Customer Process Management Blog

Social Media: a distributed communication channel

noreply@blogger.com (Wilbert van Zelst) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:53:00 +0000

2010 was the year that Social Media was really adopted by the mass. There is no way you could have missed that. You can’t watch a TV show without someone telling you to follow them on Facebook or Twitter. Customer complaints turned to media hypes and dominated the news. 2011 will be the year that companies start to realize that Social Media have induced a major shift in balance of power from companies to consumers and can no longer be ignored. Time to incorporate this 'distributed communication' channel in your multi channel customer contact strategy!

Consumers have an increasing number of communication channels at their disposal through the internet. Just take a look at the Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and JESS3 to illustrate the density of the social media forest. Adding to that the booming technology in smart phones, notebooks and tablet pc´s that brings internet at our fingertips 24/7 makes it almost effortless to share our thoughts and ideas with the world. Positive thoughts but also negative thought: not happy with the way you were treated by the service representative of your internet provider? Tell the world! Your mobile phone came back from the repair shop and still doesn’t work? Tell the world!

Social Media have indeed induced a major shift in balance of power from companies to consumers. In a pre-Social Media society a personal conflict between me and my pizza delivery boy did not reach further than the people at my birthday party who struggled through my tedious explanation of the problem at hand. Nowadays this might have evolved into a worldwide boycott of this pizza delivery company: if only my one single tweet about this incident was picked up by my followers, re-tweeted, referenced in their blogs, picked up by a local TV station who knows what might have happened. There are plenty of examples to be found about customer complaints that turned into media hypes and caused a lot of damage to company reputations.

As consumers take Social Media more serious, so should companies. Recent studies show that large companies indicate that the use of Social Media is important for their business and some of them already monitor these ‘distributed communication’ to stay on top of rumors. Many companies have planned to develop a Social Media strategy. A good way to start is to read the eBook by storyworldwide.com. It lays out a strategy in 4 steps for Social Media Monitoring:

Listen carefully
Analyze what you heard
Join in and speak up
Measure and Maintain

So, put in your list of New Year's Resolutions for 2010: 'Incorporating Social Media montoring in your business' multi channel customer contact strategy' right next to 'Spending more time with the family' ;-)

socialmediatoday.com: "Social media isn’t complicated. When you boil it down it’s about listening to your customers, being helpful by offering your knowledge and giving them interesting content to share and thereby advocate for you."

Youp 2.0: kwaliteit van klantenservice is exponentieel met aantal volgers

noreply@blogger.com (Bert Haenen) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:07:00 +0000

Afgelopen zaterdag herinnerde Youp van 't Hek ons er weer eens aan dat het goed hommeles is met de klantenservice van een grote telecom operator (bedrijf T), iets wat iedereen al wist maar waar ieder normaal mens zich al lang bij neergelegd heeft.

Zo niet Youp. Nadat hij 40.000 Twitter volgers had laten smullen van zijn klantenservice ervaring brak de pleures uit op het hoofdkantoor van deze telecom operator.

Wat is er aan de hand? Iedere zichzelf respecterende e-tailer zet tegenwoordig webcare teams in die speuren naar negatieve klantenervaringen om vervolgens de melders een oplossing te bieden, in de hoop dat de negatieve klantervaring wordt omgezet in een positieve en dit weer wordt doorgetwittert. Blijkbaar zijn de generatie Y marketeers van bedrijf T kort van geheugen en niet bekend met de oude wijsheid dat een slechte ervaring met klantenservice minstens 7 keer wordt doorverteld en een goede ervaring op zijn best 2 keer. Mijn advies zou zijn: vraag potentiële klanten bij intake eerst naar het aantal volgers op Twitter. Als dit meer is dan 7 kunt u deze klant beter weigeren.

Want in het geval van Youp kon hij dit maar liefst 40.000 keer doorvertellen en dat werd natuurlijk direct opgepikt door het webcare team van bedrijf T. Ook gênant om te constateren dat de problemen toen direct werden opgelost terwijl dat eerder 6 weken lang niet gelukt was…

Vreemd is dat bedrijf T het allemaal allang wist maar er niet adequaat op reageerde. Klantcontact software legt klachten immers nauwkeurig vast maar daar gebeurt blijkbaar niks mee. Het is dan ook verbazingwekkend dat veel bedrijven meer energie steken in het opzetten van webcare teams die op internet speuren naar negatieve klantervaringen dan het oplossen van reeds bekende klachten. Een eenvoudige rapportage in het eigen registratiesysteem (of rondvraag onder de service medewerkers) zou namelijk veel meer effect hebben. Het lijkt allemaal op olieboren in een oceaan op 1500 meter diepte terwijl op het land tientallen bronnen aanwezig zijn...

Het is erg amusant om te zien dat een oude babyboomer met moderne generatie Y middelen aantoont dat klantenservice toch echt mensenwerk blijft en je klachten niet alleen moet registeren maar ook moet oplossen.

Veel bedrijven zullen deze maandagochtend zenuwachtig laten uitzoeken of ene Youp van ’t H. zich in hun klantenadministratie bevindt en hopen dat hij zich niet roert. Mocht u hem hebben aangetroffen in uw database ga dan snel naar YOUP voordat het te laat is!

Customer Process Management enhances satisfaction

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 08:18:00 +0000

Customer Process Management is a practical management approach which aims to handle, manage and continuously improve customer contact processes and its internal workflows. Its goal is to increase customer satisfaction, retention, productivity and operating profits. It also contributes greatly to employee satisfaction. CPM is about unlocking all relevant customer information and integrally present it to your CSRs. And CPM is all about defining procedures and capture these procedures into processes.

So, when a customer calls your CSR to ask a question or to file a complaint, the CSR quickly obtains all the relevant customer information and knows what to do. Because it has all been predefined. Customers will perceive this positively, because they are being served quickly, properly and in one time right. Your CSRs will find this great because they don't need to search for relevant information in all different kinds of back office applications and they can do what they are supposed to do: serve the customer.

One can see CPM from different angles. One can see it form a customer perspective: being served well, in one time right, not have to call back again. One can also see it form employee perspective: they know what to do, how to do it and when to do it. Having all relevant customer information at their disposal, makes their work a lot easier. CPM can also be seen from a business point of view. It saves a lot of money.

When customers are being served right the first time about an issue, they don't have to call back about it. But, nevertheless, when they do call back about that issue, the CSR is able to adequately serve the customer well. Think about how much money this will save for your organization. That must make you happy. And then think about all the reasons your customers contact your organization. If you would be able to capture all these calls and all these e-mails and all these web forms, and if you would be able to improve all the underlying processes, how much money will that save?

How to create the Wow in customer experiences.

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:42:00 +0000

Customer experiences have a massive impact on companies performance as a whole. Research by Ogilvy indicates that companies that delivered "wow" experiences, because of the great product and experience they offered, scored higher on retention ratios, 84% vs. 30% and cross-sell ratios, 82% vs. 16%, compared with companies that did not. Just take a look at brands like Zappos, Virgin, Apple and Amazon. It seems that they found their way in it. Curious about how to create the "wow" experience yourself?

In order to deliver great customer experiences maybe it is wise to first concentrate on employee satisfaction. You will need the full and continual commitment of your employees, because they are responsible for making it happen. Try this one: put purpose beyond profit. Most employees do not get excited of making more profit for their organization that day. But causes like "Helping People" or "Delivering Happiness'' or "Do the same things, but do them differently", can make their effort more valuable to them.

Of course the product itself has a lot to do with it. One cannot create "wow" experiences when angry customers are calling because of malfunctioning products. No matter how skilled and passionate your employees, you need to have a great product. Apple would not be the brand it is today without its great propositions. That is one part of the "wow". An other part comes when customers enter the Apple store and they are able to find, ask, try, tough and see everything and experience great service by great employees. These employees are like ambassadors of the brand, they are fans themselves.

Tom Ford, once the leading designer of Gucci, now designing under his own label, stated: "A brand is a memory". Customers do not only buy your products, they also buy comfort, status, an experience, security, you name it. Somethimes customers don't find the product that interesting at all. Sometimes it is perceived as a commodity. The experience of flying an airplaine is such an example. It is like riding a bus, in the air. So, in order to understand how to create a "wow" experience, we take a look inside a business which cannot directly be related to the customer contact business, but, as a matter in fact, it has a lot to do with customer contacts and experiences: the airliner business.

Look into the Virgin Atlantic case. From its start in the early eighties, this company strived to deliver the greatest customer experience possible. That comes with a limo service, which takes passengers form door-to-door, the best and most sophisticated inflight entertainment, more comfortable chairs, economy class as if it is a business class, great crew, massages and so on. Massages? Yes, massages. Traveling should be comfortable, passengers should enjoy it and should arrive well rested and relaxed on their destination.

Massages is used as a metaphor here, it is intended as an aspect customers don't expect to get during the experience, but they get it anyway. However it enhances customer experience, it can be a bit of a bottleneck for most organizations. It is costly. So here's a less costly thing: ice cream. (Also to be seen as a metaphor.) Virgin started serving small ice creams during the in-flight movie. Because people often enjoy an ice cream in a cinema and it would surprise them if they got it. So, to add an extra layer on the experience, Virgin gave the passengers ice creams and all passengers would remember that specific Virgin flight for a long time.

This is the point of this post: when you are crafting a customer experience, you don’t have to invent anything anew. Just be creative in crafting an experience by borrowing little popular snapshots of experiences from other sectors. It increases the chances of acceptance by your customers, because they are already familiar with it in another context.

KPI's in perspective.

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 08:05:00 +0000

Increasing customer loyalty and decreasing their efforts it no rocket science. In fact, a lot of issues are already known, a lot of software applications and databases have already been installed, most reps have been trained properly and internal processes and procedures have been defined. And yet customers are unsatisfied and disloyal. So, how do you stop that? You could try to analyze the their frustrations. Customers can tell you what's wrong. Then define new, low effort, customer service processes and get some easy to use software which makes it easy for your organization to properly handle a call, integrally present relevant customer information, start up workflows in which customer information can be edited.

Get the right data, call your unhappy customers. Many companies gauge internal service performance by calling customers after a service event. Most of the time the average score is ok and the company should make some small improvements, to increase that score a bit. In order to make some real improvements, companies should address unhappy customers and find out why they appointed a low score. Use their feedback to really improve the customer effort score (CES).

Analyze your internal metrics. Maybe it is time for a different point of view in measuring the productivity of customer service events. Incentive systems that value speed over quality may be the biggest barrier while reducing customer effort. Put the regular KPI's in an other perspective and empower the front line to deliver a low-effort experience. An Australian telecommunications provider eliminated all productivity metrics. Though average handling time did slightly increase, the total number of repeat calls fell by 58%. The company saved a lot of money.

The South African Nedbank has even made low customer effort the cornerstone of their value proposition and branding. It launches the AskOnce promise, which guarantees you that the CSR who picks up the phone, will own the customer's issue from start to finish.

This is the last post of a series of blogs about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty, a research project form the Customer Contact Council which has been published in the Harvard Business Review, edition july/august 2010.

Customer service through a website?

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 07:43:00 +0000

How can a company move customers to visit the self-service website? And, how can customers stick to that channel? It is a fair question, because self-service websites are a lot cheaper than a customer service rep (CSR) and additionally, most questions customers ask, can be found on the website. Unfortunately research of the Customer Contact Council shows that 57% of the customers surveyed, have already been on the website first, before calling the organization.

Customers may be overwhelmed by all the possibilities self-service channels offer. They can choose between voice prompts, mail, online support communities, social media, email, chat and so on. A lot of customers are not able to make a choice. So, they will pick up the phone and call. Because that's the easiest thing to do. The CCC found a best practice in Cisco Consumer Products. Cisco guides its customers to the self-service channel it determines will suite them best, based on segment-specific hypotheses.

Different customer segments can find their (service) way on de website. Customer with almost no knowledge about technology are directed to another environment than the tech gurus. The first group will be served with a step-by-step instruction program, while the technology oriented customers will find their answers in the technology breathing segment of the website, like an online software community. When Cisco started this, only 30% of its customers were being served through the self-service website. Nowadays that figure is 84% and still rising.

Cisco has millions of customers, so a slight increase in the number of self-service activities means a huge amount of money. Maybe your organization operates a self-service website as well. You can make some quick wins. Assess the website on jargon, layout, readability and navigation. Cut out the jargon, simplify the layout, improve the readability and navigation and see what it does in the Customer Effort Score.

This post is part of a series of blogs about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. That is a research project from the Customer Contact Council and has been published in the Harvard Business Review, edition july/august 2010.

Previous post: Interpersonal issues in customer contact events.

Motives from Apple.

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 08:13:00 +0000

What is the similarity between Mac, iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes and other products Apple has ever created and will create in the future? Apart from having created products and services with a great design and a great user interface, Apple products and services deliver great user experiences. From the very start of the company until the introduction of the iPad, almost 40 years later, Apple always knows what customers want and why they want it. How does Apple know that? And, more important, what can you learn from it?

One of the reasons for its succes is that Apple never has had the ambition to create breakthrough technology. Unlike some other major computer and customer electronics companies. From the very start of the company Apple always has focussed on its users. Apple wants its products to be easily used by normal customers. One of Apple's core values is to create great user experiences and to develop products and services for that purpose. And to find out what customers want, Apple keeps on questioning its customer base.

Apple questions its customers on what they want to use, how they want to use it, when...... Apple wants to find out the customers' motives. The product itself, the design and the user interface are specifically developed in order to comply these motives. The process of development, designing and testing is characterized by paying attention to the tiniest little details and simplifying the product. This means building the product pixel by pixel and stripping it down until only the most relevant features remain. For Apple less means more.

In order to achieve great customer experiences at your own customer, how would you formulate questions about what customers really want? That is not easy. Consider yourself, being asked that question about mobile phones in the late eighties. When someone would have asked you: "Would you like to carry your phone, in your pocket all day long and call from every location of choice"? Given the timeframe, you probably would have said no. Same thing could happen when someone would have asked about sms in the early nineties. You would have given the same answer.

That is not strange at all. Most customers do not exactly know what they want, but they reject things they don't want. So they can't tell you what they really want. This paradox brings us to motives. Motives are psychological drivers that provoke action. Comfort can be a motive, money, effort or status. What customers do want is less effort, great user experience and value for money.

After understanding the motives, it is time to incorporate them. That is the hard part and it may take some time. Now you have to talk to a lot of people, change some processes, re-educate your employees and maybe you need to spend some money on IT. Though change is difficult, it is neccessary as customers tend to spend their money at a company which offers a great proposition and less effort when it comes to customer service.

So improving your customer processes and match them with customers' motives is not unwise. Because less effort means higher customer loyalty and customer retention. Further more these processes cost a lot of money. It is money spent wrong when customers suffer. Even the prospect of an iPod will not turn them into loyal and profitable customers.

Interpersonal issues in customer contact events.

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 06:00:00 +0000

Now that we have started removing obstacles in order to decrease customers' effort, why don't we address other aspects on this subject. For example the emotional side of customer interactions. It may be an aspect hard to measure, but how things are being said, sometimes prevail on what is being said. When the message itself is clear to a customer, he or she does not necessarily have to agree with it.

24% Of the repeat calls in the Customer Contact Council study was caused by disconnections between the customer and the customer service rep (CSR). Disconnections occur when customers would not trust the CSR's information, or the customer simply did not like the answer given, or they have the feeling the rep is hiding behind company policy. So the right emotional charge in service events is important and can save your company time and money. Not to mention a decrease in customer effort score (CES).

Some basic instructions, or a slight little change in the script can eliminate many interpersonal issues between service reps and customers. By choosing the right words and putting them in the right context the number of repeat calls can be reduced.

According to the research the Customer Contact Council conducted at a UK-based mortgage company, classifying customers into personality types reduces interpersonal issues. The CSR quickly assesses whether he or she is talking to a "thinker", "controller", "feeler" or an "entertainer". The CSR tailors the responses accordingly, so the customer recieves a personalized answer and will understand it better. Due to this startegy the number of repeat calls dropped by 40%.

An other company, Osram Sylvania skips words that tend to trigger negative reactions. These are words like "we can't, "don't", "won't" etc. A service rep will not tell a customer that "We don't have that item in stock, right now", instead the rep explains that "We will have these items in stock in a week". It might help service companies a lot exploring the emotional side of customer interactions. Implementing does not involve a lot of investments and the outcome.... well you do the math.

This post is part of a series of blogs about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Which is a research project form the Customer Contact Council and has been published in the Harvard Business Review, edition july/august 2010.

Previous post: Customers have to call back
Next post: Customer service through a website?

Increase customer satisfaction? Reduce effort.

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 07:05:00 +0000

One might wonder how many times customer call up a company, after they have already visited the website. These numbers don't show up in KPI reports and metrics such as average handling time and first time resolution. But one can take into account the effort a customer has to take to have an issue solved or a question answered. Take a look at this example, pretend it is your company:

Michael would like to pay his monthly invoice in another way. Currently he pays by transfer payment and now he would like his supplier to automatically transfer the amount form his bank account. So he sends an email to the customer contact center from the supplier. Then suddenly he reminds an advertising campaign on the radio, which proposes that customers can benefit from a discount when agreeing on a multiyear contract. Michael grabs the phone and calls your company.

Evelyne takes the call and Michael makes his wishes clear. He also tells her he just sent an email. In his view, this could be inconvenient, because your company now receives two requests. "No problem", Evelyne answers, "it is all settled now". Your monthly invoice will automatically be debited from your bank account and your new rate starts next month. Michael is satisfied.

Now Evelyne sees, on her computer screen that Michael is behind in paying his bill. It is only a short period but Evelyne mentions it. Michael tells her that he is aware of it, it is because of that monthly transfer and he always forgets about it. "This is why I would like the amount automatically debited from my bank account". Evelyne smiles, takes a note and informs Michael that the amount has to be paid before the weekend. If not, he will receive a reminder. It is a standard procedure and it yet entails no extra charges. Michaels is satisfied.

During the phone call, Evelyne starts up a workflow, so her colleague Robert from the accounting department receives all relevant information and the actual requests can be carried out. Evelyne and Michael both leave the conversation satisfied.

Customers and employees of organizations which have implemented customer management process software (or has optimized customer facing processes), will experience these interactions frequently. For all relevant customer data is made available to the CSR and (workflow) processes have been defined. What can go wrong? Organizations will face decreasing average handling time ratios and increasing customer satisfaction, first time resolution. And in the end more customer loyalty, because it takes them no effort to solve issues.

Customers have to call back

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:18:00 +0000

What is the biggest cause of customer effort? Customers who have to call back. Customers find it annoying, it takes time and it can be avoided. Though companies believe they perform well on this subject, because of strong first-contact-resolution scores (FCR). However 22% of the repeat calls involve downstream issues that relate to the problem that caused the original call. There is a message here: Do not only resolve the current issue, be ahead of the next one.

When analyzing customer interaction data, organizations can get a grip between the relationship among various customer issues. Using that insight, you can train your service reps on not only to resolve the primary issue a customer is calling for, but also to anticipate and address downstream issues. For example, when a service rep explains a new customer the first billing statement, over the phone and sends an email about it, after the call, there is a reduced possibility the customer will contact again about this subject, after receiving the first bill.

Maybe you've had some experience in this yourself, calling your insurance company, travel agency or energy supplier to solve an issue, and a few days later you faced another issue, correlated to the original service event. Would it not have been great if the service rep would have anticipated on this? Would it not have saved you some time? Figure out how much it will save a company where these kinds of service events occur 100.000 or more times per year.

Not only will it save a lot of money form an operational and organizational point of view. Reducing customer effort will lead to an increased number of satisfied and loyal customers. Which can lead to increased sales volumes. So, to use a Dutch manner of speaking, the knife cuts on two sides. On the one side, capacity can be reduced, because you will receive less calls. On the other side, sales will rise because customers have no reason to shop elswhere.

This post is part of a series of blogs about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Which is a research project form the Customer Contact Council and has been published in the Harvard Business Review, edition july/august 2010.

Previous post: Customer effort Score

Business process management and a lot more.

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 08:13:00 +0000

This post is somewhat more practical and longer then you are used to on this weblog. It starts with a description of business process management and it transforms into a post about customer process managment. As you know, business process management (BPM) is a method to identify, to model, to optimize and to manage the internal processes of an organization. It makes organizations more transparent and measurable in performance. Output elements are the key performance indicators (KPIs) such as average turnaround time, customer satisfaction and the number of complaints.

BPM connects various internal departments through workflow management, application integration and process redesign. It enables organizations to operate beyond existing departments and barriers. BPM supports organizations, for example, to be more customer-oriented, which enhances customer satisfaction. Which is great.

Customer satisfaction is an important aspect for organizations. It can lead to customer loyalty and thus it influences business continuity. High scores in customer satisfaction metrics is the result of well managed coordination between internal business processes and external oriented customer interaction. At that point there are many opportunities for organizations.

External communication is challenging these days. People communicate via multiple channels with each other and their suppliers. They have the possibilities to make phone calls, text messaging, email, to send a letter, fax, fill in a web form or face to face at the counter and all the possibilities that social media provides. The number of channels which customers and organizations use, shall only increase. That is a fact. Customer interaction is therefore a very dynamic, ever-changing and important process.

Customers require high level communication and high-level organizations have sufficient resources and backend systems to meet these wishes. Though for many organizations, the challenge is not to communicate well. With a bit of training everybody knows how to do that. The real challenge is to incorporate customer interaction events. Which means when a customer calls (or sends an email or whatever) because he/she wants to discus something, that "something" must be defined in advance. There should be a process, a script and all relevant information should be made available to the customer service employee.

During the contact event a lot of information is exchanged. The customer tells about "something" (complaint, problem, question) and the CSR respond to this "something". To be able to respond correctly, all relevant customer data should be integrally presented to the CSR. This info comes from various back office systems, databases, ERP and CRM applications. That is challenge number one. The data is already there, but how do you get it to the point where it matters most? Challenge number two is how to get the customers' wishes into the various systems and how to get various employees from different departments to execute this "something".

In the end it's all about meeting customers' expectations. It is all about creating customer satisfaction and positive experiences. There is an interface which can be usefull for this purpose: write everything down, put it in an Excel, start up a workflow in Outlook and send an email to everybody involved. This will work out fine if you receive a few calls a day. Nevertheless most service organizations receive hundreds or thousands calls, emails or letters on a daily basis. Now that is a challenge?

Customer process management (CPM) is an approach that ensures effective communication between the front end of an organization and a correct processing in the back office. CPM makes sure that customer contact events and the subsequent internal workflow processes are executed correctly, fast and properly. CPM software distills all relevant customer data from all back office systems and integrally presents it to front end employees, like the CSR. Who is able to execute tasks correctly, effectively and is well able to generate positive customer experiences. Ain't that something?

CPM is a bit of a new playing field. CPM connects customer interaction events with workflow processes. Already means exist which makes sure multi-channel customer interactions are well managed. There are also approaches that makes sure that workflows are executed well and workloads are effectively managed. Also there are services out there which makes sure you can profit from cross and deep selling or establish great relationships with your customers. CPM is an approach which combines all that. And that is something!

Customer Effort Score

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:00:00 +0000

A lot customers face obstacles when contacting their supplier. They have to contact the organization repeatedly, are being transferred all the time, have to repeat information and have to switch channels to get an issue resolved. Unsatisfied customers, due to bad customer service is bad for business. Customer service companies can reduce these types of effort by using a new type of metric: the Customer Effort Score (CES).

This new metric, introduced by the Customer Contact Council, rates the customer effort while solving a problem during a contact event. It has a big advantage above the other metrics, because it measures at a transactional level. The CCC evaluated the predictive power of CES in terms of customer loyalty, increase in amount customers intending to spend (in the future) and spreading positive word of mouth, next to the Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) and the Net Promoter Score (NPS).

The CSAT score proved to be a poor indicator, because the research shows no connection between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty after interaction events. NPS did better, but it is obtained by asking customer the question "Would you recommend us to a friend of family?" on a 0 (negative) to 10 (promoter) scale. CES is measured by asking the question "How much effort did you personally put forth to handle your request?" on a 1 (very low) to 5 (very high) scale.

The CCC found strong evidence about the predictive power of CES. 94% Of the customers who reported a low score on effort, told they had an intention to repurchase. 88% Told they would increase their spending. Just 1% expressed not to talk positively about the company. On the other hand 81% of the customers who faced hard times solving their issues reported to spread negative word of mouth.

What also came up in the research was the importance of failures in customer service experienced. It does not only affect existing customers, it can also stops prospective customers. 25% Of the customers are likely to say positive things about the service experience, while 65% will tell about their frustrations after their bad service experience. When having a positive service experience, 23% of the customers surveyed told 10 or more people about it. But on the other hand, when the customer experienced a negative customer service, almost half of them would tell 10 or more people about it.

This post is part of a series of blogs about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Which has been a research project form the Customer Contact Council and is published in the Harvard Business Review, edition july/august 2010.

Previous post: Make it easy, make it no effort
Next post: Customers have to call back

Virgin is not sleeping. What about you?

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:50:00 +0000

The worldwide known Virgin brand stands for Value for money, Quality and Fun. It offers a lot for less and it works out fine. Almost every time when Virgin enters a market it succeeds in gaining a profitable market share and most of the time, Virgin changed the rules of the game. It happened with Virgin Records, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Express, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Trains, Virgin Money.... and so on. What is the secret? What does Branson do all the time? Is everybody else sleeping?

No, nobody is sleeping, except for things are done a bit differently at Virgin. The foundation of the success is analysis and great customer experience. First Virgin analyzes everything thoroughly. Market share, competition, economics, behavior patterns and so on. The most important analysis it conducts, in order to deliver this great experience, is the one with all the answers: the customer. The members of the Virgin research team ask themselves the question: "Why would a customer buy from us?" and "Where can Virgin add value?" and "What is value, in the eyes of the customer?" and "How does this customer want to be treated?"

These answers are to be implemented in the products and services to be launched. The results are outstanding, the offer creates a great customer experience and huge rewards. How much? The Virgin Group of companies, which include five airline companies and companies in holiday resorts, retail business, banking, public transport, mobile communication and health, contains more than 300 companies worldwide and a combined annual turnover of about € 14 billion annually and employs 50.000 people.

Ok, Virgin does not close its eyes of what the customer wants and puts that, from a strategically point of view, in the center. Now what is the link with customer process management? Well, besides knowing what the customer wants, excellent customer service is one of the pillars of their core values. Virgin communicates with its audience. So, when customers are not satisfied, a solution will be offered quickly. A few examples:

In the seventies Virgin learned that people who wanted to buy a record, first needed to listen to it and preferred to do that in a nice and comfortable environment. So great audio equipment, couches and even mattresses were placed in the store and the basic idea of Virgin Megastores was born. In the eighties, Richard Branson had some bad flying experiences himself. He paid a lot of money for a ticket and got lousy service. He had also discussed it with fellow passengers, as he always does. So he thought he could do it better and started the multi award winning Virgin Atlantic. Virgin learned, by opening a complaint service, after buying a train company in the nineties, what the current train services lacked and how it should be. A lot of complaints and suggestions came in. Nowadays Virgin Trains offers great quality and a great experience.

One of the most recent examples is Virgin Mobile. Virgin became aware of the fact that all the big and smaller Telco's focused their operations on the highly profitable business markets and the high end consumer markets. They offered mobile phone services on (expensive) monthly subscription basis. But they neglected the market for youngsters, who were unable to pay this expensive monthly subscription fee. So Virgin Mobile entered the UK market with a pre-paid business model. Which turned out to be a great success. When introduced in the USA, it was the fastest growing company in history there, outbeating Google, Microsoft and Amazon.

The list goes on. Basically Virgin understands that customers don't want to put a lot of effort in buying stuff. They expect value for money and when they have an issue, they want to have it solved quickly and properly. Actually this is something everybody knows, so nobody is sleeping. But changing a business model, can actually cause a lot of sleepless nights. Change the current model into a customer centric one takes some time, but it is worth the effort. But is is not very difficult to start with it. Just pick up the phone, listen to your customers and act accordingly.

Make it easy, make it no effort.

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:07:00 +0000

During the service interaction, customer service companies only can create loyal customers by helping them solving their problems quickly and easily. Just make it easy for customers to do business with you and when they do have questions or complaints, serve them appropriately. How do you do that? By removing obstacles and reduce the effort a customer has to do to solve a problem.

The research of the Customer Contact Council indicates that customers do not like it to put a lot of effort in the service interaction. These obstacles should be removed. In fact, these obstacles are already known in most service organizations. In the eyes of customers obstacles means, having to contact the company several times before a problem is being solved. Obstacles or effort, also mean, being transferred to another service rep and having to repeat the information or switch from one channel to another, to get an issue solved.
Over half the customers surveyed reported such difficulties and efforts. And to be honest, it is not nice to search for answers on a website, not finding them and calling the service department, where someone puts you through to another agent and telling the story again.

Companies can reduce these efforts by using a new metric, the Customer Effort Score (CES). The CES score measures how much effort a customer has to get a problem solved. CES can easily be used next to other operational metrics such as repeat calls.

The CES score measures very low effort (scale 1) to very high effort (scale 5). It is a powerful tool and it outperforms the customer satisfaction score (CSAT) on customer loyalty, defined as customers' intention to keep doing business, increase the money spent and spread positive word of mouth.

This post is part of a series of blogs about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. Which is a research project form the Customer Contact Council and has been published in the Harvard Business Review, edition july/august 2010

Previous post: Cut the crap and solve customers problems
Next post: Customer Effort Score

No mistake, First Time Right

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:27:00 +0000

Customer Process Management (CPM) merges the domains CRM and BPM. It effectively and efficiently manages customer contacts and the processes that follow as a consequence. CPM aims at an increase in customer satisfaction, productivity and operating profits. One of the indicators that will improve by CPM is the First Time Right ratio. The higher this ratio, the better it is.

According to the CPM methodology customer contact employees, or CSRs, have access to all relevant customer data and history during the moment of contact. And, when the moment of contact has finished, the CSR is able to start up a workflow. When customer data is integrally presented to the CSR, he or she is able to see, in a blink of an eye, what the customer has been buying and what not, what has been communicated and what action has to be taken and so on. In addition procedures have been defined for each process that follows after a customer contact moment. A CSR always knows what to do and when to do it. It will prevent a lot of errors and contributes significantly to First Time Right.

The availability of relevant customer information has more advantages than doing things right the first time. When things don't go wrong productivity increases. One can handle more contacts per hour so the Average Handling Time ratio will decrease. The employees do not have to ask all kinds of questions just for identification in order to correctly service the customer. The info is already there. How big of a chance is there to make any mistakes?

Cut the crap and solve customers problems

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 07:57:00 +0000

A lot of companies execute customer service strategies to delight their customers. When a customer files a complaint, by phone, mail or another channel, a well trained customer service representative (CSR) will do his utmost to satisfy the customer. Maybe you have had some experiences yourself when contacting your phone company, cable provider, insurance company or energy supplier. You just had a simple request, but you had to call back a few times to get it fixed.

Customers punish bad service by dropping a company and reward good service with retention. Customers become loyal customers when their efforts, the work they have to do to get their problems solved, are being reduced. Customers do not become more loyal customers by offering them refunds or free service/products.

Ok, what does that mean? The research of the CCC shows that exceeding customer expectations during the service interaction makes customers slightly more loyal than simply meeting their needs. So cutting the crap and solving problems does a lot more than giving presents. But ironically the research shows that 89% of the surveyed heads of customer service departments told that the main strategy is to exceed customers' expectations. However this costly effort 84% of the customers surveyed told that their expectations had not been exceeded, during the service interaction.

A reason for the focus on exceeding customer expectations is that about 80% of the customer service organizations use customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) as primary indicator for measuring customer satisfaction. Managers assume that customer satisfaction builds loyalty. But research shows that it's not. There is little relation between satisfaction and loyalty.

This fact is best shown in this conclusion: 20% of the satisfied customers, in the study, said they intended to leave their supplier. But 28% of the dissatisfied customers told they intended to stay with the company in question. And it gets worse; customer service can do little to increase loyalty, but it can do a lot to undermine it. Customers leave a service interactions four times more often disloyal than loyal. So customers would like to buy from a company because of it delivers great value (price, quality, brand), but they leave because it fails in customer service.

This post is part of a series of blogs about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. That is a research project from the Customer Contact Council and has been published in the Harvard Business Review, edition july/august 2010.

Next blog is this series: Make it easy, make it no effort
Previous post: Win customers loyalty by just solving their problems

Smiling customers at Zappos.com

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:49:00 +0000

Zappos.com is a US based online retailer. Initially it started selling shoes online but now zappos.com offers a wider range of fashion items. The company was built from scratch and turned in just one decade into a huge succesful online retaler grossing $ 1,2 billion in revenues in 2009. What did zappos.com do to get from zero to a billion dollar venture and what can we learn from it?

The core value of the company is the "WOW effect" through excellent customer service. They want a customer to say: "That was the best customer service I've ever had". And that really paid off. The main reason zappos.com did grow so fast has been repeat customers and a lot of word of mouth recommendations, by satisfied customers.

What did Zappos offer? Obviously they were not the only online retailer in those days. But it survived the .com crash and successfully built the online brand. What did Zappos do to create loyal customers? In order to create loyal customers, Zappos makes it very easy and very safe to buy products. First Zappos offers free shipping both ways. So, there are no extra customer expenses when ordering or returning goods. Also zappos.com offers a 365 return policy. That removes the risk of shopping at Zappos. Customers will buy more, because the risk is low. The costs of these two policies are considerable. But they are considered to be marketing expenses.

And now the crucial part in the strategy: Zappos wants to be in touch with its customers. The call center is open 24/7, 365 days a year and the phone number has been put on the top of every page of the website. Needless to say, it takes a lot of training and devotion to get employees up to the high standard. But it works. Because of the effort, members of the Customer Loyalty Team, as Zappos calls it, won't have to use scripts. The company culture and core values are well known to them, so they will act accordingly.

Managers of Zappos' CLT do not use metrics like Average Handling Time, which focuses at how many calls a rep can take per day. In order to achieve these quantitative goals, reps will only worry about how quickly they can get a customer off the phone. And that is not the way creating a "WOW". For that reason reps also will not up sell. Zappos customers find that annoying.

Zappos also believes that, despite of sexy buzzes such as social media, the telephone is the best branding device there is. Customers will have Zappos' undivided attention for a few minutes to create a long lasting positive customer experience.

This approach is all about making it easy for customers to do business with you. Which means the effort a customer has to go through in finding your organization, contacting it or buying your products is as low as possible. And that can already be realized by a simple phone call.

Read the 10 steps to Zappos's succes.

Win customers' loyality by just solving their problems.

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:16:00 +0000

"Stop trying to delight your customers". To really win their loyalty, forget the bells and whistles and just solve their problems. This is the title and subtitle of a Harvard Businsess Review article, issue july/august 2010 by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman and Nicholas Toman. They are associated with the Customer Contact Council, which is a division of the Corporate Executive Board.

The Customer Contact Council has conducted a study of more than 75,000 people who had interacted with customer service companies, over the phone with customer service representatives (CSR) or through self-service channels such as the website of the company, mail, chat or voice prompts. They also held hundreds of interviews with customer service leaders (managers, directors) form big companies all over the world and asked them three questions:

How important is customer service to loyalty?
Which customer service activities increase loyalty, and which don't?
Can companies increase loyalty without raising their customer service operating costs?

Two amazing conclusions emerged. These conclusions should affect every company's customer service strategy.

Delighting customers does not build loyalty, but reducing their effort (what customers must do to get problems solved) does.
Acting on this insight can help a company to improve customer service, reduce the costs to service and increase customers' loyalty and retention.

This article is a must read for managers and directors acting in a customer service environment. It can be bought on the website of the Harvard Business Review. For the next weeks, every Thursday we will post a blog about this subject.

Table of content:

Win customers' loyalty by just solving their problems.
Cut the crap and solve customers' problems.
Make it easy, make it no effort.
Customer Effort Score.
Remove obstacles 1
Remove obstacles 2
Remove obstacles 3
Remove obstacles 4 and 5

This post is part of a series of blogs about the relationship between customer satisfaction and loyalty. That is a research project from the Customer Contact Council and has been published in the Harvard Business Review, edition july/august 2010.

Next blog is this series: Cut the crap and solve customers problems

Increase your sales results

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 07:59:00 +0000

Customer Process Management (CPM) is focussed at customer contact processes and the continuous improvement of internal customer processes. CPM results in an increase in customer satisfaction, productivity and operating profits. Unique marketing and sales opportunities arise by making available all relevant customer information to customer contact employees.

The quality of the moment of contact increases when the customer service representative (CSR) has all relevant customer information to his disposal. A CSR needs only a brief moment of customer identification before he can fully focus on the actual event: customer service. Making available relevant customer information has other huge advantages: First Time Resolution increases and sales opportunities arise because of the possibilities of cross, deep, and up-selling actions.

The customer contact center transforms from a cost center into a profit center. A hypothetical example: suppose an organization handles 200,000 customer contacts per year. These customers represent an annual value of € 500, - per customer. Now, during the contact event the CSR makes the customer an offer he can't refuse; for an amount of € 100, - extra per year, the customer will receive more services, let's say; flat fee mobile internet on his current mobile phone supscription. Suppose only 10% of the customers will accept the proposition, it will result in an extra € 2.000.000, - turnover.

The DNA of a customer contact center does not necessarily have to change into a sales channel. It can always remain a service center. But propositions can be made during a moment of customer contact. Because of the availability of relevant customer information, integrally presented, the CSR is able to serve and sell in one call.

Drop Average Handling Time

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:27:00 +0000

How do organizations ensure that employees improve productivity during customer interaction events? How do they do that without compromising on customer satisfaction? How can organizations achieve an increase in sales volume? How can organizations instruct their employees? How can organizations increase employees' accountabillity? How do organizations implement this all? How will they get the employees to participate?

That's a lot of questions, but a lot of managers actually wonder how they can find an answer to just one of these questions. There is an answer to all thad: information and automation. When organizations facilitate their customer contact employees (CSR) with all relevant customer information, customer contact events will improve in quality and fall down in quantity. You will save money, time and improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

An example: Mrs. Brown calls her energy supplier, she has a question about the monthly amortized amount. The employees in the contact center, a correctly, well spoken and well trained individual, asks Mrs. Brown politely for a customer number, address and inquires about the reason for contact. Then Mrs. Brown is properly transferred to an employee who knows more about these matters. This employee also asks Mrs. Brown for her customer number, address and informs the reason of contact ....

Another example: on the same day Mr. Lucky calls his energy supplier with the same question. The CSR askes Mr. Lucky about his customer number and the nature of his question and he informs Mr. Lucky about the status of his payment. Mr. Lucky has been served properly. Then the employee informs Mr. Lucky about a special promotion: "Would you like to join also?" That seems like a good idea to Mr. Lucky and he turns into Mr. Happy.

It is clear that Mrs. Brown has not the same supplier as Mr. Lucky has. Mr. Lucky's supplier has thought about Customer Process Management (CPM) and implemented it in the organization. Now the moment of customer contact and the subsequent internal workflow processes are linked to the backoffice organization and the differtent departments. All relevant customer data about Mr. Lucy is integrally presented to the CSR, so he is able to serve Mr. Lucky from the start of the customer service event.

One of the output indicators of CPM is the Average Handling Time (AHT). An important indicator. Organizations can improve their AHT by operating three activities:

Make an inventory about the reasons for customer contacts
Define processes
Relevant information retrieval

By identifying the reasons for customer contacts, organizations gain insight into customer processes that occur frequently and processes that happen less frequently. Now customer contact processes can be divided into volume processes and non volume processes. The next step that follows is a process definition. Who will do what and when?

All relevant customer information should be available to a CSR, in the case of volume processes. So the employee is able to handle these events quickly, correctly and according to customers' satisfaction. In the case of processes that occur less frequently and where the expertise of other staff and / or departments will be required, the customer contact employee can start a workflow. This workflow and all relevant customer information is accessible to everybody involved.

The key objective is to connect the customer service event to backoffice applications and to make all relevant customer data available to CSRs. In most organizations, backoffice applications and databases are already there. With some changes in perspective and the way customer service events are being processed, managers can answer their questions.

First Time Right

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 06:58:00 +0000

Customer Process Management focusses at customer contact processes and the continuous improvement of internal processes. As a result customer satisfaction, productivity and profit will increase. One of the indicators that will improve is First Time Right ratio.

In a CPM environment customer contact employees, or CSRs, have acces to the most relevant customer data and customer contact history during the customer contact process. So a CSR is able to instantly see, what the customer is buying and what not, how he or she pays the bills, how many complaints he or she files, what have been communicated, by other CSRs or other people from the organization and so on. The CPM software integrally presents all relevant customer data to the CSR.

In addition, for each customer contact a procedure has been defined. This procedure prevents a lot of errors and contributes significantly to First Time Right. The availability of relevant customer information has a lot more advantages. For exemple, productivity increases and Average Handling Time decreases. One can handle more customer contacts in a shorter time frame because the CSR does not have to ask all kinds of questions identifying a customer before correctly servicing him. The info is already there!

So CPM reduces the number of errors significantly, by making available all relevant customer data at the point where it mathers most: the moment of customer contact. First Time Right, sounds great doesn't it? But there is more. In a CPM environment predefined procedures and workflow management ensure that a customer is being served before, during and after the moment of contact. Customers really do like that.

Pixar the great movie company, You the great customer service company

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:03:00 +0000

A lot of people may have heard about Pixar. The animation movie company, owned by Disney Corporation after Steve Jobs swapped his Pixar shares and became a major shareholder in Disney. Probably more people have heard of movies like Toy Story, Cars and WALL-E. How is it possible, for a relatively small and young company, to produce blockbuster movies? Pixar creates just one animation movie per year and brings a smile on the faces of millions of people. And not only kids!

How does Pixar do that and what can You do with it? After all this is a blog about customer process management, so what's the value of this cross-industry perspective? Well to start with, everybody at Pixar Studios has a passion for animated technology, but they also understand what the customer wants and they deeply wish to exceed those expectations. They know customers want to be entertained, surprised and hold on to a good feeling about the movie. So they create the weirdest things, such as a rat who wants to be a cook, a fish that can't be found and talking cars.

What about You, the great customer service company? You know what customers want. They want to be listened to, their questions being properly answered, their complaints being solved effectively and they want it quickly, in one phone call and in one time right. Have You ever met a customer who really wanted to keep telling the same thing over and over again to a lot of reps and not find answers? Don't think so.

The similarity between Pixar and You is the customer focus. Exceed customers' expectations and you shall be rewarded. Customers want First Time Resolution, they want to tell their story one time and they don't want to spend a lot of time on the phone. They want the certainty, that after they contacted You, their matters are in good hands.

Maybe there is some work to do, but it is worth the effort. Happy customers spend more money and they can spread the word that Your customer service is outstanding. They can recommend You to friends and family. Just like they will do after having seen the latest Pixar movie. It's time to bring a smile on customers' faces!

Improve Average Handling Time

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:05:00 +0000

A valid question for customer service organizations and its managers, is how to improve Handling Time Average (AHT). But by improving AHT customer service representatives (CSR) can lose focus on the main goal of the customer service center: serving customers. So, how does an organization improves its AHT will it still satisfies its customers?

Answers can be found in the field Customer Process Management (CPM). CPM focusses at customer contact processes and the continuous improvement of the internal process. It connects the moment of customer contact to the back office organization. CPM enables organizations to reduce costs by handling these contact moments and the processes that follow, more efficiently en effectively. So AHT will decrease and organizations will generate more income and are able to manage resources better.

In the CPM philosophy all relevant customer information is being made available to the CSR. Now they do not need to look for it in the various different back office applications. Neighter do they have to ask the customer for it. No, the CSR immediatelly can serve the customer. This reduces the AHT signifficantly and it will increase the ratio Right First Time.

But there is more. The productivity of CSRs will increase as well. A CSR can supplement customer data, during the moment of contact, with information such as an agreement for an upgrade, or change in method of payment. The customer would like to take this into consideration for a few days and he or she will get back on it. The CSR creates a workflow process and when the clients contacts again, every CSR in the building instantly understands the contact reason.

Increase your profitability

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:40:00 +0000

Customer Process Management is aimed at continuously improving customer contact processes and the internal processes which follow as a consequence. Its goal is to increase customer satisfaction, productivity and operating profits. By making available all relevant customer information, to customer contact employees or CSR, organizations can achieve these goals.

During the customer contact process, the customer contact employee needs to have access to most relevant customer data. This employee should just have to take a look on his or her computer screen to know what the customer is buying and what not. When the customer is contacting the organization for example to pass on a change of address, an interesting offer can be made during that moment of contact. After the CSR has processed the change of address, the service call can be turned into a profitable one. The chances of success are much higher than a mass marketing campaign.

CRM also boost profitablity in terms of productivity. Productivity increases, when employees have relevant customer information. So they do not have to ask all kinds of questions in order to identify a client. So one CSR can handle more customer contacts per hour. Thus the Average Handling Time decreases. And that is an interesting fact.

The above provides another important benefit for both employees and customers. The First Time Right ratio increases significantly. The availability of all relevant customer data, defined procedures and predefined communicative expressions, such as sorry notes and confirmation mails, will make it happen. Errors will occur significantly less. And that will implove customer satisfaction.

An increase in the First Time Right ratio also has a positive effect on employees. The things they have to do are much easier. When they have access to all necessary information, they don't need to ask the same type of questions each time to identify and to serve a client well. It also reduces the number of errors, so employees do not need to solve them and they can spend their time to the actual contact itself.

Customer Process Management software reduces the cost of software licenses. This contributes directly to the operating result. But we will talk about that some other time.

Lean Six Sigma in perspective

noreply@blogger.com (CPM) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:34:00 +0000

Many people think that Lean Six Sigma is strongly influenced by Japanese companies like Toyota. That may be so, but Lean Six Sigma has strong American roots. Industrialists like Henry Ford and William Edwards Deming, who after the Second World War was heavily involved rebuilding the Japanese industry, have been great pioneers of the philosophy. Lean Six Sigma consists of two combined methods: Lean Thinking and Six Sigma. Both are focused at improving business processes and customers.

The Lean Thinking philosophy is aimed at those elements that do not add value to be eliminated from the process. As a result the final product improves in quality, which has positive effects on revenue streams. The Six Sigma philosophy focuses on the quality per element in the process and has a strong customer focus.

The Lean Six Sigma philosophy is a way of doing things. It indicates what an organization should and what it should not do. Now, let’s take that to the playing field of customer contacts and customer contact processes. Organizations which manage their customer contact processes well, will be financially rewarded by its own customer base.

Unfortunately customer contacts are dynamic and subject to continuous change. For an optimal performance in this dynamic environment, organizations must facilitate their customer contact employees with the right tools. Customer contact processes extent departments and people. This means different systems, underlying databases and different people with different roles are working on the customer contacts.

Organizations own a lot of customer data. This includes financial information such as invoices, credit history, rate, account number, method of payment. Contact information such as name, address, city, phone number, email and date of birth. Commercial information such as contract term, ecological products, which services the customer uses, customer history, customer will receive newsletter? Demographic information such as family situation, age and gender. Would it not be great to make use of this?

There is an answer to that, it is called Customer Process Management. CPM will ensure that customer contact processes are managed flexibly, effectively and efficiently. As a result the Average Handling Time drops significantly. Customer Process Management Software bridges the gap between the customer contact point and the internal organization. CPM Software facilitates customer contact employees in such a manner that customers, contacting an organization, are being served instantly and correctly. All actions that follow from the initial customer contact point, are properly logged, stored and executed. Customers will be satisfied. Excellent service.

Most organizations do have the possession of resources and infrastructure to facilitate multimedia customer contact processes. But all too often there is a missing link between real-time customer contact and internal organization. So when everything is already there, why not erase this missing link? Connect the dots and create customer satisfaction and more profit.