June 1999
Customer Interaction Software: Three Critical Steps Lead To
The Right Purchase
BY STEPHEN PACE
Businesses battling for market share find that service is the key to customer wins and
loyalty. In an increasingly competitive atmosphere, call centers become strategic assets,
allowing a level of service that harks back to the days of personal, individualized
attention. Not only can the right customer interaction software provide clients with
satisfying vendor interaction, but it allows companies to mine, gather and coordinate data
to target customers with near pinpoint accuracy. The call center can become a customer
relationship management (CRM) center, boosting the bottom line and bringing a strong,
rapid return on investment (ROI).
Customer relationship management software products are not
"one-size-fits-all." CRM applications must address the needs of businesses with
different models, goals and existing technology infrastructures. Without a structured
plan, such as a request for proposal (RFP) template, companies investigating the market
might find the experience more frustrating than beneficial, and possibly fruitless rather
than profitable. How can you decide which software will bring in the results you need?
In a growing market of CRM applications and vendors, creating a RFP template requires
three critical steps. From needs and goals assessment to product demo to project plan,
this adaptable process offers a plan that will eliminate confusion regardless of your
companys size or goals.
Defining Goals And Requirements
The first step in considering CRM applications is to specify your objectives, and in
order to do this you must gather accurate information on your current status. Businesses
often see call centers in terms of sales force or customer service automation. They are
drawn to the customer relationship management promise of gains in sales, productivity and
customer loyalty. But the ROI will be clear only if you have baseline data to compare.
When your CRM application goes live, you can track activity and use the data to
calculate ROI. To help put the possibilities in perspective, consider that a 20 second
time savings on a three minute call means an 11 percent increase in productivity. You
might want to enlist an experienced consultant or vendor to help establish other
measurable cost-saving applications. For example, compare time spent per call, problem
resolution speed, deal closing rate, contract renewals, customer retention and customer
satisfaction.
But a focus on just sales force or help desk automation might exclude other
opportunities. With CRM, you also have a chance to develop marketing strategies that will
raise the barrier to competition. Data integration features allow you to merge information
from multiple systems and applications to create a unified customer profile. The result is
a dynamic database that stays current throughout the customer life cycle and can be
available to every customer-facing employee.
A comprehensive CRM platform can tell you everything about your client, which means you
can tie sales, marketing and service information into one customer record. This kind of
readily available information can transform cost centers into profit centers. For example,
the marketing department can arm service agents with the information to interest their
customers in additional products, and efficiently pass prequalified leads on to the sales
group.
As you work out your objectives, either on your own or with a consultant, use the full
capabilities of CRM as a reference point. In addition to the obvious goals, keep several
features in mind:
A CRM application with an open architecture will make the
most of your legacy systems and integrate smoothly with back-office applications. Consider
any technology changes you plan to make that might affect your decision and also determine
the applications ability to handle migration, transition and growth as well as the
vendors service and support offerings for these inevitable changes. Plan ahead.
- The capability to change customer interaction scripts
in-house, without hiring consultants, can mean big savings for an organization that
frequently alters these scripts. The best products will enable this type of frequent
information change at the end-user level.
- Ease-of-use is one of the most important features and one
that can dramatically reduce your training costs. Imagine being able to hire temporary
employees, quickly train them and use this new resource for special promotions. Now
imagine losing sales because you didnt have this capability and your existing staff
could not handle the overwhelming response.
- If your business has an international scope, look for
applications that have integrated multinational features such as multilanguage
capabilities and Euro currency support. Add-on products are a distant second best and
could create more work for you with interoperability issues.
Evaluating A Customized Product Demonstration
A CRM solution is not always an out-of-the-box application. The complexity of your
needs may require customizations or modifications. Vendors should be prepared to show how
their applications can meet your needs and how their data models fit with yours. If a CRM
vendor does not seem to share your vision of a customer-centered business, you have cause
for reservations.
Two things can really indicate how CRM will work for you �
1) A chance to see an enterprise with similar needs benefiting from the applications; and
2) A live demonstration of the product. Observing how an installation meets another
companys requirements will probably raise new questions and help you understand
issues as well as advantages. But only a customized demo is a good indicator of how well a
product will work with your companys existing infrastructure.
Your goals and needs assessment should determine the nature of a customer
demonstration. A simple customized demonstration can be ready within a few days. More
complex scripting and workflow with numerous screens and database tables may require a
week or more of preparation, depending on the detail required.
With all the promise of CRM before you, it may be tempting to rush into buying the
final product. That would be a big mistake. Considering the investment and potential
returns, you want to be sure the application � and the vendor � can implement your vision and meet your goals.
Building A Statement Of Work
A statement of work covers the details of implementation. Everything from site to
system requirements should be part of this project plan. In this phase of analysis, the
prospective implementation team addresses cost, customization, estimated time for
implementation, personnel needed for maintenance, ease of management and the plan to
facilitate user training. This is also the point at which the vendor considers
integration, including everything from the operating system to front- and back-end
hardware and software to telephony standards and middleware.
Phasing in the project is generally a better idea than developing specifications in
isolation. The vendor should be willing to provide a product with basic functionality and
initial modifications for your team to try. Your input after a live run with the basic
application will help develop the requirements that result in a smooth and successful
implementation.
A simple, complete CRM application with basic customization should be ready in about
three months. Integration with complicated back-end and legacy systems, sophisticated
workflows and databases and extensive customization requires more time. A streamlined
system provides dynamic, far-reaching capabilities and a quicker time to market.
Whether you have 15 or 500 customer interaction stations, the issues for choosing a CRM
solution are the same. To revitalize your companys customer focus, you need to wade
through some very complicated technology. A structured analysis of CRM options will help
you with call center design and evolution, taking it from a tool for sales force or help
desk automation to the heart of your revenue-generating organization.
Stephen Pace is vice president, Americas Operations for POINT Information
Systems, Inc. He is responsible for sales, marketing and professional services in the
U.S., Canada and Latin America. Founded in 1989, POINT
Information Systems is an international supplier of advanced enterprise relationship
management solutions that let companies link their sales, marketing, customer care and
back-office functions into an integrated, enterprisewide customer interaction platform.
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Tips To Evaluate Customer Interaction Software
BY ALBERT SUBBLOIE, IMACustomer interaction software technology plays a key role in the
process of helping businesses in the never-ending effort to acquire, retain and expand
their customer bases. Trying to stay ahead of the ever-changing customer interaction
software (CIS) marketplace can be confusing and overwhelming, especially when faced with
evaluating the effectiveness of your current call center technology against the decision
to purchase new systems. More than a bolt-on replacement for existing call center
applications, today's front-office CIS solutions empower the call center to be the hub of
a multichannel, enterprisewide customer contact center, managing voice, fax, Web and
e-mail communications. This is a critical issue in today's customer-focused,
Internet-enabled business environment * your customers expect to contact your company when
and how they want, and you need to have the infrastructure to support these preferences.
The world of customer relationship management technology is changing rapidly.
Single-function, text-based agent screens were not long ago considered "state-of-the
art" in call center systems. There was very little integration between the computer
on the agent's desk and call center devices such as automatic call distributors (ACDs),
predictive dialers or interactive voice response (IVR) systems, not to mention the
company's legacy databases and back-office operations. Now, feature-rich CIS systems with
computer-telephony integration (CTI), running in a Microsoft Windows or browser-based
environment, are the norm, synchronizing the desktop, network and telephone system and
providing sales, marketing and customer service functionality.
These modern CIS systems provide agents with a comprehensive suite of common
applications and instant data access for both inbound and outbound sales, marketing and
service operations, offering quick resolution of customer issues and the opportunity to
upsell and cross-sell additional products and services. In addition, leading-edge CIS
applications can now be linked to multiple databases, enterprise resource planning (ERP)
or legacy systems, providing true front- to back-office integration for immediate access
to customer information from anywhere in the enterprise, across several call centers and
departments.
A key consideration when conducting a CIS evaluation is finding a solution that can
fulfill a long list of user demands yet still meet strategic corporate objectives while
integrating with your existing technology architecture. It should meet the company's
immediate customer relationship management needs, yet be scalable and extensible enough to
expand for projected long-term growth. The solution must be flexible enough to fit your
business without requiring drastic modifications to your existing operations or processes,
yet still be able to quickly support new processes. Will it also accommodate the
communications media of the present (telephone, e-mail, fax and the Web) with those of the
future (video, kiosk and others yet to be delivered)? Will the software and platform
deliver the reliability and performance needed for the mission-critical functions provided
by front-office CIS systems? The following points address the business and process issues
that need to be reviewed prior to making a CIS technology decision.
Evaluate The Sales Process
How does your company sell? Do you employ an inside sales force, a field sales force,
catalogs, distributors or some combination of these? How do these different areas
communicate and share information? How are leads tracked and who responds to them? What
type of database, if any, is used to track sales and customer information? How could each
step of this sales process be made faster and easier? Could your sales representatives use
their selling time more effectively if they were more aware of customer needs before a
sales visit?
Review Telemarketing And Database Marketing Needs
Does your company have an inbound or outbound telemarketing group? What type of database
is used for marketing promotions, direct mailing and telemarketing campaigns? How are the
results of these campaigns analyzed? Do you currently have a reporting process that can
determine quantity of leads, cost per lead and response rates for each campaign?
Assess Customer Service Requirements
Who currently handles customer inquiries and support issues? Is there a standard process
for resolving customer problems and responding to any sales inquiries? Are there required
steps in managing your customer incidents? How do you ensure that these steps are followed
by those responsible for resolving customer complaints? Is the customer service group
linked to other company departments, providing them with an enterprisewide view of the
customer or account history?
Before you make any decisions about which software to purchase, define the weaknesses
of your current technology based on the business evaluation mentioned above and create a
wish list. A simple one-to-one replacement of your existing system means you're upgrading
your old problems and broken processes with newer technologies. Think beyond the
"now" to project where your business will be two, three or five years out, and
what applications will be needed to support that business plan. Once you understand the
myriad issues that impact your operations, use the following guide as the framework for
evaluating CIS technology.
CIS Functionality Checklist
These are some of the key functional requirements to look for in a comprehensive CIS
system:
- Sales And Marketing. Does the technology maximize the revenue-generating potential of
every customer contact? Are agents upselling or cross-selling based on predefined criteria
that are triggered by the customer's history? Can you easily capture orders and integrate
with order-entry and fulfillment systems?
- Account Management. When agents accept calls, do they have "screen pop" or
application access to the most current detailed account activity and history for a quick
and accurate response to a customer request? Can they quickly update customer and account
information and identify characteristics that empower them to resolve the issue or to up-
or cross-sell? Specifically, an effective account management module provides user-defined
profile leads to track customer information, unlimited free-form comments, multiple
contacts per company or entity, separate notes for each contact, the ability to customize
screens, the ability to generate recall lists for follow-up calls and a search engine for
locating customer data based on a variety of criteria.
- Campaign Management. Can you monitor and interpret the success of a sales or marketing
campaign through its ability to track, manage and organize leads and analyze activities
and results? A full-featured campaign management module will include ways to track the
effectiveness of marketing promotions, measure the progress of prospects through the sales
cycle, measure revenue generated against expense per campaign and track lead sources per
campaign.
- Customer Service And Support. Can agents quickly determine the status of a particular
customer's account or service request, regardless of where in your organization that case
has been routed? Does the system seamlessly integrate with popular case-based reasoning
(CBR) packages for faster resolution of routine or common problems? The customer service
and support component of a CIS system should include incident tracking; keyword searches
for question and objection handling and workflow processing for the management and routing
of cases. In addition, built-in workflow, or integration with third-party workflow
systems, allows standardization of common business processes or consistent response
handling and levels of service.
Other aspects of a comprehensive CIS solution include:
- Flexibility. Does it offer dynamic scripting, allowing you to modify campaigns and
business rules on the fly to respond to changing business conditions? Are you able to
easily modify or extend the application modules themselves through a toolkit or integrated
development environment?
- CTI. Does the CIS solution offer a computer-telephony abstraction layer, allowing it to
be used with a wide variety of telephony devices and not requiring substantial coding if
new devices are added? Does the solution provide its own telephony links or does it
require you to purchase a third-party CTI middleware product, adding another technology
layer and vendor relationship to your management responsibilities? Can it deliver customer
information to the agent's desktop based on dialed number identification service (DNIS) or
automatic number identification (ANI)?
Vendor Experience
In addition to the product, evaluate the CIS vendor to verify their expertise in the areas
most vital to your project's success. Does the vendor have accounts that can be referenced
with applications similar to yours? Do they have experience in large-scale or complex CIS
deployments and a proven history of successful installations? Do they understand your
business and provide a product that will fit your organization and culture? Does the
vendor have partnerships with key hardware and software providers, as well as systems
integration firms that have CIS practices?
Installation Game Plan
Once you have chosen a CIS package that will strengthen your customer management
operations, work with the vendor to create a game plan for implementation. CIS
installations take time and complex deployments involving CTI and legacy system links can
quickly turn into an exercise in frustration unless they are properly managed. Once you
have chosen a software package that will strengthen your call center operations, create a
game plan for installation. This plan is a time line of events outlining your installation
process. Often, one of the most overlooked aspects of a CIS deployment, having a detailed
yet flexible implementation plan, will dramatically enhance the overall success of the
project.
It's well known that it is easier and more profitable to keep a customer than it is to
acquire a new one, but a growing business needs to do both. An effective CIS solution
helps you do that and more by leveraging technology to deliver superior sales and customer
care and providing you with a powerful tool to market your products and services. Each
customer contact should quickly end in a tangible result: orders have been processed,
questions have been answered and problems have been resolved. Customer satisfaction breeds
loyalty.
The key to CIS buying success is a thorough evaluation of your technology and
functional needs, researching and test-driving different software packages, verifying the
expertise of the vendor and developing a well-planned installation strategy. If you apply
these tactics to purchasing your company's sales, marketing and service software package,
you will come out ahead of the ever-changing CIS marketplace with a powerful solution that
supports your call center's needs today and one that fits your enterprise customer
relationship management strategy for the future.
Albert Subbloie is one of the founders of IMA and has been the president, chief
executive officer and a director of the company since its incorporation in 1990. He
currently serves as Chairman of the Connecticut Technology Council, a state-wide industry
group.
IMA is a customer interaction software
provider based in Shelton, Connecticut. IMA's EDGE family of CIS solutions has been
helping companies worldwide integrate sales, marketing and customer service activities
through the call center for 15 years. |