Kevin Price, Host of the Price of Business (Business Radio 1110 AM KTEK; Houston, TX) interviews Brad Smith, Executive Vice President of Customer Experience of Sage
1. Tell me about your firm (number of employees, location, type of companies you work with, etc.).
Sage is a global provider of business management software and services for small to medium sized businesses, all over the world.
We have more than 13,000 employees worldwide, several offices across the US and Canada, and are headquartered in the UK.
How do you demonstrate that your customers are appreciated?
Our software is used by millions of small and medium sized businesses worldwide to manage their operations. How do we demonstrate our
appreciation for our customers? By getting the basics right: by making sure that our products are easy to use, easy to maintain, and that it’s
easy to do business with our company. When they need us, we’re there to help, to answer their questions quickly, and get them back to business.
We’ve made an institutional investment in our customers’ experience; we constantly ask for their input, listen, and act on their ideas.
What do you do to make potential clients feel like they will be well taken care of if they hire your firm?
One of the biggest challenges small and medium sized businesses have when they implement software is the actual ‘getting started’ part of it. It
can be a daunting task, to say the least. After all, a business’s finances are the backbone of their company, and it can be intimidating to
change how those are managed, but reap tremendous benefits in the long run. One thing that we do to take care of potential clients is to give
them as many resources as possible to help them get up and running quickly when they choose Sage to manage their business. We recently rebuilt
our learning services site to offer new and potential new customers the training and resources they need to get started as easily as possible,
and quickly recognize the value of their investment in their company’s future. We also have a strong network of local partners across North
America who can help with local training and support, should the need arise.
How is your approach different than the competition?
Organizationally, we are 100% focused on customer experience; solving for the needs of end-users and the business owners who purchase our
products. So, besides developing software and services with our customers in mind, taking their feedback and using it to innovate, offering our
customers the learning resources they need to maximize their investments, we do other things, too. We visit our customers on a regular basis, and
in fact, are going to be taking a trip around the country this summer, trying to visit as many customers as we can between July and August,
starting in Boston and finishing in Irvine, CA, where our North American headquarters are based. Aside from our work ‘in the field,’ we have a
strong internal customer support team, most of whom have 15+ years of tenure in supporting our products, which also sets us apart from our
competitors.
