Including the long reign of the Queen of England, I don’t think there’s a position that hasn’t been conquered by women today. The same goes for marketing. I’m acquainted with plenty of successful women who work in communications, while I also know a lot of successful men in this business, and I wouldn’t make a big difference between them
Initially, there was probably a period in this business when it was necessary for women to make a breakthrough, but I think they’re in the same position as men today. You can see women today at the helm of various large communications companies, PR agencies, production houses and companies.
That’s why I think it’s better to divide between those who are good professionals and those who aren’t, and between people who are creative, because in communications and advertising, alongside good organisation and budget management, it is very important for us to be creative and to react swiftly and be able to respond at any given moment to the market, which is pretty demanding when it comes to telecommunications in Serbia.
When it comes to listening to the needs of users, in 2019 we, as a company, introduced customer experience measurements and net promoter score (NPS) measurements. And we’ve since then measured the satisfaction of our users, on the one hand, and eNPS, i.e., the satisfaction of our employees, on the other. Both then and now, the headline resounding within our company was ‘everyone is important’. That means that there can be no satisfied user without a satisfied employee, and vice versa. I think that’s all causally linked. I’m very proud that the first of our larger projects was the launching of that net promoter measurement, as a philosophy and the way a company does business.
I know plenty of successful women who work in communications, while I also know a lot of successful men in this business, and I wouldn’t make a big difference between them
When we take into consideration that we had an average score of 20 back then and we’ve now reached over 50, it becomes clear how much of a change we’ve made. I think that’s a high score when it comes to telecommunications. It’s also a high score generally when it comes to service providers or sales (FMCG). We try not to fall below 50, and during this year, our jubilee year, we set the target to exceeding 55. And we’re well on our way to achieving that.
At the same time, I’m happy that I work in a group that has recognised the great potential that exists for E-commerce on our market, which is why we created the company Shoppster, which deals with online sales. We are striving to both satisfy our users and popularise e-commerce. For example, we have enabled customers to make online purchases that can be paid in 12 and 24 monthly instalments.
And are men or women bigger e-shopaholics? There are no rules. I would say, first and foremost, that there is still a slight underdevelopment of the Serbian market when it comes to online shopping, and that we’re all only just shifting to this possibility and gaining trust in the option of paying bills online. We were one of the first companies to introduce the online payment of bills, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our marketing department reacted very quickly and prepared tutorials on this topic, precisely to assist our users.
E-commerce is still growing in Serbia and we are certainly galloping forward. I also believe that everything will find itself in a digital format in our country very soon, so we won’t be using cash at all to make purchases.