Fringe benefits of CRM
But this project that I was working on was ground-breaking, in a sense, because for the first time in three years we were using native features such as Account, Contact and Email management. It took some convincing but all the credit for the change goes to the Business Manager on the other side of the table who saw the value in CRM and took it forward. She had come to view CRM as an essential tool to improve efficiency and transparency and relentlessly campaigned for the application with her bosses, her peers and her subordinates.
During the course of the project, she had a funny experience which she shared with me. It seems that on the previous weekend, she had called her cable television company about some extra charges on her bill. At one point, she struck up a CRM related dialogue with the call center agent
She: “Are you by any chance using Siebel in your call center?”
Agent: “Yeah, that’s right”
She: “Oh good! Right now, do you see my Account details like my address etc, on your screen and the plan that I am on currently?”
Agent: “Yes, that’s exactly what I am seeing right now”
She: “And are you typing some notes about our call onto the Account?”
The agent was completely taken aback at her questions. He seemed confused and was wondering if it was one of those mystery shoppers. Nervously, he said-“Yes I am putting in Notes about our conversation.”
Seizing the opportunity, she quickly slam dunked her next question- “So how is it, you cant see the Notes of my previous conversation with another agent? I had discussed the same problem with him and yet it wasn’t resolved”
The agent was completely floored with the unexpected question. Whatever plans that the agent might have had of defending the charges had now disappeared. Fumbling for an answer he said “I am sorry you were charged extra this month. It’ll be waived in the next month’s bill. Also, as a valued customer, we’ll waive your charges for the next month. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
So when she came back the next Monday and narrated her experiences, we both had a good laugh. After all, the payback period on CRM projects was supposed to be much longer!
