jump to navigation

destinationCRM.com: 5 Recession-Busting Customer Service Strategies March 9, 2009

Posted by onprocess in Customer Experience Management, Customer Understanding Research, OnProcess.
Tags: , , , , ,
2 comments

destinationCRM.com: 5 Recession-Busting Customer Service Strategies

Posted using ShareThis

More on the theme of boosting customer service and the customer experience, especially in this economic downturn. A Forrester Research report is framed in the article.

I found this quote particularly telling:

A major issue Petouhoff finds with many companies is that the c-level executives do not realize just how important customer service is to the bottom line.

Really?!

The article quotes the report further, highlighting five action steps to be taken:

Organizations looking to make the most of what customer service can offer in a poor economy must first lay a foundation before bolting on additional software, according to the report. Petouhoff recommends a five-step process, in which software evaluation is the final leg:

  1. Reject the old paradigms that treat a contact center as nothing more than a cost center.
  2. Demand ownership of the customer experience.
  3. Listen to your customers as you create your strategy.
  4. Conduct a gap analysis of your customer service offering and then implement best practices to address those gaps.
  5. Evaluate software with customer experience as the top goal for a business case.

Note that software is last in the list, purposefully. We like items 1 & 4 in particular. Hey — this IS our blog after all — we don’t sell software, we sell solutions and beneficial outcomes.

 

 

–sk

Disturbing Trend in RMA Management February 26, 2009

Posted by onprocess in Asset Recovery, Asset Retrieval, OnProcess, Warranty Management.
Tags: , , , , , ,
add a comment

Asset Retrieval  / Warranty Management Impacted by Economic Downturn — B-to-B, B-to-C Both Affected

Action you can take NOW to head off some of the negative impact on your Asset Retrieval and Warranty programs

Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen an alarming trend in our clients’ Warranty Management and Asset Retrieval programs.  Many of them are experiencing higher instances of unreachable contacts, leading to broken warranty processes and an inability to complete asset retrieval and advanced exchange. 

The financial implications of this trend, particularly as they compound an already slowing economy, are disturbing at best.

We believe that this trend ties to the overall economic downturn due to:

  1. Large numbers of recent, sudden layoffs at businesses in the US and Western Europe (B-to-B)
  2. Large numbers of recent foreclosures and house address moves (B-to-C)

Because these changes in status and location have come relatively quickly, they likely happened in the midst of  ongoing asset retrieval or RMA management processes. People with whom businesses had been corresponding are just not there any more, leaving those businesses with unretrievable assets and no valid customer contact.

Our Suggestion: A Proactive Approach

We suggest the following quick actions to limit the impact of this phenomenon:

  1. Alert your contact/call center resource to this trend and amend scripts, systems and procedures to ensure that you are able to collect at least two, and preferably three, sets of contact information.
  2. At the time of Warranty Registration and/or Warranty Claim event, have your contact/call center resource collect and/or verify at least two and preferably three sets of contact information related to the record.

While by no means a panacea, this deeper collection of contact information should help mitigate the potential losses your asset retrieval or warranty exchange programs might face by not being able to reach your primary contact or claimant.

Let us know if you’ve run into this phenomenon in your business, and what you’ve done about it, and we’ll share it with the audience.

 

–sk