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  Allen Bonde 04:55:25 pm on April 16, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: customer experience management, Knowledge Management, Self-Service

  Hello again!

  It’s been exactly one year since I kicked off the eVergance blog with the goal of sharing our thoughts on the state of customer service and support, looking at emerging best practices and technologies, and – hopefully – creating a community of interest which would be greater than the sum of its parts. After 8500 views, 80 posts and several hundred comments to this point, I think we have exceeded my expectations for our little exercise, and shown that there is a place for “evolved thinking” in the Blogosphere!

  I want to thank Esteban for his contributions, insights and wit in nurturing our blog over the past year, and while I don’t know if I can meet the standard (and expectations!) he has set, we have some great contributors and our team is looking forward to our second year of blogging and developing some additional themes as eVergance and KANA go down the exciting and uncharted path of Service Experence Management.

  At the same time, I’d like to re-oriented our focus a bit to get back to basics, if you will. Just as the three-martini lunch has gone out of style in today’s business climate, I think we have to remember why we are here and re-focus on some of the core questions around effective service delivery, such as:

  • what are the remaining efficiency killers in the call center? (we think KM is one solution, and it’s great to see Michael Maoz’s recent post with a similar theme)
  • how do we deliver service on our customer’s terms – while still maintaining control and visibility?
  • how do we find the right mix of channels, and leverage all our investments in systems and content to this point?

  I know there are a lot more questions we have and will tackle. I hope you will continue to check in, offer your suggestions and feedback, and pass on a good word if you like what you see. Look for additional bloggers joining the fun as we ramp up our plans for the remainder of 2009, and we’ll try to provide more frequent, punchier and more news-related posts as well.

  Thanks for reading!
  Allen Bonde, eVergance CMO

   
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  Esteban Kolsky 07:00:40 am on April 13, 2009 | 5 | # |
  Tags: CRM, Customer, Customer Experience, customer experience management, customer first, customer loyalty, customer service, experience management, loyalty, Voice of the Customer

  Customer First? or Customer Only?

  Been reading a lot lately, trying to get caught up after spending so much time in the trenches doing some real work.  Almost everywhere I turn I read about “Customer First”.  Putting the customer first, or ahead of everything else you do.  Why, there is even an entity in the UK that is called Customer First to ensure UK organizations remain true to their customers.  Closer to home, Continental Airlines has been talking about the great results of their Customer First initiative, as well as Northwest Airlines (which merged with Delta recently, another Customer First organization) and even an organization as distinct as the City of San Antonio has gotten on board.

  With all these people you’d think that customer first is all it takes to succeed – but I would like to bring up a more interesting point: it is not about putting the customer first, it is about making the customer the ONLY reason for your existence.  Putting the customer first means that there are other things to distract you from your commitment to your customer.  Making the customer the only thing means that their needs will supersede all others.  It may seem a trivial difference, and hair-splitting semantically speaking, but think about it for a second…

  Do you want to commit all your resources to making your customers happy – or just the ones you can spare?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 03:22:06 pm on April 7, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: CEM, CRM, customer experience management, customer service, experience management, Self-Service, Technology of Business

  How is that “new” customer service going?

  Some time ago I wrote about this “new” customer service brought on by the economic downturn.  I said back then that these moves were not based on core, sound principles and thus they would not last long.  It takes three weeks for people, and between six and eight weeks for corporations, to make a habit stick (think new years resolutions and the time when they affirmed or broken – or rather, how your gym seems to be more empty in Februay than it was in January).  We are a little bit past that time now — how is that new customer service working?

  My perspective? I started seeing some complains come across twitter for customer service problems that had gone away and are now coming back, and I began to hear again from our customers about overloading their systems, how they can reduce the costs of supporting clients with longer handle times, and whether it is a good idea to have those automated and electronic systems put back into action.  In other words, we are going back to normal.  Just as Will Smith said in “I, Robot” when they learned that the robots that were supposed to serve are actually trying to take over the world — “Somehow I told you so just doesn’t say it”.

  Remember, to make changes stick you need to change the core – not just the surface… What are you seeing out there? Am I wrong?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 04:59:51 pm on April 6, 2009 | 1 | # |
  Tags: CEM, channel, CIH, CRM, customer experience management, customer service, Experience, multi channel customer service, multi-channel

  Do Unto Others, or The Golden Rule in Customer Service

  There is one major problem with customer service setups today -each channel is treated differently, yet we expect customers to have seamless, similar experiences across all of them.  The flaw in this reasoning, it is nearly impossible with normal resources to manage any one channel properly – less along two, three, four or more.  You want to replicate, centralize, and leverage as much as you can to bring into action the economies of scale.

  A client of mine who undertook the painful and lengthy process of mimicking in all channels what they were doing in their most successful one (telephone) was able to increase customer satisfaction by almost 30 points in a standard business cycle (one calendar quarter in their case) for most of their channels.  Even telephone, which had not changed, received higher scores.

  Similarly, another client decided not to undertake the “huge burden” (their words) of centralizing channels or even replicatiing workflows and rules. As a result, they ended up spending almost 20%+ year after year for supporting separate channels.  This caused them to rethink their strategy of suppoorting separate channels and actually drop some of the channels they were supporting.  Yes, this is the opposite of what you want to do if you want to increase customer satisfaction.

  Are you supporting all your channels as a single channel?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 06:49:27 am on March 3, 2009 | 7 | # |
  Tags: CEM, CRM, customer experience management, customer service, experiences, Feedback Management, service, service and support, Voice of the Customer

  The End of Customer Experience Management?

  My former colleague at Gartner, and good friend, Ed Thompson is an exceptional analyst.  He probably did more to advance the understanding and knowledge of Customer Experience Management that just about anyone else in this world.  He is the one who got me more interested in this aspect of life, and we wrote a lengthy paper together on how to do CEM properly which is still one of the best read documents at Gartner.  He used to have a set of slides to explain Experiences that was outstanding, and in one of those slides he had examples of people paying more money for more exotic experiences.  For example, people that would pay more to go to an ultra-luxurious hotel instead of a 5-star hotel – just for the added experiences.  He reasoned that customers were willing to spend more in better experiences and if you provide better experiences to your customers you can then charge more and justify the cost of the extra benefits.

  I  agree with the concept, and I have helped countless clients do just that.  They enjoyed great benefits for their commitment to the idea of providing a superior experience at the same or higher cost, and their customers saw that and gladly paid for it.  Fast forward to today’s depressed economic situation (no, I did not say depression – we are a long way from that).  I wrote an entry last month about how some companies are realizing these days that they need to preserve their customers and they need to improve customer service with better experiences.  Back then I said that this behavior probably would not last the downturn, and as soon as things got back to “normal” and revenues increased these “new” experiences were gone and service would go back to what it was.  Service providers had not made the necessary investments in superior experiences, they merely had more time to provide better service (less customers, more time spent per customer).

  I have been thinking lately about all this and where does it end, or where does it go.  My conclusion? Regardless of the outcome of these economic hard times, customer experience management is approaching its long, but certain, end.  Hear me out.  I was listening to the radio today and someone was talking about “the thrift syndrome”, whereas people in bad situations committed to saving money and change their lifestyles, spend less in the future regardless of their situation (the theory is that they lived well with less they’ll continue those habits to be ready for the next downturn).

  Now, this is where it all comes together… 1) people spend more money for a better experience, 2) companies see they can provide a better experience without spending oodles in customer experience management, and 3) “the thrift syndrome”… get it? people will spend less and won’t care about the experience, companies will do better without caring about the experience – and we have the end of customer experience management!

  What are your thoughts?  Am I wrong? Am I a sophist in the making?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 03:58:39 pm on February 2, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer experience management, customer service, enteprise feedback management, Experience, Feedback Management, surveys, Voice of the Customer

  Surveys Done Right – Part 3 – Survey Best Practices

  OK, on to part 3 – best practice for surveys.

  I have been working on and off on this topic for a while, updating it and making sure it was still valid.  This is the knowledge I have gained over the years of doing surveys.  Enjoy, and do let me know what you think of it.

  Know What You Want. It is essential to know before crafting the survey what information you need to get out of it. Most surveys look for customer satisfaction, others are trying to determine how to improve the delivery of service. Yet others may be trying to determine the effectiveness of a certain service or program. The most important thing to know is that each of these goals should be unique and single – one survey per goal, with documentation before you release it.

  Determine Effectiveness. Survey methods will be unique for each channel (for example, Web, e-mail, phone) and customer segment (geography/postal code, age, gender,  buying/service patterns). Each customer segment is unique and will react to channels and survey methods differently. For example, a customer registering a newly installed personal computer may or may not have a readily available Internet connection during the registration process. A survey that requires customers to go online to complete an installation satisfaction survey may be an annoyance. However, the addition of a simple question, such as “Connected to Internet?” or “Store survey results until next Internet logon?” will advance the process. Effective surveys are delivered at the conclusion of a service interaction via the same channel as the service provided.

  Adhere to the “KISS” Principle. The keep it short and simple (KISS) principle applies to these surveys. Customers are more likely to complete a survey when the time to completion is explicitly displayed at the beginning of the process, the purpose of the survey is clearly stated and the use of information is defined. For example: “To help us improve our service to you in the future, please participate in our satisfaction survey. The survey will take less than one minute, and no information specific to you will be shared or distributed to any third party.” We recommend no more than three to seven questions per survey, one common topic, and short and succinct wording. Furthermore, to make it easier to answer and to tally responses, multiple-choice answers are recommended. Writing questions is a complex and iterative process. The most critical step in the survey process is to test questions. Before implementation, survey questions should be tested in focus groups, followed by a small pilot survey run and measured against a real customer base for a short period.

  Ensure Consistent Gathering. Hand-picking the “right” respondents to achieve higher scores is a common problem when gathering responses. For example, enterprises that discard participant data because the customer appears upset, not in the right frame of mind, biased or not really friendly rob themselves of critical insight and end up with skewed results. Customers who are the least “friendly” or sympathetic are often the most honest in their responses and central to a better understanding of where service delivery may be failing. Survey response gathering should be done consistently, either to all subjects in the target group (if feasible) or by following a predetermined random algorithm that will be applied to all customers (for example, every fourth caller into a Web site or call center).

  Read the Answers. More than 60 percent of enterprises generate a single data point from a survey – one that usually supports their original view of the level of customer service satisfaction – and ignore an analysis of the possible implications of the data. A well-designed survey will reveal trends, patterns and outright new information that are valuable to improving the customer service operation. This information should be used as part of an EFM system (read “Finally, A Definition for EFM“) to better understand, know and serve customers.

  Act on the Information. Even the best surveys, designed and executed with the best of intentions, are a waste of effort unless a set of specific actions is put in place to respond to customer input.  Alas, the majority of organizations fail to change the customer service organization or workflows based on survey results. Conducting a survey just to know where things are will upset customers who believe that the survey is intended to improve things. An enterprise that surveys customers but fails to act on the data will actually damage the relationship with the customers more than if they had never been surveyed. Even if the only purpose of the survey is to capture the status of customer satisfaction, customers should be given the opportunity to suggest specific input as to how they would like to see interactions improved. In all cases, the end result should be the same: Whatever needs to be fixed should be fixed, and what should be improved must be improved.

  Repeat It. Improvements to the customer experience happen through an iterative process. Responses captured once will be inadequate for determining a trend. If we don’t know whether customers are more satisfied today than last quarter, we are bound to lose customers, and the purpose of the survey will be lost. At periodic business cycles (such as quarterly), as determined by the business, the survey should be repeated, and all the above steps should be done again – including knowing what we want from the survey.

  Let Customers Know. Improvements to customer service as a result of customer feedback should be communicated back to the customers. Let them know that their input is taken seriously and used. Few organizations that conduct surveys do this, yet it is a critical part of customer experience management and of EFM strategies, and it should be done to encourage future participation from customers and to improve customer loyalty.

  So, what do you think?  Am I missing something?  Of course, the bottom line is that you should only do this as part of anEFM strategy… right?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 02:04:52 am on January 25, 2009 | 5 | # |
  Tags: customer service, CRM, customer satisfaction, customer experience management, enterprise feedback management, surveys, feedback, Voice of the Customer, Experience, Customer Experience, customer satisfaction surveys, customers

  Surveys Done Right – Part 2 – Customer Satisfaction

  I have been dreading writing this entry since I came up with the idea for the series (have you read part 1 yet?).  It is not that I don’t know what to say, or that I don’t want to do it.  It is simply that my fear of providing “sample” survey that will later become “real surveys” for all people without customization or personalization really, really takes hold in this arena.  I mean, who has not had to write a customer satisfaction survey in the past?  It is probably the most used, misunderstood, and poorly implemented of all surveys out there.

  If we go by the surveys that I have seen, customer satisfaction surveys should only have one question since that is what most people care about anyways: “overall, how satisfied are you with us?”.  It seems that if the customer says they are overall satisfied then there are no problems.  Further, as long as we get a sufficient number of customers to say they are satisfied (somewhere in the mid-70s to mid-80s), and the number remains consistent or (gasp) even grows a little  we are perfectly set from the customer experience, loyalty, and satisfaction point of view.  After all, if 80% of people are satisfied – isn’t that good?  Well, yes and no.  I wrote about how you can ensure you will get a 90% of more in customer satisfaction surveys in the past (second most popular post in this site).  It is possible to score high – even increase your scores, and not be doing a good job.

  So, before we jump into the description of the survey and the sample questions (and before I beg you again to personalize and customize them), let’s make sure we understand one thing about this survey.  This “sample” survey is not intended to tell you how many people like you.  It is intended to, historically, provide a trending line of your customer satisfaction overall – but more important it is intended to give you real answers to partial satisfaction questions (e.g. were satisfied with the speed of the answer?) in accordance to your strategy (you do have one of those right?).  Finally, consider that I used these questions for customers that have customer satisfaction as a key metric and part of the insight.  I still believe that customer satisfaction is too flawed as a metric to be used reliably (also read this one), but a trending report cannot hurt – as it wouldn’t with any other metric.

  Too many words to get here, so here are the the essentials of a customer satisfaction survey (part 3 of this series, best practices for writing surveys – stay tuned!):

  • First, the most important part – KISS (keep it short and simple).  I use the rule of 5+/-2 (five, plus or minus two), with five being the magic number, and three and seven the limits.
  • Second, you MUST personalize the questions to the specific items you want to measure satisfaction on – which is why there are some questions below to use, but they may not fit what you are looking for.  Tie your questions to your strategy
  • Third, send them out every business cycle (varies by industry and function), and make sure you use panel management tools so you won’t keep sending them to the same person over and over (we know what they think – no one should get more than one a year), and that you don’t send them to people who won’t respond.
  • Fourth, statistical significance is great for market research or election day polls, not so much on customer satisfaction.  Make sure you get a large enough number to make it varied (I suggest at least between 3-4% of the population) and I am talking responses – not invitations.
  • Fifth, make sure you use the same questions the next time you send them out (yes, exactly the same wording) so you can keep historical trends.  Remember, customer satisfaction is an OK metric to keep as long as you use it as a historical trending metric, not a KPI

  Those are the basic rules for these surveys, but more will arise as you begin to implement them.  Of course, best practices for EFM and Surveys apply, so those are to be considered as well.  Now, without further ado, the list of questions I’d like to propose for your consideration:

  1. Overall, what is your satisfaction with Company XYZ? (hate this question, but it is an easy one to answer)

  Now, this question is to be answered in a numerical scale, I favor a scale of 1-4, you can use whatever works for your objectives.  A scale of 1-10 is popular with people who endorse NPS (Net Promoter Score), but I don’t buy into that.  A different way to ask this questions, which I prefer, is:

  1. Overall, would you say you are satisfied with Company XYZ?

  This question is answered with a simple YES-NO.  Why do I like this question? Two things, first the wording predisposes the respondent to say yes (which is a positive score).  Second, you can setup your scripts to react in the case of a negative answer – and since the question predisposes the respondent to say yes, when someone says NO they really mean it.

  From the following questions, pick some of the ones that reflect your objectives, vision, strategy, and purpose for this survey.  Remember, personalization and customization are highly encouraged – so if these don’t fit your needs go ahead and change them accordingly.

  2.1.  What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ web site / self-service solution?

  2.2. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ representatives on the phone?

  2.3. What is your satisfaction with Product ABC from Company XYZ?

  2.4. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ return policies?

  2.5. What is your satisfaction with Company XYZ use of email for customer service?

  Well, you get the idea.  Keep in mind that how you ask the question is going to depend on the answer, and see Q1 above to see some examples of different ways to write the questions.  Needless to say, again, the questions you chose for the second part are related to your specific, strategic goals and are bound to change for your survey.

  This is the longest post I wrote since we started this blog, but I wanted to make sure it was clear and explicit.  There is, of course, lots more to read and write about customer feedback, customer service, customer satisfaction… well, anything dealing with customers.  You will read more and we move along – but how do you like this post?  Interesting? Are you using it?  Please let me know your thoughts and experiences… and thanks for reading!

   

• Esteban Kolsky 08:12:24 pm on November 20, 2008 | 0 | # |
  Tags: CEM, CRM, customer acquisition, customer acquisition costs, customer experience management, customer service, Experience, experience management, financials, roi

  ROI for CEM? NWJ (No Way Jose)!

  First things first: I don’t have a set formula for calculating a ROI on CEM.  Are you still with me?  Good… because what I do have is better than a formula – I have a method.  A method we used several times before, and it has proven to be successful.  So, if you are interested in knowing what you can get out of adopting CEM, read on.

  First, want to make sure you did your homework.  In my previous post on experience management I told you to read the three notes I wrote on Customer Acquisition and Maintenance costs (just in case, #1, #2, and #3 here for your enjoyment).  I am going to assume that you did read them going forward.

  The reason I am referring to those posts is that the formula you created for your customer acquisition and customer maintenance are going to be critical for your ROI calculation for CEM.  Two caveats: first, it is not possible to quantify quality – which means if you improve your experience you cannot put a number to it (as in saying “I am going to improve my experience by 10%”, or “I will improve my interactions with customers by 20%”).  Second, your mileage will vary – what works for one of you may not work for someone else.  That is why I have a method, not a formula for this.

  Now, let’s focus on the ROI of from adopting a CEM strategy for your organization (you do remember this is an enterprise-wide implementation of a strategy – right?).  By creating better experiences you stand to get three benefits: reduced number of interactions (happy customers that have what they need don’t use customer service), shorter interactions (if they put off calling because they don’t like the experience, they may have 3-4 complex problems instead of a simple one), and reduced costs for training (the same systems that have better information for your customers will be used by your agents – greatly enhancing their powers with less training).

  How do you decide which ones of these benefits apply to you?  Well, this is part where it depends.  If you are going to improve your customers’ experiences by offering more channels and more automation, you will have a reduced number of interactions (you may have some in other channels, but they would probably be cheaper).  If you are shortening the processing time, you are more likely to get easier and shorter interactions as well as fewer of them (customers won’t call just to “check” status).  If you are implementing more automation, better knowledge management or better access to back-office systems, then your training costs and interaction times should be greatly reduced.  You have to determine what makes sense for the actions you’d be taking.

  Then, there is also the issue of increased revenues.  Depending on how you improve you experience, part of it may be offer management for specific situations, or the ability to increase revenue recognition, or even the ability to create new services and revenue sources.  All those should also be considered – and you are probably tired of me saying this – but they cannot be identified until you design your new experiences.

  One final point on return on investment: if you make customer experience management part of your branding, as it should be, you will see that your customer acquisition costs (again, your calculation as detailed in my previous post) are going to be lower.  No, I am serious.  If your brand of excellent experiences becomes part of your overall brand, then customers will need less convincing to sign up, which will aid converting customers, thus reducing the cots of acquiring them.  And, if you think that I am saying that you cannot calculate your ROI until after you implement your experiences — no, I am not.  I am saying, your ROI will be based on assumptions and expectations of what that CEM implementation will be.

  So, what do you think?  Does this method makes sense?  Let me know what you think..

   

• Esteban Kolsky 12:11:17 am on November 14, 2008 | 5 | # |
  Tags: customer service, CRM, customer experience management, Web 2.0, Communities, enterprise feedback management, feedback, Voice of the Customer, Customer Experience, CEM, community

  Customer Service is Dead — Long Live Community Service!

  I have had lots of requests lately dealing with social media, and how to make good use of this for Customer Service and CRM – even broadening the scope into the entire enterprise.  Of course, this is related to the “explosion” in twitter, plurk, Facebook, blogging and related tools.  But, is there something else there? is there value in implementing communities?

  Yes, yes, yes, and yes.  This is the future of customer service.

  I have been working with communities, back then called collaborative customer service or forums, for some eight years.  Of course, back then we had little to go on – some forums, communities were nascent at best -  and we could not see how it would work best.  I wrote about it as the intermediate step between Customer Interaction Hub and Secret Customer Service.  Got some interest, did some strategy work, small lab-based deployments but almost no one at that time even attempted to take on it fully.

  Fast forward to today: communities are the rage – an integral part of Web 2.0. We still don’t have a clear path or a well defined purpose, but lots more is happening.  Now if the perfect time to get started – once the concept of community service becomes mainstream (12-18 months from now) it will move very, very fast for you to play catch up.  You can do this now and be prepared.

  The benefits of implementing community service are astronomical.  There are plenty of case studies (Mercury Interactive, Cisco, Microsoft, and more) that have moved either part or their entire support structure to communities or forums and have increased their customer satisfaction, reduced their costs of customer maintenance – even found new ways to increase revenue!  All this by switching from traditional customer service models to community service.  So, how do you make the move?  Three things to get started:

  1. Make sure your customers want it – Quite simple, there ain’t no community without people.  If your customers are not going to participate, nor do they feel they can get value out of it then the community will not succeed.  This is independent of topic, theme, method of operation or anything else.  Plenty of failures exist of communities launched without checking with customers first. Best way to start? start a community alongside the rest of your support structure.  Advertise it. Make it attractive. Populate it with good content. Commit time and resources to grow it.  then you start shifting people over slowly, finally make it the channel of choice.  Sounds simple; it is simple.

  2. Make sure your company can support it – Despite claims to the contrary, the most successful examples of community service are those where the company commits time, resources, knowledge and participants to them.  If your experts are involved in the community, take interest in it, answer questions and receive feedback from customers the community will grow and become useful to you.  If no one from your company ever enters the community, and it builds with its own content and resources, if you seem not to care about the feedback and knowledge built in it, then it will be a failure.

  3. Let it be – I know this is hard to understand, but you have to let the content be free.  Monitoring content, censoring entries, and controlling what goes where and how it flows through your community is not the way to go.  Think Wikipedia and self-regulating content.  It is likely that you will have to do some policing to get it started, but go lightly and err on the side of freedom.  Once the community is up and running, make sure you use reputation tools built into them so the people that matter the most (engineers and outside experts as an example) can be recognized.  Communities center around self-elected leaders and they are the ones that will control the content and quality of the community. Feel free to court them – but try not to control them.

  Final word of advice.  If you read my blog on customer experience management you know that I will advise you to integrate your community into your CEM strategy.  Yet, I will also advice you to make sure that you treat communities as the most important link between you and your customers since there is nothing that can replace the direct link you can have with them – and the free flow of information both ways.

  Are you working with communities? How is it going?  Do you see yoursefl replacing customer service with community service?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 07:43:59 am on November 7, 2008 | 4 | # |
  Tags: CEM, customer acquisition costs, Customer Experience, customer experience management, customer service, experiences, interactions

  It is All About the Experience, You Know?

  While I was at Gartner I wrote a lot about Customer Experience Management (CEM).  I mean a whole lot.  I co-wrote a guide to doing CEM with Ed Thompson (if you have a Gartner account, you just have to read what he writes – and if you can make it to one of his presentations, you will be a better professional for it – promise).  I wrote lots of individual research notes, presentations, case studies, lots and lots and lots.  I spent a very long time talking to vendors and end-users about it, making sure they understood what it was, how to approach it, and how to succeed at it.  You see, the little secret that few people know is that Enterprise Feedback Management, Surveys, Analytics and all that other stuff is not more than a sub-set of CEM.  Without Feedback, there would be no CEM – alas, without CEM Feedback would be as dull as… well, an air sandwich (come on, don’t make me explain it — two slices of bread, nothing in between… i was raised in Argentina, what do you want?).

  Because everything you do with feedback, actually let me take that back.  Everything you do with your customers is about the experience.  There is no other way around it.  I was reminded of that this week, as I was doing some research into Social Media, SOA, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 (yes, we already have that), and Web 4.0 (that one is mine, not yet defined formally – working on it).  All these wonderful technologies will do absolutely nothing to improve your relationships with your customers if you don’t put them to good use – that is, use them to build a better experience.  After all, it is all about the experience – you know?

  So, how do you get started in the world of CEM? First, repeat after me: CEM is not a technology (pause for you to repeat), CEM is not a tool (pause), there are no CEM Vendors.  Go back and repeat it again.  Good.  That is the secret of your success (no, not like Michale J Fox).  You will, as you embark in CEM, receive no help from software, hardware, or vendors despite their promises.  You can, if you want, ask for assistance from your friendly consultant (say, me), or do some research (work with Gartner – trust me on this, Ed Thompson and Jim Davies are superb).  You can try some of the “vendors” and “software” available for CEM (Google lists 2.9 MM entries for software, 250K for vendors) but trust me – there is nothing there for you.

  Second, focus on the three Ps of CEM. Yes, the famous People, Process, and Politics.  As you develop your strategy for CEM (you already knew this was coming, it is not software or hardware, it has to be an enterprise-wide strategy – right?) remember that you will have to change your processes, train your people, and affect your politics.  The principles of Change Management will be your best friend, and prior experience with enterprise-wide projects your best ally.  If you don’t have any of these, don’t start – failure is at hand.  Make sure you know what you are getting into as you start working towards your goal.

  Third, remember that CEM is an iterative process.  There is no end to it, just steps towards an improved experience.  Once you conquered the first set of processes, the first level of complex integration between interactions you will begin to receive feedback from your customers – that is how you know it is iterative.  Once you get this responses, you get to start again and continue to improve your (now better) experience.

  Of course, I’d be remiss if I did not mention ROI for this investment.  Because, as you work improving your experiences you will need to show the return on the investment.  There may be no vendors or software associated with it, but it still require changes to process, training, potentially some EFM software if you don’t already have it, same with analytics and business processes software and systems.  There is a cost associated with it — and your CFO wants to see the return on the investment.  So, how do you prove the return in your investment?

  Well, that is left for the next entry… but until then, do some homework and read my previous series on cost of customer acquisition and cost of customer maintenance.  Trust me, you will need them to go through the ROI of CEM.

  Are you ready to get into CEM? What are you doing right now with it?

   

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