Thursday, July 29, 2010

Pixar the great movie company, You the great customer service company

A lot of people may have heard about Pixar. The animation movie company, owned by Disney Corporation after Steve Jobs swapped his Pixar shares and became a major shareholder in Disney. Probably more people have heard of movies like Toy Story, Cars and WALL-E. How is it possible, for a relatively small and young company, to produce blockbuster movies? Pixar creates just one animation movie per year and brings a smile on the faces of millions of people. And not only kids!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Improve Average Handling Time

A valid question for customer service organizations and its managers, is how to improve Handling Time Average (AHT). But by improving AHT customer service representatives (CSR) can lose focus on the main goal of the customer service center: serving customers. So, how does an organization improves its AHT will it still satisfies its customers?

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Increase your profitability

Customer Process Management is aimed at continuously improving customer contact processes and the internal processes which follow as a consequence. Its goal is to increase customer satisfaction, productivity and operating profits. By making available all relevant customer information, to customer contact employees or CSR, organizations can achieve these goals.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Lean Six Sigma in perspective

Many people think that Lean Six Sigma is strongly influenced by Japanese companies like Toyota. That may be so, but Lean Six Sigma has strong American roots. Industrialists like Henry Ford and William Edwards Deming, who after the Second World War was heavily involved rebuilding the Japanese industry, have been great pioneers of the philosophy. Lean Six Sigma consists of two combined methods: Lean Thinking and Six Sigma. Both are focused at improving business processes and customers.

The Lean Thinking philosophy is aimed at those elements that do not add value to be eliminated from the process. As a result the final product improves in quality, which has positive effects on revenue streams. The Six Sigma philosophy focuses on the quality per element in the process and has a strong customer focus.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

What is Customer Process Management?

In the field of Customer Process Management (CPM), the principles of Business Process Management (BPM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Customer Interaction Management (CIM) come together. CPM connects back office systems with customer contact processes. Because of this connection, customer contact employees are better able to manage customer contact well and quickly.

Monday, July 12, 2010

CRM + BPM = CPM

Customer Process Management is the merger of Business Process Management and Customer Relationship Management and it has led to a step forward in the area of Customer Interaction Management. Understanding that, why should an organization consider CPM?

Processes which follow on customer contacts, like a phone call, usually extend departments and involves several employees. For exemple, a customer calls or sends an email with a question about an invoice and he or she want to pass on a change in address as well. CPM manages these processes in a flexible, effective and efficient way. As a result, the Average Handling Time significantly decreased.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Customer Process Management? Never heard of it....

Customer Process Management is a new perspective in the way how companies can manage and optimize their customer contact processes. The CPM domain reaches deep into backoffice applications and extend across departments, supporting constant change and business agility.

CPM is the convergence of Customer Relationship Management and Business Process Management. While BPM is a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients, and CRM is a widely-implemented strategy for managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects, CPM is a management strategy focused on optimizing complex customer contact processes.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Workflow management

For many organizations, workflow management is more than just a point of interest. Processes must take place without errors to ensure that clients remain loyal and keep their competitive edge. In addition, costs must be kept under control in order to generate profits. Although workflow management can help, it cannot handle everything on its own.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Principles of customer contact handling

Three dimensions
When handling customer contacts, three dimensions can be identified within which a certain level of performance must be delivered:

•Customer satisfaction
Within the limits of the chosen CRM strategy, customer satisfaction will have to be maximum.
•Efficiency
Subsequently, the customer must be satisfied as quickly as possible. The achievement of short 'Average Handling Times' is a necessity.
•Employee satisfaction
The previously demonstrated relationship between satisfied employees, happy customers, and profitability also makes this dimension an important one.