Help yourself to CRM

There’s a prevailing trend in customer service in both on and offline environments towards self-service. Banking was probably the first industry to do this with the introduction of ATMs, hotels allow self-service check-in and check out, more recently airlines have introduced self-service check-in kiosks in a bid to cut through waiting times at airports. Even the retail sector has joined in with many supermarkets rolling out self-service price scanning and check-out facilities to remove the need to queue up at the till.

The drivers behind these move are varied. One reason is to attempt to eliminate bottlenecks. Currently the main point of customer interaction with an airline is at check- in, for example, while for a supermarket it is at the till. These are relatively unproductive interactions. Removing these bottlenecks theoretically enables resources to be reallocated for customer interaction at other touchpoints.

Self-service gives customers the immediate response they seek when attempting to process a request or resolve an issue. It also crucially reduces the operational costs associated with traditional face-to-face interaction.

Despite the best efforts of many companies, customers remain attached to telephone and face-to-face interaction, particularly when they have a complaint about a product or service. This adds significant costs to running any business. According to Forrester Research, telephone-based customer service is the most costly channel for customer service at over $30 per transaction; by contrast, e-mail costs around $10 per transaction while Web-based self-service costs just over $1 per transaction.

Care categories

For most companies, self-care customer service falls into three categories: routine account maintenance, revenue generation and data aggregation.

Routine self-care functions shift the responsibility of account maintenance, such as the ability to change mailing address or examine account history, on to the users. Customer self-service can also generate additional revenue. For example, alerting customers when credit cards are about to expire or when subscriptions are about to lapse can have a direct positive impact on recurring revenue.

Crucially, self-service can also boost data harvesting efforts, presenting requested information in the workflow for tasks the customer wants to complete. For example, the self-care system can harvest demographic information that can be channeled into marketing and sales activities.

Web self-service falls into a number of categories. Content-based services focus on inquiries that can be fulfilled with static information, such as the obligatory “frequently asked questions'. More advanced self-service options will use case-based reasoning and track relationships between customer inquiries and the information needed to satisfy them. Transaction-based services can include services such as placing orders, filling out applications, updating customer information and making payments.

CRM integration

To conduct transactions and obtain customer-specific information, Web self-service systems must fully integrate with enterprise applications such as CRM and ERP. To that end, the larger CRM vendors have integrated their Web self-service modules with their CRM suites. This option clearly appeals to customers. Oracle’s Siebel has passed 100 million self-service users, including some of the world’s leading communications, energy, financial services, healthcare and manufacturing organisations.

Customer self-service has proven particularly appealing to certain vertical sectors, most notably telcos, banks and energy. Research firm Yankee Group argues that telco carriers, for example, find that the cost of providing live agent-handled calls and mailed paper bills is dramatically reduced using self-service. It predicts that 50 per cent of US wireless subscribers will be online self-service users by 2008.

There are some powerful examples of this in practice, such as BT, which in the UK serves over 20 million business and residential customers with more than 30 million fixed voice lines and also provides network services to other operators. BT sees its relationship with customers as key to its ongoing success. Each time it has contact with its customers, its aim is to deliver an excellent experience.

BT customers can manage and service their BT accounts on the Internet through an online dashboard and can also talk to customer service representatives online, simply by logging on to www.bt.com. They will no longer have to wait on the phone to query a bill as the vast majority of issues can be handled by the embedded bill dispute capabilities online.

With a single view of the systems, customers can execute a number of self-service activities, including opening and closing accounts, reviewing statements, managing customer profiles, customising account details, tracking transactions and activities, and completing payments.

Aware that its potential customer base has a multitude of different needs, BT will continue to add richer and deeper online functionality for all of its customers. “We now have the capability to offer sophisticated e-billing capabilities to suit the size and complexity of any organisation,” said Stephen Stokolos, Programme Director, Netcentricity Programme, BT.

Wireless example

In the US, AT&T Wireless is the third largest wireless communications provider, servicing 21.5 million customers.

The company developed a website where customers could view and pay their bills online. Early adoption numbers were extremely high, and over time customer feedback validated the venture, showing that providing an easy and convenient way to view and pay bills online satisfies customers and decreases the overall cost of serving those customers.

“We’re advocates of online customer services because our customers tell us that this is important to them,” explains Judy Cavalieri, Director, AT&T Wireless E-business. “Churn is lower among the online customers, and the company has tripled the number of registered online customers in the past two years. In addition, we have seen increased loyalty among these customers.”

But it’s not only the telco sector that is maximising opportunities through self-service. TXU Energy, the largest provider of electricity and natural gas in Texas, saw e-billing and self-service as a way to cut costs and build stronger customer relationships. Since the system was put in place, subscriptions to the e-billing option have increased while customer satisfaction levels have increased significantly.

It’s clear, then, that a well-designed, correctly implemented self-service system can help companies not only reduce customer care costs but also reduce churn levels and provide new cross-selling opportunities that can boost an organisation’s bottom line significantly.