This section considers the technical requirements necessary for an organisation to offer good customer service online. The importance of competitive analysis and cost benefit analysis is also explored.
2.9.2 Customer service and technical requirements
Customer service on the Web requires integrated systems to cope with fielding phone calls, email and Web site queries. But immature technologies, stovepipe systems (standalone systems that perform only one function) and separate staff can prevent some companies from providing good customer care. A problem at BankBoston Corp. illustrated what can go wrong when companies don't integrate their customer-service systems and staff. When Forrester Research tested BankBoston's ability to respond to email queries in September 1 999, it clocked the financial giant at three hours. But when the research firm tested the bank's email response more recently, it took a month to get an answer.
In one report, Gomez Advisors Inc. rated BankBoston near the bottom in customer service among Internet bankers. Forrester attributed the lag time to the bank's promotion of its new HomeLink online banking service, which produced a flurry of consumer Email. But the lag also occurred because a phone representative couldn't access the earlier Email queries from his workstation.
"This demonstrates what we know already and is true of a lot of companies: There is a disconnect between their E-mail and call-in channels," said lames Punishell, an analyst at Forrester. " If ! send an E-mail, the guy who is picking up the phone should have access to that. " A BankBoston spokesperson said customers who call on the phone do have the option of dealing with an online services agent. He suggested that perhaps Forrester didn't select the right prompt.
Many companies are incorporating an email group into their call centres that answers Web queries. There's some overlap between the tasks, but "no one is integrating the two very well," said Donna Fluss, a research manager at Gartner Group. Charles Schwab & Co. said it's trying. The financial institution has thousands of customer service representatives collecting customer inquiries from bank branches, the Internet and call centres worldwide. "Integrating all that information has been a big issue for us. The vendors all talk about customer relationship management, but really they're
just talking about relationship management for a particular touch point. For those of us who are multi channel, that's not good enough" (cited in Fusaro & Cole-Gomolski,
1 998).
Doug Holden, a consultant at KPMG Consulting in Mountain View, California, said that until the technology matures, companies would need to rely on customised data warehouses (process by which related data from many operational systems is merged to provide a single, integrated business information view that spans all business divisions) that collect all customer data and inquiries. For example, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Co. has a l OS-person consumer affairs group that handles letters, email and phone queries. All the consumer questions coming from each channel are handled by staff dedicated to that channel but are entered into one database.
Nashville-based First American National Bank, integrated the email with its call centre and has offered customer service via email. It requires that "you redefine what a call is," said Jay Elshaug, service-level manager. With an integrated system, a "call" may be a phone call, a fax, email or a visit, he said.
The threat of not doing well at handling multiple customer-service channels has held back some companies. For example, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company does some Web-based customer service with its distributors, but has been leery of fielding email from customers, said Bruce Smilie, Goodyear's manager of customer service for North America. "The big fear is that we won't be responsive enough," he said (cited in Fusaro & Cole-Gomolski, 1 998).
2.9.3 Competitive and cost benefit analysis
Industry and competitive analysis entails monitoring, evaluating and disseminating information from the external and internal enviromnents with the goal of identifying the critical factors that will determine the success of the project. One tool for doing this is the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. Another such tool is the PEST (Political, Economic, Societal, and Technical) analysis that comprises a series of factors that play an important role in the value creation opportunities of a strategy. Careful consideration of these factors to analyse their environment can help organisations with planning new initiatives. The SWOT and PEST tools are often used during brainstorming sessions.
Since technology is available to any business with enough capital, competitive benefit will go to those who best manage the organisational context (Boddy & Boonstra, 2000). There are a number of ways to measure the effectiveness of the Web site and Internet operation for a business. These include the number of new customers received via online channels, the reduced speed of answering queries, the comparison of sales from the Web site and other channels and reduced cost of printing written materials such as forms and brochures.
2.9.4 Summary
This section looked at the technical requirements that need considering for an organisation to offer good customer service online. This may be offered via email, Web forms or other call-in channels. It also examined both competitive and cost benefit analysis of this.
2. 10 Implementation