Customer Process Management enhances satisfaction

Customer Process Management is a practical management approach which aims to handle, manage and continuously improve customer contact processes and its internal workflows. Its goal is to increase customer satisfaction, retention, productivity and operating profits. It also contributes greatly to employee satisfaction. CPM is about unlocking all relevant customer information and integrally present it to your CSRs. And CPM is all about defining procedures and capture these procedures into processes.

Motives from Apple.

What is the similarity between Mac, iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes and other products Apple has ever created and will create in the future? Apart from having created products and services with a great design and a great user interface, Apple products and services deliver great user experiences. From the very start of the company until the introduction of the iPad, almost 40 years later, Apple always knows what customers want and why they want it. How does Apple know that? And, more important, what can you learn from it?

Increase customer satisfaction? Reduce effort.

One might wonder how many times customer call up a company, after they have already visited the website. These numbers don't show up in KPI reports and metrics such as average handling time and first time resolution. But one can take into account the effort a customer has to take to have an issue solved or a question answered. Take a look at this example, pretend it is your company:

Business process management and a lot more.

This post is somewhat more practical and longer then you are used to on this weblog. It starts with a description of business process management and it transforms into a post about customer process managment. As you know, business process management (BPM) is a method to identify, to model, to optimize and to manage the internal processes of an organization. It makes organizations more transparent and measurable in performance. Output elements are the key performance indicators (KPIs) such as average turnaround time, customer satisfaction and the number of complaints.

Virgin is not sleeping. What about you?

The worldwide known Virgin brand stands for Value for money, Quality and Fun. It offers a lot for less and it works out fine. Almost every time when Virgin enters a market it succeeds in gaining a profitable market share and most of the time, Virgin changed the rules of the game. It happened with Virgin Records, Virgin Megastores, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Express, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Trains, Virgin Money.... and so on. What is the secret? What does Branson do all the time? Is everybody else sleeping?

No mistake, First Time Right

Customer Process Management (CPM) merges the domains CRM and BPM. It effectively and efficiently manages customer contacts and the processes that follow as a consequence. CPM aims at an increase in customer satisfaction, productivity and operating profits. One of the indicators that will improve by CPM is the First Time Right ratio. The higher this ratio, the better it is.

Increase your sales results

Customer Process Management (CPM) is focussed at customer contact processes and the continuous improvement of internal customer processes. CPM results in an increase in customer satisfaction, productivity and operating profits. Unique marketing and sales opportunities arise by making available all relevant customer information to customer contact employees.

Drop Average Handling Time

How do organizations ensure that employees improve productivity during customer interaction events? How do they do that without compromising on customer satisfaction? How can organizations achieve an increase in sales volume? How can organizations instruct their employees? How can organizations increase employees' accountabillity? How do organizations implement this all? How will they get the employees to participate?

First Time Right

Customer Process Management focusses at customer contact processes and the continuous improvement of internal processes. As a result customer satisfaction, productivity and profit will increase. One of the indicators that will improve is First Time Right ratio.

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!

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.