Latest Updates: strategy RSS

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  Mark Angel 02:04:09 am on November 24, 2009 | 1 | # |
  Tags: customer experience management, customer satisfaction, customer service, enterprise feedback management, Knowledge Management, Service Experience Management, service-oriented architecture, SOA, strategy

  Top 5 Problems with Service Today

  We’ve all been the victims of bad service. We have to repeat ourselves to agents; we get different answers depending on whether we use email or we call a service rep; or worse, we don’t even receive a response. We have a tendency to blame the agents.

  But it’s not their fault. They want to do a good job. They just don’t have the tools they need to meet customers’ expectations of personalized, consistent, accurate and fast service. They don’t have the tools because their technology isn’t working.

  Thus, I trace bad service to 5 root causes:

  – IT organizations have not solved the integration problem. Agents need dozens or often hundreds of un-integrated tools and applications to perform their jobs. Agents must toggle through many applications in the span of a service call, resulting in long hold times.

  – IT organizations have not solved the change problem. Agent tools are typically hardwired together. When procedures change in a company, IT organizations cannot quickly respond to the changes in order to give the agents the new tools that they need.

  – Knowledge management vendors have not solved the knowledge problem. Corporate knowledge exists on an island; it does not fit into the context in which agents are searching for content. This means that agents need to wade through many solutions in order to find the one that is right for a particular customer.

  – Case management vendors have not solved the business process management problem. Today, business or call center leaders can’t drive agents through clear processes. This means that they put the responsibility of following the right resolution processes in the hands of agents, which are not all equally competent.

  – Organizations have not solved the agent training and turnover problem. Businesses know how they want service delivered, but they can’t have their best, most highly trained agents handle every interaction.

  How do we start solving these problems? We start with technology. We implement service-oriented architectures (SOAs) to begin integrating systems in a flexible way so that information is no longer siloed. This means that when processes change, IT systems can be rewired easily, without a tremendous amount of overhead. We ensure knowledge is it’s shared and applied appropriately. We present in a way that makes sense to agents, and we use it to inform our decisions about what’s working and what’s not working in our service processes. We provide agents with stepped procedures for each and every service interaction that allows them to provide the consistent service that we desire. If we are able to achieve these goals, and provide agents with the tools they need to succeed, then we’re solved our final dilemma. Because every agent becomes as good as our best, most highly trained agent.
   
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  Esteban Kolsky 09:41:35 am on June 16, 2008 | 1 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer service, strategy, Web 2.0

  Back in the old days of the Internet, when money was free and ideas plentiful, a few friends asked me if there was something new and different that I thought was ready to be discovered, transformed into a product, created into an IPO, and worth millions of dollars. I said I was not sure about the millions, but there had been something bouncing around in my head for a while. I called it, at that time, “point-of-need customer service” (Yes, seven years at Gartner improved – but not perfected – my naming skills). We created a pilot product, deployed it – and amazingly enough people wanted it and it worked. Of course, this was about the time the air was let out of the bubble, so the lack of funding made it impossible to continue the endeavor, which coupled with my wife’s insistence that I get a “real job” took me to Gartner.

  The concept behind “point-of-need customer service” was that the browser is a clunky, stateless, session-driven interface that, to keep constantly providing service and support to customers required lengthy and complex programming, integration, and adaptation to many, many operating systems and computers. The concept I had was a unique, non-browser type application that was constantly in contact with service providers, proactively providing customer service and support to clients. The money-making portion was to sell to providers the infrastructure to service those devices, and “viral distribution” for free of the devices or applets would take care of the rest. As I said, it did not go far due to lack of funding.

  Fast forward some time, and while at Gartner I proposed the idea of the Customer Interaction Hub (yes, this was the best name we could agree on – I told you it was better but not perfect). This basically became the infrastructure component that each organization could deploy to use browsers as “point-of-need” service applets. I sorta gave up on the idea of replacing the browser, as it had become as ubiquitous as operating systems in computers. I still, for the record, believe that the browser is a lousy interface… but my Don Quixote days are over, so let’s embrace it!

  So, on to the concept of where we started: Service 2.0. If you are wondering where the next “thing” (or the new, new thing as Michael Lewis put it) is start to look into how to expand your Web 2.0 investments into Service 2.0. Think about the characteristics of Web 2.0: proactive, effective, low cost, high-volume, point-of-need… doesn’t it sound like that Customer Service strategy you have been working on? Some of these things already exist and are implemented (one of our clients, Symantec, does first-level troubleshooting of problems in the computer itself – without using the browser), others are infrastructure components (like device relationship management components embedded in medical and industrial machines that alert to service needs, troubleshoot, and even scheduled service calls automatically) already in place… but the whole idea revolves around three core concepts of both Web 2.0 – and your service strategy: automation, decentralization, and proactivity.

  All the elements of a winning Service 2.0 strategy.

  What do you think? Ready to embrace the future? Are you planning your Service 2.0 infrastructure?
  
   

• 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 06:46:49 pm on May 21, 2008 | 3 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer satisfaction, customer service, enterprise feedback management, feedback, LinkedIn, strategy, surveys

  There is a lot of confusion surrounding what EFM (Enterprise Feedback Management) is and what is not.

  Lately it has been used as a substitute for surveys. Whenever we used to say “surveys” we now say Enterprise Feedback Management. Problem is we are just using a fancy term to describe the same, short-sighted approach to managing customer feedback: ask ’em and forget ’em.

  Enterprise Feedback Management goes much further, if done properly, than that. Contrast the two following cases:

  Case A – company purchases an “EFM” system (surveys by any other name). Produces and distributes a few surveys a year, mostly for customer satisfaction (another no-no), and collects some data. They look at the data collected, produce some simple reports (x% said this, y% said that), and are overall satisfied with their results. Yet, they cannot seem to affect their churn rate, nor can they focus on bringing new customers — not to mention that their marketing program seems to be aiming for the wrong customers. They conclude, erroneously, that EFM is not really a solution for them… even though the vendor told them they would be able to understand their customers better, they are at the same place they were before… but with a “good” customer satisfaction score.

  Case B – a similar company deploys an EFM initiative within their organization. They create a strategy to manage customer feedback, which tells them where the feedback can obtained (no more than 40-50% should come from surveys), what they can do with the feedback they collect (think insights and data-mining for new data), how are they going to integrate and mix their survey-data with existing enterprise-data, what metrics they need to implement and follow, what insights and analysis they need to perform — in short, a complete strategy on how to collect, manage, leverage and utilize customer feedback. As a result, they can identify the three sources of churn and address the problems, they can create a better demographic, socio-graphic, and psycho-graphic picture of their clients, they can finally focus on improving and developing new products per the needs of their customers, and more.

  You probably already noticed the difference in the two cases above, but just in case you need to read it. Enterprise Feedback Management is NOT a piece of software, it is a organization-wide initiative that needs to leverage three infrastructure elements: surveying software, data-mining and analysis software, and integration points into existing data and applications. When you implement it you will spend more time building a comprehensive strategy to understand where the feedback is (surveys, blogs, unstructured data through the world, interaction wrap-up notes, etc.), and how to collect it and integrate with your existing data. You will also know, before you seek feedback, what you will find out, how to analyze it, and what you will do with the insights your obtain.

  Ready to start? just let me know… glad to be of service.

   

• Esteban Kolsky 03:42:15 am on April 16, 2008 | 0 | # |
  Tags: CRM, customer centric, customer experience management, customer satisfaction, customer service, Knowledge Management, strategy

  Customer Service is broken.  Not exactly breaking news, no pun intended, I know. But it is broken beyond repair.  We have tried many, many fixes over time – web self-service, customer experience management, IVR or automated phone attendants, more agents, less agents, and many combinations of all of them.  Still, it is working on band-aids, at best, and in most cases it is not even working.  There is no fix we can apply because there is not one single thing to fix, rather too many.  The only solution at this time is to start over again, and build a higher quality of service.

  As we leave behind this model, we must focus on a new one with features to provide for the retention of our customers (i.e. make them happy). I propose the four pillars of this new High Quality Customer Service (HQCS):

  Customer Centric – do what customers need you to do

  Integrated – make sure it all works together, from one single location

  Knowledge-Based – have the best possible solution available at all times

  Iterative – you won’t get it perfect the first time, but you will be moving forward

  Alas, these four pillars are the reason we cannot fix what we have – no matter how much we try. They are all tightly intertwined and need each other to operate effectively. The best way I can find to relate this model is comparing it to a house that needs remodeling. If you ever bought a “fixer upper” and tried to bring it up to current days you know what I am talking about. Forget about those wonderful recessed lights you must-have, fix the electricity first. New appliances for the kitchen? not with that antiquated breaker box. Building your dream home-office? Guess not without changing the entire wiring in the bedrooms… pretty much everything you want to do to make it better will be tied to a main system, in this case electricity and wiring, or another. Try to fix a sub-system (like, deploying email) without putting new wiring (knowledge) and boooom! there goes your fuse box (in your case, your churn rate just increased)!

  If you want to improve your customer service you must approach it as neither a band-aid fix (implement one more thing and see what happens), nor a forklift maneuver (change your entire customer service department). You must approach it as you would a renovation project for a new house – look at the main parts, make sure they work well, then begin to work on a sub-system.

  If you have some questions about the best approach, I’d be more than happy to look at your blueprints — er, strategy and help you get there.

  Esteban Kolsky

   

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