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AAlllleenn BBoonnddee GGrroouupp White Paper Market Re s earch and Management Consulting September 2004 Extending Your Competitive Edge:
A New Model for High-Touch Self-Service Some of the information contained in this report may have been developed as part of sponsoredresearch studies. All information is based on best available resources, reflects our judgment at thetime and is subject to change. Copyright 2004, Allen Bonde Group, Inc. Introduction The need for better customer service, streamlined employee productivity and greater visibility to enable business decisions have been major drivers for recent IT spending. Yet, as companies scramble to differentiate their service delivery and maintain competitive advantage, the costs associated with providing information on demand and supporting service for employees, customers and partners "anytime, anywhere" have continued to escalate. The move towards self-service-and offering increasingly higher quality, "high-touch" self-service-is clearly about mitigating these costs. But self-service models can also deliver significant benefits to users when they combine the best of online convenience with the insight and personal touch of an experienced sales or service rep. No one wants to wait on the phone or stand in line when they can achieve the same result on the web. Effective self-service allows users to help themselves, quickly and easily get access to new products, services and information, while drastically reducing the cost of interaction. Most people have experience using basic online self-service tools such as filling out a form or searching an FAQ. But they now want more. Consumers have seen the power of the web, and want more from their self-service experience. Employees have seen what they can do on consumer sites, and want the same experience on their intranet, or when they interact with partners or suppliers. Re-examining the role of web applications and creating new high-touch self-service solutions provides a way for businesses to meet these new demands, and differentiate their quality of service. Market Trends and Challenges Self-service applications have been around for some time, from ATM and vending machines, to interactive voice response systems, and of course the web. Given recent market trends, advances in Internet technology and evolving business needs, self-service has rapidly moved into the spotlight as a key business strategy-and challenge-for an increasing number of mainstream organizations. Why has the self-service model become critical at this point in time? It comes down to reach and efficiency. In today's competitive marketplace, businesses are scrambling to enter new markets and better serve users who prefer the web channel. Self-service provides greater geographic (and potentially demographic) reach via the Internet, a way to streamline corporate information access and delivery, and when part of a multi-channel customer service strategy, an ability to better compete for customers on quality and service vs. price. Self-service has also historically been about driving efficiency by lowering interaction costs, providing an enhanced customer experience and improving employee satisfaction and performance via portals, intranets and other user-driven services. With Internet
Extending Your Competitive Edge: A New Model for High-touch Self-Service Allen Bonde Group White Paper 1 connectivity ubiquitous for many users along with increasing bandwidth to the last-mile, a growing number of customers, employees and even business partners expect instant gratification, and want access and advice on their terms. They also want visibility into what is happening as they use self-service applications to help them manage increasingly complex tasks and processes, but don't want to be managed by these processes. Enabling Edge Processes In the search for greater reach and efficiency, businesses have redefined the traditional boundaries and roles of their organizations. Technologies like services-oriented architectures, open source applications, wireless networking, and even outsourcing, along with efforts to define and enable the agile enterprise, have all been part of this movement. Coupled with new self-service models, there has been a new wave of enterprise applications and initiatives focused on enabling and automating edge processes which have tradition... [download for more]
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