6168 - Automatización de Procesos en Atencion Al Cliente PDF

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Improving CX with
Agile Processes
K2® Special Edition
by Lawrence Miller, CISSP
These materials are © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
Improving CX with Agile Processes For Dummies®, K2® Special Edition
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Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book......................................................................... 2
Foolish Assumptions.................................................................. 2
Icons Used in This Book............................................................. 3
Beyond the Book......................................................................... 3
Where to Go from Here.............................................................. 4
Chapter 1: Recognizing How Workflows

and Forms Drive CX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Don’t Let Your Customers See How You Make
the Sausage!............................................................................. 5
Eliminating Process Bottlenecks from Your
Marketing and Sales Funnel................................................... 7
Automating Workflows to Transform CX................................. 8
Chapter 2: Starting the CX Journey Off Right. . . . . . . . . 13

Managing Your Campaigns...................................................... 13
Developing Your Content Marketing Toolkit........................ 14
Enabling Customer Research and Tracking.......................... 15
Managing Your Social Media................................................... 15
Chapter 3: Closing the Deal with Better

Sales Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Processing Sales Orders.......................................................... 17
Developing Proposals............................................................... 18
Enabling Customer Self‐Service.............................................. 19
Managing Contracts.................................................................. 19
Chapter 4: Keeping Customers Happy

with Amazing Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Managing Cases......................................................................... 21
Enabling Customer Self‐Service.............................................. 22
Conducting Surveys and Getting Feedback........................... 23
Achieving Targeted Marketing................................................ 23
iv Improving CX with Agile Processes For Dummies, K2 Special Edition
Chapter 5: BYOA: Build Your Own

(Process‐Based) Apps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Is Your IT Development Backlog Stalling Sales?................... 27
Demand Meets Modernization................................................ 28
Automating Workflows to Increase Efficiency...................... 29
Future Proofing with Scalable Apps You Can
Build Yourself........................................................................ 30
Chapter 6: Building Agile Processes

for CX Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Focusing on Revenue Growth Opportunities........................ 33
Simplifying Customer Processes for Convenience
and Engagement.................................................................... 34
Overhauling Your Workflows for the Mobile Age................. 35
Building Business Apps that Transform CX.......................... 37
Aligning CX and Operational Excellence................................ 38
Chapter 7: Ten Ways to Improve CX

with Agile Business Processes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Fast, Do‐It‐Yourself Forms and Workflows............................ 41
Secure Access to Forms, Workflows, and Data
from Any Device.................................................................... 42
Seamless Multichannel CX....................................................... 42
Integration with Other Systems.............................................. 42
Reusable Components.............................................................. 42
Advanced Analytics and Reporting........................................ 43
Data Security............................................................................. 43
Scalable to Support Growing Business Needs...................... 43
Balance between Power and Simplicity................................. 44
Measurable Results.................................................................. 44
Introduction
T he problem with established businesses is that they are,
well, established. They cannot simply start again from
scratch as far as technology is concerned. Their IT portfolio
is likely to comprise a mix of old and new systems, many of
which are fit for their intended purposes. Even if organization‐
wide replacement of legacy systems were an affordable
option, it would not make good business sense.
What does this reality mean for the customer experience

(CX)? It’s frustrating enough for IT professionals and busi-
ness users looking for a coherent and integrated approach
to technology, but for the customer, it presents considerable
difficulties. Every interaction that customers have with your
products and services will have an impact on brand percep-
tion, and that is as true of IT systems as it is of manufactured
goods and value‐added services. And now that the vast
majority of Americans are online — 85 percent, according
to Pew Research Center in July 2015 — consumer expecta-
tions and perceptions, both B2B and B2C, are heavily influ-
enced by leading technology providers such as Amazon and
Apple, renowned for their well‐designed interfaces and user
workflows, as well as innovative packaging and world‐class
support.
Customers are also sensitized to poor online processes and

services. A study by Ipanema Technologies found that poorly
functioning IT systems have led to a rise in customer com-
plaints in 38 percent of manufacturing companies.
An acceptable CX is no longer enough. In today’s consumer-

ized markets, if customers don’t feel “delighted,” the goods
and services you provide will be forgettable, at best. You must
deliver a smooth experience that enables your customers to
move across devices seamlessly while interacting with your
business applications and websites to meet their goals or
solve their problems. But the experience can’t end there. It
needs to be an ongoing experience that continues, in a B2B
relationship, for example, through onboarding, sales order
creation, contract negotiation, and legal review, through
2 Improving CX with Agile Processes For Dummies, K2 Special Edition
s ervice delivery and ongoing support. Your business may get

only one chance to deliver a smooth customer experience.
So having your back office systems interoperate effectively is
essential — not just for internal processes but for customer‐
facing interactions as well.
The rapid pace of modernization and evolving customer

expectations is increasingly driving organizations toward
business process automation to achieve process excellence
and transform CX. Low‐code business process apps platforms
enable businesses to rapidly build and deploy applications
that are customized to meet their unique business needs.
The key is to identify innovative new technologies that can
integrate with specific functional areas and services within
your legacy investments. Your customers can then access the
services and transactions they need, at the right time, to their
delight.
About This Book

This book explains how automated business workflows and
forms help drive CX (Chapter 1); explores different use cases
throughout the customer journey for marketing (Chapter 2),
sales (Chapter 3), and service (Chapter 4); describes how
to build automated, process‐based workflows without being
a developer (Chapter 5); examines how businesses can use
a single workflow solution across the entire organization to
transform CX (Chapter 6); and provides key criteria to help
you evaluate business process apps platforms for your organi-
zation (Chapter 7).
Foolish Assumptions
It’s been said that most assumptions have outlived their use-
lessness, but I assume a few things nonetheless.
Mainly, I assume that you’re a marketing, sales, customer ser-

vice or line‐of‐business (LOB) manager, working for a small or
medium business, or perhaps a large enterprise. Therefore, I
wrote this book primarily for nontechnical readers. But please
don’t be discouraged from reading this book if you happen to
be technical; you can still gain a better understanding of the
Introduction 3
challenges and opportunities that other departments in your
company are focused on, and how to improve support for
your customers — your peers in other departments through-
out the company.
I also assume that you’re looking for a solution to help you

automate critical business forms and workflow processes
in your organization to radically improve CX, and you don’t
particularly want to become a software developer. You need
a solution that’s as easy as drag‐and‐drop so that you can get
up and running as quickly as possible, without adding to the
workload of your heavily backlogged IT application develop-
ment teams.
If these assumptions describe you, this book is for you!
Icons Used in This Book

Throughout this book, I occasionally use special icons to call
attention to important information. Here’s what to expect:
This icon points out information that you should commit to

your nonvolatile memory, your gray matter, or your noggin —
along with anniversaries and birthdays.
You won’t find a map of the human genome here, but if you
seek to attain the seventh level of NERD‐vana, perk up! This
icon explains the jargon beneath the jargon.
Thank you for reading; hope you enjoy the book; please take
care of your writers! Seriously, this icon points out helpful
suggestions and useful nuggets of information.
This icon points out the stuff your mother warned you about.
Okay, probably not. But you should take heed nonetheless —
you might just save yourself some time and frustration.
Beyond the Book

I can cover only so much in 48 short pages, so if you find your-
self at the end of this book thinking “Gosh, this was an amaz-
ing book, where can I learn more?” just go to www.k2.com.
Where to Go from Here

With my apologies to Lewis Carroll, Alice, and the Cheshire
cat:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from

here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said
the Cat — er, the Dummies Man.
“I don’t much care where . . . ” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go!”
That’s certainly true of Improving CX with Agile Processes For

Dummies, which, like Alice in Wonderland, is also destined to
become a timeless classic.
If you don’t know where you’re going, any chapter will get
you there — but Chapter 1 might be a good place to start.
However, if you see a particular topic that piques your inter-
est, feel free to jump ahead to that chapter. Each chapter is
individually wrapped (but not packaged for individual sale)
and written to stand on its own, so feel free to start reading
anywhere and skip around to your heart’s content. Read this
book in any order that suits you (though I don’t recommend
upside down or backward).
I promise you won’t get lost falling down the rabbit hole!
Chapter 1
Recognizing How
Workflows and Forms
Drive CX
In This Chapter
▶▶Keeping the “magic” real for your customers
▶▶Eliminating choke points in the marketing and sales funnel
▶▶Moving beyond manual, paper‐based workflows and forms
I n this chapter, you explore the benefits of automating your

customer‐facing and internal business processes, and learn
how a business process apps solution can help you quickly
achieve business agility and transform customer experience
through process automation and excellence.
Don’t Let Your Customers See

How You Make the Sausage!
Bad internal processes inevitably lead to bad customer expe-
riences. The best marketing and sales teams in the world
simply can’t succeed if the business ultimately can’t deliver.
Most of your customers probably don’t spend a lot of time
thinking about how your company creates its products or
delivers its services — that is, as long as their customer
experience is what they expect it to be.
But what happens when the wheels are squeaky (inefficient

processes)? For example, a sales quote takes hours or days
to generate because it has to wait for a sales rep to manually

enter the quote request when back at the office. Team mem-
bers need to verify product availability and take care of other
manual tasks before completing the sales quote. The approver
might have questions about discount levels and customer his-
tory but may currently be in a lengthy business meeting, so
the customer will have to wait! The process for receiving and
entering the customer’s purchase order and sending an order
acknowledgement is similar: Rinse and repeat.
Worse yet, what happens when the wheels fall off (a product
or service issue arises)? Are your customer service represen-
tatives (CSRs) empowered with the information they need to
help your customers? Do your marketing and legal teams have
the visibility and information they need to quickly respond to
a service issue?
In contrast, when your “house is in order” — with efficient

customer‐facing and internal supporting processes that con-
nect you to real‐time information from any device — you are
better positioned to consistently deliver an incredible cus-
tomer experience and proactively adapt to challenges if some-
thing does go wrong.
Efficient customer‐facing and internal processes can also help

you earn new business. Many B2B relationships or new proj-
ects often begin with a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) that
is sent to several competing vendors to help a business deter-
mine the best partner to meet its needs. RFPs often require
businesses to document their internal processes, regulatory
compliance, and industry certifications (such as ISO 9001).
A business process apps solution can be used not only to
automate your internal processes but also to help you attain
and manage regulatory compliance and industry certifications
with repeatable processes that drive efficiency, standardiza-
tion, and visibility throughout your organization.
A business process apps solution can also help you better

prepare your RFP responses (discussed in Chapter 3).
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001

certification is an international quality management standard
based on principles that include a strong customer focus,
process‐based approaches, and continuous improvement,
among others. The certification can be achieved by any orga-
nization, large or small, in any industry worldwide.
Chapter 1: Recognizing How Workflows and Forms Drive CX 7
Eliminating Process Bottlenecks

from Your Marketing and
Sales Funnel
Process bottlenecks often result from inefficient and manual
workflows and paper‐based forms. Access to the right
information at the point of need is critical for maintaining a
smoothly flowing marketing and sales funnel. For example,
without accurate market segmentation data, an email mar-
keting campaign may look more like fodder from a “spam
cannon.”
A mass email marketing campaign that is impersonal and not

properly segmented can not only frustrate and alienate pro-
spective customers but also, in some cases, be illegal under
the U.S. CAN‐SPAM Act of 2003.
Likewise, manual paper‐based processes or complex and

inflexible business applications that require a sales represen-
tative, for example, to be in the office can slow the sales cycle
to an unacceptable pace in today’s modern, connected, and
highly competitive business environment.
Frustrated by inefficient workflows and processes, employ-

ees are increasingly using their own devices and download-
ing their own applications (“apps”) to get work done. The
modern worker is tech savvy and finds ways to work around
infrastructure limitations and rigid, outdated processes, but
this can come at a cost. Managing a larger group of disjointed
services and systems to get to the information needed to run
the business is inefficient and leads to a bad customer experi-
ence. Worse yet, a data breach due to the discovery of sensi-
tive customer data on a lost or stolen personal mobile device
can potentially destroy customer experience — for all your
customers!
According to Gartner (https://www.gartner.com/

doc/2715219/digital‐workplace‐key‐initiative‐
overview), a digital workplace leverages the technical
literacy of cross‐generation employees — Millennials, Gen
Xers, and even Baby Boomers — to
✓✓Enable new and more effective ways of working

✓✓Improve employee engagement and agility
✓✓Exploit consumer‐oriented styles and technologies
International Data Group (IDG, www.idg.com) reports that

businesses expect the consumerization of IT in the enterprise
to improve user satisfaction and productivity, process effi-
ciency, collaboration, and business agility. In fact, data shows
that businesses are eager to keep employees productive wher-
ever they go and whenever they work:
✓✓According to Manufacturing Business Technology,

55 percent of manufacturing professionals expect
to increase their use of mobile technologies (www.
mbtmag.com/news/2016/02/survey‐majority‐
manufacturers‐plan‐bolster‐mobile‐app‐use).
✓✓According to Workflow Magazine, 74 percent of busi-
nesses that deploy mobile devices are motivated by a
need to accelerate communication, and 63 percent of
businesses deploy mobile devices to let employees work
away from their desks (“IT Managers’ Views on Mobile
Tech and Workflow,” September 2014).
Modern business apps must do more than simply enable

employees to read and reply to emails from their mobile
devices. They must be able to seamlessly complete routine
tasks whether in the office or in the field — for everything
from customer onboarding and sales quotes to complex pro-
cess management and sophisticated marketing analysis.
Automating Workflows
to Transform CX
Almost every part of a successful business transaction relies
on having the right information available to the right person
at the right time, whether that person is an employee (such
as an account executive or service manager) or a customer.
Nevertheless, information flow is often hindered by
✓✓Manual, paper‐based business processes that are out-
dated, inefficient, and inflexible
✓✓Disparate line‐of‐business (LOB) systems — such as cus-
tomer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise
resource planning (ERP), databases and content reposi-
tories or third‐party social solutions — that store critical
information in isolated silos and are difficult to custom-
ize, integrate, and use (and you can forget about mobile
access!)
Paper‐based workflows are typically fast and easy to imple-

ment but do not scale well and are, by their nature, manual
(see Figure 1‐1).
Figure 1-1: Business‐workflow traits.
Many businesses buy or build “one‐off” custom apps for

specific business workflows. Although such solutions can be
highly automated, they are not easily modified, do not scale
well, can take months or even years to implement, and can be
prohibitively expensive to develop and maintain.
A business can only go as far and as fast as the information

that powers it.
Manual, paper‐based processes and monolithic business sys-

tems simply can’t keep pace with the modern digital workplace
and economy. Already, employees and consumers are looking
elsewhere. For example, IDG reports that 79 percent of employ-
ees use cloud‐based file sharing and collaboration tools, such
as Box, Dropbox, and OneDrive, for work‐related purposes.
Similarly, Internet Retailer (www.internetretailer.com)
estimated that total e‐commerce sales in 2015 exceeded
$350 billion — with mobile commerce accounting for 30 percent
of that total. Consumers are increasingly doing more of their
business online and through mobile devices.
A business process apps solution provides automation, scal-

ability, flexibility, and agility to support, optimize, and trans-
form critical internal and customer‐facing processes. Such a
solution can be implemented quickly and easily, without spe-
cialized application development skills.
Businesses clearly understand the benefits of automating

their customer‐facing and internal processes. According to a
study by Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work:
✓✓Businesses are automating 25 to 40 percent of their

workflows.
✓✓Businesses that automate processes are reducing costs
by 15 percent year over year.
✓✓Half the businesses surveyed anticipated that automa-
tion would significantly improve their business processes
within three to five years.
Wait a second! Three to five years to see the benefits of auto-

mation? That’s way too long in today’s competitive business
environment. Many businesses can get discouraged and frus-
trated by the high costs and long timelines associated with
the development of custom workflows and forms to support
automation, especially if they want to extend workflows to
their mobile users.
Automated workflows and forms can transform a business into
a more productive, responsive environment, but those busi-
ness apps need to meet rapidly changing business and cus-
tomer needs, a mobile workforce, and disparate LOB systems.
Modern business apps that support critical workflows and

forms must be
✓✓Automated
✓✓Scalable
✓✓Flexible
✓✓Rapid to build and deploy
Dalkia automates PO process to improve

efficiency and customer service
Dalkia, a division of the Veolia d epending on the value of the item to
Environment Group, is a leading pro- be purchased.
vider of energy services in Europe.
After a form had all the necessary
In Slovakia, the company supplies
signatures, someone had to retype
heating systems and energy for com-
it into the company’s Microsoft
mercial and domestic properties.
Dynamics enterprise resource plan-
Dalkia issues 10,000 to 12,000 pur- ning (ERP) system. As a result, POs
chase orders (POs) every year, for frequently took a week or longer to
everything from company vehicles be created, approved, and issued.
to tiny valves for heating units.
The second challenge was more
However, the company’s manual
troublesome. With the existing pro-
processes for creating, authorizing,
cess, engineers could unknowingly
and managing POs were inefficient
create POs for parts that had been
and created several challenges.
discontinued, or get a digit wrong in
First, the process took too long. a part number, causing the incorrect
Employees had to print a form, part to be delivered. If the component
manually fill in details of what they was required for a specific repair or
wanted to purchase, and physically installation project at a commercial
take the document to the appropri- or domestic property, these errors
ate managers for approval. Between caused costly delays and poor cus-
two and five different signatures tomer service.
were required on each PO form,
(continued)
(continued)
Solution In addition, the company expects

to save money from the use of K2
Working with K2, K2 partner
processes. The K2 solution provides
GRADIENT Slovakia (w w w .
purchasing managers with a clear
gradientecm.com), and other
overview of all POs issued. They can
third‐party suppliers, Dalkia Group in
easily see which products or parts
Slovakia designed and implemented
are requested most frequently and
a number of automated K2 workflows.
then negotiate bulk purchasing deals
Chief among these applications was
with suppliers. In this way, Dalkia
a new PO management process,
can optimize its stock and operate
which was tightly integrated with
more cost efficiently.
Microsoft’s SharePoint, Dynamics
ERP, and Active Directory systems. Previously, when engineers cre-
ated POs for equipment, they didn’t
The first and most evident ben-
always know exactly which parts
efit that Dalkia experienced was
Dalkia already had in its in‐house
dramatic process acceleration.
stockrooms. So they could waste
Employees now enter their purchase
time and money creating a PO for a
requirements into an electronic
specific heat pump when a similar
form, which is then automatically
heat pump (perhaps from a different
routed to the correct managers for
supplier with a different part number)
digital authorization. No one needs
might already be available on the
to reenter information because all
shelf. K2 gives engineers stock vis-
data in approved PO forms passes
ibility and encourages them to use
directly into the company’s central
parts already available, rather than
ERP system.
make one‐off purchases at a higher
“It used to take around a week for unit cost.
POs to be raised [issued],” said Filip
“Now, it is much easier for engineers
Legény, IT project manager at Dalkia
to see what items are in stock. That
in Slovakia. “If everyone is at his or her
saves us money and enables us to
desk, the approval of a PO can now be
deliver better services to our cus-
achieved in as little as 10 minutes.”
tomers,” Legény said. “Definitely,
The most significant benefit of the K2 our engineers can arrive at our cus-
workflow is the improvement in customer sites with the right parts more
tomer service. When engineers fill in quickly.”
PO request forms electronically, they
Following the successful application
are given a drop‐down box showing
of K2 in this area, Dalkia is now con-
approved components and products,
sidering rolling out similar K2‐driven
and the correct part numbers are
processes.
automatically applied. Therefore,
items can be sourced more accu- “Other businesses have similar prob-
rately, enabling customer projects to lems to [ours]; K2 could meet their
go ahead on schedule. needs, too,” Legény said.
Chapter 2
Starting the CX Journey
Off Right
In This Chapter
▶▶Managing marketing campaigns
▶▶Creating a content marketing toolkit
▶▶Understanding market trends with customer research and tracking
▶▶Getting to know your customers through social media
F inding solutions to support your organization’s unique

range of marketing needs can be challenging. Marketing
teams are called upon to fill a variety of diverse roles that
include supporting multiple teams through many different
channels: marketing collateral, social, events, lead generation,
and customer research tracking, to name a few.
In this chapter, you explore marketing process workflows that

you can transform with a business process apps solution.
Managing Your Campaigns

Successful marketing campaigns typically require the use of
numerous tools and channels that have different interfaces,
data sources, and reporting capabilities.
For example, traditional marketing efforts, such as television,

radio, and print advertising, may require you to create a
purchase order that is submitted for internal approval via an
internal manual process that is both time consuming and inef-
ficient. Tracking the effectiveness of media ad buys such as
these may consist of largely subjective analyses entered into
an Excel spreadsheet by your marketing team.
Direct email campaigns may require you to pull customer

information from your company website and your customer
relationship management (CRM) database, among other
sources. Effectively segmenting customer data from these
multiple, disparate sources to target specific customer
demographics can be extremely challenging. Other online
marketing efforts, such as pay‐per‐click (PPC) advertising and
affiliate marketing, require you to use different interfaces to
manage individual campaigns and have different reporting
tools that must be mastered in order to analyze the effective-
ness of individual campaigns.
Collectively, these numerous marketing tools and campaigns

generate lots of useful data that can’t easily be correlated
among the different sources.
A business process apps solution allows you to draw cus-

tomer information from multiple back‐end systems into solu-
tions and reports for analysis and performance tracking. You
can also use reporting tools to track messaging, media, ad
buys, and more, and tie data to workflows and forms for use
in other business processes as needed.
Developing Your Content

Marketing Toolkit
A great deal of research, time, money, and effort goes into
creating a content marketing toolkit for your business. With
a business process apps solution, you can speed up the time
it takes to develop promotional materials to facilitate review
cycles between coworkers, teams, and partner organizations.
Escalation and exception‐handling capabilities help prevent
reviews from stalling when a team member is out of the office.
After you’ve created your content marketing toolkit, it needs

to be maintained in an online repository that is easily accessi-
ble to authorized users throughout the organization. Similarly,
a content marketing toolkit might include training and readi-
ness materials that you develop to share with your partners.
In the absence of an online repository built and maintained
by your organization, users might share this content using a
cloud‐based service such as Dropbox or Box. Although these
services are convenient, your organization may lose control
Chapter 2: Starting the CX Journey Off Right 15
of marketing content, or risk unauthorized sharing of it, when
these services are used.
Version control is also an important capability. Discovering

that a sales manager has just made an important presentation
to a prospective customer using old logos, taglines, and tem-
plates in the sales manager’s PowerPoint presentation can be
very frustrating for a marketing professional.
Don’t forget to include 30‐second and 90‐second “elevator

pitches” in your content marketing toolkit. Every employee
in your business, regardless of job function, should be able
to describe what your business does to anyone in any casual
encounter. In that sense, all your employees are marketing
professionals themselves!
Enabling Customer Research

and Tracking
Use a business process apps solution to track and report
consumer, product, and sales information across multiple
line-of-business (LOB) systems, on premises or in the cloud,
and incorporate the data into a single view for easy analysis.
Tracking customer preferences, trends, and transaction his-
tory enables your business to deliver a more personalized
customer experience (CX) for your customers by offering geo‐
location based or trigger based offers and promotions.
Managing Your Social Media

Social media is an important tool for brand awareness and
customer acquisition, but how do you convert Twitter and
Facebook users into actual customers? Automatically pulling
tweets even if users don’t include a specific hashtag; host-
ing competitions on social media to increase your reach and
gain followers; and following your competitors’ customers to
drive content‐specific messaging are a few examples of ways
you can proactively track chatter on social media channels to
drive better CX.
The key to success is the ability to centralize data about cus-

tomer behaviors, as well as take relevant and timely action
based on your findings. A business process apps solution can
help your business attract new customers and maintain cus-
tomer retention and loyalty by improving your organization’s
social media awareness. Another use case for the solution is
in intelligent social media management to help you respond
quickly to consumer complaints and promote your products
through forms, workflows, and reporting capabilities that
track and manage your organization’s social engagement.
K2 partner MII streamlines

internal processes
PT Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII), “Having all these processes auto-
a subsidiary of Metrodata Group, mated by K2 led to significant
is a leading IT service provider in improvements in terms of visibility
Indonesia. MII focuses on IT system and reliability on top of cost and time
and network integration, business savings,” said Eko Heryanto, presi-
application implementation, IT con- dent director of MII.
sultancy, and IT managed services.
With the implementation of K2‐based
Challenges solutions, including the K2 API and
out‐of‐the‐box tools and reports,
MII had a number of key paper‐
teams throughout the company have
based processes that were ineffi-
access to clearer workflow informa-
cient and prone to delays or errors,
tion and can track the status of their
including the lead‐profile and deal‐
processes in real time. These capa-
qualification processes. Both pro-
bilities allow MII to make better deci-
cesses lacked proper controls and
sions and provide insight into where
sufficient visibility.
bottlenecks are cropping up. With
Solution K2’s easy‐to‐use tools and powerful
features, MII can build sophisticated
Using K2, MII was able to streamline
solutions involving many people, and
its marketing processes and now
when its business needs shift, MII
has more control and better vis-
can seamlessly modify these solu-
ibility of its marketing and presales
tions rather than start over.
processes.
Chapter 3
Closing the Deal with
Better Sales Processes
In This Chapter
▶▶Automating sales order processes
▶▶Preparing sales proposals accurately and efficiently
▶▶Empowering customers with self‐service tools
▶▶Managing contract development, renewals, and cancellations
C onverting leads into sales is a challenge faced by every

sales‐driven organization. Enterprise systems make it
easy to store important information about prospects, but
leveraging this information to give leads the attention they
need or to manage other aspects of the sales cycle can be
difficult.
In this chapter, you explore sales process workflows and forms

that you can easily create with a business process apps solution.
Processing Sales Orders

Automating your entire sales order process — from generat-
ing sales quotes to processing purchase orders and creating
sales orders — saves valuable time and money in manual
processing. In today’s fast‐paced, mobile, and connected
business environment, delivering the ultimate customer
experience (CX) means conveniently mapping the customer’s
buying journey by making your products and solutions easy
to find from anywhere and on any device. According to the
White House Office of Consumer Affairs (www.whitehouse.

gov), 80 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for a
product or service to ensure superior customer experience,
and a study by Forrester found that 45 percent of consumers
will abandon an online transaction if their questions or con-
cerns aren’t addressed quickly. After the customer finds your
product or service, the next step is to facilitate a painless pur-
chasing experience. Sales order approvals, for example, need
to be handled effortlessly so that your customers aren’t left
waiting for a sales manager to return to the office in order to
complete the sales transaction. Instead, sales quotes should
be automatically routed for approval to others in the organi-
zation, based on availability to provide a superior customer
experience.
Many legacy enterprise line‐of‐business (LOB) systems

struggle with escalations, exception handling, and process
changes. With a flexible rules framework, a business process
apps solution can make customized and personalized work-
flows, including escalations, exceptions, and changes, simple
and fast to manage.
Developing Proposals
Request for Proposal (RFP) documents are often stored on
network drives and simply updated when the next RFP needs
to be submitted. Inevitably, an oversight causes an important
section to be missed, and confusion ensues. Perhaps some-
one winds up with an old price quote or an outdated product
description. Worse yet, a previous customer’s name is left
somewhere in the RFP response, signaling to your prospect
that he or she doesn’t warrant more than a “cut‐and‐paste”
effort. Beyond embarrassment, such an oversight may cost
you the opportunity and may also violate confidentiality or
privacy requirements.
Create applications that can help you manage your proposal

development process with actual templates that prompt users
to complete custom fields in the RFP document. You can also
manage different document versions, facilitate and automate
review cycles and approval processes, and make sure that
each proposal is automatically routed to the right person with
the right information.
Chapter 3: Closing the Deal with Better Sales Processes 19
Enabling Customer Self‐Service

Business applications that streamline workflows can empower
your customers by providing them with all the self‐service
tools they need to place and track orders, as well as the
ability to submit and track issues they have with an order or
product for an improved sense of visibility and control.
If desired, you can also integrate these tools with your website
so that customers can research and compare your product
offerings, check availability, and chat with your customer‐
service representatives online in real time to complete the
sales transaction.
Managing Contracts
Ensure that contracts are reviewed in a timely manner
through automated alerts and approvals that notify the appro-
priate parties when a contract is up for renewal or needs to
be cancelled, and then keep the contract moving until the
renewal or cancellation process is complete.
Similar to RFPs (discussed earlier in this chapter), a contract

that is simply updated and modified slightly for different cus-
tomers or client can lead to costly errors and omissions, and
potentially cause legal issues resulting from privacy or non-
disclosure violations.
A business process apps solution can help you manage your

contracts with forms and templates that prompt users to com-
plete custom fields in the contract document. You can also
manage different document versions, facilitate and automate
review cycles and approval processes, trigger time‐based
notifications and reminders, as well as make sure that each
contract is automatically routed to the right person with the
right information at the right time. Often, this is where CX
falls apart. The contract process ends with a customer having
to print dozens of pages for manual signing. Integrating your
contract management process with a digital signature pro-
vider, such as DocuSign, will help to ensure a professional CX
from beginning to end.
Southwest Bank makes business more

efficient with customized K2 apps
With 15 full‐service banking centers, “We’re a fast growing commercial
Southwest Bank is the largest locally bank facing an increasingly complex
owned bank in Tarrant County and commercial loan portfolio,” Knudsen
has served the north Texas region for said, “while at the same time needing
more than 50 years. Southwest Bank to improve staff utilization, decrease
offers customers the latest in online loan processing time, increase qual-
and mobile banking technology, as ity, and reduce audit burden.”
well as treasury management and
Solution
wealth group and mortgage services.
During Southwest Bank’s evaluation
Challenges
process, a third‐party developer rec-
One of Southwest Bank’s biggest ommended K2. The most important
issues was too many “black holes” evaluation criteria for this decision
in its business processes, including was customization. The bank also
a lengthy document approval time. needed a customer‐centric solution
The bank needed a measured way to that allowed for exceptions. K2 pro-
solve that issue, to identify where the vides exactly what it needed.
bottlenecks were to alleviate frustra-
The bank’s commercial‐lending
tion, and to increase productivity,
application process was the first
all while improving the customer’s
project to begin development. K2
banking experience. “When you’re
workflows are also being used in the
passing around paper documents as
Southwest Bank accounting depart-
a bank would do, someone would say
ment, including expense reports and
‘I sent this to you’ and the other per-
corporate credit card reimburse-
son would say that [the person] never
ment forms. Migrating from InfoPath
got it,” Danny Knudsen, Business
to K2 has saved the team time and
Solutions Manager at Southwest
has opened more doors for the loan
Bank, said. “And there was no way
process, as people become more
to quickly locate a document or know
familiar with the new technology.
where it was in its approval process.
That was one of the major things we As the bank continues to grow, it
wanted to solve. We needed to have works to become more efficient
transparency and tracking on these across the board. For example, it
processes.” receives thousands of documents
each day. When the bank first started,
Unfortunately, no out‐of‐the‐box
the process involved paper that was
solutions fit the way that this
faxed over, printed, sent to the main
community‐focused bank does busi-
office branch, and then assigned to a
ness. The bank needed a custom
loan. The document approval process
solution that was adjustable and very
often took longer than a week. Now, it
customer oriented.
typically takes just under two hours.
Chapter 4
Keeping Customers Happy
with Amazing Service
In This Chapter
▶▶Empowering customer service
▶▶Helping your customers help themselves
▶▶Understanding customer needs with surveys and feedback
▶▶Personalizing your future marketing efforts
I n this chapter, you explore post‐sales process workflows

that can be transformed with business process apps to
help you deliver an exceptional customer experience (CX)
after the sale and ensure that your customers remain your
customers for life!
Managing Cases
Consider the following all‐too‐common scenario: An irate
customer calls into a contact center to complain about a
product issue. After “patiently” navigating an interactive voice
response (IVR) system, the customer is finally connected to a
customer service representative (CSR).
The CSR listens to the customer’s complaint and then asks a

series of call script questions to collect basic order details.
The customer, increasingly frustrated because all this infor-
mation was provided either online when the order was ini-
tially placed, or when navigating the IVR (or worse yet, both
online and in the IVR!), answers the questions again. After a
few minutes, the CSR transfers the customer to a technical
service representative.
The customer must then repeat all the same information and
again explain the issue to the technician. The technician must
repeatedly place the customer on lengthy holds to explain the
issue to other subject‐matter experts and track down product
and order information on different systems. Finally, the tech-
nician has an answer for the customer — but accidentally dis-
connects the call when trying to take the customer off hold.
When (or perhaps if) the customer calls back in — but con-
siderably more upset than before — she must repeat all the
information because the various CSRs and technicians on her
previous call are still busy manually entering the details of the
call into several disparate systems. Throughout this entire
manual and time‐consuming process, multiple opportunities
for errors and process bottlenecks arise.
A business process apps solution can integrate data from vari-

ous line‐of‐business (LOB) systems, such as customer rela-
tionship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning
(ERP), and incident management and ticketing, Voice over IP
(VoIP) phone systems, and internal knowledgebase reposito-
ries to empower your CSRs to deliver an exceptional customer
experience.
Enabling Customer Self‐Service

Customer self‐service tools that empower customers to help
themselves after the sale are as important as during the sales
process (see Chapter 2). For example, software and firmware
updates are frequently made available for download by cus-
tomers on a company website. These updates allow custom-
ers to keep their various products or devices current and fix
minor bugs or other issues. But many consumers may not be
aware, for example, that an update is available for a product
they have recently purchased that is experiencing a particu-
larly vexing issue. A business automation solution can collect
purchase information from various internal databases and
send personalized emails to your customers advising them of
available updates for their specific product, providing a link
to the download and update instructions. A context‐based
search on frequently asked questions that are centrally
owned and updated by marketing and technical teams can
also reduce the time and resources needed to support cus-
tomer support calls.
Chapter 4: Keeping Customers Happy with Amazing Service 23
Other customer self‐service tools might include the ability
to complete and submit electronically a return merchandise
authorization (RMA) form. The customer‐facing process might
securely integrate with a back‐end system that automatically
verifies the purchase information and return eligibility, and
prepopulates certain information in the RMA. The customer
might then print a prepaid, prepopulated shipping label,
schedule a courier pickup, and track the return shipment all
online via your website or mobile app.
Conducting Surveys and

Getting Feedback
Surveys and other solicited feedback from current and pre-
vious customers can provide a business with valuable con-
sumer insights about its products and services.
A business process apps solution can help you prepare your

surveys and feedback forms on your website or third‐party
web services, and then collect and analyze the feedback you
receive. Personalized emails can be triggered and sent at pre-
determined intervals after a sales transaction has occurred to
elicit maximum response participation.
Achieving Targeted Marketing

A recent LinkedIn Pulse article by Duff Anderson, senior
Vice President and co‐founder of iPerceptions (www.
iperceptions.com), a trusted market research firm and
global leader in Voice of Customer analytics, predicts that
one‐to‐one CX personalization, intelligent retargeting‐with‐
intent data, and customer‐centric analytics will be among the
top five most important CX trends in 2016.
A business process apps solution can help businesses create

that one‐to‐one CX personalization with segmented emails that
target specific demographics and incorporate an individual
customer’s previous purchase history. Collecting data from
disparate systems such as CRM, integration with social media
channels, ERP, and point‐of‐sale (POS) systems can help a busi-

ness gain deep insights into customer intent with customer‐
centric data analytics to enable intelligent retargeting.
JLT Specialty improves customer

service with 60 percent reduction in
queries
JLT Specialty provides insurance number of queries that were being
brokering, risk management, and raised, what those queries were, or
claims consulting services to com- what delays were occurring as a
panies in defined sectors — such as result.
marine, energy, construction, finan-
Neither the support nor account
cial risks, communications, technol-
management teams were satisfied
ogy, media, and aerospace — where
with the process. The account man-
the company knows it can make the
agement teams felt that many of the
greatest difference.
issues raised were invalid and fre-
Based in London, JLT Specialty quently complained that the same
works with its overseas offices and queries arose time and time again.
independent intermediary partners
“We felt that, if we had a bet-
that are looking to leverage JLT’s
ter understanding of the issues,
knowledge of the local insurance
we could improve communication
market to enhance their customer
between the two teams, support
service.
the back‐end client service team
Because JLT’s clients value high‐ with training, and ultimately reduce
quality service and fast turnaround the number of queries passed to the
times, insurance policies and other frontend client service team,” said a
documents need to be created JLT project manager.
quickly and accurately. This pro-
The central service team often felt
cess relies on close collaboration
inadequately supported by account
between the account management
management teams, particularly
team and the central service team
when queries went unanswered.
that supports it.
When the team didn’t get a response
During the processing of documen- quickly enough, it would reject work
tation, account handlers raised que- and send it back to the account man-
ries through emails or phone calls. agement teams, which led to avoid-
The process was informal and inef- able delays and poor service for
ficient, with minimal visibility into the JLT’s clients.
Chapter 4: Keeping Customers Happy with Amazing Service 25
“We wanted to reduce the amount within the 48‐hour limit,” the JLT
of jobs requiring rework and speed project manager said. “We expected
up the delivery of documentation to this figure to be a lot lower. The new
improve our client service,” the proj- K2‐based workflow has clearly
ect manager said. raised awareness of the importance
of answering queries promptly. It is
Solution
helping us to deliver documentation
JLT used K2 to deploy a new busi- more quickly and improve our ser-
ness application specifically for vice to clients.”
query management. Now, if a cen-
Communication between the two
tral service team employee cannot
JLT teams has improved signifi-
complete a task, he or she creates
cantly. On average, the number of
a query in the K2 application that is
queries received has been reduced
first sent to his or her team leader.
by 60 percent. Additionally, manag-
Thanks to this new step in the work-
ers now have much better visibility
flow, ten percent of queries are now
into the process.
resolved locally and don’t get for-
warded to the account management Now with K2, JLT can see detailed
team at all. query information and use it to inform
its training program, reduce the num-
Queries that cannot be resolved by
ber of queries raised, and improve its
the team leader are automatically
business efficiency to enhance cus-
routed to account handlers, who
tomer service.
now have 48 hours to respond.
“In the first three months, 88.8 per-
cent of queries were answered
Chapter 5
BYOA: Build Your Own
(Process‐Based) Apps
In This Chapter
▶▶Empowering employees throughout the digital workplace
▶▶Accelerating business solutions to address modern realities
▶▶Replacing “shadow IT” applications and processes with scalable
solutions
I n this chapter, you explore how a “do‐it‐yourself” (DIY)

business process apps platform can help jump‐start your
customer‐facing and internal process‐based workflows to
transform customer experience.
Is Your IT Development Backlog

Stalling Sales?
Many businesses have traditionally viewed application devel-
opment as an IT function. However, today’s digital workplace
and fast‐paced global economy (see Chapter 1) requires busi-
nesses to leverage their ever‐expanding base of technically
savvy employees to reduce time to market and deliver their
product and service offerings quickly and conveniently across
multiple channels.
IT department resources have an impossible charter of sup-

porting the ever increasing needs of the business while reduc-
ing costs and keeping the business solutions compliant and
secure, making IT the largest bottlenecks for process improve-
ment and process excellence initiatives. Many IT departments
are locked into rigid software development life cycles that can
take months to deliver even relatively simple business appli-

cations. From requirements definition to coding, testing, and
maintenance, such formal processes — even those labeled
“agile” — can be too slow and inflexible to keep up with the
dynamic and rapidly evolving needs of the business. Teams of
developers, business analysts, and project managers add to
the cost and complexity of such projects.
But what if the marketing, sales, and customer service profes-

sionals who understand their own day‐to‐day challenges best
had powerful, easy‐to‐use, drag‐and‐drop tools that enabled
them to access the data and build the applications they need
for themselves? A low‐code business process apps solution
can empower business analysts, citizen developers, and
nontechnical end users to automate and optimize workflows
and forms in a fraction of the time — and at a fraction of the
cost — required for traditional IT development efforts. You
really can do it yourself!
Demand Meets Modernization

What if an account executive needs access to a technical spec-
ification for one of your products during a sales meeting in the
field, but can’t remotely access the company file repository? Her
work-around is simple: She uploads the documents to a cloud‐
based storage service and accesses them on her smartphone.
But how comfortable are you with such work-arounds? Is your

customer information being kept private in the cloud? Is sen-
sitive data on your employees’ smartphones encrypted? What
happens if someone loses a smartphone? How do you ensure
policy and regulatory compliance?
You’ve probably already felt the impact of similar s cenarios

in your organization. According to IDG’s Enterprise Consumer
ization of IT in the Enterprise Study 2014:
✓✓Ninety percent of employees use consumer‐oriented, cloud‐

based services, like Skype and LinkedIn, for their work.
✓✓Seventy‐nine percent use cloud‐based file sharing
and collaboration tools, such as Dropbox, Microsoft
SharePoint, or Microsoft OneDrive.
✓✓Forty percent of employees use their own smartphones
for work.
Chapter 5: BYOA: Build Your Own (Process‐Based) Apps 29
The bring your own apps (BYOA) trend — an extension of the
consumerization of IT and bring your own device (BYOD) — is
hard evidence of what employees already know: Current busi-
ness processes are not fully meeting their needs. If they were,
your employees wouldn’t feel compelled to find their own
solutions from outside sources.
More and more businesses are embracing the move to a

mobile, digital work style. They need to support workers who
are on the go, working online and off. Yet many leaders feel
that productivity gains and other benefits of mobility remain
out of reach because outdated manual processes hinder prog-
ress toward modernization.
There is a complexity involved in connecting information from

critical line-of-business (LOB) systems to mobile workers on
a variety of devices with different form factors. According to
78 percent of business managers and executives in a recent
MIT Sloan Management Review survey, achieving digital trans-
formation will become critical to their organizations within
the next two years. However, 63 percent said the pace of tech-
nology change in their organization is too slow. To automate
a workflow with a custom business app, IT typically needs to
devote extensive time and costly development resources to
planning, coding, testing, and rollout.
Automating Workflows to
Increase Efficiency
How can you quickly and affordably make your business
mobile? Before answering that question, consider what a
transformed, modernized business process might look like.
A modern business process app does the following:
✓✓Automates workflows and forms, increasing productivity

and reducing errors
✓✓Eliminates manual processes and costly delays
✓✓Empowers employees to work smarter and faster by pro-
viding all the information they need, in context, on any
device
Some examples of common workflows and processes that can

be easily and affordably automated with a low‐code business
process apps platform include:
✓✓Account management: Get a complete view of customer

information and bring the right people, approach, and
solutions together to better meet customer needs.
✓✓Customer service: Increase service levels to customers
by driving efficient communication, improving purchas-
ing timelines, and providing better issue resolution.
✓✓Product introduction: Take new products to market
faster with collaboration, tracking, compliance, and
automation.
✓✓Billing: Reduce errors, expedite revenue generation, and
more efficiently manage billing through workflows that
supply the right data to the right people in the billing
process.
✓✓Inventory management: Track, report, and automate
inventory management to ensure that the supply chain
continues to run efficiently, so customer revenue streams
flow smoothly.
Future Proofing with Scalable

Apps You Can Build Yourself
As businesses grow, their business applications must scale
easily to support new and emerging needs. Current “shadow
IT” applications and processes — which exist in organiza-
tions far too frequently — can be critical to everyday business
workflows, but are unknown to, and therefore unsupported
by, corporate IT departments. These applications and pro-
cesses may consist of elaborate spreadsheets that have been
built, maintained, and “password‐protected” by individual
employees over the years, or cloud‐based services and appli-
cations such as Box, Dropbox, and OneDrive.
Deploying a low‐code business process apps platform empow-

ers employees in every department to replace these shadow
IT applications and processes with scalable front‐end applica-
tions that integrate easily with complex, disparate back-end
systems — that they can build themselves!
Chapter 5: BYOA: Build Your Own (Process‐Based) Apps 31
IFCO streamlines account management

and automates processes
IFCO Systems is an international to be entered into the company’s
logistics service provider with more CRM, financial, order management,
than 210 locations worldwide and and proprietary operational systems.
annual revenues of more than $735
The manual entry in multiple systems
million. In the United States, IFCO
was time consuming, resulted in mis-
provides a national network of pal-
takes, and led to inconsistent data.
let management services. With
Finding information was sometimes
more than 125 million pallets sorted,
a chore, because different systems
repaired, and reissued annually, IFCO
may have held different data on the
is the market leader in this industry.
same customer. Inconsistencies
IFCO was dealing with siloed infor- in account information were espe-
mation, a lack of process visibility, cially troublesome if one system was
and a heavy administrative load. updated and another was not.
“Our sales teams are constantly The process also relied on emails
bringing on more customers and and didn’t have automatic work-
vendors, so our turnaround time for flows in place, so processes were
account processing needed to be often inconsistent and provided little
fast,” says Chuck Koch, Director visibility. Approvals and task comple-
of Information Technology, IFCO tion could be slow because people
Systems NA, Inc. “However, due were keeping their own work lists,
to rapid growth over the years, we and misunderstandings sometimes
were fighting huge inefficiencies in accompanied expectations.
our processes and suffering from
Solution
multiple versions of the truth when it
came to account information.” IFCO’s new K2‐enabled IFCOLogix
system streamlines the management
When a new customer or vendor
of customer and vendor information
was being onboarded with the com-
across multiple LOB applications,
pany, information was typically sub-
and it provides consistency in data
mitted to an account setup specialist
quality and auditability.
via fax or email. The information then
had to be validated and checked for “We saw the potential for efficiency
completeness, which sometimes gains with a system that would
included back‐and‐forth communi- automate our processes and elimi-
cations to the account originator. nate errors and redundant tasks,”
After everything was validated and Koch said. “K2 enabled us to cre-
approved, the information then had ate s omething precisely suited
(continued)
(continued)
to our systems and our business information in all the dependent sys-
requirements.” tems. The solution provides visibility
and tracking, notifications and esca-
Rather than enter information in
lations, and reporting capabilities.
three systems, IFCO general manag-
ers and account managers can enter “With the enhanced reporting capa-
information in a single InfoPath form bilities of K2, we are able to easily
(pulled from SharePoint) and count identify process bottlenecks. This
on that data to be consistent across gives us greater visibility into our
all the company’s LOB systems. account onboarding process while
providing us with necessary data for
“Now we have one point of entry,
identifying potential improvements,”
so data only has to be entered once.
Koch said.
The workflow takes care of the rest,”
Koch said. The account management workflow
module of IFCOLogix was easy to
“In the first year of operation, we
build, Koch said, with K2’s simple,
automated more than 9,000 new
intuitive tools. The solution brings
account requests and updated
together technologies the company
approval processes. By eliminating
was already using — SharePoint,
duplicate data entry, faxing, emailing
Dynamics CRM, Dynamics SL —
forms, manual data validation, and
and now IFCO is using K2 to bring
error resolution for each instance,
efficiency into other parts of the
we have experienced a substantial
business.
time savings as well as a significant
improvement in overall data quality “People think about processes and
across the enterprise. This auto- information in very different ways.
mation makes us more effective in You can have two products that
where we spend our time by allow- do the same thing, yet they may go
ing people to focus on more value‐ about it in very different ways,” Koch
driven activities; it improves visibility said. “K2’s process‐activity‐event
and reporting; and the data valida- approach is in line with how we
tion rules significantly reduce back‐ think about processes, so the learn-
office administrative issues.” ing curve is short.”
The system automatically routes IFCO has also implemented new
documents and forms to the appro- K2‐based solutions for credit memo
priate approvers, and upon comple- approvals and is working on an AP
tion of the workflow, K2 takes care invoice approval process.
of creating or updating account
Chapter 6
Building Agile Processes
for CX Transformation
In This Chapter
▶▶Driving revenue‐growth opportunities
▶▶Delivering an intuitive and flexible multichannel customer experience
▶▶Empowering mobile workers and customers
▶▶Transforming customer experience (CX) with a business process
apps solution
▶▶Aligning internal and customer‐facing processes
I n this chapter, you discover how business process trans-

formation can radically improve customer experience and
increase revenue opportunities for your business.
Focusing on Revenue
Growth Opportunities
The case for business process transformation is often built on
opportunities for cost reduction and process improvement,
but a far more compelling case for executives today centers
on revenue growth.
This means focusing on internal and customer‐facing pro-

cesses that accelerate customer acquisition and revenue
while protecting existing revenue streams. When engineered
effectively, such processes can reduce costs and improve effi-
ciency by reducing or eliminating workflow bottlenecks and
manual errors, and net significant revenue growth through the
creation and realization of new revenue opportunities.
Although new revenue opportunities are important, don’t

forget about your existing customers. Protecting existing
revenue streams requires a business process apps solution
with deep integration capabilities to back‐end line‐of‐business
(LOB) systems, social media, and software‐as‐a‐service (SaaS)
cloud applications (“apps”) and services that your business
may already be using. Such integration capabilities provide a
way for businesses to centralize and control the data in busi-
ness apps while maintaining the confidentiality and integrity
of the information in its system of record. The capability
to securely route information to the right people, whether
internal or external, improves the customer experience
while ensuring that governance and compliance polices are
enforced.
Low‐code business apps solution with drag‐and‐drop design

tools are ideal for building agile processes. Business users
who regularly work with, and therefore best understand, the
necessary workflows and processes can quickly and easily
build flexible, customizable work apps and forms that acceler-
ate key processes and increase revenue growth opportunities
without disrupting existing revenue streams.
Simplifying Customer Processes

for Convenience and Engagement
For many businesses, customer interactions and experiences
are too often superficial and impersonal. They lack the nec-
essary touchpoints to go beyond merely completing a sales
transaction or fulfilling a service request, in order to deliver a
memorable customer experience that creates loyal and enthu-
siastic brand advocates or “customers for life.” This lack of
engagement can be frustrating and inconvenient for your cus-
tomers, potentially sending them to your competitors.
When automating your various customer touchpoints, it’s

important to focus on the customer experience to ensure an
intuitive and engaging, multichannel experience. Customers
are increasingly connecting with businesses through a mul-
titude of devices, including desktop and laptop computers,
interactive self‐service kiosks, tablets, and smartphones, and
they expect to be able to easily and conveniently interact with
your business regardless of the device (or devices) they use.
Chapter 6: Building Agile Processes for CX Transformation 35
Agility and flexibility are also important factors to consider
when automating and redesigning your customer‐facing pro-
cesses. These processes must often change frequently and
rapidly in a dynamic market environment to meet continuously
evolving customer expectations. Your business process apps
solution needs to be agile and flexible enough to support this
pace of change. But many solution are built more for internal,
back‐end processes that tend to be more static than customer‐
facing processes. A process or workflow application that takes
months to design and build may be fine for an internal process
but will never do for a customer‐facing process. Numerous
changes to a customer‐facing process throughout the develop-
ment life cycle will inevitably mean costly delays — both in
terms of resources required and opportunities lost — that can
add months or years to your time to market. In the meantime,
your customer needs are likely to change yet again!
According to Forrester Research, speed is the top priority for

digital businesses. Low‐code business process apps solutions
deliver “rapid customer‐centric innovation,” enabling busi-
nesses to rapidly deliver solutions that scale across the entire
organization.
Overhauling Your Workflows

for the Mobile Age
Businesses today are under more pressure than ever to
identify process bottlenecks and inefficiencies, and eliminate
them through automation. To accomplish these tasks, IT and
business leaders typically target the business‐critical manual
workflows and paper‐based forms because they are cumber-
some, time‐consuming, and can’t easily accommodate today’s
mobile workforce and mobile consumer.
Business process apps solution can breathe new life into

tired, manual workflows. They can streamline processes
and connect disparate LOB systems so that employees can
work smarter and perform tasks faster. And when business
applications are supported on mobile devices, employees
can work more efficiently wherever they go. Similarly,
mobile‐enabled customer‐facing processes let your c ustomers
conduct b usiness with you regardless of where they are or
what device they are using. However, it can be challenging
for resource‐constrained IT departments to quickly design

and update apps that work across multiple solutions, such as
tablets, smartphones, email, point‐of‐sale (POS) systems, self‐
service kiosks, and others.
IT and other departments, as well as your customers, would

benefit from business process apps that simplify the design
and rollout of apps for the mobile workforce and mobile
consumers.
Numerous workflows can be created or enhanced using

mobile‐centric design principles. For example:
✓✓Customer service employees performing equipment

maintenance or repair can access manuals from cloud‐
based storage, input customer information in forms, and
even order parts through a back‐end database, all from a
tablet or smartphone.
✓✓Field service technicians can dispatch service reps
to jobs, based on the workers’ current locations. Field
workers can use mobile devices to submit maintenance
requests or fill out forms indicating completed work,
even when connectivity is unavailable.
✓✓Customers can search for and research your product
offerings on a mobile website, and then submit a pur-
chase order online that, in turn, triggers internal work-
flows and processes to complete the transaction.
Companies embracing mobility

Mobile devices may have started as an hour of productivity gained
a BYOD challenge for companies, but each day by simply providing a
they have now found a permanent different way to work. Think of the
home as a productivity boost. Cloud‐ productivity benefits you could gain
based storage and apps expand the by scaling this flexibility across
limits of what users can do with a your entire organization, ultimately
hand‐held device. reducing the cost of doing business”
(h t t p : / / b l o g . a z o f t .
According to the Intel IT Center,
c o m / m o b i l e ‐b u s i n e s s ‐
“Employees report saving an
process‐automation‐with‐
average of 57 minutes a day using
workflow‐examples/).
mobile devices — that’s nearly
Building Business Apps

that Transform CX
Many businesses have found process nirvana with custom,
easy‐to‐use business applications that can run on any
device — from a browser to a smartphone. These apps
address specific LOB needs, such as the onboarding of new
customers, in a way that can dramatically increase efficiency.
The promised, transformative results include:
✓✓Streamlined processes
✓✓Empowered mobile workers and customers
✓✓Powerful insight into business trends
✓✓Better, data‐driven decision making
No doubt, businesses are always looking for ways to work

smarter and faster. They need tools that allow them to quickly
create system‐spanning forms, and they need reliable work-
flows to securely deliver information to the right people at the
right time.
For example, onboarding apps might need to use data from

across services and systems — such as Box, customer relation-
ship management (CRM) systems, and Microsoft SharePoint —
whether on premises or in the cloud. To be effective, business
apps should accommodate any system that users rely on and
should not require complex coding (see Figure 6‐1).
Most businesses can’t afford to design and maintain multiple,

customized versions of every app for different form factors.
Every small update would require another round of develop-
ment changes, testing, and distribution.
Businesses are turning to low‐code, drag‐and‐drop software

solutions and tools that support fast, responsive app design.
As a result, these businesses can roll out new or updated apps
rapidly, for all form factors.
Responsive design is an approach to web design that opti-

mizes a website or web‐based application for optimal viewing
and navigation on any device or form factor.
Figure 6-1: K2 business process apps connect users on any device to

systems on premises and in the cloud.
Managing and reporting capabilities are in high demand as

well. A good management dashboard allows managers to view
and act on all tasks from a central location while detailed,
out‐of‐the‐box reporting displays how their processes are per-
forming and helps them identify trends or efficiency gaps that
can improve risk management and forecasting.
An agile business process apps solutions with these charac-

teristics delivers value to end users, businesses, and custom-
ers in days or weeks rather than months, and businesses
report drastic reductions in their development costs.
Aligning CX and Operational

Excellence
Many internal processes that support customer‐facing pro-
cesses can also be optimized to better support multiple
touchpoints. To ensure that your customer‐facing processes
are more than mere “window dressing” and can actually
deliver an awesome customer experience from start to finish,
don’t overlook these internal processes, which can become
performance bottlenecks or process breakdowns. Look across
your entire organization and value chain for business process
transformation opportunities that will drive customer‐centric
innovation.
A business process apps solution that is powerful enough to
solve any process‐based need, whether internal or customer‐
facing, while being agile, flexible, and easy‐to‐use, can be a
competitive differentiator for businesses that use it to trans-
form key processes to achieve operational excellence and
deliver the ultimate customer experience.
The right business process apps solution can be the differen-

tiator that helps your organization increase revenue oppor-
tunities and deliver an engaging and exhilarating customer
experience that sets you apart from your competitors. Now
more than ever before, companies need to view business
process transformation through a lens that captures more
than just the automation of core processes. The solution you
choose should also have the speed, agility, and flexibility
needed to adapt to your organization’s and customers’ unique
requirements.
Chapter 7
Ten Ways to Improve
CX with Agile Business
Processes
In This Chapter
▶▶Empowering users and customers alike
▶▶Integrating systems and tools securely and easily
▶▶Enabling standardization, mobility, and measurable results
I n this chapter, I present ten important evaluation criteria

for you to consider when choosing a business process
apps solution to help your business deliver an awesome cus-
tomer experience (CX) and thrill your customers!
Fast, Do‐It‐Yourself Forms

and Workflows
A low‐code business process apps solution must provide intu-
itive visual design tools that enable subject‐matter experts
(SMEs) and business users to quickly and easily build auto-
mated forms and workflows themselves, without extensive —
and expensive — IT development. Customer‐facing examples
might include a purchase order form, credit application, or
return merchandise authorization. Back‐end examples might
include a sales order form, call script, or customer case
history.
Secure Access to Forms,

Workflows, and Data from
Any Device
Today’s business users expect to be able to work from any-
where, at any time, on any device — whether it’s a laptop
computer, smartphone, or tablet.
Beyond simply downloading a printable form from Box or

Google Drive, a business process apps solution should enable
a sales rep, for example, to quickly and easily complete an
online form, such as a sales order or credit application, on
the sales rep’s mobile phone, and automatically route it to the
appropriate managers for approval.
Seamless Multichannel CX
Your customers expect a seamless multichannel experience
that enables them to browse, research, and order your prod-
ucts and services in a similar and familiar manner on any of
their devices, whether it’s a desktop computer, laptop, tablet,
or smartphone. Your business process apps solution must
ultimately deliver that seamless CX.
Integration with Other Systems

Your business users must be able to easily access data from
multiple sources with your business process apps solution,
thereby eliminating the need to have lots of technical knowl-
edge to access source systems of record, such as customer
relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource
planning (ERP) applications.
Reusable Components
The business process apps solution should enable creating
and publishing components that can be reused to build any
number of process‐driven business applications. Components
Chapter 7: Ten Ways to Improve CX with Agile Business Processes 43
include business entities, processes and parts of processes,
forms, policies, and report designs that reduce the cost and
time associated with creating them.
Advanced Analytics
and Reporting
A business process apps solution should connect disparate
systems, applications, and data throughout the organization
and in the cloud to enable powerful insights for better decision
making or alternately integrate with your business intelligence
(BI) solutions of choice such as Tableau, Microsoft PowerBI,
and so on. Intuitive, graphical dashboards and reporting capa-
bilities are a must.
Data Security
Data security is one of the most important issues to think
about when considering any new technology. Ensuring that
your business process apps technologies will keep your data
secure before buying can save a lot of headaches further
down the road.
Your solution should be designed so that line‐of‐business

(LOB) data is neither copied nor stored in the business apps
solution, thereby preserving the compliance and security
measures of your existing business systems. Additionally,
built‐in audit logs and tracking can help you assure compli-
ance with policies and regulations that are specific to your
organization.
Scalable to Support Growing

Business Needs
A business process apps solution should be scalable in a
way that it can support your business needs today and in the
future. It should also be agile and flexible enough to allow pro-
cesses across the business to be easily modified as your busi-
ness and customer requirements evolve.
Balance between Power

and Simplicity
Building a business process app doesn’t need to be massive
or complicated and long drawn out to be successful; it just
needs to solve the challenges faced by the business. A busi-
ness process apps solution should be able to handle a wide
variety of process workflows and complex event handling and
rules, as well as to manage data across disparate sources.
Measurable Results
A business process apps solution should be able to provide
real process improvement that can be measured. The solution
should also provide visibility into the process itself, immedi-
ate insight into the cause of roadblocks, and the capability to
actually measure how instances are performing in terms of
cycle time, data expectations, and consistent use, enabling
business users to make objective judgment calls and deci-
sions with regard to change.
The K2 solution meets all these requirements. The K2 busi-

ness process apps solution offers the business process
improvements that organizations need. It also provides busi-
nesses with a continuous innovation capability that allows
them to easily change processes in the future. The K2 solu-
tion has a set of easy drag‐and‐drop tools that companies
can use to build low‐code, scalable applications composed
of workflows and forms that automate business processes
and easily integrate with industry‐leading IT systems. Finally,
creating business apps with the K2 solution allows process
management to become what it should be: an integral part of
knowledge capture, process improvement, compliance man-
agement, and business agility.
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These materials are © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.

K2® Special Edition

by Lawrence Miller, CISSP

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE

Project Editor: Susan Christophersen Business Development Representative:

Chapter 1: Recognizing How Workflows

Chapter 2: Starting the CX Journey Off Right. . . . . . . . . 13

Chapter 3: Closing the Deal with Better

Chapter 4: Keeping Customers Happy

Chapter 5: BYOA: Build Your Own

Chapter 6: Building Agile Processes

Chapter 7: Ten Ways to Improve CX

What does this reality mean for the customer experience

Customers are also sensitized to poor online processes and

An acceptable CX is no longer enough. In today’s consumer-

s­ ervice delivery and ongoing support. Your business may get

The rapid pace of modernization and evolving customer

About This Book

Mainly, I assume that you’re a marketing, sales, customer ser-

I also assume that you’re looking for a solution to help you

If these assumptions describe you, this book is for you!

Icons Used in This Book

This icon points out information that you should commit to

Beyond the Book

Where to Go from Here

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from

“I don’t much care where . . . ” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go!”

That’s certainly true of Improving CX with Agile Processes For

I n this chapter, you explore the benefits of automating your

Don’t Let Your Customers See

But what happens when the wheels are squeaky (inefficient

to generate because it has to wait for a sales rep to manually

In contrast, when your “house is in order” — with efficient

Efficient customer‐facing and internal processes can also help

A business process apps solution can also help you better

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001

Eliminating Process Bottlenecks

A mass email marketing campaign that is impersonal and not

Likewise, manual paper‐based processes or complex and

Frustrated by inefficient workflows and processes, employ-

According to Gartner (https://www.gartner.com/

✓✓Enable new and more effective ways of working

International Data Group (IDG, www.idg.com) reports that

✓✓According to Manufacturing Business Technology,

Modern business apps must do more than simply enable

Paper‐based workflows are typically fast and easy to imple-

Figure 1-1: Business‐workflow traits.

Many businesses buy or build “one‐off” custom apps for

A business can only go as far and as fast as the information

Manual, paper‐based processes and monolithic business sys-

A business process apps solution provides automation, scal-

Businesses clearly understand the benefits of automating

✓✓Businesses are automating 25 to 40 percent of their

Wait a second! Three to five years to see the benefits of auto-

Modern business apps that support critical workflows and

Dalkia automates PO process to improve

Solution In addition, the company expects

F inding solutions to support your organization’s unique

In this chapter, you explore marketing process workflows that

Managing Your Campaigns

For example, traditional marketing efforts, such as ­television,

s ervice delivery and ongoing support. Your business may get

Figure 1-1: Business‐workflow traits.

For example, traditional marketing efforts, such as television,

You’ve probably already felt the impact of similar s cenarios