The Brave New World of the Meeting Economy
Why should businesses embrace it?
Considered only a temporary solution at the beginning, the “meeting economy” is likely to become the new normal. Thus, the most pressing question for businesses is how to not only accept this reality, but also actually benefit from it.
If there is a term describing what is happening now with the world economy, this term would be “meeting economy” seems to be touching nearly every industry, regardless of its size or type: B2B, B2C, SMB, etc. Hence, the expression “meeting economy” is more and more widely used nowadays to describe the overall modern economic reality. By definition, “meeting economy” is the type of the relations between the company and its clients, when all the meetings between the two are held exclusively online.
On the one hand, face-to-face meetings are still considered to be a preferable way of human interaction, especially for sales people relying in their job on their radiant charisma and persuasion skills. On the other, switching to the meeting economy has already brought many benefits to both B2B and B2C businesses. That is why 70–80% of B2B decision makers prefer remote human interactions to meetings in-person. To elucidate further the reasons for such a shift in attitude, here are several major reasons why businesses should embrace the Brave New World of the meeting economy to the maximum benefit of their companies.
Apparently, the “meeting economy” is here to stay. In other words, managers have no choice but to accept that long gone are physical office meetings with pompous shaking of hands and exchange of compliments. The reason for such a fatalism is the reality of the pandemic, especially in the US: with more than 70 000 new COVID-cases and 7 states reverting back to lockdown restrictions (as of November 2, 2020), it is projected that many states will follow. In such a scenario, for many businesses, moving to online would be the only chance to survive. Thus, it is better to mentally prepare for the imminent paradigm switch than to try and fight the inevitable.
Meeting economy optimizes resources. If the previous point is about necessity, this one is about plain benefit. In fact, the aforementioned optimization happens in two ways: the optimization of physical resources and human resources. First, with a reduced need for large office spaces and retail locations, businesses save huge amounts of money on rent. The reduction of physical space is implemented even by organizations that are not entirely closed during a lockdown. A prominent case in point are banks, 36% of which are already using video conferencing instead of regular meetings with clients and business partners.
Second, the work of employees is better organized. To specify, with pre-planned scheduling meetings, workers feel less stressed about upcoming customer encounters since they always know who they are meeting and when. Managers, in their turn, know when their team members are busy with the client by using specialized team time-tracking software. As a result, it is easier to schedule an internal meeting without disrupting field work. Scheduling the meetings per se is also faster. For example, no-one needs to travel long-distance (sometimes intercontinentally, especially in case of a C-level meeting), consequently there has been a 50% reduction in travel cost and concomitant 30% increase in productivity after switching to online meetings.
Meeting economy is better for client retention. Digital-first relations with customers provides a unique opportunity to get their contacts when scheduling a meeting, subsequently engaging them with different marketing tools. Namely, in addition to the traditional company’s newsletter and other distributable content via email, businesses have received an opportunity to do messenger marketing, which is the replacement for the slowly becoming obsolete email communication. For instance, the average open rate in Facebook Messenger marketing is 70–80%, in comparison to 25–30% in email.
Besides, clients themselves are in favor of online scheduling, with 61% of them believing that it sets a business apart from the competition, because they expect that by booking a meeting online they would be more destined to meet with a knowledgeable associate and that their needs would be properly addressed. Therefore, by providing personalized experience to clients during online 1-on-1 meetings and keeping in touch with them through the circulation of marketing materials, companies increase customer loyalty, thus customer retention.
Optimization and client satisfaction equals higher profits. In addition to intuitive understanding of this logic, there is data confirming that companies enjoy 57% higher average transaction from booked appointments versus standard sales. As for B2B specifically, wholesalers have repeated an increase in monthly revenue by 44% after switching to online.
Furthermore, there are other ways in which the meeting economy allows businesses to be more profitable. For example, fixed appointments reduce the chances of client abandonment by making it easy for customers to book time with the company’s staff when it is most convenient. Finally, appointment shoppers spend three times more than walk-ins because they tend to have done their research and maybe even met online with a shopping consultant, hence they are primed to buy.
To summarize, while supposed to be a temporary safeguard to limit the risk of contagion, the economy by appointment is slowly but surely changing the picture of economic reality. In a massive transition to online, there is a heightened need for the meeting-scheduling software, ready to meet the demand of next-generation customers. To satisfy this need, TeamCalendar.ai uses AI-technology for the most convenient and seamless appointment creation. To experience a well-timed TeamCalendar.ai solution, request a demo.
