Download customer care management through information

Technology has evened quality. Hardware is all the same.
The difference is how you treat customers.
— LEE IACOCCA,
FROM A SPEECH AT LEHIGH UNIVERSITY
Learning Objectives:
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
 Tell what the dimensions of customer care are.
 Update yourselves about the latest and effective customer
care methods.
 Comprehend customer care technologies.
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Introduction
 Customer care is a service that seeks to provide superior customer satis-
faction to existing customers, to acquire new customers and build
loyalty. It is reaching out to customers rather than waiting for them to
reach the company. This nature of customer care may depend on the
company's business: outbound/inbound or even blended.
 Customer care focuses on customer satisfaction and loyalty which can
be achieved only when the customer can reach for help at the given
number without feeling any pain for the same. This means that the call
centre number or e-mail address for a particular customer care function
must be easy to find and a customer must deal with an agent who is
knowledgeable, courteous and provides an answer or solution quickly.
Follow up within a stipulated period of time is critical and resolution
with the first contact is ideal.
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The following five areas are the most critical for any customer
care function:
 Accessibility
 Personal interaction with the customer service
representative
 Effectiveness of the solution or response
 Follow-up
 First-contact resolution
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Call Centre
 CRM is embedded into every call centre (CC). A CC is an arrangement
where the division of an organisation or its intermediary acts as a link
with their customers. The typical CC is an area where several specially
trained employees handle queries or complaints of products or services
over telephone. Traditionally, the CC is a single-function unit limited to
customer support and sometimes, sales. The contact centre is an
upgraded form of the CC.
 Harris (2000) says that a contact centre is a CC unit that is integrated
from two perspectives: (i) media (e-mail, internet, fax and data) and
(ii) functional (linkage to a central database and working in concert
with other sales and service channels, such as direct sales).
 The CC has great potential for improving expense ratios, standardising
services and improving service quality to customers. The integrated CC
can be approached through various 'touch points' such as phone, email, fax and internet chat.
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Customer Service
Representative
Customer Care Software
 Typical CC software would link
 The
customer
service
representative (CSR) of the
contact centre is an active
salesman. He uses a bank of
telephones
that
are
supplemented by computer
terminals and high-end CRM
software. The most basic
customer
interactions
like
enquiries are automated and
CSR gets more time for sales or
customer
services
with
personalised care.
telecom
hardware
to
IT
databases at the back end and
communicate
automated
information to the callers in the
form of
interactive voice
response and screen pop-up
layers through the CSR. New CC
systems incorporate internet
technologies and are web
enabled,
allowing
more
interactivity for their callers,
while keeping the basic model
for
customer
interaction
unchanged (Haines 2000).
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Customer Service Applications
 Customer service applications at the CC include helpdesks, technical
support, product information, service calls, scheduling, catalogue services,
reservations and other one-time needs (ITSpace 2000). CC telemarketing
has been mostly used for sales prospecting, solicitations for donations,
surveys and opinion polls. Most Indian CC applications are in the nature of
reminders for credit card and loan outstanding, credit card telemarketing
and tele surveys.
 According to Shapiro (2000), an organisation has three major channels of
interaction with the customer: the phone, the web and face-to-face
contact. These mean different forms of complexity for the CC. The
resultant technology covers sophisticated Automated Call Distributor
(ACD) and telephony equipment, routing schemes. Databases and popups, predictive dialling apparatus and access to a huge database at the back
end. The e-CRM CC incorporates e-mail, chat, and computer telephony
integration (CTI) to cover customer as over a larger territory, laptops and
palmtops.
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Call Centre Technologies
Computer telephony
integration (CTI)
Automated call distributor
(ACD)
 It is another emerging facility of
reaching out to far-flung customers
at low cost. It plays a critical role in
helping call centers achieve their
 It is a computerised phone system
competitive and effective goals. CTI
can be defined as the application of
computer-based intelligence to
telecommunication devices. It can
also be defined as the process of
blending the functionality of
sophisticated telephone systems
over an intelligent data link to gain
increases in agent productivity,
customer satisfaction and enterprise
cost savings.
that responds to the caller with a
voice menu and connects the call
to next available CSR. It answers
the call in a specified order in a
line of waiting calls. It makes sure
the first call to arrive is the first
call answered. It delivers calls to
agents in a pre-specified order—
who has been free the longest or
to the next agent that becomes
available in a call centre.
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Multimedia Contact Centre
 Creating strong customer relationships and maintaining them are
essential to a company's success in the internet age. Now customers
have more choices not only as to how to contact a company but, with
24-hour access to companies all around the world, as to which company
they should deal with. To keep up, many companies are taking their
existing traditional telephone call centers and transforming them into
streamlined multimedia contact centers that can handle customers
through phone, fax, web, or e-mail, in a consistently and timely manner
and also collect information that will help keep customers coming
back.
 The following are various techniques that can be used to contact
customers using modern technology:
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E-mail
Chat
 This is an effective means, in
 Putting a chat facility on the
today's
wired
world,
of
communicating with existing
and prospective customers, with
respect to the updates on
services and products. A careful
approach is suggested lest it is
termed as spamming or an
intrusion
into
someone's
privacy. The e-mail growth has
spurred the development of
ACDs and e-mail capability of
standard agents.
company's website may allow its
clientele to chat with its
salespersons as well as among
themselves to discuss the
product features and also to
compare the services offered by
its competitors.
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Electronic Point of Sale (EPOS)
 Electronic point of sale refers to the hardware or software used for
checkouts. It is equivalent to an electronic cash register. It can mean a
retail shop, a checkout counter in a shop, or the location where a
transaction occurs—in supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, stadiums, etc.
 The main benefit of EPOS and retail scanner systems is the amount of
timely and accurate information they deliver. Advances in the technology
have significantly aided the scope for data analysis. In addition to the
original scanner-related data on sales rate, stock levels, stock turn, price
and margin, retailers can now have the information about the
demographic, socio-economic and life style characteristics of consumers.
 They can, in addition, assess the impact of a host of variables—price,
promotion, advertising, position in store, shelf position, number of facings
and so on. This information drives their choice of product mix, allocation
of shelf space and promotional tactics.
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Customer Service Helpdesk
 Customer care applications help the company in automating the
customer support processes. They enable it to deliver high quality
service to the customer problems, enquiries, suggestions etc.
 They also help in directing these queries to appropriate employees
within the company. They maintain information regarding status of
customer inquiries and store all support calls and related
communications to final resolution, continually updating the database
accordingly.
 With an automated customer service, a company can reduce the cost of
maintaining its customer service department while improving the level
and quality of customer service. Customer service using the web
provides more information and tools in the hands of customers by
further allowing them to learn about the product and improving their
skills in using the product.
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System Integration
 While CRM solutions are front-office automation solutions, an ERP helps
in automating business functions of production, finance, inventory, order
fulfillment and human resource giving an integrated view of business.
CRM automates the relationship with a customer covering contact and
opportunity management, marketing and product knowledge, sales
forecasting, sales force management, customer order processing and
fulfillment, delivery installation, pre-sale and post-sale services, and
complaint handling by providing an integrated view of the customer. It is
necessary that the two systems (CRM and ERP) integrate with each other
and complement information as well as business workflow. This
integration helps companies provide faster customer service through an
effective network, which can direct all customer queries and issues through
appropriate channels to the right place for speedy resolution. This also
enables the company in tracking and correcting the product problems
reported by customers by feeding the information into the R&D operation
via ERP.
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Sales Force Automation
 Customer care systems help in automating and optimising sales
processes to shorten the sales cycle and increase sales productivity.
They enable the company to track and manage all qualified leads,
contacts and opportunities throughout the sales cycle including
customer support. They improve the effectiveness of marketing
communication programmes for generating quality leads as well as
greater accuracy in sales forecasting. The internet can be used by the
company in imparting proper training to its sales force. In-depth
product information, specialised database of solutions, sales force
support queries and a set of internal information on the internet can
improve the productivity of the sales force and better and prompt
service to the customers.
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Leveraging Internet
 Internet is widely used by banks and other financial service providers to
disseminate information to customers about their products and services
through their websites and e-mails. The banking services are provided
through net with convenience of ease and accessibility. Internet banking
offers many benefits to the banks, viz. vast reach, reduced transaction
costs, direct marketing and cross-selling, and building bank's brand. It also
offers benefits to customers, viz. reduced cost, convenience, banking with a
bank and not the branch, speed, and better cash management.
 Computer Networking: Networking between the branches of divisional, regional,
zonal, and head office of banks provides access to customer database from the
executive desk. This will integrate the front-office application with back-office
requirements, thus generating Management Information System (MIS) for branch
manager and executives at different controlling offices including head office for
accurate, speedy and cost-effective customer service.
 Computer Smart Cards: These cards, issued to key customers, carry all relevant
information, and details of previous and repeat purchases, to make it convenient for
the customers to recall and for the banks to keep a track of the behavioural and
purchase trends.
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Automated Teller Machine
 An
automated teller machine
(ATM)
is
a
computerised
telecommunication device that
provides the customers of a
financial institution with access to
financial transactions in a public
space without the need for a
human clerk or a bank teller.
 On most modern ATMs, a
customer is identified by inserting
a plastic ATM card with a
magnetic stripe or a plastic smart
card with a chip that contains a
unique card number and some
security information such as an
expiration date or CVC (CVV)*.
Figure 7.2
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Wi-Fi Banking
 Most banks today offer net, phone
and mobile banking so as to let
customers have a more convenient
experience with the bank without
visiting the branch. However, a
few banks do see a trend of
footfalls increasing in their
branches and thus they want to
provide better services in their
branches, and one such service is
Wi-Fi banking. Companies like
Intel are providing their expertise
to unwire banking branches so
that secure, wireless banking is
available to staff and customers.
Figure 7.3
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Conclusion
 Managing customers with care is a key in Customer Relationship
Management. With the development in technology, this has become a
lot more easy, effective and less costly. From call centres and other
multimedia contact centres to web-based virtual customer
representatives, all these tech-based initiatives are intended to provide
superior customer service and the companies can leverage these
information for furthering the business interests. The CRM softwares
have made the job easier for the implementers of CRM.
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Project Assignment
 REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. What should be the essentials of an
effective customer care function?
Design a Customer Care 2. What do you mean by call centre? How
management system for
does it work?
a
restaurant
in
3. How far do the contact centres effective in
Connaught Place, Delhi
bridging the gap between the buyer and
that presently has only
the seller? Answer in light of the
one outlet but intends to
technological options available with the
open
a
chain
of
companies.
restaurants across the
country.
4. "Automated teller machine (ATM) has
been the single most fruitful invention in
the
direction
of
customer care
management in banking Industry."
Comment from the perspective of
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banking industry.
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