One inbox
Eight doors, one room dey behind dem
Customers no care which channel your company like pass. Dem go use di one wey near dem pass at di moment wey dem decide to bother — and dat moment rarely dey office hours, rarely na desktop, and almost never na di form wey you spend three weeks design.
Di usual arrangement na one inbox per channel. Chat dey live inside di widget dashboard. Forms dey arrive by e-mail, go to di person wey set di form up, wey don since change role. Calls dey live inside person phone. Di reach-me button for website dey go one address wey dey forward to another address. Nobody build dis one on purpose; e just accumulate, di way garage dey accumulate.
Di cost no be di extra logins. Na say no single place fit answer di question "wetin come in today?" — and when nowhere fit answer am, everywhere come turn to excuse wey make sense.
Wetin land, and how e look when e land
Every channel below dey produce di same thing: one contact, with recorded source, one owner, and one thread wey start from di first word di customer talk. No be copy of e-mail. No be notification. Na record wey don already be somebody job.
Chatbot
E answer di easy third, hand over di rest with di conversation follow am. E no dey try be person; e dey try stop make one person no wait until Monday.
Live chat
Di same widget with seller behind am, dey write inside di same thread. Di customer no go ever know say handover happen, and na dat one be di point.
Contact forms
Submission turn to lead when dem send am, no when dem read am. Dat two na different times, and di gap between dem na where deals dey go quiet.
Reach-me widget
One button, any page, any site inside di family. For di visitor wey don decide but never find your contact page.
Call me
Di customer go ask make dem ring am. E go arrive as task with owner and time, no be as feeling wey somebody get about di afternoon.
Dem go thread am onto di contact wey e belong to. No go inside personal mailbox, where e go become personal property and then, later, archaeology.
Fon
Dem go log am against di customer with di note wey di seller write afterwards — di two minutes wey go decide whether di next call go start warm or start from scratch.
Offline & QR
Flyer, van door, conference badge, poster inside lift. Each one get im own source code, so at di end of di quarter you go know which one worth di paper.
Di source no be nice-to-have
Every arrival dey carry where e come from, permanent, at di level of di individual flyer no be just 'offline'. Na dis quiet feature wey dey pay for itself, because e turn marketing argument into arithmetic.
One quarter later, di question 'di trade fair work work?' get answer wey number dey inside. Same thing for 'make we keep di chatbot?' — and sometimes di answer na one wey nobody for di room want, and na exactly dat time di number matter pass.
Prediction, free of charge: di channel wey your team proud pass no go be di channel wey produce di most closed work. E almost never be di same one. We dey talk am now so dat when e happen, e go read like physics, no be like accusation.
- 1ChatbotSix. Four answer straight, two hand over to seller with di conversation follow am.
- 2FormFour. Assign by territory; two don already get reply for di thread.
- 3Call meTwo. Both na task wey name dey against am and time dey on top.
- 4QR — sprin flayaTwo. Wey be two more pass di last three flyers join together.
Unassigned: noneOldest wey nobody answer: 41 minutes
Di awkward question about di chatbot
Everybody dey ask am, so make we answer am plain: di bot dey there to make di first ninety seconds useful, no be to replace anybody. E dey answer wetin really fit answer — opening hours, whether you cover one postcode, whether Saturday dey exist — and di moment di question get money or judgement inside, human being take over di thread.
Wetin e no ever do na pretend. E no go invent price, and e no go hold customer with happy nothing while queue dey clear. If e no fit help, e go talk am comot for road — wey pass plenty software for dis category.
“We already get inbox. Several, actually.”
Na dat one be di problem, wey dem talk am out loud.
Eight doors dey okay. Eight rooms behind dem no dey okay — na so one chat for eleven for night go dey discover on Thursday, by person wey dey find something else.
Wetin happen di second e land →