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  John Chmaj 03:24:12 am on January 15, 2010 | 1 | # |
  Tags: best practices, content management, context, customer centric, search, user experience

  Let’s Rethink SEARCH, Shall We?

  The one constant in my support KM career has been working with search tools – I got involved in creating the CD-ROMs for support right from the commercial inception of that technology in the late 80’s, then in knowledge base search tools of all sorts, then on the web.  It’s something that’s been taken for granted as a core support capability, and one that’s now ubiquitous on the web.  So I’m as jaded as anyone else of PRESUMING that search is a core, if not THE core way we should be accessing knowledge.   There’s a kind of magic to it – I type in a few words and somehow the right info steps forward from a sea of stuff.  Cool!

  And yet, on the whole this experience has been far from satisfying in the support & service arena.  Search success rates on average hover in the 30-40% range, there’s all manner of hoops organizations jump through to figure out how to get the right content to show up, the tools are often complex or if not have very simple capabilities.  And when you DO get this all working, there seem to be interminable IT, website design, content issues that degrade or alter search and force maintenance of some kind or another to persist a meaningful search experience. All in all it can be a real pain to field and run a search application!  (I’ve blogged earlier about issues with search and support, see “Support Search – Why It Can’t ‘Be Just Like Google“.)

  (More …)
   

• John Chmaj 09:09:07 pm on December 9, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: best practices, Feedback Management, KM, Knowledge Management

  KM Governance: It’s a Lifestyle, not a Project

  I’ve had several requests lately to address the issues and approach to knowledge management “governance” — the practices, commitments and plans that define how organizations work together. Aside from the many tactical issues and details an organization needs to address, there are a few things about knowledge management governance that are worth considering at the outset whenever you think about how to initiate or improve it:

  1.  Knowledge Management doesn’t exist or belong to any one group — it’s the COMPANY’S job to do it.

  Because content usually surfaces through search tools and websites, it’s often lumped in with other IT or web initiatives in terms of who owns it, how it’s governed, etc.  The limitation with this approach is it doesn’t address the fundamental organizational alignment necessary to achieve effective knowledge management.  The content stakeholders, support organization (these two usually overlap), and support mechanisms (e.g. technology) all play a part in getting ‘knowledge to market’.  It’s not any one group’s assignment.

  That being said, clear leadership and drive has to be centered somewhere in the organization to create and sustain this alignment.  This usually happens at the executive level within or among some part of the services and support organization, in conjunction with the products group.  But the scope and responsibility of creating and delivering knowledge MUST involve ALL the stakeholders involved — marketing, products, support, content groups, IT, etc. — from the outset in some capacity, otherwise KM forever swims upstream against the other priorities of all the other core initiatives of the company.

  2. Knowledge Management is a LIFESTYLE, not a PROJECT:  Take a program approach.

  While individual content or technology initiatives may well be performed in project mode, the actual long-term capability of developing and delivering knowledge is a core organizational competency that requires ongoing investment, commitment and monitoring.  The most effective way to approach it is as a program – draw a circle around what is to be accomplished, engage all the stakeholders in the life cycle of knowledge (see item #1 above), and create an internal branding, awareness and energy around it.

  This is not foreign to organizations:  cross-group marketing, product development and sales programs happen all the time.  Seek out allies and long-term partners across the business, and just keep at it — it takes years to establish an ongoing cultural commitment to something in any organization.  As long as the goals and outcomes are clear and compelling people WILL come on board as more and more stakeholders get involved.  Which leads to another principle of KM success: show success!

  3.  Focus the program on the higher organizational goals served, and build commitments continuously towards achieving them.

  Often there’s a disconnect between the day-to-day, mundane tasks associated with creating content, managing KB’s, etc., and the critical organizational capabilities that are served by the KM program.  The fruits of Knowledge Management are the successful outcomes: customer sat, efficiency, better resourcing, agent productivity.  THAT is what the organization truly cares about.  The more clearly, compellingly and continuously KM owners and stakeholders can keep the organization focused on resourcing the program towards these objectives, the more KM seeps into the organizational culture as a fundamental enabler.

  This is more than just proving a business case – it’s getting the organization to see and believe that knowledge delivery drives value to the business.  Here’s where good metrics, clear reporting and analysis, and outright evangelism and communications come in.  People in the organization are busy, they have a lot on their plate already, and many other objectives happening at one time.  We have to GET and KEEP their attention on why they should care about KM, what it’s done for them lately, and how they can help get it to the next level with their resources, content or support.

  At the end of the day (or month, or year) KM is a core organizational competency.  Self-service has finished a process that began decades ago when online information began to become available on networks, then intranets, now the web and customer communities at large.  Very few organizations do not need to create and share knowledge to enable their services and support process in some regard or not.  Whether that activity is ad hoc, weakly managed, and drives inconsistent results, or is well managed and drives value and differentiation is up to the organization.  Hopefully thinking about these principles will help you think about approaching KM as a way towards building a more knowledge-centered organization. Good luck — remember, it’s happening whether the organization wants to acknowledge it or not!

  John Chmaj
  “The Knowledge Advocate”
   

• John Chmaj 09:16:12 pm on October 16, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: best practices, knowledge, Knowledge Management, search, Self-Service

  FINDING Depends on How you SEEK –

  One of the most important things to think about in making knowledge delivery systems work is HOW users will find what they’re looking for.  At first glance it may seem simple:  type in a search, find your stuff.  But is it really that straightforward?  Do you really know what you’re looking for?  Do you really know what the right query is?  Do you even know what content exists in the system you’re using?

  One of the main reasons we all engage in building and managing support-focused search tools and portals is because we are trying to create a series of efficient, intuitive user experiences that lead people to the right answers to their questions.  However, my experience is that all questions – and all users – are not created equal.  Sometimes we know exactly what we need and how to ask, other times we haven’t a clue.  The same person, who may be expert on one issue, may be totally lost just looking for a slightly different issue in their own KB.

  In this context always think of one Christmas morning spent huddled over my sister’s computer, trying desperately to get the Disney Aladdin DVD to install and run properly, my little 4 yr old daughter wailing and pleading with me as I, the great computer expert in the family, struggled to figure out what query to enter in the Disney knowledge base to address the failure of this $5 DVD to load!  One is only as smart as the next problem, really —

  One of the most critical yet unrecognized features of a knowledge base is its ability to teach users about the terms, taxonomy, and content that is available to solve their question.  Most searches aren’t a one-shot deal – the user progressively browses to learn about an issue, scope the content, tries different queries to see what’s in the KB, and finally decides when to browse through titles and content for the best fit.  I find it useful to boil the types of interactions one needs to have based on how much one knows about an issue, and what one needs in terms of guidance from the knowledge base to get to the answer. A simple way to think about it is as follows.

  Three types of navigation

  1. I Know What I Know – Lookup

  This is the stereotypical “Google-esque” query – I know the data I want, I know the terms that should bring it back, I type in “error 99” and voila!  There’s my stuff.  Support experts usually expect this type of behavior, and in fact the weaker a KB is the more they memorize special terms, document ID’s and keywords that will give them what they want.  But in the end they’re not really searching as much as looking up known content.  This is an important capability that must work well, but it’s far from the only interaction people have, ESPECIALLY in self-help systems.

  2. I Know What I Don’t Know – Guided Search

  In this scenario users know the TYPE of information they need, perhaps also the topic or potential terms, but don’t exactly know what content is out there.  They may browse to scope the issue, then type in a query or two based on what appear to be the common topics.  KM systems assist here by providing potential additional browse and filtering options that are relevant to the current query scope.  The user can go back and forth, examining the options provided by the system, to find the right fit of topic and query detail.  These systems work well when the user has some idea of what the right solution is and just needs assistance getting to the right area of the knowledge base.  But that’s not the final area, nor perhaps the most important…there’s still:

  3. I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know – Browse and Filter

  Many users, especially those new to a particular domain, don’t really know how to think about the information that’s in it, what terms or topics are relevant, maybe not even what they’re supposed to ask.  In my Disney DVD problem, I had some smart ideas but none turned out to be relevant.  Was it the display driver?  The computer RAM?  OS version?  Plug-in requirements for video?  And how should I query a simple Disney DVD for this kind of stuff?  These scenarios are where a good browse experience can shine.  Not only can it help users figure out what the key components of a product are, the topics and known problems, but should also quickly point up common questions the user is likely to have.  By seeing common issues and how they are organized users can get insight into what their questions are, or likely queries should browsing and filtering not bring back the answer immediately.

  At the end of the day we’re all just looking for ANSWERS, aren’t we?  If we think through what the process of acquiring knowledge entails, we can trace these patterns of inquiry and do our best to model them for particular audiences, users and issues.  When this is well done for all three query types, users experience the ‘magic’ of knowledge bases.  They DO indeed seem to ‘know exactly what you want’, yet you may not even be aware of how seamlessly the system allows you to move between these modes of inquiry and still get the scent of the answer you need.  As KM system builders, we just have to give a little THOUGHT to how people THINK….!

  John Chmaj
  “The Knowledge Advocate”

   

• John Chmaj 06:25:48 pm on September 18, 2009 | 1 | # |
  Tags: best practices, KM, Knowledge Management, search, Self-Service

  Why Support Search CAN’T Be “Just Like Google”

  Google is on my homepage.  I use it every day.  It’s an indispensable part of my access to Internet resources, and usually the first place I look to find something. But Google is NOT the tool I recommend for most support & service organizations to use for customer self-help.  Many organizations ask “why can’t support search be just like Google?”  Here’s what they WANT, and what they actually NEED:

  Why We Like Google

  • Google WORKS:  it’s fast, easy to enter whatever text you want, results always seem relevant
  • Google appears FLEXIBLE and FORGIVING:  even if you enter in text that isn’t quite what you meant usually something useful comes back
  • Google is SIMPLE:  type two words and go – what could be easier?

  These are all desirable aspects of finding good information quickly, and self-help should aspire to reflect all these capabilities.  So what’s the issue?

  THE ISSUES are the issues:  Google is geared towards worldwide access to the most popular or important resources for anything and everything.  Support & service inquiries are focused on very specific questions, applying to only a tiny subset of worldwide information.

  Most importantly, support & service self-help is a negotiation, a set of back and forth transactions by users and services resources to:

  • Define the real need (the users’ query is just a guess or vote for what that might be)
  • Explore the available resources to see what types of information is best suited
  • Bring back the specific tasks, data gathering, processes and steps required to achieve the services outcome

  All of this goes far beyond a simple two-word query.  If I enter “Sprint handset upgrade” into Google I might get all manner of interesting information, but I really haven’t defined my need yet.  Do I want a new handset?  Do I have one and want to activate it?  Do I want to know the programs I’m entitled to?  Do I have a billing question?  Furthermore, even if I could identify that in my query, do I REALLY want all the resources of the world returned as the answer to my question, or even all the resources of a large company like Sprint?

  At the end of the day an effective support & service self-service system needs to help users with these three critical phases of the support process.  Beyond just bringing back information from a query, the whole point of KM tools & technologies is to create a fast, intuitive, effective session with users to help them get quickly to the best answer for their services need at the moment.  So additional capabilities are needed beyond basic text query processing and results:

  1. Defining the Question:  helping users navigate the topics, top issues, terminology and overall way to think about the company’s products and services, so they can effectively express what they need in relationship to how support can help.  This may include additional field selection to narrow the focus, scripts that guide users to define their issue specifically, guided search interactions, filters, etc.  to help users refine and focus their need.

  2. Exploring Resources: giving clear feedback and quick navigation through the various information that is available.  All content is not the same when it comes to fulfilling a specific support request.  The answer to a question on “handset upgrade” may come from pricing tables, program offerings, technical support articles, documentation, etc.  Users need feedback from the system on what’s going to meet their need as it becomes more clear.  In many organizations the next step is not content related, it’s to generate email or even to call based on the customer and the issue.  So the support outcome is a function of the overall need, the user, and the organizational business model, not just a query and its results.

  3. Content Fit to Task:  Just finding “relevant information” is not the goal of a service inquiry.  It may be interesting to know all the Mexican restaurants in my town, but figuring out the dial-out codes to get proper roaming access internationally from my phone while in Sweden is not a casual question.  Almost WON’T count.  Support & services information itself must be written with the users in mind and with a focus on helping them navigate towards the answer without the benefit of any more details about their products than they need to get the job done.

  In the final analysis Google has performed an enormous service to the world, and to the support industry:  it’s made the Internet searchable, and provided a clear value proposition for getting good information online.  EVERYONE is interested in achieving more, better self-help.  But searching is only PART of the information definition, access and usage tasks associated with support transactions.

  Google is neither good nor bad – it just is what it is!  Beware of trying to make it more than it should be – a great search tool – and be sure to think through what service actually means and model those processes as best you can in your online tools.  We’re always searching for something better aren’t we?

  John Chmaj
  “The Knowledge Advocate”

   

• John Chmaj 04:50:27 pm on September 10, 2009 | 0 | # |
  Tags: best practices, customer service, KM, Knowledge Management

  In Search of LEADERSHIP!

  OK, so your organization has committed to expanding self-service, building a new knowledge base, initiating a new comprehensive approach to knowledge management, or all of the above.  Who will lead the charge?  Where does the momentum, focus and just plain tenacity of purpose come from to see it all through?  Who owns the result and is accountable to produce success?  Arguably the most important factor in successful knowledge management initiatives is LEADERSHIP.

  “Leadership” is one of those terms that’s often used but hard to pinpoint in relation to knowledge management.  Everyone understands formal leadership – the executive chain of command, heads of departments and groups, and their ownership of some area of the business.  But the challenge in KM is precisely the inter-disciplinary nature of it:  KM crosses and blurs neat lines of responsibility and coordination between IT, Call Center operations, content groups, product groups, website owners, support partners, and many other stakeholder groups. Who is ultimately responsible, then?  Rarely do these groups fall under just one executive or group.

  Furthermore, these groups have varying and sometimes competing purposes:  IT is often focused on enterprise tool standardization & efficiency, product groups are driven by releases and marketing targets, support is continually trying to do more with less and has enough of a challenge just synchronizing content and tools to meet user and business demand. It can almost appear as if “KM leadership” is an oxymoron!

  Often times the answer is not defining “who” but “what” it is that is the lead focus. The most successful organizations I’ve worked with have the ability to define strategic goals and assign elements of them across key groups, such that each group remains accountable to the larger goals of the initiative, and its own role in driving the outcome.

  There’s still no substitute for evangelism:  SOMEWHERE in your organization people with passion and clear purpose are needed to strategize and plan for new knowledge-enabled capabilities.  But the #1 aspect of an effective KM plan is that it can define what success means, and who is accountable to it, in each critical facet of a KM program:

  • Who owns the content, how it will be updated and managed, who owns content communications and coordination
  • Who owns the KM toolset, what commitments need to be made to achieve new levels of functionality and performance
  • Who will drive knowledge to a new channel, such as web, email and/or chat, and what their targets are
  • What success looks like, who will measure it, and what the consequences of meeting, succeeding or failing to meet the measures are

  Then somewhere in the business there needs to be a sign-off that rolls up to someone capable of monitoring progress and keeping any lagging parts moving forward.

  Looking for leaders?  Start with the people who have the biggest pain, and/or who would benefit the most, from new tools, content or services driven by support & services information.  People who will get their own group goals best met through new KM capabilities should be the most obvious co-owners, if not outright sponsors of a renewed KM program. Figure out who else must be involved, what their scope of activity and accountability would be in the overall program, and where and how they can COMMIT to specific actions within their job function to make these things happen.  You might be surprised who your allies are, especially if you can articulate the KM program in relation to what THEIR group is trying to accomplish.

  At the end of the day leadership is a state of mind. I’ve seen middle managers and even PM’s drive a whole enterprise-wide initiative successfully over periods of years when they have clarity of purpose, communications and motivation skills to bring all the necessary groups on board with specific goals, and alignment with larger executive sponsorship to assure that each group plays its part.  But more often leadership comes as a ‘joint venture’ through mutually agreed-upon goals that groups commit to together.

  In a way KM is a great opportunity for the organization to learn new capabilities by collaborating and coordinating.  Just start with the pain and possibility and work inward from there.  Someone is waiting to listen and help in each group in your organization!

  John Chmaj
  “The Knowledge Advocate”

   
• 

  Esteban Kolsky 06:41:01 am on November 5, 2008 | 2 | # |
  Tags: best practices, CRM, customer service, email, erms, LinkedIn

  Using Email for Customer Service? Here’s How to do it Well

  I must confess, I created most of the content for this post for a presentation I did at the last SSPA conference in Vegas.

  It was a very interesting conference to be honest.  I was afraid no one was going to be at my presentation, but I ended up with standing-room only, and lots of questions.  My fear came from the fact that John Ragsdale, the VP of Research and SSPA and a great analyst, keynoted with a presentation talking about the end of email for customer service.  My presentation was called “The Second Coming of Email in Customer Service”.  Yeah, just like that.  He did a great job on his.

  So, what is there to say about the second coming of email in customer service? lots and lots.  Please remember that I was with Gartner for seven years, sometimes it is hard to let old habits die.  So, I am going to talk in the same way I did at the conference – the Gartner Hype Cycle.  In case you are not familiar with it, the short version is that all technologies have lots of hype and few implementations initially.  The hype grows faster than the knowledge of what to do with it.  Eventually, the hype brings more adopters – yet we still don’t know much about what to do with it.  With time, and now that we have lots of people using it, we learn how to take better advantage of it and eventually get to use the technology productively, and that causes the second wave of adoption: knowing how to use it.

  So, my contention is that email for customer service (or ERMS – email response management systems) is now climbing the slope and becoming more productive.  We are learning how to use it better, and how to make it work for us while generating revenue or saving us money.  This is the good part, because now we can not only tell new adopters how to use it better – we can go back to existing users and show them how to optimize it.  That is my passion, taking something that is not performing as well as it should, use best practices and lessons learned, and make it work better.  And, that is where we are today with the use of email for customer service.

  We are, finally some would say, learning how to make it work as expected, how to save money using it for customer service, and how to do it well.  That is what my presentation dealt with – using best practices to improve the use of email in customer service.

  I don’t have lots of time to explain in detail how this works, so I am going to summarize here the six best practices I highlighted in the presentation and prompt you to watch it onlne to see the rest.

  1) Choose the best transactions to use with email

  2) Automate the low-level interactions

  3) Create and Maintain SLAs that are appropriate for the channel and interaction

  4) Change your tracking metrics to effectiveness, not efficiency

  5) Implement and use feedback on the value to customers

  6) Hire, Train, and Maintain the proper skills for email interactions

  I welcome comments, questions, and concerns. Please reply in the comments below, or email me directly (ekolsky [at] evergance (dot) com).  BTW, SSPA, KANA, and eVergance are planning a really cool webcast together to discuss the topic of Email in Customer Service.  We don’t have the final details yet, but is going to be on December 4th.  Send me an email, or leave me a comment, and we will add your name to he distribution list for it.

  Thoughts? Comments? Complaints? Please let me know…

   

• Esteban Kolsky 05:58:22 pm on June 3, 2008 | 6 | # |
  Tags: best practices, CRM, customer satisfaction, customer service, email

  Little did I know when I started writing my last post and some other people also had strong opinions about email. Since I published that blog, I found entries related to using Email in support organizations in two other places.

  As you probably figured out, mine is a positive blog entry. I do believe that Email has its place in the customer service organization, that is quite powerful when done properly, and that it does not take much more than a commitment to do it right. However, others are not so convinced.

  Glenn Ross writes in his latest blog about diversifying your communication with your customers, including really taking a survey on what email does and whether and how to continue. While he does emphasize he is a believer in email, he also says he believes more in new communication tools and technologies, social networks, and Web 2.0 methods. While I don’t disagree, I don’t see the value that it brings to customer service – yet.

  On the other end of the spectrum, my good friend John Ragsdale over at SSPA wrote an entry about the death of support email. Well written article, and he does make some valid points. I responded to him that the problem is not in the tool, but rather the implementation of the tool. That most companies don’t take the time to do it right.

  Alas, I truly believe this. I find that any technology or tool could be useful, in certain circumstances, when properly implemented. I truly, honestly believe that if more people were to advance their email implementations (auto-responses, structured web-forms, specific transactions, knowledge repositories integration among other things) we would not be having this discussion.

  Now, consider this before you respond to my question… in a recent survey we discovered that email’s growth rate is 28% year-over-year, just a smidget below web self-service (29%) and Chat at 35% (these are CAGR 2007-2009). Now, with that in mind…

  What do you think? Is Email dead? In life support? Thriving? please, let me know what you think… either comment below, or email me (ekolsky at evergance . com).

   

• Esteban Kolsky 09:07:49 pm on June 2, 2008 | 4 | # |
  Tags: best practices, CRM, customer service, email, erms, eService, Knowledge Management

  Back in the old days of the internet revolution (circa 1990s) email was the solution for communicating with customers. It was to replace the phone, and virtually any other channel, for support. It was going to be automated and processed within minutes. It was going to allow anyone close to a messaging device to get world-class customer service.
  

  The magic of SPAM, viruses, and malware, hindered that vision, and the coming of other text-based communication channels with more prompt responses put the, supposedly, final nail in ERMS (email response management systems). Email support became a four-letter word – but several companies saw email as an opportunity and succeeded at it. Their stories provide us with some very valuable lessons learned that we can use to optimize the second coming of email.

  When properly done email can significantly improve and optimize your support organization. Of course, “properly done” is not usually the case. There are three things you can do make sure your ERMS implementation is actually well done:

  Extend customer experience – for the most part, email support has been neglected, not loved, sent to the corner. Usually when a customer sends an email for support the answers are incomplete, incoherent with other answers and policies, or (in close to 50% of emails) non-existent. Make sure you can complete the transactions your customers want in a timely manner, and that you have access to necessary resources, data, and applications to complete the transactions.

  Identify the proper transactions – organizations tried to use email for every single transaction, regardless of the viability of doing a good job with that channel. Not all transactions were meant for email, some of them will be almost impossible to do cheaper or better than through other channels. Make sure your ERMS tackles the transactions that make more sense – not just any transaction.

  Speed up resolution – This is the killer application for ERMS, if there ever was one. If you use automation (included free with the best ERMS packages), and tie it to the proper knowledge repositories, you can increase response times to almost negligible. Better yet, route users to either use a web-form for sending emails, or automate the initial interactions to get the information you need (think conversational agents) then you are sure to answer those emails so quickly… it may just work.

  Email can be your most powerful weapon for decreasing the costs of customer support and for improving your customers’ perception of your willingness to help them. Don’t cast it aside for a bad experience, turn it into a positive one.

  What do you think? Are you ready to turn your customer service email into your friend?

   

• Esteban Kolsky 08:27:04 pm on May 28, 2008 | 3 | # |
  Tags: best practices, CRM, customer experience management, customer service, strategy

  I am going to give you the secret to Customer Service. This is the one thing that you have to do if you want to use Customer Service as a competitive advantage. You will be shocked when you hear what it is, I promise you. It is not a specific application, or a channel you must support, or a certain function you must provide. Neither is selecting the proper people, training them right and empowering them. And, of course, it is not about collecting and leveraging feedback. Yes, these are all things I have written and spoken on in the past… and they are critical for Customer Service success. Alas, they are not THE critical success factor.

  You probably heard of Zappos’ customer service, right? It has been making the blogosphere rounds lately with things like “pay your employees to quit”, “empower your agents”, and “deliver exceptional customer service across all interactions”. Their approach to Customer Service is legendary and they do a tremendous job of implementing all best practices they can get their hands on. However, if you were to do the same and implement all best practices known to humankind, you probably won’t be seen the same way. This is because you would be seen as a copycat, not an original, and not given the same credit for what you do. Why? Because you did not use Customer Service Excellence as a differentiator, rather as another way to get and retain customers. And that is the critical differentiation (no pun intended).

  To become a master at Customer Service, to truly excel at it you have to find your differentiating factor. The one thing that will set you apart from every one else. That’s it. There is no preaching about how you must do a multi-channel implementation, or whether you cannot last longer than a week without collecting feedback. If you look at what you do, learn your strengths and work on your weaknesses — and constantly strive to maintain that differentiating factor you are guaranteed to succeed.

  Are you differentiated? Tell me what you are doing differently and how it has proven successful for you…

   

• Esteban Kolsky 02:31:02 pm on May 15, 2008 | 4 | # |
  Tags: best practices, customer centric, customer service

  Glenn Ross asked a question a couple of days ago to fellow bloggers: how to define customer-focused strategy. Several replies followed with a similar answer: it is about listening to the customer, and delivering to their needs and demands. I agree, for the most part, but I would like to add one item to this discussion that I learned to emphasize while at Gartner.

  The most interesting part of working as an analyst is the exposure to both theories and practical approaches to deploying solutions. We wrote and pushed our customers to adopt customer-centric (the old term) strategies for many, many years. Several times I felt I was talking to the wall – but once in a while a good example showed up. Now, without naming names (confidentiality clauses still apply), I can tell you the difference between a successful customer-focused deployment and one that did not do so well over time was a throwback to an older concept, that still applies today: make sure that each deployed solution is a win-win solution.

  Countless solutions I saw deployed failed in the long term because, even though they delivered to what the customer said they wanted, they were too expensive to maintain, they did not reflect the corporate culture, or simply “got boring” (yes, those were actual words). The ones that succeeded were the ones that had been built and deployed not only considering what the customer wanted (a win for the customer), but also what the organization could deploy and maintain for a long time. In other words, if it made sense for the organization to do something – and there was a gain (either financial or other) that arose from it – it was a win for the organization. Alas, if the customer got what they wanted at the same time, then it was a customer-focused, win-win solution.

  Quite simply: to deploy successful customer-focused solutions, you have to make sure that both the organization and the customer benefit equally, or at the very least that they both obtain a benefit or gain. Else, well – it will be one more of the customer-focused failures.

  Agree?

   

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