Improving your call center may be more easily attainable — and more important — now than ever before. Recognizing that customer interaction is an important differentiator, organizations can increase the focus on their customers’ experience while keeping a firm grip on costs by leveraging the full potential of state-of-the-art technology.
Dr. Tim Bolte, SAP and Rick Fleischman, SAP Labs, LLC
Feature Article | Customer Service
n nThis article appeared in the Oct Nov Dec 2007 issue of SAP Insider and appears here with permission from the publisher, Wellesley Information Services (WIS), www.WISpubs.com.
Still Struggling to Reduce Call Center Costs Without
Losing Customers?
The Right Technologies Lead the Way Out of the Call Center Dilemma
Efficient call centers that also meet customer expec- Improving your call center may be more easily attain-tations? It's a challenge that many organizations have able - and more important - now than ever before. not yet been able to meet. Just think about your own Recognizing that customer interaction is an important experience as a consumer: differentiator, organizations can increase the focus on "Thank you for calling. We're sorry, but all lines are their customers' experience while keeping a firm grip currently busy. Your call is important to us. Please on costs by leveraging the full potential of state-of-hold, and our next available representative will be the-art technology.Dr. Tim Bolte (tim.bolte@sap.com) with you shortly."has worked in the Interaction Making the most of every call and operating your Are You Considering All the Pressures on Center area at SAP since 1999, and is now Vice President, Solution call center at a reasonable cost requires a balance Your Customer Service Strategy?Management, SAP CRM Interaction between efficiency and effectiveness. Yet many While setting their customer service strategy, some Center. Prior to joining SAP, Tim worked as a consultant, advising organizations fail to even get the basics right and are organizations have focused solely on cost reduction companies in establishing and far from turning their call centers into strategic through outsourcing and basic automation. In the reorganizing their call centers, with a focus on business processes assets; they're missing out on opportunities to foster process, though, many have discovered that efforts to and workforce management. customer relationships and drive incremental revenue. unduly curb operational expenses are alienating Tim received his doctorate at the University of Mannheim, Germany, Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. There are customers - and eventually eroding profits. When for his thesis on CRM and call companies that have succeeded in running efficient confronting the growing pains of their customer centers. call centers that still provide excellent customer service environment, successful companies have encoun-service. But it's not surprising that so many organiza- tered the full scope of challenges (see Figure 1). tions that have proven incredibly successful in their core business are still struggling with the increasing Figure 1 q The challenges and IT implications of a demands of customer service. dynamic call center environment
Rick Fleischman (rick.fleischman@sap.com) is Director of CRM Solution Marketing at SAP Labs, LLC. He is responsible for marketing and positioning SAP CRM Service and Interaction Center, as well as SAP Business Communications Management. Rick has spent the last 19 years in software product marketing roles at leading technology companies including Apple, Netscape, Liquid Audio, and Blue Martini Software. Rick received his bachelor's degree in computer science and engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Subscribe today. Visit www.SAPinsideronline.com.? Customer expectations of convenience, reliability, ? Invest in integrating interaction channels, connecting and speedy response times are on the rise - and customer service to marketing, sales, and product they require responses across multiple channels. development, and tying front-line interaction to critical back-office transactions. This means that ? An increasing polarization of customer service customers - whether they are buying new products, requires a differentiated service strategy, including asking for support on existing ones, or just providing both "low-touch" and "high-touch" services. feedback - can get their issues resolved, even if ? The proliferation of products, segments, channels, various parts of the company are involved.and geographies requires broader and more complex services to address custo... [download for more]
