OnProcess Helping Haiti January 20, 2010
Posted by onprocess in Community Through Teamwork, OnProcess.Tags: American Red Cross, Corporate Contribution, Corporate Core Values, donation, fundraising, Haiti, OnProcess Technology
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Haiti
In the wake of the recent tragic earthquakes in Haiti OnProcess Technology, through the efforts of the company’s MAD (“Make A Difference”) Committee, has instituted a donation matching program for its employees to drive contributions to Haitian relief. The company is matching all employee contributions, on a dollar-for-dollar basis; with the proceeds going to charities to benefit the Haitian relief effort.
As of January 20th over $2223, not including the corporate match, has been raised. Fundraising continues, and we will update progress as it occurs.
OnProcess Technology has, as part of its guiding corporate Core Values, a commitment to Community Through Teamwork, of which this is but one example.
Discount on Reverse Logistics Trade Show, Las Vegas Feb 8-10 January 20, 2010
Posted by onprocess in Asset Retrieval, OnProcess.Tags: Cisco, Dell, discounted rate, EMC, Juniper, Las Vegas Trade Show, Microsoft, OnProcess, Reverse Logistics Trade Show, RLTS
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OnProcess will again be attending, sponsoring and exhibiting at the upcoming Reverse Logistics Trade Show in Las Vegas from February 8th through the 10th.
Of particular note, we are facilitating as well as participating in an expert Panel Discussion, hosted by Steve Blaz, featuring experts in Reverse Logistics from such firms as Dell, Juniper Networks, Cisco, Microsoft and EMC!
Are you still on the fence on this one? Maybe we can help.
We’re well aware that many companies have curbed travel in general as well as trade show attendance; but we can’t help but think that if you’re involved in Reverse Logistics in some way, this is a show you simply must attend.
So once again, as co-sponsors, we have the ability to give our friends a VIP discount which cuts the cost of attending by $600. We’d be glad to share that capability with you if you’re still unsure about attending. Go to this link on the RLTS site, type in the code VX66771065 and you’ll be able to sign up directly using the discount.
Just consider it a kind of belated holiday gift.
We look forward to seeing you there!
And feel free to post or otherwise forward this opportunity to your colleagues by using one of the methods below.
Upcoming Webinar in Reverse Logistics – with Steve Blaz December 18, 2009
Posted by onprocess in Asset Recovery, Asset Retrieval, OnProcess.Tags: asset retrieval, events, learning, OnProcess Technology, reverse logistics, Steve Blaz, webinar
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Reverse Logistics Webinar with Steve Blaz - Jan 13, 2010
How strong is your Reverse Logistics program? Think you rank with the leaders? Regardless of what industry you’re involved in, you won’t want to miss this upcoming Webinar: 7 Key Steps to Reverse Logistics Success with Steve Blaz – http://eepurl.com/f3go
This session, to be held January 13th, 2010 at Noon Eastern Standard Time, promises to be interesting, entertaining and practical.
Join industry expert Steve Blaz as he discusses the key elements of a successful Reverse Logistics program for your business.
Steve Blaz’ expertise spans over 25 years in the areas of worldwide service and support, strategic partnering and business operations. During this time, his key executive accomplishments included driving customer satisfaction improvements, operational excellence and building high performance teams.
Steve Blaz
Mr. Blaz spent 4 years as Vice President of Global Service Operations for Juniper Networks, successfully driving the restructuring and turnaround of its Service Operations. He dramatically improved customer satisfaction and on-time delivery to all time highs, establishing operational excellence and reducing OpEx by over 40%. Prior to Juniper, Mr. Blaz enjoyed 13 years with Cisco Systems leading its Global Product Services and Global Onsite Services. While there, he oversaw the expansion of Cisco’s Onsite Services from $4M to in excess of $1B.
Currently, with Steve Blaz & Associates, Mr. Blaz helps companies and service operations executives achieve world-class organizational results. He speaks and consults on the topics of Globalization, Operational Excellence, Business Process Re-Engineering, Ease of Doing Business and Turnaround Strategy. Steve Blaz is highly respected in the industry and serves on the advisory boards for Aberdeen Research and Worldwide Business Research. He also serves as Director, on the Board of Directors, for Flash Global Logistics.
You won’t want to miss this opportunity to hear from a successful industry leader, and engage with him in questions and discussion.
OnProcess Technology is enabling and sponsoring the event, but there will be a minimum of promotional activity – the emphasis will be on sharing Steve’s expertise and enabling attendees to engage with Steve and gain insights and practical, actionable outcomes that they can apply to their own programs.
Click on the link and register today!
No Easy Answers to Excellence? December 9, 2009
Posted by onprocess in Customer Care, Customer Experience Management, Customer Understanding Research, OnProcess.Tags: Customer Experience Management, customer satisfaction, customer service, differentiate on service quality, measure customer satisfaction, measuring satisfaction, no easy answers to excellence, real solutions vs. point solutions
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(a.k.a., Real Solutions vs. Point Solutions)
There’s an old saying; “When you sell hammers, every problem is a nail”.
There are companies who will make phone calls for you.
There are companies who have machines that will make automated phone calls for you.
They’ll read what you tell them to say, until you tell them to stop.
And when they’re done, you’ll get your bill: We made X calls, for Y dollars. Net 30.
Check the box. Next.
Lots of activity, some outcomes, but not necessarily a solution to the problem your business really has.
What about the customer? Does anyone care about him or her? What’s the experience like for them? Did you learn anything from all that activity? Did you really educate the customer? Did you truly capture their input? Can you drive action as a result that will measurably improve your business?
There are no easy answers to excellence.
Or maybe there is one – OnProcess Technology®.
Not a software firm, not a call center, not a survey company. OnProcess Technology is in the results business.
OnProcess provides CE360™; a comprehensive customer experience management solution that helps improve your customers’ experience in a number of ways. CE360™ combines process methodology, multi-channel communications services and powerful data analysis to give you the clear insights you need to maximize customer satisfaction.
Increased Understanding Means Increased Usage, Reduced Remorse Returns
You can use CE360™ to increase your customers’ understanding of your current solutions or to help your customers smoothly upgrade to your newest offerings. Your results are a more positive customer experience, increased use of your products and services, and loyalty to your brand.
Identify Service Problems – Maximize ROI
You can also use CE360™ to assess your customers’ install, start-up or upgrade experience, enabling you to find weak points in your customer experience processes. By focusing investment on the most impactful areas, you maximize ROI and lift in satisfaction scores.
Compete on Service, Instead of Price
Ultimately, what this all comes down to is differentiation on service quality. Taking price out of the equation, to whatever extent possible, frees you up to be more profitable; to keep your customers loyal; to recover from occasional service glitches more easily, and to increase share in a competitive marketplace.
You don’t get those kinds of results by just ‘checking the box’.
–sk
The Cost of Poor Customer Service December 2, 2009
Posted by onprocess in Customer Care, Customer Experience Management, Customer Understanding Research, OnProcess.Tags: cost of poor customer service, Customer Experience, differentiation on service
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The Cost of Poor Customer Service – an excellent blog post by the folks at 1to1 media, with subsequent emphasis added here at OPT –sk
Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog
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Engage the 1to1 Media editors on the topics driving customer strategy
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Topic:
The Cost of Poor Customer Service
by Mila D’Antonio
Whether you’re a large retailer or small business, the importance of good customer service cannot be underestimated. This is especially true in a business environment that is growing increasingly more competitive.
But according to a new a new international consumer survey from Genesys Labs in conjunction with Datamonitor/Ovum called “The Cost of Poor Customer Service: The Economic Impact of the Customer Experience and Engagement,” the cost of customer service in 16 major industrialized economies causes businesses to lose a total of $338.5 billion per year when customers defect and abandon their purchases as a direct result of poor customer experiences. A total of 8,880 consumers, at least 500 from each country, were selected from all ages and income groups and surveyed for the report.
The hardest hit industries across all countries surveyed are financial services, cable, and satellite TV providers, and a variety of telecommunications companies. The average value of each lost relationship across all countries surveyed is $243 per year. Losses were defined as transactions taken to a competitor (63 percent of the total) and transactions abandoned entirely (37 percent of the total).
The survey asked consumers their priorities and the changes most needed to improve the quality of their customer service experiences. Consumers surveyed reside in: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, the U.K., and the United States.
Some highlights of the survey include:
• In the past year financial services firms saw more than $44 billion in lost revenue.
• Cable and satellite TV providers alone suffered more than $37 billion of losses.
• Wireless carriers and Internet service providers each had $36 billion in lost revenue.
• Landline carriers also lost $33 billion.
• When asked to select the industries that did the best and worst job of customer service, consumers gave the most positive ratings for consumer products, travel/hospitality, and financial services. The most negative ratings are for telecommunications and government.
• When asked why they leave, consumers cited self-service that is not intelligently integrated with assisted service, being trapped in automated self-service, being forced to wait too long for service, having to repeat themselves, and representatives who lack the skills to answer their inquiry.
• When asked what they would most like to see companies deploy to improve service, 40 percent chose human service, but more than half of consumers chose at least one new communication channel among their top choices. More than 18 percent selected as their first choice better integration of communication channels, 16 percent chose enriched content such as video, and 16 percent said Web assistants or avatars.
• More than 86 percent of consumers defined proactive engagement as a strong benefit when stuck on the Web or in some form of self-service.
Daniel Hong, lead analyst of customer interaction at Ovum, said the difference between delivering exceptional customer service and merely providing acceptable service is pronounced in this survey. “Differentiating on service, especially in service-centric industries, such as finance and telecommunications, is how enterprises can retain customers in today’s challenging business climate.”
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OPT takeaways:
- a mix of service channels is beneficial, but they must work together in a cohesive, well-considered process
- a proactive approach in certain cases can be a game-changer
- differentiation on service is again confirmed as a key success factor in customer experience management and competitive strategy.
Our CE360™ suite of Customer Experience Management Services may be of interest to you in this regard.
OnProcess donating Thanksgiving dinners to Fall River families – Fall River, MA – The Herald News November 25, 2009
Posted by onprocess in OnProcess.Tags: Core Values, corporate citizenship, donation, OnProcess, OnProcess Technology
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OnProcess donating Thanksgiving dinners to Fall River families – Fall River, MA – The Herald News
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OnProcess Technology will feed 130 families a free Thanksgiving dinner this year.
The 500-employee company, with a location at 21 Father Devalles Boulevard in Fall River and another in Ashland, collected nonperishable food items to donate to the Salvation Army in those communities. And the company purchased turkeys to complete the holiday meals.
Each Salvation Army received 65 complete dinners for needy families.
Army co-Commander Major Elizabeth Deming of the Fall River Salvation Army, 290 Bedford St., said some 1,500 families have requested free dinners this year, up 100 percent in the last two years. She said she was grateful to OnProcess Technology for its donation.
“They have no idea what a long-range effect it has on people’s lives,” Deming said.
The Salvation Army, which serves the greater Fall River area, gets some funding but also relies on private donations.
OnProcess Technology, an asset retrieval company, has made the donation for the past five years. It started with 10 turkey dinners and has steadily increased its giving, and this year surpassed its goal of providing for 35 families.
“The goal was to provide Thanksgiving meal baskets to less fortunate families within our local communities,” said Stacy Harrington, communications and events manager for OnProcess Technology.
On Monday, Harrington took her “overly stuffed” SUV to make the donation to Milford, where a Salvation Army lieutenant picked up the good and delivered them to Fall River.
“It was astonishing to see firsthand the difference people working together can make in the lives of the less fortunate,” Harrington said.
Deming said a child came to the Salvation Army Monday with his mother to pick up a free dinner, and his words gave her pause.
He turned and said: “Mommy, we’re going to have turkey on Thanksgiving,” Deming said. “This food goes to very needy families of all walks of life.”
The Salvation Army is also collecting food and monetary donations to provide another 1,500 dinners to needy families for Christmas. Those dinners usually consist of ham and all the fixings.
It is working to collect 2,000 coats for needy children, as well. Those interested can stop by the Salvation Army during normal business hours or call 508-679-7901 to receive the name and age of a child in need and their size. About 90 percent of the coats will be given to needy children in Fall River. The remainder will benefit children in Somerset, Freetown and Westport.
Creative Thinking and Business Practices: No Place for Complacency October 28, 2009
Posted by onprocess in Asset Retrieval, Customer Care, Customer Experience Management, Customer Understanding Research, OnProcess.Tags: complacency, informed decision making, OnProcess, transforming business practices
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Really clever product placement, captured by Drew McLellan’s blog:
Sometimes you don’t have to spend millions on a campaign. You just have to ask a different question.Drew McLellan, The Marketing Minute, Oct 2009
OPT Takeaway:
Many solutions exist outside of our current thinking, and that of the marketplace. Be open to new ways of improving your business model.
We find, in most cases, that our biggest competitor is our own clients’ complacency or current business practices. By introducing our combination of disciplined methodology, data-driven insights and continuous learning and improvement, we bring a huge value-add to our clients’ operations, both in customer experience/service/satisfaction as well as asset retrieval/reverse logistics.
Have you taken a fresh look at your current business practices of late? Do you have a way to get all the information you need to make informed decisions on what to spend money on and what to cut? If you’re not sure, it might be a good time to talk with us.
–sk
Article: Cable Improved J.D. Power TV Scores — But the Competition Did, Too October 9, 2009
Posted by onprocess in Customer Care, Customer Experience Management, Customer Understanding Research, OnProcess.Tags: Cable, customer satisfaction, J.D. Power, measuring satisfaction
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Original article by Todd Spangler
If you only glanced at the headline from the 2009 J.D. Power and Associates TV service satisfaction survey (see Satellite, Telcos Beat Cable On TV Satisfaction: J.D. Power) you may have missed a key point: Cable customers are happier than they were a year ago.
In fact, cable operators made gains virtually across the board, in each of the four regions measured on J.D. Power’s survey (see table, below).
The problem is, telcos and satellite operators raised the bar, too (with the single exception of AT&T U-verse in the North Central region, where it dropped 15 points vs. 2008 but still placed second behind WOW). Average satisfaction nationwide in 2009, across all TV service providers, was 632 on the 1,000-point scale — up 23 points from 609 last year.
As a result, the relative standings didn’t really change. It’s a “frustrating” situation, one cable executive told me, given the time and effort they’ve spent on this issue.
So the question is, why did nearly all the providers boost their satisfaction scores?
Frank Perazzini, J.D. Power’s director of telecommunications, suggested that after the poor showing in 2008 — the lowest overall scores for pay TV providers in five years — everyone redoubled their efforts “to better position themselves to retain and grow their customer bases.” Fewer TV customers reported outages on the 2009 survey (11% vs. 15% in 2008), and the industry cut time on hold to resolve a customer’s issue by 13% year over year.
Another factor that has surely moved the needle: There’s more competition. With as many as four (or even five) providers in some markets, there’s been a surge of special promotions, pricing deals, expanded HD lineups, more VOD, etc. How could such lagniappes, in tandem with other service improvements, not make you happier?
But try as it might, cable hasn’t won bragging rights on J.D. Power’s TV survey in the last three years (with the exception of overbuilder WideOpenWest), although MSOs like Cox, Cablevision and Insight have performed relatively well.
Is cable really just inferior to the competition? Or do the differences stem from lingering resentment about “the cable company” being the only game in town? Maybe U-verse TV, say, seems better because it’s a clean sheet of paper — and you’re inclined to be happy with the “alternative to cable” because you opted to switch in the first place.
Whatever the reason, cable providers will have to push even harder on the happiness levers, if they want to gain any ground.
OnProcess’ Take:
Now, more than ever, competition and success in the Pay TV market will be based on customers’ perceptions of service, as opposed to price. Understanding what levers to pull to most beneficially affect Customer Satisfaction levels has to be a key factor in achieving this goal. Do Pay TV and Cable MSOs have methodologies and data-driven insights in place to enable this kind of improvement?
–sk
Article: Best Buy Carrying Motorola DOCSIS 3.0 Modems October 6, 2009
Posted by onprocess in Customer Care, Customer Experience Management, Customer Understanding Research, OnProcess, Warranty Management.Tags: Amazon, Best Buy, Cable, DOCSIS 3.0, Motorola, MSOs, remorse returns
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Article By Todd Spangler — Multichannel News, October 6, 2009
Electronics retailer Best Buy is selling Motorola’s DOCSIS 3.0-certified cable modems both online and in its stores.
Motorola 3.0 DOSCIS-enabled set-top box
The Motorola SurfBoard SB6120 eXtreme DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem is available at Best Buy and BestBuy.com for $99.99. According to customer comments on the site, the modems have been available to order since April.
Earlier this year, Fry’s Electronics began selling the Motorola SB6120 cable modem online and in select stores. Radio Shack also sells the unit for $99.99, while Amazon.com offers it for $85.03.
The SB6120 is certified for DOCSIS 3.0 and supports download speeds of up to 150 Mbps, although currently 100 Mbps is the fastest service MSOs, including Comcast and Cablevision Systems, have launched commercially. The modems also work in any cable provider’s current DOCSIS 2.0 environment.
According to research firm Pike & Fischer, U.S. cable operators are on track to deploy DOCSIS 3.0-based services to 99% of the country by 2013.
OPT Questions:
- What will be the impact to MSOs in the form of inbound trouble calls related to DOCSIS 3.0 modem installations that go wrong?
- Will inbound call volumes spike and, if so, will it also affect overall perceived customer service quality, driving defections through unintended consequences?
- Will “no trouble found” remorse returns levels skyrocket at the retailers who sell these modems?
–sk
Master Interviews: Frank Eliason ComcastCares September 1, 2009
Posted by onprocess in Customer Care, Customer Experience Management, Customer Understanding Research.Tags: Comcast, comcastcares, Esteban Kolsky, Frank Eliason, social media
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http://www.estebankolsky.com/2009/08/31/master-interviews-frank-eliason-comcastcares/
Here is a great little interview with Comcast’s Frank Eliason, who has become the ‘face’ in front of Comcast’s very forward-looking approach to the use of social media to improve the Customer Experience.
Here are a couple of the most interesting quotes:
‘The ROI conversation cracks me up, as I hear it all the time. I wonder if other parts of an organization such as public relations or Customer Service had as many people question ROI as social media does. There are many way to measure it, such as amount of Customer helped on a given day, of course this misses the broader ways you may help on a day, such as broadcasting a message. Sometimes those, thanks to retweets, can hit millions of people in a matter of seconds. You can also measure sentiment and changes over time. I have been successful in both of these. Of course this is not the way Comcast measures success. We are striving to improve the overall experience. One of the best ways you can do that is through the Customer story. This is a great space for that. From there you can implement a great deal of changes in many areas of the company that improve the experience for all our valued Customers.”
“When you contact somebody and you admit that you made a mistake and then you fix the mistake, they become some of your biggest supporters. We took the lead and we are ahead of a lot of companies in America doing it…. I think it is a fact that that’s the way that people are communicating now, and I think if you want to serve your customers you have to go to where they are.”
Interesting not only in that a large organization such as Comcast (coincidentally one of our biggest clients here at OnProcess) was willing to go out early to use social media in a relatively non-bureaucratic way, but how they really are aiming for the big picture customer satisfaction issues.
Well done all around!
–sk
