Skiing
Thursday, January 18th, 2007Back on Monday...
Archive for the 'General' Category
Shameless Commerce - a blog discount (especially for Europeans)
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006If you've been following the blog for a while you will know that I am going to be speaking at Fair Isaac's show InterACT in Lisbon in late February - you can find out more on the InterACT page. I am speaking/co-speaking on a few topics:
- An Introductory Session on How EDM Really Works
- Regulatory Compliance: When You Need to Defend Your Decisions
- Putting Enterprise Decision Management to Work in Insurance
The full Agenda is here. Now InterACT is a great show if you are interested in learning about decision automation, predictive analytics, EDM and so on. For those of you based in Europe or feeling like a trip to Lisbon in February, I have a special offer. You can use the discount code CMJTB to get 5% of the price. Just go to the registration page here and enter it.
Technorati Tags: EDM, Enterprise Decision Management, InterACT
CRM Is Back With a Vengeance: Is Your Organization Ready for the Next Generation of CRM?
Thursday, August 24th, 2006
Judging by Gartner CRM inquiries, interest in our fall CRM Summit and readership of this blog, CRM is definitely back on many firms' agendas. However, there is a difference in the focus of CRM today. Not only are more firms recognizing that CRM is a business strategy rather than just another IT project, but many are realizing that there is also a "C" in CRM, or "customer" in customer relationship management. That's why we've chosen the theme of "CRM 2.0: The Next Generation of CRM" for our September CRM Summit in Chicago. It emphasizes the ability of companies to look from the outside in (that is, from the customer's perspective), rather than looking from the inside out (that is, the company's perspective). Balancing both perspectives is critical in this next generation of CRM. The upcoming Summit will look at customer experience management, innovation, customer loyalty, reengineering customer processes and customer analytics as major themes.
We have lots of great content, with keynotes from Fred Reichheld on driving growth through customer loyalty, Don Peppers on customer-driven innovation and Paul Greenberg on business models for the era of the social customer. Jeff Schumacher and Marc Singer from McKinsey have a session on change management and collaboration; Peppers and Rogers will moderate a session on customer loyalty; and Bob Thompson of CRMGuru.com will facilitate a panel on contact center metrics. More than 20 Gartner analysts will have more than 40 sessions across five major tracks: CRM strategy and implementation, sales and marketing, customer service and support, CRM analytics, and CRM technology and architecture.
This year's CRM Summit is the one CRM event you don't want to miss. It has answers to all your questions about the next generation of CRM, whether you are a business or IT leader or CRM project manager. As conference chair for this year's CRM event, I look forward to seeing all of you there.
For more information, go here.
We have lots of great content, with keynotes from Fred Reichheld on driving growth through customer loyalty, Don Peppers on customer-driven innovation and Paul Greenberg on business models for the era of the social customer. Jeff Schumacher and Marc Singer from McKinsey have a session on change management and collaboration; Peppers and Rogers will moderate a session on customer loyalty; and Bob Thompson of CRMGuru.com will facilitate a panel on contact center metrics. More than 20 Gartner analysts will have more than 40 sessions across five major tracks: CRM strategy and implementation, sales and marketing, customer service and support, CRM analytics, and CRM technology and architecture.
This year's CRM Summit is the one CRM event you don't want to miss. It has answers to all your questions about the next generation of CRM, whether you are a business or IT leader or CRM project manager. As conference chair for this year's CRM event, I look forward to seeing all of you there.
For more information, go here.
Want to Improve Your Customer Service? Put Your CEO on the Phone
Thursday, July 20th, 2006
Most customer service organizations have successfully built layer upon layer of supervisors and managers to handle customer service exceptions. For the most part, barring extreme exceptions, they are ready to handle problems and reach resolutions. However, once in a while, a problem is so extreme, has such dire consequences to the customer or has caused irreparable damage. The answer to these problems (which are less than 0.5 percent of interactions) is what sets world-class customer service organizations apart from common customer service organizations.
Traditional customer service organizations escalate problems up to supervisors, usually through two to three layers of supervisors, until the customer gives up or customer service is no longer empowered to help. These organizations expect the customer to eventually give up and move on (that is, put up with the problem or go to the competition). Yet, some customers just won't go away. They demand that the company take corrective action beyond what the supervisors and, potentially, even a manager can approve they demand to get to the president or CEO of the company.
At this point, ordinary customer service organizations will tell the customer the address where they can write to the office of the CEO to complain again, hoping the customer just moves on. In rare cases, where the customer writes a letter, a form letter is usually sent back with explanations as to why the customer's demands are not possible. A few world-class customer service organizations do allow customers to reach the executive level (either a chief corporate officer or another executive), so they can hear first hand, from the customer, what happened. These executives can also help customers and bring relief to a complex situation. Their most-important contribution is the ability to regain the customer if he or she ended up satisfied (which usually happens 95 percent of the time) and to create a hard loyalty base by letting customers know that the executive team in the organization is not only aware of problems, but also working hard to resolve them. The simple act of talking to a customer on the phone has the capability to defuse the worse situations and convert almost-gone customers to loyal ones.
Is your CEO ready to talk? Let me know how you handle those top-level escalations.
Traditional customer service organizations escalate problems up to supervisors, usually through two to three layers of supervisors, until the customer gives up or customer service is no longer empowered to help. These organizations expect the customer to eventually give up and move on (that is, put up with the problem or go to the competition). Yet, some customers just won't go away. They demand that the company take corrective action beyond what the supervisors and, potentially, even a manager can approve they demand to get to the president or CEO of the company.
At this point, ordinary customer service organizations will tell the customer the address where they can write to the office of the CEO to complain again, hoping the customer just moves on. In rare cases, where the customer writes a letter, a form letter is usually sent back with explanations as to why the customer's demands are not possible. A few world-class customer service organizations do allow customers to reach the executive level (either a chief corporate officer or another executive), so they can hear first hand, from the customer, what happened. These executives can also help customers and bring relief to a complex situation. Their most-important contribution is the ability to regain the customer if he or she ended up satisfied (which usually happens 95 percent of the time) and to create a hard loyalty base by letting customers know that the executive team in the organization is not only aware of problems, but also working hard to resolve them. The simple act of talking to a customer on the phone has the capability to defuse the worse situations and convert almost-gone customers to loyal ones.
Is your CEO ready to talk? Let me know how you handle those top-level escalations.
Most Companies Like to Analyze Data
Tuesday, July 18th, 2006
Most companies like to analyze data. It gives them a sense of security: "We understand our business and our customers because the metrics on the reports says so." The reality is somewhat different, however. The analysis of operational customer data alone explores only one of several dimensions and can lead to incorrect conclusions. Other data sources need to be included, such as informal interaction data (that is, what was said and how it was said during customer-agent conversations) and more-formal survey data, both of which collate data directly from the customer (with or without their knowledge) for analysis.
I am currently writing a case study on an organization that embraced this broader concept of data analytics with startling results. It identified several areas for process improvement and highlighted discrepancies between what its traditional operational analysis was telling it compared with the reality of the situation. One example is highlighted below:
Survey analysis revealed that customer dissatisfaction in specific locations fluctuated at different times of the year. The question the company asked was: "Was this due to those customers genuinely receiving a poorer level of field service and, if so, which aspects of the service need to be delivered differently, or were they just more difficult to please?" The company mined the associated operational service data for insight and found an interesting correlation: customers became more tolerant of a lower level of service during extreme weather conditions. For example, if there was flooding or heavy snow, customers were much more tolerant of engineers being late and service levels slipping.
From an operational insight perspective, the company could see a reduction in service efficiency in those areas at the same time and would normally have diverted extra resources to those regions to fund field engineer overtime to bring the service levels back up. Instead, with this insight, it increased the number of call center agents and got them to proactively confirm adjusted engineer arrival times (via call, SMS and so forth). This reduced inbound calls and the need for engineer overtime to meet slipping operational service levels. It also improved customer satisfaction. The proverbial win-win. Nice.
So, is this company alone or have you found some interesting insights since taking a more holistic approach to data? I'd love to know.
I am currently writing a case study on an organization that embraced this broader concept of data analytics with startling results. It identified several areas for process improvement and highlighted discrepancies between what its traditional operational analysis was telling it compared with the reality of the situation. One example is highlighted below:
Survey analysis revealed that customer dissatisfaction in specific locations fluctuated at different times of the year. The question the company asked was: "Was this due to those customers genuinely receiving a poorer level of field service and, if so, which aspects of the service need to be delivered differently, or were they just more difficult to please?" The company mined the associated operational service data for insight and found an interesting correlation: customers became more tolerant of a lower level of service during extreme weather conditions. For example, if there was flooding or heavy snow, customers were much more tolerant of engineers being late and service levels slipping.
From an operational insight perspective, the company could see a reduction in service efficiency in those areas at the same time and would normally have diverted extra resources to those regions to fund field engineer overtime to bring the service levels back up. Instead, with this insight, it increased the number of call center agents and got them to proactively confirm adjusted engineer arrival times (via call, SMS and so forth). This reduced inbound calls and the need for engineer overtime to meet slipping operational service levels. It also improved customer satisfaction. The proverbial win-win. Nice.
So, is this company alone or have you found some interesting insights since taking a more holistic approach to data? I'd love to know.
Are Expectations Too High?
Monday, July 17th, 2006
As CRM analysts, we are always finding flaws in processes and the overall customer experience given by the companies we have relationships with (or, should I say, "undergo transactions with," because few companies have embraced the true concept of a relationship). Many of these stories have been documented as blogs, with associated "call to action"-type pleas at the end.
In my rotating role as CRM blog manager, I began to wonder if, as CRM analysts, we were setting our expectations too high. Do our standards reflect what the average consumer is actually looking for?
Interestingly, I was at a friend's 30th birthday (I hang around with her in the vain hope of holding onto my own youth) when someone started telling a story about credit cards. On a trip to Norway, his credit card stopped working after a few hours. When he got back from his vacation, he called the bank to ask why. He was told that it was due to the fact that the bank thought his card details had been stolen and someone was using it fraudulently in Norway (because it was not being used in his usual spending location or pattern). What seriously annoyed him, but amused me, was that he had pre-ordered some Norwegian currency from his bank, which he had picked up before setting off. Therefore, the bank knew he was travelling to Norway. When he inquired about this to the fraud department, they told him, "We didn't have access to that information, sorry."
This restored my faith somewhat in what we preach. Consumers do care and so should you! So, we may huff and puff about CRM, CEM, CDI and a multitude of other acronyms, but the bottom line is that it's for a good reason.
In my rotating role as CRM blog manager, I began to wonder if, as CRM analysts, we were setting our expectations too high. Do our standards reflect what the average consumer is actually looking for?
Interestingly, I was at a friend's 30th birthday (I hang around with her in the vain hope of holding onto my own youth) when someone started telling a story about credit cards. On a trip to Norway, his credit card stopped working after a few hours. When he got back from his vacation, he called the bank to ask why. He was told that it was due to the fact that the bank thought his card details had been stolen and someone was using it fraudulently in Norway (because it was not being used in his usual spending location or pattern). What seriously annoyed him, but amused me, was that he had pre-ordered some Norwegian currency from his bank, which he had picked up before setting off. Therefore, the bank knew he was travelling to Norway. When he inquired about this to the fraud department, they told him, "We didn't have access to that information, sorry."
This restored my faith somewhat in what we preach. Consumers do care and so should you! So, we may huff and puff about CRM, CEM, CDI and a multitude of other acronyms, but the bottom line is that it's for a good reason.
The Best Customer Strategy: Fire the Manager, Not the Employee
Friday, July 14th, 2006
Networks are powerful things. It doesn't matter if you reject Metcalfe's Law (that says the value of a network is in proportion to the square of its size) as inflated, or Sarnoff's Law, or Reed's Law, or any other law as Galileo supposedly whispered before his death, "Eppur si muove!" (and yet it moves!). The Internet, and especially formal and informal social networks (such as YouTube, Bebo, Facebook, MySpace or Gawker), ensure that any mistake a company makes, at any time and in any place, will become fodder for the daily regiment of trivia, pique and vented spleen.
What does this mean for customers? Well, it means cable technicians can't fall asleep on the couch. It means customer service representatives cannot berate the customer for dropping service. It means that when a customer calls a bank in the U.S. to drop a credit card, the bank doesn't scare him or her (for example, "Life's circumstances can change in an instant, and although you have not used the card in seven years, there may come a time when it is the only protection you have").
Customers are recording you, videotaping you, uploading and downloading you, and scrutinizing and berating you - in front of millions of people, at zero cost to them. It is no longer one to one to one: one letter of complaint in, one letter of "sorry and tough luck" back. Customers will no longer bother with the complaint letter. They will simply pass the experience on to a friend.
Until now, we have been firing the "bad" employee. Why fire the employee? Who hired them, trained them and coached them? Are we firing them because they followed protocol or got frustrated at the company's awful policies and practices? If you really want change to happen - and you should - begin scrutinizing how the processes were created that got you into this position in the first place. Although it is much simpler to blame the agent, they are likely the symptom, not the cause of the problem.
We don't see this situation getting better; we do see it becoming more severe. What is your strategy?
What does this mean for customers? Well, it means cable technicians can't fall asleep on the couch. It means customer service representatives cannot berate the customer for dropping service. It means that when a customer calls a bank in the U.S. to drop a credit card, the bank doesn't scare him or her (for example, "Life's circumstances can change in an instant, and although you have not used the card in seven years, there may come a time when it is the only protection you have").
Customers are recording you, videotaping you, uploading and downloading you, and scrutinizing and berating you - in front of millions of people, at zero cost to them. It is no longer one to one to one: one letter of complaint in, one letter of "sorry and tough luck" back. Customers will no longer bother with the complaint letter. They will simply pass the experience on to a friend.
Until now, we have been firing the "bad" employee. Why fire the employee? Who hired them, trained them and coached them? Are we firing them because they followed protocol or got frustrated at the company's awful policies and practices? If you really want change to happen - and you should - begin scrutinizing how the processes were created that got you into this position in the first place. Although it is much simpler to blame the agent, they are likely the symptom, not the cause of the problem.
We don't see this situation getting better; we do see it becoming more severe. What is your strategy?
Aaaahh…
Thursday, July 6th, 2006
Aaaahh, the holidays and the holiday sales flyers. While perusing through a flyer, I came across a promotion for a GPS navigation system for my car. After getting lost the day before, I thought it was time to get yet another gadget for my collection, so I went to the seller's Web store and entered the Web ID from the flyer into the search bar. To my surprise, it went straight to the right product.
I quickly looked over the product reviews of others and found that the product was one of the highest rated in the group. The price of the GPS looked appealing, so I went to the "pick it up today" option. Apparently, sales items are not stocked in my area. The GPS was sold out in six stores within a 30-mile radius.
I thought I'd have it shipped home and added it to the cart. Well, two of my research items came to mind while doing this: user-defined content (the reviews which sold me) and the fact that the business process of promotion to cash was broken.
Next, I thought I needed some accessories to go with the GPS. The accessories were in stock at the store but I chose to have them shipped, because going to the store no longer seemed fun without the GPS prize.
Once again, the user-defined product reviews of the accessories made me feel like I was buying the best product for me. However, I really wanted the items today. I couldn't wait any longer not getting lost anymore, so I abandoned the cart and decided to save my money.
Let's review:
Sales promotion in flyer linked to site: Good
Promotional Web ID printed in flyer: Good (but could use larger font)
Web ID working with search engine: Good
Shopping recommendations and cart managed: Good
User-defined reviews: Excellent (Nice use of Web 2.0)
Online reservation and in-store pick up: Good
Stock in any store: Bad
Nice second-generation multichannel focus. However, did I mention the Wed ID that took me to a different product than the one in the flyer? Well, that's third-generation.
How was your shopping over the holiday? (And for you business-to-business folks, don't think you don't promote and sell out-of-stock items by the truck load.)
I quickly looked over the product reviews of others and found that the product was one of the highest rated in the group. The price of the GPS looked appealing, so I went to the "pick it up today" option. Apparently, sales items are not stocked in my area. The GPS was sold out in six stores within a 30-mile radius.
I thought I'd have it shipped home and added it to the cart. Well, two of my research items came to mind while doing this: user-defined content (the reviews which sold me) and the fact that the business process of promotion to cash was broken.
Next, I thought I needed some accessories to go with the GPS. The accessories were in stock at the store but I chose to have them shipped, because going to the store no longer seemed fun without the GPS prize.
Once again, the user-defined product reviews of the accessories made me feel like I was buying the best product for me. However, I really wanted the items today. I couldn't wait any longer not getting lost anymore, so I abandoned the cart and decided to save my money.
Let's review:
Sales promotion in flyer linked to site: Good
Promotional Web ID printed in flyer: Good (but could use larger font)
Web ID working with search engine: Good
Shopping recommendations and cart managed: Good
User-defined reviews: Excellent (Nice use of Web 2.0)
Online reservation and in-store pick up: Good
Stock in any store: Bad
Nice second-generation multichannel focus. However, did I mention the Wed ID that took me to a different product than the one in the flyer? Well, that's third-generation.
How was your shopping over the holiday? (And for you business-to-business folks, don't think you don't promote and sell out-of-stock items by the truck load.)
What Makes CRM Excellent?
Monday, July 3rd, 2006
Gartner analysts are exposed to all kinds of stories about CRM. We hear of great successes and incredible failures; fantastic, positive surprises and shocking, negative results. However, throughout all this, we must be able to extract the characteristics of a world-class CRM implementation to use as a reference. Of course, these characteristics change with time and experience. What may have been sine qua non three years ago, is now no longer required. There are certain characteristics that make a CRM project excellent: it takes the time to properly identify needs, create a detailed strategy on what to do and expect, deploys to solve specific pain points, and measures to ensure success as planned. No matter how we measure them (using the eight building blocks, a return on investment model or simply comparison and analysis), excellent implementations share these principles.
Of course, without validation this is simply a theory. To validate these statements, Gartner chooses the best projects introduced (and documented) each year and rewards the responsible party with the CRM Excellence Award to recognize how far they have come. This year, we changed the award to accommodate changes in the market, changes in deployments and to make the award more competitive. We are looking for the ultimate CRM implementations and we are getting great entries. However, we are still looking for that superb, killer entry that sets itself apart. Is your CRM case study the one?
Let us know. Enter the contest and share your CRM excellence case study. But hurry, the deadline is approaching.
Of course, without validation this is simply a theory. To validate these statements, Gartner chooses the best projects introduced (and documented) each year and rewards the responsible party with the CRM Excellence Award to recognize how far they have come. This year, we changed the award to accommodate changes in the market, changes in deployments and to make the award more competitive. We are looking for the ultimate CRM implementations and we are getting great entries. However, we are still looking for that superb, killer entry that sets itself apart. Is your CRM case study the one?
Let us know. Enter the contest and share your CRM excellence case study. But hurry, the deadline is approaching.
Share the Fun Without Doubling the Price
Friday, June 23rd, 2006
As we rush into Web 2.0, maybe we should start with multichannel 1.0.
I went to book a summer flight through my credit card company's travel department. After finding the perfect flight and learning there were three seats left, I tried to use my membership travel points. "The rewards system is currently unavailable." OK, so I call customer service. They couldn't help me, but they would transfer me. Nine minutes on hold later, I am still waiting. On my other line, I call the airline directly, because they are listed as a partner. But, in fact, they are not a partner. They do, however, have a partner who is a partner, and if I call the partner's partner and set up an account, then they could transfer points to my account. So, I call the partner of my card's partner and hear, "We are experiencing technical difficulties. If the line goes dead while you are on hold, please call back later."
Web sites down, call centers that can't handle basic calls, wait times lasting 20 minutes or longer; are any of them making money? You guessed it: the credit card company; and it doesn't seem to be in a hurry to improve. And no, I did not get the frequent flyer seats.
Web 2.0, Web-oriented architecture, service-oriented architecture, Ajax, rich clients, semantic HTML, REST and so forth. While your technologists get excited about all the new toys, maybe the lines of business that interact with customers might see how the basics can be improved. Who is in charge of determining your priorities, and what is it based on? Who in the CEO's office will see these daily insults to your customers? Or maybe you have fixed this problem. If so, we'd love to hear from you.
I went to book a summer flight through my credit card company's travel department. After finding the perfect flight and learning there were three seats left, I tried to use my membership travel points. "The rewards system is currently unavailable." OK, so I call customer service. They couldn't help me, but they would transfer me. Nine minutes on hold later, I am still waiting. On my other line, I call the airline directly, because they are listed as a partner. But, in fact, they are not a partner. They do, however, have a partner who is a partner, and if I call the partner's partner and set up an account, then they could transfer points to my account. So, I call the partner of my card's partner and hear, "We are experiencing technical difficulties. If the line goes dead while you are on hold, please call back later."
Web sites down, call centers that can't handle basic calls, wait times lasting 20 minutes or longer; are any of them making money? You guessed it: the credit card company; and it doesn't seem to be in a hurry to improve. And no, I did not get the frequent flyer seats.
Web 2.0, Web-oriented architecture, service-oriented architecture, Ajax, rich clients, semantic HTML, REST and so forth. While your technologists get excited about all the new toys, maybe the lines of business that interact with customers might see how the basics can be improved. Who is in charge of determining your priorities, and what is it based on? Who in the CEO's office will see these daily insults to your customers? Or maybe you have fixed this problem. If so, we'd love to hear from you.