Self-service: putting the customer in control
Customers increasingly demand online self-service options. Their online convenience provides your organization with many benefits as well, since it allows you to improve your own operational efficiency. In addition, it can offer you considerable cost savings over maintaining call centers or desk service.
Description
Customer in control
The customer in control is a paradigm that might not have been caused by the Internet but the Internet surely enabled the fulfillment of this customer requirement. It does, however, create a whole new range of business issues. Think, for example, about marketing, sales and support processes. All these processes involve customers and prospects at some point. In ‘ancient’ times you had to take the initiative to reach out to the customer or maybe it was the call center buffer that created time to deal with an inbound enquiry. The Web has changed all that. Customers want direct access and direct response. It is your business challenge to meet those new demands both from a process and an IT perspective.
Efficient or customer friendly?
What is your business goal? Executing the most efficient customer-related processes or maximising customer satisfaction? There are reasons for both strategies but your answer to the question is an important factor in designing your online customer service presence. When your focus is efficiency, you will try to minimise personal interaction verbally or face-to-face with your customers. If you focus on customer satisfaction you will maximise the personal interaction with your customers. Both are valid strategies and both will benefit strongly from well-designed online services.
Personalisation
For many enterprises, the promise of real one-to-one marketing is unrealistic and, for even more, not really necessary. Of course, every customer believes he or she is unique but in reality we know that from a sales and marketing perspective there is nothing wrong in grouping of customers and markets in entities with similar product needs and communication requirements. In a service environment this is a different story. Here the customer and his situation are unique and your ability to meet his individual needs determine your success. Especially where you strive for customers servicing themselves (self service) the need to ensure all data is 100 percent accurate is crucial for success. Mapping individual customer needs to a global business model however is a true challenge. Multiple sites, languages, offerings etc., often cause sleepless nights for service and IT managers.
Back-end integration
The online presence of your company is not a stand alone issue. Functionality on Web sites is increasing and direct interaction with customer, distributors and other stakeholders has become a standard requirement. This means opening up the back-office systems to the internet. ERP, supply chain, CRM, finance, all kinds of data are needed online. Integrations need to be carefully defined and implemented. You do not want to throw away your key company data.
Benefits
Self-service is cost effective
Cost effective yet personalised customer interaction is the dream of every service & support manager. SDL Tridion WCM is a cornerstone in making that dream come true. Publishing consistent content on your products and services to all your customers and distributors worldwide is a solid and cost effective platform supporting customer support initiatives and self service strategies.
Personalisation increases satisfaction
Customer self service and personalisation go hand in hand. Using online self service applications obviously require ID control and secure access to customer specific data. Additionally more general content can be offered to customers in a personalised manner. SDL Tridion's personalisation & profiling is a part of our product range that supports the individual personalisation of your online customers. This functionality maximizes your efforts in the area of Self Service and, at the same time, opens up possibilities in areas like marketing communication and the creation of up sell / cross sell opportunities.
Easy access to CRM and ERP systems
Another issue is the business need to integrate your company’s online presence (Internet and intranet) with back-end solutions. In self-service it is a prerequisite by default. Online applications and functionality create a demand for using data stored in back end systems like ERP or CRM. As an enterprise WCM solution SDL Tridion is well suited for the job. All our clients run successful Web sites completely integrated with all relevant back office systems. Our product, our Professional Service capabilities and our strong global Partner network make this work.