In our fast-paced industry, it is very easy to lose track of I the fact that we are all people. As a society, we are heading in a direction that reduces human interaction. According to a research article by Michael Chui, James Manyika, and Mehdi Miremadi, Four fundamentals of workplace automation, “45 percent of the activities individuals are paid to perform can be automated by adapting currently demonstrated technologies”. Emerging technologies, revolutions and crisis that occur in the business environment are all factors in directors overlooking the importance of a human touch in the business world. According to W. Brian Arthur, a visiting researcher at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center’s intelligence systems lab and a former economics professor at Stanford University, “digital versions of human intelligence” are increasingly replacing even those jobs once thought to require people (How Technology is Destroying Jobs, David Rotman). Tech companies have grown accustomed to virtual conversations and minimal human contact overlooking the fact that we only evolve and progress because of our human nature. Read on to discover the benefits Big Bang ERP has encountered by choosing real-time contact methods to connect with people instead of relying solely on emails, text messages, etc.
At Big Bang ERP, we promote human interaction and strong communication between people and across all departments. As a service company, it is our duty to apply it in our daily tasks. In fact, responsiveness is one of our core values, internally and externally. If you get an email from an interested person, pick up the phone and talk to them. It is important to ensure they know someone is ready to help and is interested in understanding what they need. We enable trust by humanizing ourselves and creating an environment with an open communication.
In a world that has been taken over by technology, emails, direct messages, we forget that the easiest and fastest way to communicate is through the phone. It doesn’t even need to be a long call. It can simply be calling your prospects to schedule a virtual meeting and using emails to confirm the details. How much time would you save if you did that instead of scanning through long electronic threads until you both agree on a time and day?
Moreover, we want our customers to fully trust in us, and it is difficult to trust someone you have never seen or spoken with. As trusted advisors, we need to prove our reliability, our presence and our concern for our customers’ success. Establishing a human connection with our customers is a priority at Big Bang ERP. It has proven to be successful over the years and the feedback we receive from clients tends to highlight the good job we do at communicating and being responsive. So simple isn’t it?
The human approach is important to business in terms of generating leads and establishing loyalty, but it is also extremely crucial internally. At Big Bang ERP, all team members are encouraged to go see their peers in person when they require assistance – yes we encourage people to take a little walk and tackle the problem “LIVE”. It also means they need to respond to all communications as efficiently as possible, even if it means picking up the phone instead of going through emails. The Big Bang ERP office is an open concept, from intern to CEO, to encourage face-to-face communication as much as possible. This collaborative workspace helps us save a lot of time, but it also helps us to grow as a team. Open communication allows us to build stronger bonds with other team members and trust that we are all here to help each other out. We have a common goal, and it is easier to be aware of that when we initiate face-to-face conversations to ask questions or requests help. Big Bang ERP sponsors several team building activities to keep these bonds strong. We refer to our peers as our Big Bang Family, because in reality we often spend more time at work with them, then with our loved ones in our personal lives.
At the end of the day, the person we are working with and the person we are selling to, or buying from all have one thing in common: we are people and we all appreciate human interaction one way or another. For example, at Big Bang ERP, we like to stay traditional and send out cards by mail to our customers and partners to thank them, to wish them well during the holidays, etc. We even take the time, as a company, to sign all the cards, even the birthday cards, personally because we want to show appreciation and gratitude. It is just one way that we maintain our relationships because nothing we do is merely transactional. All of these methods have proven to be crucial for Big Bang ERP’s success and satisfaction for our employees, customers, and partners.
The team at Big Bang ERP has been able to differentiate by striking a perfect balance between tradition and modernism. The team knows when technology should be leveraged, and when a grassroots approach is required. The one lesson worthy of sharing, is that all the benefits of technology and cloud need to be optimized and sometimes bypassed by the human approach by creating relationships and genuinely caring about the success of each person we work with, because when our customers, partners, and employees succeed we implicitly do as well.
About Melanie Mulligan-Pittarelli
Melanie Mulligan-Pittarelli is one of Big Bang ERP’s consultants who has significant experience implementing and customizing cloud-based solutions in a variety of industries including for: Digital Marketing & Advertising Agencies, Publishing & Media, Healthcare, Government, Non Profit, IT Services, Professional Services, Consulting, Education. She is the Big Bang ERP’s internal Sales-force practice lead and business systems analyst. She specializes in BPR (Business Process Review), optimization, support, implementation and training.
