In conjunction with the release of the E2E International 100 list for 2024, we heard from Universal Partners, a company dedicated to helping businesses achieve their financial goals through customized solutions and also a key E2E partner.
Universal Partners shares insights on the importance of diversifying product portfolios to maintain existing customer bases while gaining new ones; introducing methods to do this intelligently and efficiently.
Customer relationships, such as going beyond transactional relationships and connecting with people while developing a deeper understanding of the business, as well as technology and its ability to help future efforts in new markets, are key points which are analyzed in this article.
Customer relations
Perhaps the first and most important factor in both retaining and attracting customers is customer relationships. The way you communicate with your customers is a direct reflection of your business and therefore, to ensure existing customers feel valued and reassure potential new customers, businesses must strive to go beyond relationships. transactional and, instead, connect as people.
Always taking the time to understand the customer, such as understanding their business goals, challenges, their industry, their pricing models, and also connecting on a human level with people, has been part of our culture since day one.
Unfortunately, this is not very typical in the industry, as competitors tend to focus on generating revenue quickly rather than a long-term approach. However, this approach allows you to better understand what customers really need, which really helps you make smart business decisions about future product offerings.
This was key when we introduced Invoices and Supplier Financing products to our portfolio earlier this year, after several customers pointed this out in surveys and during catch-up calls with account managers as something their business needed.
All of this combined creates a stronger feeling of trust between business and customer, which, in a competitive business landscape, is crucial to maintaining customers and attracting new ones.
The important role of technology and digitalization
The business world is taking a technology-first approach, and the act of digitalization is an important step in not only diversifying its product offering, but also helping with things like customer service and process optimization. internal.
The technology within CRM (Client Relationship Manager) allows you to organize and classify information according to trends and analyze it according to the industry or type of business. Certain products will also be automatically marked as “of interest” based on other data we have about customers from their registration or through their international payments.
Having the technology behind the scenes makes decision-making processes more scientific and instills more confidence in making those decisions. Last year we started our own technology and data division, which required a large investment but quickly brought this value to the business.
There are other types of technology that can also support business growth, including:
Artificial intelligence
AI can be used as a forecasting tool, predicting market trends, identifying potential risks and also suggesting optimal trading strategies.
Digital advertising
Digital marketing encompasses a host of tactics, from social media marketing and content creation to allowing businesses to better engage with current and potential customers. It can allow businesses to build greater brand awareness and open the door to communication with their customer base.
Market research and analysis.
If a company is serious about offering personalized and tailored solutions to better address their customers' needs, leveraging big data and analytics can help them understand market trends, consumer behaviors, and potential demand.
Combining the element of the human touch with intuitive technology provides the foundation for diversifying the product portfolio in a way that keeps current customers loyal and helps win new business from competitors who may be stagnant. A little information about the payments and foreign exchange industry would show that the industry has evolved a lot and become more difficult from a regulatory perspective. Some large companies in the area have been bought out or have performed poorly, putting further emphasis on the need to continue evolving.
