Customer Relationship Management

The New Normal is the “Now” Normal. This was the theme of the key note address at SAP Insider conference currently underway at Orlando, FL (see my previous blog post, SAP CRM 2010 Insider Conference). As the economy is coming out of a major slow down, the organizations are not necessarily changing their cost structures that came under tremendous pressure but expecting to continue at the same levels and do more with less. New investments are being planned but only with an expectation to demonstrate better results on an immediate basis - the ‘now’ normal. SAP’s executives discussed ways how SAP’s suite of products can be leveraged in identifying such targeted investments which will help solve today’s complex business problems, be nimble, effective, profitable and quicker to implement.

I am observing this year a whole lot of focus has been given on innovation, sustainability, improving operational efficiencies and overall business transformation. Specifically on SAP CRM a series of sessions were planned across 7 tracks ranging from Sales Force Automation, Marketing, Trade Promotion Management, Service, ecommerce, Interaction & Call centers, and Managing SAP CRM programs. Each track had a mix of customer case studies, SAP experts and vendor led sessions.

Based on my experience of first two days at this conference Mobility and Analytics were the two most popular areas. SAP announced co-innovation partnerships with industry leaders in the Mobility space and this created lot of curiosity among the participants including me. Around Analytics, SAP seems to have progressed well on integrating recently acquired Business Object’s suite of products with SAP CRM. There were many sessions which provided insights on how SAP customers can build robust Analytics, executive dashboards leveraging these tools.

Another important session was where SAP’s product management team provided insights into SAP CRM’s future roadmap. Key future improvements and innovations are planned across 3 main themes- Interaction excellence (Mobility, Web-channel, Social media), Operational Excellence (Core enhancements in Sales, Marketing and Service) and Decision Excellence (Analytics: Business Objects Integration).

With all the new features being introduced in SAP CRM 7.0 and seeing what’s in store for the future, I would definitely agree with a speaker’s statement that SAP CRM is ready for the prime time. Overall mood among the participants was also very upbeat. There are few areas which I want to understand more, top on my agenda is Mobility and the upcoming new Web-Channel. Over the next two days of the conference I am hoping to get a better grip around these topics and will surely share details of what I understand in a follow up blog post.

Posted by Rishi Handa at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

by Satyajit Swain

Each day brings another milestone in the constant evolution of Social Media. Recently, Google launched Google Buzz to give a social experience to its popular mail service and the other day I was going through OneYoungWorld(the world’s first global youth leadership summit ) forum website and was amazed to find that it was inviting registration/selection of delegates not through its own site but through an application hosted on Facebook. The last time I checked OYW’s Facebook campaign had 6619 fans and the One Young World Facebook application had 12,305 active monthly users; these statistics could indicate an emerging trend  in the way Social Media can affect us in the coming days.

The One Young World Facebook application also encouraged the users to garner votes in their support by campaigning for themselves amongst their Facebook network and these days we have customized Facebook apps for conducting competitions, donation drive/fund raising. Recognizing the power of social media organizations have started using it as a platform to market themselves and reach out to their customers. We even now see companies having their own social collaborating forums such as Microsoft Answers or At&T’s Utalk; online communities such as these are proving an ideal way in controlling customer support costs, influencing public opinion and personalize/humanize the brand hence the rush to jump into this whole social bandwagon. Those who will make right use of it will flourish, but those without a proper understanding of it can invite bad PR for their company or products/services. The most popular social-networking platforms - Facebook, Twitter and blogs, deliver an experience of not just connecting with family, friends and people of similar interests  but also a medium of expressing oneself, promoting events, ideas and opinions about anything ranging from national issues to products/services they recently made use of.

However a social-media solution for corporate as in online collaborative community support is a slight different from that of Facebook/MySpace. When a customer visits an online community support he/she is more interested in finding solution to her problem/issue rather than “enter into a relationship” with the site (as he/she would with Facebook). Corporates will need to consider this aspect and though social media & social CRM may not be the same  it is however possible to lend a social experience to the whole Social CRM space.  Erin Malone writes an interesting article on her blog (http://boxesandarrows.com/view/5-steps-to-building) where she has explained a step-by-step approach in giving a social experience to a site:

"Step 1 – What’s your social object? Make sure there is a “there” there. Give users a reason to rally. Why would someone come to your site?
Step 2 – Give people a way to identify themselves and to be identified.
Step 3 – Give people something to do.
Step 4 – Enable a bridge to real life (groups, communities, forums, chat).
Step 5 – Gently Moderate. Let the community elevate people and content they value."

Through the above mentioned steps as outlined by Erin Malone, one would be able to provide a healthy social experience to their site. Going ahead with these points in the framework of Social CRM one can also consider the following points:

a) In the social CRM context the social object would be the company’s product/service offerings and people would want to visit their social CRM space to find out the reviews of their customers, or if they are already an existing customer they would visit to find solutions to their problems (with specific product/service offering) or have their queries answered.

b) With the perspective of ‘giving people something to do’- Social CRM can also have a feature of rewarding points (which can be redeemed against a buy) to participants who are able to give a very efficient solution to a particularly difficult issue or participants who have been consistently rated highly by users/members.

c) In the context of ‘enabling a bridge to real life’- Social CRM strategy can consider inviting people to share their stories/wonderful experiences with a particular product/service. For example inviting people to share the experience of how elated their friends/loved ones upon receiving a particular product as gift from them on Christmas Eve or some other special occasion. The goal of all this is to encourage people engage in interactive exchange of information so that they innately feel it worthwhile spending time on the site or keep visiting it from time to time.

Companies can also include information and updates on their various CSR work or initiatives in the field of environment and education to humanize their social CRM strategy.

With the increasing influence of Social Media and it becoming a source of real time news & updates, companies can hardly choose to ignore Social CRM as a part of their communications strategy; however at the same time they need to take care of certain bare minimum necessities to render a wholesome social experience to it.

About the Author

Satyajit Swain is part of the Product Incubation and Engineering unit. He has experience working on the UI design for various products. His areas of interest are  social media, Information Management and CRM.

Posted by Guest Author at 5:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The SAP CRM 2010 Insider conference is being held this year at Orlando from Feb 23 to Feb 26. This is by far the most important event for people following SAP in the CRM space. Customers, Partners, Solution vendors all demonstrate equal excitement to be a part of this annual event.  With slight hope of economic recovery I am hoping this year the participation would be even better than what was witnessed last year.

CRM 2010 is hosted along with 4 other major events namely Logistics and Supply Chain Management 2010, PLM 2010, Manufacturing 2010, and Procurement and Materials Management 2010. In SAP’s words this conference provides “an unparalleled educational and networking opportunity” to all attending.  A range of expert led sessions; customer case studies and specialized networking events are being offered. Starting from the jump-start day on Feb 22, many key topics around SAP CRM would be covered which will not only provide deeper insights into SAP CRM capabilities but also provide tools & tips to better plan and implement CRM transformation programs.

Over the past few years SAP has made significant investments in improving existing SAP CRM solution, plus a strategy to acquire complementing technologies and capabilities from the market has helped SAP attain a leadership position in the CRM space. Many of the key customers concerns around CRM being ugly, difficult to use and implement have been addressed in the new releases of SAP CRM (7.0/6.0). The new release SAP CRM 7.0 offers a host of new functionalities, and a Web 2.0 enabled user interface, which not only has a nicer looking interface but also is also very easy to configure and customize as per client needs.

Given the economic pressures and business uncertainties still prevailing, organizations are busy reevaluating their strategies and working hard to identify ways to continue operating more efficiently and investing in opportunities which will either yield immediate results or will help build a distinct advantage over competition. The changing business priorities have fundamental implications on organization’s Sales, Services and Marketing business architecture. Technology will be a key enabler for implementing these strategic imperatives.

Many of the key themes in this year’s CRM 2010 conference are aligned towards helping enterprises to be successful in these difficult economic times. One will find SAP’s Executives discuss how their clients can leverage SAP components like SAP Business Suite, SAP BusinessObjects, new products such as SAP Carbon Impact and industry-specific best practices to achieve greater operational excellence, empower customer-facing employees, and provide them with the tools they need to ensure a consistent experience across multiple touch points. Overall I think CRM 2010 should provide a great opportunity to learn about SAP’s product direction, share own perspectives and learn from others experiences.  I would highly recommend this event to all SAP practitioners and those tracking SAP's future direction. I will be attending this event and would be posting from the event site, so please come back for my take on the happenings at this event.

Posted by Rishi Handa at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Enhancing customer experience is always a challenge. In order to enhance business performance, organizations have to expand their customer base.

Growth happens only when customer relationships with the organization are robust and satisfied. And customer satisfaction can only be increased with effective CRM in an organization.

1.       Increase in customer retention 

2.       Increase in orders per customer per year

3.       Increase in average spending per order or visit

4.       Increase in cross sales

5.       Increase in up sales

6.       Increase in reactivation of previous customers

7.       Increase in referrals of new customers by existing customers

8.       Achieving each of the above while keeping increased costs (required to make them happen) from offsetting the increased sales

Certainly, all this data can be collected over the years and a trend can be identified to measure the effectiveness of the implemented CRM program.  Perhaps other parameters such as increased order per customer, number of orders per year, defections etc. could add to it.

But will all these parameters really ‘measure’ the effectiveness of CRM in an organization?

To me it goes beyond that –

1. Customer Expectations
Can we bring in customer’s perceptions or their expectations into this calculation? Will there be any effect of these parameters on the overall effectiveness?

E.g.: - A organization’s intent might be to provide quick service – say in 5 minutes/customer - but the customer might expect service to take 10 minutes or more than that for it to be performed to his satisfaction.

So here the customer expectation might be different from what the organization is providing/intends to provide.

2. Perceptions 
What has been the customer’s  past experience with the organization, and what is his current experience? Perceptions keep changing with each experience.  Does every customer carry the same perception every time? Does the organization maintain the same perception each time to keep their customers satisfied and happy?

3. Emotions
It is clear that people make emotional decisions based upon experience as described in my previous blog post “Mantra of Growing Business”. Emotions keep changing as per the experience and so does the perception.

Some customers take rational decisions and accordingly their perception changes.  So what emotions do customers carry when their expectations are met, and how can this be measured?

4. Customer History
Sometimes, everyday interactions with customers or past history of a customer would help understand a customer better to serve and fulfill their needs. So are organizations tailoring their services in a better way based on this to keep their customers happy?

5. Belief
Customers ‘belief’ in the product/service or overall organization may vary.  As mentioned above, “perceptions” would turn into belief if the customer experiences similar service over a period. Customers carry this belief towards the organization and this belief would impact customer relationships and future growth. 

6. Communication
The key element – how frequently organizations communicate to their  customers not only through advertising but also through personal communications. People feel valued if communication happens at a personal level and their opinions are sought and taken into consideration. Personal communication helps to influence perceptions positively. So, how effective is the organization’s communication towards their customers?

Understanding these six aspects, capturing and recording this data, and then linking it to other growth/decline parameters and analyzing these stats would help understand customers better. And that is a good place to start on the path towards improving customer relationships!

Posted by Suhas Pralhad Moharir at 5:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Any product or service company would initially like to sell their products or services to acquire customers and in the long run, the focus would be to increase the revenues. While the company in the long run would aim at building a strong revenue base, the representative at the Point to Sale is bound by daily, weekly, and monthly sales targets.  So where does that take things?

Yes you are right! Though sales and relationship need to go in the same direction it goes in different directions. Many think that relationship would come into effect after a sale is made.  A client who books a ticket through a travel agency would love to do so again with them if that transaction was memorable and if a good relationship was maintained. This should not be viewed as a one-time transaction but instead, it ought to be viewed as a seed for a bigger revenue tree. If the ticket booked was for a holiday package, the travel agency can send future offers on holiday packages to this customer.

We often hear many commitments made before a sale which are not met or not even viable in some cases. Even the hard facts should be told openly during the sale, the sales person should drop the fear of not getting a sale if some information is revealed. That is essential for building a solid relationship. Though prospects demand a lot during a sale transaction, they also know that everything they wish is not feasible.  Rather, they would prefer to know the real deal than be promised the moon only to be let down later.

Many product or service companies term their Sales Managers as Relationship Managers and this trend is picking up in right from SMEs to Corporate segments. The market today is driven by the customer and the customer has many options to choose from. The winning move for a company would therefore be to ensure that relationships are not sacrificed for sales in the short term; rather the two should be managed such that they resonate to the best effect.

Do let me know your thoughts!

Posted by Sripathy Srinivasan at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Anyone who has experienced the last fifteen years of generational shift in marketing would have seen every aspect of marketing strategy and varied focused approaches towards selling. We do remember a time when organizations were more ‘product’ focused, launching of products was not all that frequent and retiring cycles were long. Customers didn’t have many options other than sticking on (in fact, the term customer experience was not used very frequently) as there was less competition. Then came the era of competition, where organizations not only thought about acquiring new customers but retaining the customers became a key priority. This was the dawn of a ‘Customer’ focused approach with up-selling, cross-selling, loyalty etc being the new buzz words.

All in all, customers today are happier with lots of options available for them to switch service providers whenever they want. We can call this as Consumer controlled market Phase 1. But the very important essence of customers, connecting to organization products and brand is ‘service’ so effectively whatever the approach, customer should not come to you for any problem but it should be other way round and organizations need to be reactive for customer problems especially in service industry.

If organizations do the same level of  investment (which includes resources, IT investment etc) in acquiring as well as in managing the customers then why is the service is not at the same level if not better than during the Order/ Marketing/ Campaign services? Organizations need to see the most important part of retaining the customer i.e. ‘Service’ focused approach. We may call it Consumer controlled market Phase 2. Many would be of the opinion that a number of companies provide excellent service and but very often, servicing is seen as a second, not-so-important priority.

Very often, when you go to buy a new product the approach towards you is very cooperative and friendly, with many options made available. But consider the experience of approaching them for a post purchase repair/ servicing , and very often you would see quite another face of the organization.

Everyone agrees on the critical role of customer service in customer satisfaction, but still many large companies are not able to convert put it into practice. I had such an experience with the company I purchased my laptop from, after which I don’t think I will ever buy from that company.  I bought the laptop last year from the US. From the first day it ran into some basic wireless LAN problems. I ignored it and continued using that the laptop, and then the wireless stopped working altogether. I visited the service center in India and was told there was some internal damage which they would not repair under warranty and that I had to visit another service center. There, I was informed there was hardly any likelihood of getting it repaired here as it is bought it in the US. Anyhow, after a while they confirmed that it could indeed be repaired, but that it would take a minimum of 5 working days to create the quotation and that I would need to leave the laptop with them for that duration. 5-6 days for creating a quotation? And on top of that, I was asked to call customer care to confirm whether the laptop could be repaired there. Sitting in the service center, do I need to call customer care about that?

I have a few questions for the company here: Why is it called a global warranty if it is not global? Why was I not informed in the first call itself which service center the warranty for this laptop would be valid at? Why don’t service centers have detailed information readily available when they are connected to the same system across the globe?

Customer satisfaction and customer experience are best tested when a customer approaches a company for servicing. Get this touch point wrong, and your customer satisfaction levels are sure to dip, and so will your chances of repeat business and referrals.

Posted by Amit Goel at 7:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

by Amrith Rajasekaran

‘Follow us on Twitter.’  ‘Become a fan on Facebook.’ These are now common messages on sites of so many companies wanting to reach out to their customer bases.  The rate at which social networking has grown in the recent past is nothing short of phenomenal.  Facebook crossed 250 million users as of July ’09 and Twitter has recorded a growth of over a thousand percent (year on year).  What has that essentially done for the CRM space? Well, for starters it has really made the corporate world sit up and take notice of this new phenomenon of social networking.

Advertising and marketing products through Twitter accounts and Facebook pages have become commonplace enough these days; the really tech savvy companies have created customer service agents to maintain service accounts in Twitter, Facebook, mySpace and many other such networking sites. There have been numerous success stories of companies innovating to enhance the customer experience by, in a way, embracing these social media platforms and reaching out to customers (There can be no better example than zappos.com – a site that sells shoes online).

Companies now see social media as integral to their future plans and have already started chalking out strategies to harness the phenomenon that is social media. Corporations have started employing personnel to maintain their Facebook pages and Twitter support accounts. The reason? Well, cost cutting of course. Employing people to maintain online accounts works out to be much cheaper than hiring more call center executives. By one estimate, on an average, each call to a call center costs the company around $8 but getting a problem resolved through an online account costs a fraction of that amount.

Apart from just cutting costs, companies have also recognized that with the advent of these social networking sites, public opinion is getting more and more influenced by the goings on in the internet in general and these social media forums in particular. Companies are increasingly jumping on the bandwagon of these social media sites and are developing marketing strategies revolving around these sites. Collaborative consumerism has well and truly arrived, and by the looks of it, is here to stay.

So in light of all the above, the future does indeed look rosy and the world will soon be one big social network. But hold on; nothing can be that good, can it? I mean, sure it’s the next big thing and all but then isn’t there a catch? Of course there is. There always is.

So here are a few things that social media cannot do:

a) It can give you an opinion on what product to buy but cannot actually promise that the product that you buy will live up to your expectation.
b) It can promise you visibility and great PR but can’t guarantee that your product will be sold.
c) In spite of all the good reviews and publicity, the consumers still lack that ‘touch-n-feel’ that actually drives people towards buying.
d) If someone decides to bad-mouth your product, and if he/she is quite big in the social sphere, there is not much that can be done to stop the defamation of your product, and once you can get them to stop, it’s more likely that irreparable damage has already been done.
e) With the power in so many hands, there are bound to be hoaxes and threats, and in such a vast expanse, tracking these hoaxes could get tiresome (the recent hoaxes that perpetrated on Twitter about the Haiti earthquake are great examples of this).

Social media, in its entirety, is a fantastic concept that has taken the world by storm and to take Yahoo!’s tagline, has really made the saying “Power to you” come true. Yet, social media, for all its good, still does not substitute for the real thing. Social media in itself is not an end; it is merely a means to an end. A means that is so powerful, that the opportunities are vast and the possibilities endless.

In the upcoming posts I would like to talk about the reaches of social media, what you can make social media do for you, the current social media strategies followed by the companies and also how social media will be the game changer in the near future.

About the Author

Amrith Rajasekaran is part of the Product Incubation and Engineering unit. His areas of interest are  social media, its impact and potential.

Posted by Guest Author at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

My previous post, “Marketing without measuring Marketing ROI is casualty” ended by stating that CRM products can help in enhancing marketing operations and measuring ROI more accurately. In this blog I will try to bring out how CRM products can aid marketers.

The marketing division in an organization has several functions like preparing annual/quarterly marketing plans, setting goals, allocating budgets, dividing the budgets to various brands/categories/products, campaign launch, etc. These activities should be properly managed and tracked to make it a real closed loop process for organizational marketing goals to properly percolate till the bottom most activity. Generally these activities are managed by different roles in the organization working at various levels, right from Marketing Head to a partner (retailer). Each one of them use a different system or a tool of their convenience, it can be an excel sheet or even a notepad. It becomes a herculean task for the marketing team not only to ensure process adherence but also to collate the information from various sources and use it for analysis and planning. Hence it is really important that a proper process and an application supporting the process are in place to plan, execute, track and finally measure the ROI.

This is where CRM system fits in. Over the years, CRM products have evolved to be mature enough to help organizations in handling any customer facing function more efficiently and effectively. A good CRM product has provisions for performing all marketing activities, including launching a campaign successfully, and tracking and measuring parameters. The current CRM products have provision to create campaigns, set goals, targets, and budgets too. These products also provide automation to get the budgets approved from the relevant managers/departments. One can create expenses for each channel as well as integrate with financial systems to capture the purchase orders for each expense item. Hence each dollar spent can be tracked and alerts can be scheduled whenever expenses go beyond the approved budget. Thus, it works not only as an operational support system, but also as an effective tracking tool.

CRM products also come with full fledged offer management capabilities which provide ability to create communication channel specific offers. Since all these are in the same system and processes are designed with validations and automation, everyone has to adhere to the process. The campaign objectives and goals flow down till the last stage of campaign management thereby ensuring that each aspect of campaign is built around campaign objectives. One challenge that marketers face is in collating the correct segment audience from various sources. This challenge has been addressed very effectively as the CRM products are normally integrated with analytics systems which help in creating the target segment for a campaign from the existing customer/prospect base. If there are more prospects for external sources, one can import them as lists into the CRM application.  The combination of CRM and Analytics is definitely a great tool in the hands of marketers to carry out their activities, but with proper next generation decision support systems in place, marketing effectiveness will scale new heights.

CRM products can have an automated response capturing mechanism, where any activity performed by a customer in response to the campaign will be automatically captured. This can be done even if it is an ATL campaign where the campaigns are not launched for a targeted set of customers using channels like, email, direct mail, SMS, phone, etc, but through mass media, in which case capturing and analyzing campaign response is very difficult. Campaign response can be captured by feeding the campaign code at the time of customer interaction. This information can be directly used by analytics to generate several reports on campaign performance, which in turn can be used in refining the subsequent launch of the campaign or in planning future campaigns. With the advent of more sophisticated analytics tools that support real time decision support, next generation marketing will be more effective and responsive as they will be guided by intelligence.

Now the question is, “are marketers really using these CRM product capabilities to the maximum extent?”

Posted by Vamsi Krishna at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

by Anshul Tiwari

We are living in an age where there is not only an abundance of information but also a massive flow of this information at an unprecedented rate. In this highly competitive and information rich world, the consumer is more aware than ever before. Steps have been taken both by the governments and NGOs in different countries to ensure that the consumer does not get exploited. A number of consumer awareness programs and campaigns have been taken up in earnest and every effort is made to make people aware of their rights and responsibilities.

On one hand there is growing awareness among the public and on the other hand with an array of products and options available in the market, customers are becoming more choosy and difficult day by day. It thus becomes imperative for companies to adopt a very consumer friendly approach and make that extra effort to retain their customers. There is no longer any scope for negligence in the area of addressing consumer grievances and more and more organizations are taking sincere measures in this regard.

The first step towards effectively handling customer grievances involves empowering the customer and providing accessibility for customers with concerns. The customer should be able to reach the department concerned with ease. Avenues such as a contact email address on the web site, contact information in the owner manual, a dedicated help line, and perhaps even a presence on Twitter or Facebook can prove beneficial. A customer complaint should not be seen as an interruption, nuisance, problem, or necessary evil. The customer is the very reason the business exists in the first place.

When a customer makes a complaint the company should agree that a problem exists; never disagree or argue or deny. The customer needs action, not excuses. Again, this does not mean to admit fault or cast blame either way but is a step towards clarifying the central issue and moving to resolution. It should be viewed as an opportunity to solidify customer relationships and foster brand loyalty. Effective handling  of customer complaints requires patience, the ability to listen actively and emphatically, and to sort through the customer's grievance to identify the valid issues that need to be addressed.

In order to manage customer grievances, every company needs to have a policy and system in place for receiving, handling, redressing, and recording  customer complaints. This can be vital not only for maintaining good customer relations but also in case of legal issues over warranty, corporate responsibility, or customer treatment.

Having a system (manual or automated) in place means that the entire staff will act upon complaints in the same way and that complaints are followed up. It also leaves a paper/digital trail so that it can be traced later and analyzed to spot ways to improve business and reduce complaints in the future. Even   if not referred to very often, the very act of recording the complaint means that the company is more prepared to deal with complaints when they occur.  Having a written procedure can also help customers trust you and make them feel it is worthwhile bringing the complaint to you in the first place. What is written down can well be communicated to different stake holders via the electronic media. Once the procedures are set in place,  handling of customer grievances gets more streamlined.

What gets measured stand a better chance of being acted upon – and good recording can help the company spot patterns and trends to improve quality of product or service as well as improving customer relations. Analysis of customer complaints, comments and inquiries provides insights into the public perception of a brand, customer mindsets and problem areas or trends. To achieve these goals, many businesses turn to CRM software.

Customer Relationship Management software for complaint tracking can be either integrated into a CRM package, a module in ERP software or standalone ("best of breed") software specifically designed for issue handling. CRM tools can be effectively used to analyze the records of complaints. It is useful for monitoring any patterns and finding areas of improvement in the business. It is also handy as a record of previous complaints if a customer returns to make further complaints.

A regular check of these records will show which complaints still need to be resolved. This way, no complaints are left unresolved for very long and customers won’t be kept waiting. Satisfying a customer who has made a complaint not only improves client relations, but also improves overall business processes. Solving customer problems with emotional intelligence is the professional way to ensure repeat business.

About the Author

Anshul Tiwari is a Consultant with the Enterprise Solutions unit, and works on Clarify based solutions for CRM. She has worked on the functional design for projects in the telecom domain. Anshul will blog on trends in CRM, issues concerning the customer and how technology can be used to enhance customer experience.

Posted by Guest Author at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There is always scope for improving customer service but somehow most companies seem unwilling to change their processes or systems to provide better service to their customers.

For example, whenever you dial a call center, the first thing you would hear is the IVR menu. The options in this IVR menu could change from time to time. This forces the customer to listen to all the menu options each time, making him spend more time and money on the call. This can be resolved by adopting the thumb rule of implementing an IVR menu with not more that 4-5 option. The other option is to permanently fix the IVR menu options. Neither solution is ideally suited to business needs. So, what is the real solution?

Sometimes I really wonder what matters most to the customer; is it cost of a product/service or the actual service element associated with it?

Consider this scenario – you go to a shop; you see that nobody is there to serve you; you wait for a few seconds/minutes and then call for someone. When someone appears,  you ask for something and you do not get a proper response. Instead, the person just ignores you and goes to another customer just like that or with a curt response.

Or look at this scenario – you go to a shop and shopkeeper is on phone. The other sales men are busy and don’t make it a priority to serve you as a customer. You ask for something and even after waiting patiently you don’t get any response/service from anyone.

Or consider this – You asked a product manufacturer/vendor to build some unit and he has built it and delivered it to you, you paid your entire amount but you feel that he has not delivered to you as per your need. You have been approaching him repeatedly to get it done and you don’t get a response.

In all of these scenarios, how would you feel? Annoyed ?!  Frustrated?! Would you prefer to go to these vendors again?  Or recommend these vendors to anyone?!

Is there a cost element associated with this? Would you buy anything from these vendors? Will you not go to these shops because of cost?

Most people would remember all these (bad) instances/experiences and never go to these vendors again. They would also quite likely relate these experiences to their acquaintances, thereby putting off people who have never even visited these stores.

Take another instance –

There is a grocery shop in my locality. In fact there are four more grocery shops around this same shop providing the same products but I always see more crowds to this shop? Why?

- Quick Access to Service:

I get the service from the start of my day, from the time I wake up and till the time I go to bed. If I want to get something and I go to this shop and I get it.

-  Value Added Service:

 I go to this shop and just call the name of the product (even in the crowd) and I get the product in my hands in next few minutes and also get offers of another related products. For instance,  if I ask for bread , the reply I get is – “What else you need? Milk, butter, jam spread, tea powder?” Also a question - “No items in your list that you might have forgotten?” - With a smile on a face.

-  Professionalism:

If you don’t have the necessary change to settle a transaction, he would reply “You owe me 5 bucks, pay me the next time”, with a smile (and he really never forgets this when you go to shop next time!)

-  Maintaining the relationship:

If you criticize some aspect of service, he would promptly reply with humor and fix the issue immediately, valuing customer input.

- Customer satisfaction:

He makes sure that every customer leaves with a smile and satisfaction with the service.

I have seen many customers talking to him openly and friendly and as a customer I also observed myself that I always open up and discuss /argue freely with the faith that he will not cheat me.

During all these instances as a customer, the following questions come to mind:

-          Do I really think of cost when I go to him?

-          Why do I feel that I can freely discuss/argue/demand for something on a given service?

-          Why people are not going to other shops instead of to him even if they are closer?

-           Why there is such a high amount of trust in him?

At the same time, the questions from the perspective of a service provider are:

Posted by Suhas Pralhad Moharir at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)