many users they want without worrying about additional fees or any such thing. Furthermore the customized software can be used for as long as the business wants. The biggest reason of changing a software is due to its limited features and over the time the usefulness of a tool also decreases. The COTS doesn’t address this issue seriously and eventually businesses will have to make a shift from one solution to another. But the custom software offers great value and businesses can easily upgrade and modernize them by modifying existing features and introducing new features which increase the lifecycle of the software to several more years and save a lot of cost and effort of switching to another software.

Customer Software and COTS Cost Comparison

Apart from advantages and features the custom software have excellent ROI (returns over investments) in the long term. It is a common misperception in Dubai, UAE markets that the custom software are expensive. However, that is not correct. The commercial off-the-shelf software’s initial cost is low and businesses can deploy them very quickly however, in long term the COTS are way too expensive, the scaling is very expensive, the integration is difficult which increase its time and cost. Sometimes intermediary tools or middleware are used to bridge the gap between the commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) and other tools to improve the integration process which is fairly expensive and time taking task. It is very difficult to find all the required features, as the needs grow business will have to upgrade them. In some cases businesses hit the road block where the software can no longer support the needs and eventually they will have to move to another comer off-the-shelf software or customized software solution to meet the needs. This all have additional cost, efforts and even disruption in regular work flow which also tend to cost money and time.

The custom software development is a very flexible solution, it provides full control and allow much higher levels of customization, integration and scalability. Scaling doesn’t require package upgrade or additional licensing fees. The business have full control over the customizations and modifications in the software. The business owns the software, hence it is not dependent on any vendor. The businesses can even manage in-house software management and maintenance team which enables them to unlimited changes and modifications in the custom software. Businesses can also expand the software implementation to their subsidiaries, partners and even customers without any expense. The custom software have longer lifecycle and can be modernized and upgrade to meet the growing needs and changing trends which eliminate the need of migrating to a totally different software solution and save a lot of efforts, resources and money as well. Hence in the long term the custom software is much more reliable, cost efficient and useful comparing to the COTS and that is the reason it yields far better ROIs.

Conclusion

The Dubai and all around the UAE businesses are facing many challenges, one of them is related to their IT needs. The markets are doing well, the overall economy of the country is growing at a smooth pace, which attract more investors. Hence the competition is also getting tough day by day. Businesses need to perform very well in order to stay relevant in the market. The modern day businesses are heavily relying on the IT and digital solution for their regular operations. This is where it could make a huge difference and provide businesses with a great competitive edge which help them stand out among the rest of the competition. Growth and progress is the primary goal of any business. With growth the internal and external needs also grow, businesses have to scale at a much faster rate than that of their growth if they want to sustain a long term success. That is why businesses deploy different types of software and continuously upgrading their digital arsenal in order to boost productivity, performance and profitability. Whenever a new need arose or a business wants to replace an existing old system with a new one to boost the efficiency and to support the modernization and innovation, the biggest challenge for the management is to decide between commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) and the tailor-made custom software solution.

There is no doubt the custom software are far superior then the commercial off-the-shelf software in terms of productivity, adoptability, integration, performance and ROI. In this blog we have mentioned five biggest advantages of the custom software while comparing them with the counterpart COTS software solutions. If you need any more help about the subject or if you want us to help you build your next game changing customized software solution, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: What is CXM (Customer Experience Management)?

July 1, 2022

What is CXM (Customer Experience Management)?

The prime goal of any business is to satisfy its customers and establish a long term relationship with them. Every business’s success is based on its customers. Satisfied and happy customers are considered to be the backbone of any business. There are two major reasons for that, one the satisfied customers become loyal and do repeated business and the second they help promoting the brand’s positive image which attracts more customers. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE the markets are very competitive which also made customer more demanding. Furthermore the technology is heavily integrated in our society with almost everyone (99%) of the population have access to the internet and social media. This makes market more vibrant and digitally dominated. The market trends also keep changing all the times so does customer’s needs and demands. Customers expect excellent experience form their favorite brands. That is why businesses are diverting their attentions to the customer experience management solutions.

Now a day’s the customer satisfaction matters the most, there have been several studies and worldwide surveys which indicated that the customers are happy to pay extra if they are getting good experience. This makes customer experience even more important. The most common mistake businesses made is that they think only the customer service or customer care departments are responsible for the customer experience. However, in this modern world, that is not correct. The customer experience includes customer engagements, satisfaction, experience and communication at all touch points throughout the customer journey. The customer experience management framework is a bit more customer-centric or customer-first approach to build and nurture a mutually beneficial relationship with your customers. The customer experience management help businesses to understand customer experience more effectively and enable them to enhance customer experience to boost loyalty and generate more revenue.

What is the Difference between Customer Experience Management (CXM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Although the customer experience management and the customer relationship management both look fairly similar, but both are completely different. Despite there are several basic elements and similarities the primary objectives of CXM and CRM are totally different. The customer relationship management or CRM is used to learn what the customer look like to the business and customer relationship management or CXM/CEM is what a company looks like to its customers. The customer relationship management (CRM) is optimizing and improving internal processes by collecting data from manual, semi-automated or in few cases fully automated channels. However, the customer experience management (CXM/CEM) takes this to one step further and allow businesses to collect data in real-time and offer a much deeper understanding of the customer experience.

The customer experience management (CXM) focuses more on utilizing technologies and modern communication methods to enable a cross-channel engagement and managing customer experience across all touch points and in all departments. Which makes customer relationship management just a component of the customer experience management. Here are some most obvious differences between the customer experience management (CXM) and the customer relationship management (CRM):

Customer Experience Management (CXM)	Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Provides both qualitative and quantitative data insight across all touch points	Provides quantitative data insight across certain touch points
Prioritize customer experience and unify the data across the entire customer lifecycle	Traditional analytical approaches for impersonal statistical data and trends
Prioritize customer engagement to drive sales and revenue	Prioritize operational capabilities and improvements to maximize the profitability
Enable businesses to respond faster to the market trends and changes with intelligent real-time data analysis and its impact on customers	Identification of market trends and response time is much slower and it focuses heavily on customer service to improve customer happiness
It utilizes automation and modern technologies to focus on the entire organization and all its functions and it covers the entire customer journey which includes, sales, marketing, support, web, social media, in-branch experience, etc.	It mainly focuses only on the sales team while enabling the businesses to nurture their relationship with customers by leveraging the automation and modern technologies

The customer experience management is a combination of technologies, processes, methods and strategies a business utilizes to monitor, organize and improve each and every interaction with its customer across all channels and throughout the entire customer lifecycle. Acquiring a new customer is very expensive, it could cost around 5 times to 25 times more than selling to an existing customer. That is why customer satisfaction is extremely important for growth and profitability. Studies have revealed that only a small portion of the loyal customers could be responsible for a huge portion of the entire revenue a business generates.

Why you Need a Customer Experience Management (CXM/CEM)?

The customer experience management (CXM/CEM) is not just another branding campaign, it is a very powerful data driven framework. Which help both businesses and customers equally and strengthen the relationship between business and the customers. The Dubai and in fact the entire UAE is a very well connected and competitive market. An effective customer experience management could provide your business the much needed advantage which will not only ensure customer satisfaction but also distinguish you from the rest of the market. It is a win-win scenario for both the customers and the businesses. The customer get an excellent personalized experience with satisfactory interactions and the business gets more leads, conversions and it also help businesses obtain a good reputation in the long term. The businesses can also acquire an excellent business intelligence data which provides them a much deeper understanding of customer persona and help them optimize well as per the customers’ needs.

Customer all over the world appreciate personalized experience. When their favorite brands offers them a personalized experience they feel more connected and valued which helps businesses gain their trust and drive customer loyalty. Here are the key benefits of the customer experience management (CXM/CEM):

Significant Improvement in Customer Retention:

Studies have shown that up to 5% increase in customer retention can increase your profit from 10% to 25%. That is because it is 5 to 15 times less expensive to sell to an existing customer than acquiring a new customer.

Happy Customers Need Less Attentions:

One of the biggest advantage of happy and satisfied customers is that they require less attentions. It requires less resources to serve them with satisfaction hence the service cost can be significantly reduced in the long term.

Improve Brand Reputation:

Happy and satisfied customers are more likely to promote your brand and products/services. According to several studies almost 80% of the customers make a purchase on the bases of their past experience or words of mouth.

Significant Reduction in Marketing Cost:

Loyal customers are tend to promote the brand with not only words of mouth but also on social media and digital platforms. Which can help improving your brand awareness and it can attract more customers without any marketing cost. Furthermore a good brand reputation also attracts more customers and reduce marketing cost and efforts too.

Improved Product Development:

Better understanding of the customer persona, their preferences and the market trends help businesses improve their existing products and provide excellent data for the product/service development process. Businesses can develop new and innovative products/services with features their customers and market is craving for which also boosts sales and conversions.

Great Competitive Advantage:

Improvements in all business functions such as operations, productions, supply chain, customer care, sales & marketing, etc. help boosting the overall performance of the business and also raise the quality of the work which can provide a greater competitive advantage and increase overall profitability.

Provides Huge Volumes of Crucial Data:

The business intelligence data gathered under CXM program can be a game changer for the businesses. It can accurately evaluate the impact of various customer engagement and customer satisfaction campaigns and it can also help in building future strategy as it provides a highly accurate statistical and analytical data which aids decision making processes as well.

Despite being so advantageous and useful the customer experience management (CXM) is still underrated in many regions and industry sectors. Studies have revealed that almost 70% of the businesses who are running an active customer experience management (CXM) campaign still don’t integrate the CXM data with their financial data. The customer experience management in itself is a very impactful framework however businesses can leverage its full potential only if it is linked with their financial data. Customer experience management (CXM) software integration with the financial data can boost its performance to several folds.

What is the Primary Goal of Customer Experience Management (CXM)?

The primary goal of the customer experience management (CXM/CEM) is to generate more revenue for the business. However, this can only be achieved by accomplishing the following most important tasks:

Link CXM to Financial Data: It is crucial that the CXM data is linked with your financial data. As the primary goal is to boost the revenue so without linking it to your financial data you will be flying blind.
Understand Your Customer Persona: The CXM collects data and provides a deeper understanding to the customer persona which helps businesses in setting up strategies and making plans.
Identify the 20%: According to several studies and researches all around the world. The 20% of the happiest customers are usually responsible for the 80% of a business’s revenue. It is crucial to identify those 20% and allocate more resources to keep them happy and satisfied.
Learn More about Your Brand’s Promoters: The brand promoters are only a small portion of your customers who are satisfied enough to promote your brand. Such customers are tend to be the best brand advocate and this data can be utilized to boost referral campaigns and acquire low-cost customers in a short period of time.
Understand Customer Journey: The customer journey plays the key role in customer satisfaction. The CXM provides a highly accurate and comprehensive view of the customer journey and make customer journey mapping and improvement more simple and effective.

The primary goal of any customer experience management (CXM/CEM) program is to boost the revenue and growth of the business. A CXM helps businesses to invest their resources in the most profitable areas. It can maximize the ROI of almost each and every business function. If a business wants to transit from a sales-oriented to a more successful customer-oriented brand, then the CXM program is the only solution.

How to Create a Good Customer Experience Management Strategy?

Any customer experience management starts with a 360 degree view of the customers. The business should start collecting statistical and customer data and converge it to a single centralized information center. Usually the customer data is scattered across different business functions such as sales, marketing, customer service, and operations. The first step is to consolidate the data streams form all touch points. Here are the essential of creating a good customer experience management strategy:

Combine and consolidate the data streams from all customer touch points into a single database.
Build customer personas – understand their needs, expectations and problems and segment customers into groups based on demographics (age, gender), geographic (location), customer behaviors and purchase habits.
Map the customer journey. The customer journey mapping help identifying customer touch points and their expected behavior on all those touch points. Customer journey mapping helps businesses to understand how customer will interact with their product and service and help the CX team to create a customer vision.
Build a strong and impactful brand image or brand personality to strengthen the bond between customers and the business. The unique brand personality help businesses establishing a strong emotional connection with its clientele.
Collect customer feedback in real-time and channel it to the CX team and other stakeholders to improve their visibility. It will help them understand the impact and effectiveness of the strategy.

Large businesses and enterprises can easily assemble a customer experience management team and appoint a CX manager who will be responsible for the creation and implementation of the customer experience management strategy. For SMEs and local businesses it is easier to appoint a single person to oversee the customer experience management tasks. Usually there is a chief customer experience office or CXO and a few customer experience managers (CEMs) and then the relevant teams. The data analysis and reports are generated by the CX team or executive and shared with the CXO and stakeholders and all relevant departments. This way the management can get a clear picture of the customer experience across all touch points which makes it easier for them to revise the strategy by making improvements to it and set a plan of action to further enhance the customer experience to obtain maximum customer retention.

How to Create an Effective Customer Experience Journey Map?

The customer experience management team or the manager is responsible for the customer experience at each touch point. That is why it is extremely important to map the ‘customer experience journey’ or ‘customer journey’ in order to effectively build and execute the customer experience management strategy. The customer experience journey map will identify all the touch points and let the team build a better strategy to optimize customer experience at all those touch points. Each touch point will reveal how the customer will interact and what customer behavior should be anticipated. Furthermore the team can improve the customer experience by optimizing those touch points as per the strategy. Here are the key touch points of the customer experience journey map:

1. Discovery Phase:

The discovery phase or reach phase is the phase where a customer or prospect discovers the business. Usually it could be from digital marketing or traditional marketing channels. These days the websites, social media and digital advertisements are the main players. However, customers also tend to consult with their friends, family and coworkers a lot.

2. Evaluation & Comparison:

In this phase the customers and prospects compare all available options in the market. They list down the competitor products/services and compare their different attributes, features, and costing, etc. Furthermore the customers also evaluate the business on the bases of its brand personality and they also try to find social proofs, recommendations, customer reviews and even references. If a brand succeed in gaining the trust of the customer at this stage the chances are they will get the businesses.

3. Decision (Purchase):

This is the phase where the customers finally came to a conclusion and make a purchase decision. Businesses consider this stage as a big win, however, it is just the beginning of the customer loyalty, retention and relationship building. Offering a flawless purchase experience is absolutely essential. Furthermore the business can capture transactional feedback at this stage which can be very useful later.

4. Support:

After sale support and services are considered to be the backbone of any loyalty program. It is crucial for the business to offer a great customer experience at this stage and make offering which can strengthen their relationship. If a customer got dissatisfied at this stage they will eventually leave the business and move on with a competitor.

These are just the minimum touch points of the customer journey. However, in the modern digital landscape business in Dubai and all around the UAE use several communication channels and offer several different types of digital and in-office/on-store interactions. Considering them all in the customer journey map is crucial to improve the accuracy and efficacy of the customer experience management (CXM/CEM) system. One of the most important component of the customer experience journey mapping is the customer persona. It is extremely important to segment your customer base into several groups and then it is easier to plug-in the typical persona into the customer experience journey map to enhance the customer experience at each touch point.

What are the Best Customer Experience Management Techniques?

Managing the customer experience throughout the entire customer journey is not an easy task. It requires a great strategy and excellent work to capture customers’ attention and keep them loyal. However, here are a few modern customer experience management techniques which can help businesses to achieve the desired goals and results of the program:

Content Creation: The customer experience management team must have to understand that at each touch point and stage of the customer journey they will have to prove value to the customers. That means for each relevant stage or touch point the business must have to create excellent customer-facing content. The ideal way is to offer personalized content such as emails, messages, web content, social media posts and online communication. The social media, websites, mobile apps, and other digital channel are an excellent solution to increase customer engagement by offering them personalized and most relevant content.
Evaluate All Touch Points: It is extremely important for a customer experience management team to continuously evaluate each and every customer touch point. The continuous evaluation can provide valuable business intelligence data which can tell what are the most popular touch points, at which stage the customers are making purchase decision and at which stage the customer are leaving for a competitor. This will help identify the problems which can be rectified to boost customer engagement and to improve their experience.
Collect VOC Data: The VOC or voice of the customer is the customer feedback data which should be collected on all customer experience journey phases. Collecting the customer feedback data is not enough the customer experience management team or manager should also be able to analyze the data to understand the customers’ sentiments. The emotional attachment with a brand is one of the key factor of customer loyalty and if effectively used it can be a game changer.
Great Customer Loyalty Program: The customer who keeps a brand dear also wants the brand to acknowledge their loyalty. The customer who do repeated business with a brand expect some kind of reward or acknowledgement from the brand. A well-designed customer loyalty program can not only make your customer happy but it could also drive upselling and increase revenue.

The customer experience management team or the manager must continuously analyze the customer data. This will help them effectively improve their strategies and yield better results. Another great advantage of continuous monitoring and analysis is that it provides brands adequate time to make changes and do course corrections. Which can prevent more customers from leaving and reduce your churn rate and it will also help to prevent such happenings in future.

What is a Customer Experience Management (CXM) Software?

The customer experience management (CXM/CEM) is a very challenging task. The sheer volume of the data alone could be a great challenge. Furthermore analyzing the data, categorizing it and generating reports poses additional challenges down the road. That is why the customer experience management requires an appropriate technology to support it. For that the customer experience management software are used. The customer experience management (CXM) software is a tool that collects data from each customer touch point and provides in-built analytical tools to generate actionable reports. These software are exclusively designed to support customer experience management tasks. Hence the interfaces are very simple and several operations are fully automated which makes the CXM software’s operation completely seamless. All good customer experience management (CXM) software comes with in-built CRM (customer relationship management) component/module along with marketing automation components and mostly an omnichannel customer support service module to provide support team with several convenient communication channels.

Here are the key features of a good customer experience management software:

Personalization Engine (to enable personalized communication)
Digitalization and Automation Tools
Customer Service Center/Call Center Tools
Customer Feedback Collection or VOC Tools
Knowledge Base Management Tools
Emotions or Sentiment Analysis Tools
Statistical and User Data Collection Tools
Customized Reporting Tools
Alerts and Notification Center
Flexible Third-Party System Integration Tools
Support for Cloud, Online Hosting and In-Premises Data Centers
Simple and Cost-efficient Scalability Features

These are some of the key components of the customer experience management (CXM) software. There are several off-the-shelf software and tools that can be utilized however in terms of user experience and data integration most businesses uses customized customer experience management software. The customized customer experience management software are tailor-made solutions which are exclusively designed as per the needs of the business and provide great value in terms of user experience. Furthermore the customized customer experience management software are also very cost efficient as they are very flexible towards integration and doesn’t require business to made any major change in its current business processes. The customized solution is far superior then commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) customer experience management software available in Dubai, UAE. A customized software development company in Dubai, UAE such as RSI Concepts can offer a-to-z solution for your customer experience management software needs.

Conclusion

Customer experience management has become absolute necessity these days. In the very competitive market businesses can utilize customer experience management tools and framework to boost their revenue and to build a long lasting successful track for their journey. Here in Dubai and all around the UAE businesses usually mistaken customer experience management as customer relationship management however, it is important to understand that the customer relationship management is merely a component of the customer experience management framework. The customer experience management is a highly data drive framework which is a combination of software, data collection processing tools, strategies and processes. The primary goal of the customer experience management is to generate more revenue for a business by improving customer experience at all touch points and at all stages of customer experience journey. The customer experience management covers all business functions and all touch points, which help collecting a huge volumes of data in real-time which can make businesses more robust and agile.

There are several commercial off-the-shelf customer experience management software however, the customized customer experience management software is far superior to that. RSI Concepts is a leading customized software development company in Dubai, UAE. If you want to learn more about the subject or if you want us to help you with your customer experience management software needs, please feel free to contact us through our Contact Us page or leave a comment in the comment box below and we will get in touch with you soon.

Check out this: Guide to Custom Software Development