CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

CLASS: B. Sc (Information technology) SUBJECT: CRM (Customer Relations Management) Semester VI

1. Introduction to CRM: what is a customer? How do we define CRM? CRM technology, CRM technology components, customer life style, customer interaction.

2. Introduction to eCRM: difference between CRM & eCRM, features of eCRM.

3. Sales Force Automation (SFA): definition & need of SFA, barriers to successful SFA, SFA:functionality , technological aspect of SFA: data synchronization , flexibility & performance , reporting tools.

4. Enterprise Marketing Automation (EMA) : components of EMA, marketing camping, camping, planning & management, business analytic tools. , EMA components (promotions, events, loyalty & retention programs), response management.

5. Call Centers Mean Customer Interaction: the functionality, technological implementation, what is ACD (automatic call distribution), IVR (interactive voice response), CTI (computer telephony integration), web enabling the call center, automated intelligent call routing, logging & monitoring.

6. Implementing CRM: pre implementation, kick off meeting, requirements gathering, prototyping & detailed proposal generation, development of customization, Power User Beta Test & Data import, training, roll out & system hand off, ongoing support , system optimization, follow up.

7. Introduction to ASP (application service provider): who are ASP.s? their role & function, advantages & disadvantages of implementing ASP.

References:
1. CRM at the speed of light by Paul Greenberg,TMH. 2. Customer R elations Management by Kristin Anderson & Carol Kerr.TMH.

CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION
Introduction You define customer as

Your paying client Your employee Your supplier or vendor Your partner

Examples 1. If you are running a company, then you have paying clients. Against the payment, your provide them products and/or services. 2. You have got employees. You give them a pay check and other benefits including bonus and in return, they give you productive work. 3. You have got suppliers. They give you products and/ or services. In return, you give them money. 4. You have channel partners. They give you added value services. In return, you give them some services or money.

In short, customer is an individual or group with whom you exchange values.

Definition of CRM Customer Relationship Management is a comprehensive approach for creating, maintaining and expanding customer relationships. Significance of the words used in the definitions a. Comprehensive - CRM does not belong to just sales or marketing. It is not the sole responsibility of customer service group or an IT team; i.e. CRM must be a way of doing business that touches all the area.

b. Approach - An approach is broadly a way of treating or dealing with something. CRM is a way of thinking about and dealing with the customer relationship. We can also use the word strategy because CRM involves a clear plan. In fact, CRM strategy can usually serve as a benchmark for other strategies in your organization, because any strategy sets directions for your organization. We can also consider this from a department or area level. Just as a larger organization ahs strategies for shareholder management, marketing etc. Each strategy must support managing customer relationships. Thus CRM is strategic. To realize this, one can make a list of key strategies, to brief your area of responsibility. Then write down organizational approach towards customers. Compare the CRM strategies with other strategies. They should support each other. External customers are those outside the organization who buy goods and the services the organization sales. Internal customers is a way of defining another group in some organization whose work depends upon work of your group. Therefore, they are your customers. It is your responsibility to provide what they need so that they can do their job properly.

c. Customer relationship - Finally let us see what we mean by customer relationship. In todays world where we do business with individuals or groups with whom we may never meet and hence much less know in person to person sense. CRM is about creating the feel of comfort in this high tech environment.

CRM technology and CRM technology components There are following types of CRM technology -

a. Operational CRM b. Collaborative c. Analytical CRM

Operational CRM - This is an ERP like segment of CRM. Typical business functions involving customer service, order management, invoice or billing or sales and marketing automation and management are the parts of operational CRM. Till now, this is the primary use of CRM. One characteristic of operational CRM is the possibility of integrating with the financial and human resources functions of ERP applications. With this integration, end-to-end functionality from lead management to order breaking can be implemented.

Analytical CRM - Analytical CRM is the capture, storage, extraction, processing, interpretation and recording customer data to the user. Companies such as Micro strategy have developed applications that can capture this customer data from multiple resources and then use hundreds of algorithms to analyze and interpret the data as needed. The value of the application is not just in algorithm and storage, but also in ability to individually personalize the response using the data.

Collaborative CRM other words, it is any CRM function that provides a point of interaction between customer and the channel itself.

CRM technology components The following are the components which are common to different CRM approaches.

CRM engine - This could be the customer data repository. The data mart, the data warehouse is the one where all the data on customer is captured and stored. This could include basic stuff such as your name, address, telephone number, birth date etc. It could also include more sophisticated information like how many times you have accessed a particular web site and what you did on the web pages you accessed. It could also

include the help desk support and the purchase history. Ultimately, the purpose is a single gathering point for all individual customer information so that a unified customer view can be created throughout the company departments that need to know the data stored in this CRM engine house.

Front Office Solutions - These are the unified applications that run on the top of the customer data warehouse. They could be sales force automations, marketing automation, or service and support customer interaction applications. In the client server environment (and now in the internet environment), they provide employees with the information on the basis of which the decision of what is to be done? or What next is to be done with the customer? is made. The more specific applications provide an element of self-service for the customer.

Enterprise Application Integration - They sit between back office and front office. They also sit between the newly installed CRM system and old systems implemented by the enterprise. They permit CRM to CRM communication. They are pieces of codes, connectors and bridges that as a body are called as EAIs. EAIs provide messaging services and data mapping services that allow one system to communicate with different other systems regardless of their formatting.

Customer life cycle -

For any company, it is far cheaper to retain existing customers that to acquire new customers. Therefore presuming that this is the foal of most of the companies, the ext thing is to determine the value of the customer to your company. A customer, who is consistently losing money for you while he has been with you for last 40 years is of course valuable to you, may e directly or indirectly. The life cycle of the customer is the process the customer has been undergoing to be with you for all these years. This includes customers purchase history, how often he/she has taken advantage of special offers directed at him/her or their customer class. Depending upon what you identify as important to your return on investment (ROI), it could also include your customers marketing value to you, how much revenue that marketing value could be worth indirectly.

End of Chapter 1

CHAPTER 2 - e-C.R.M.

Introduction eCRM is the term that some people have used to describe the customer facing portion of the CRM. The term usually implies capabilities like self service knowledge bases, automated e-mail response, personalization of web content, online product, bundling and pricing etc. eCRM gives the internet users the ability to interact with the business through their preferred communication channel and it allows the business to offset expensive customer service agents with technology. So the value is largely one of improved customer satisfaction and reduced cost through improved efficiency. Architecture of PeopleSoft CRM Internet architectures are very difficult to realize in practice. Perhaps, the company that is purchasing CRM system has a long history of using SAP or has built its own internal system or has both client server and mainframe systems at multiple sites. This sort of problems can create a disaster unless there is some way of dealing with the problem, the internet architecture can provide. The strength of PeopleSoft architecture is elegant approach for integration using the concept of available enterprise integration points (EIPs). The idea of EIP is central to all internet architecture. They are open, standard pieces of reusable code that provide the developers with preprogrammed means to communicate with internal systems and other PeopleSoft systems. In SAPs world, they are called Business Application Programmers Interface [BAPI]. PeopleSoft provides these EIPs through their open integration framework. OIF is a multifeatured framework that provides foundation for various interactions between systems. It consists of the following parts. 1. Application Messaging - This is the publish/subscribe model for communication and synchronization between one system and the other. It works with XML messages that the other systems dont have to have knowledge of. When a specified business event occurs, the message is created and sent to any number of users who have subscribed to that message.

2. Business Interlink - They are internet versions of what has been called as enterprise application integration. Through the use of C, C++, or JAVA, these business interlinks are plug-ins that identify the transactions, wrap themselves around third party API and them allow data to pass to or from third party. It saves you from the trouble f trying EAI application if it works well.

3. Component Interface API - The components are easily recognizable interfaces in the business world such as a sales order, invoice etc. The interface is the ability f architecture to recognize the document in other partys form and pass PeopleSoft data to

that form. It can be done through the same languages and protocols as business interlink and CORBA and EJB. 4. PeopleCode Java - These are specific Java classes provides for programmers who are interested in Java.

5. File layout object and application engine - PeopleSoft uses application engine for large scale batch processors. The file layout object is a metadata representation of a flat file whose data is in either an XML format or delimited by columns or delimiting characters.

6. EDI Manager - This is useful for systems that use EDI rather than XML. When an incoming EDI transaction is recognized, it is translated to a PeopleSoft business document and then processed.

7. Open Query - This is a tool and it allows third party applications to communicate with PeopleSoft. This is a classic representation of well functioning internet architecture. It is mature, ready to work with the third party system and as a whole sophisticated enough for any sized enterprise.

8. Occupied Real Estate - The pure internet application normally rests on the server with browser as zero code clients. The web enabled content applications need downloaded applets and applications to desktop to carry out a specific function.

9. The feel - With the browser as the client, it is easy to feel that access anywhere and anytime. Because all the functions are accessible transparently.

10. Back-end code - While CRM is considered front office technology meaning that the applications are available to the customer and the impact of the customer, there is a back end to the front office i.e. to develop eCRM, development tools for the web that use HTML, JAVA, JAVASCRIPT, EJB, PERL or XML are the ground work for introducing e before eCRM.

Notes -

End Of Chapter 2

CHAPTER 3 - SALES FORCE AUTOMATION [SFA]

Introduction SFA i.e. Sales Force Automation is designed to help salespeople, acquire and retain customers, reduce administrative time and basically make sales peoples activities something that earns them and their company profit. SFA has the following purposes.

1. Increased Revenue - Quite obviously, gross income in the profit (i.e. improvement in the bottom line) is the main goal of implementing SFA. But it is not just the sufficient answer to SFAs success. Just as important is the increase in revenue per salesperson and in the gross profit per year. If you have an increase o 100% in sales revenues but your cost of sales has increase or it strictly came as a result of your increased sales force, your SFA implementation fails.

2. Reduction in the cost of sales - This doesnt stand for reduction in force (meaning fewer employees which obviously mean to you). But in this case, we are talking about a reduction inn the amount of time that is used by the sales people in co-ordination of their efforts, continuous data entry and often unsuccessful attempts to extract and interpret data without the tools to do so. Studies show that sales time to fulfill administrative functions is almost half of a salespersons activities. By reducing the time engaged in these administrative or other non-sales related efforts, the cost of the sales is reduced. This is one of the most successful results of SFA.

3. Customer retention due to company - If your customers are happy, they will stay with you even if they are paying a bit more. It is not about the money but about the relationship with the company and often the relationship with particular salespeople within the company. SFAs benefit is to provide you with a view of the customer that allows an intelligent salesperson or a company to understand the value of the individual customer through customer history and communication with the company. Though it can never be a substitute for personal interactions, it can provide the intelligence and the view to better plan how to actually do good things for your clients.

4. Sales force increasing mobility - The sales force is out of the office most often. They have to do many duties like meeting customers, moving through airports etc. This is making mobility a competitive issue requiring effective mobile tools such as internet and hand sets.

5. Easily available customer information with single view - Multiple apartments may have interests in viewing the status of the customer account or opportunity. E.g. the sales department wants to see the status of the opportunity. The accounting department wants to see the status of invoicing and billing for the same account. The marketing department wants to see reports on varying degrees of success/failures of their campaign with individual account within each department are individuals with different roles who have their own agendas. The vice president of sales wants to see all the activities of all salespeople in his department. He also wants to get a sales pipeline report to refine his sales forecast for the coming quarter. The accounts manager does not need that much information. He wants a national view of all sales activities around the accounts he owns. The sales manager wants to see the opportunity progress but not all the contact lists of each salesperson. Each salesperson wants to manage his customer accounts. Each of them has an individual view that allows them to see all the data they need to see; but at the same time there is a universal view of all the data available to all departments at all time.

Sales Force Automation functionality At its roots, SFA has the same fundamental features regardless of the vendor. The treatment of the core features tends to oscillate only in the depth provided, the look and the feel of the interface and the transparency to the user. The list that follows is a representative feature set for SFA.

1. Contact Management (CM) - It is a basic tool that has entire applications devoted to it. Contact management modules take on an added degree of complexity when it is integrated to SFA package mainly because it is to be linked to all other modules incorporate. Otherwise contact management covers the basic things like name, address, phone number, company, title, personal and business information, activities related to individual, attachments related with the individual and level of that decision makers. Some applications such as Siebel sales are able to take this contact information and create organizational charts for sales people so that they can see who they have to deal with, at what level of customer hierarchy.

2. Account Management (AM) - This standard feature allows the salesperson to handle individual corporate account. Each account has multiple links t the other information beyond the corporate name and address, including the contacts by corporation and the proposed opportunities by corporation. Fundamentally, it is another view of the customer and the potential data that is designed to work with sales departments that have accounts manager or that what corporate information. It can include either general or highly detailed views of an enterprise.

3. Opportunity Management (OM) - This is often seen as the most essential of SFA modules. The aspects that OM covers include the specific opportunity, the company it belongs to, the salesperson or the team that is working on it, the assignment of revenue credits if there is a sales team, the potential for closing of this particular opportunity, the final results of this opportunity, the stage of the sales process this opportunity is in, and the potential closing date for the opportunity. Additionally competitive information is included here. E.g. who is specifically competing for the opportunity against your company and how much threat they represent? Even more interesting, in some better SFA packages, a competitive products metrics can be brought up to see how well your product stack up against the competitions product equivalent. This can give salesperson a valuable selling point.

4. Lead Management (LM) - Lead management functionality can be seen as a subset of opportunity management. With SFA packages that have strong lead management features, the sales person can import leads multiple sources and using criteria established through the sales process weigh the potential of these leads to become opportunities.

5. Pipeline Management (PM) - the sales pipeline is a particular term for the execution of established sales process. Each company has its criteria for what constitutes its sales process. E.g. one company could set up salespersons objectives that are weighed by the steps of the sales process. The sales process may have the following sequence -

o o o o o o o

Prospecting Potential lead Opportunity Building vision Short list Negotiation Closed- won/lost

Thus, the variations in the sales process may not be infinite but they are extensive, if you can successfully embed your sales process into the SFA application, then you can use the application as it was meant to be used. 6. Sales Forecasting (SF) - Part of PM is getting forecasts from sales and then managing sales activities to those forecasts; e.g. if the salesperson is expected to do $2.5 million business and eh does 40% of it, then the company have serious problems. If that is due to poor forecasting tools, SFA also has problem. However, most SFA programs have adequate sales forecasting tools. But most sales forecasts are still nothing more that good guesses regardless of how many algorithms people stuff in program.

7. Proposal Management - When implemented, it is a way of coordinating and tracking external proposals. It normally has an overflow which is determined by who is responsible for what part of proposal. Additionally, it can control the effective completion of the proposal by guiding the stages of evaluation of cards of proposal.

8. Quota Generation- A simple tool that generates quotes for customers. Normally, it uses information on pricing in the product catalogue that is available with SFA application and has been customized for individual company offerings.

9. Order Tracking- This feature tracks the status of invoice and product delivery. This is normally tied into the back office financial functions.

10. Sales Quota Management- This is normally for sales managers. It allows them to see how the individual sales person is doing relative to their quota within some defined time segment.

11. Commission Management- This is a tool that calculates commission for sales people. Though it looks very simple, it is not easy thing to implement. Sales persons can often share the opportunities, which complicate the calculation of commissions. Additionally, depending upon the company, the sales team might have some private arrangements going. These arrangements are known to the managers and have to be programmed into the application so as to cut accurate commission cheques.

12. Territory Management- This is another important feature that solves a complex problem. It is not particularly complicated until there is a change in the territory. That can mean a new person takes over an existing territory or a territory can be restricted and re-divided among existing sales people geographically. Re-dividing a territory becomes a very political issue that has to be managed carefully.

Sales force automation technologyWhat makes SFA powerful is not just functionality but also the combination of functionality and flexibility of technology. It allows each of them [i.e. the managers and the sales people] to analyze the data, stay on the top of the opportunities, embed best practices for the future sales people and last of all, do all this by just clicking the mouse.

Data Synchronization One of the most important technologies is data synchronization. It is the process of updating information among unconnected computers. Each synchronization system gets data that confirms with the data on any other system far away.

Sales people in the field can maintain subset of master database and update their local data while others are working with same data simultaneously. Synchronization also allows corporate managers and sales teams to share information created by field sales people such as meeting notes, schedules and forecasts. Important recent sales trends related to the mobility and wireless data make synchronization even more important. There are several points which are to be considered.

Sales people operate spending more time out of the office with customers. Many sales people are telecommunicating [i.e. working out of their homes rather than in corporate branch offices]. Sales people operate as members of sales teams and as products become more complex and technical, the need to share information grows. Entire sales and marketing organizations are using computer based customer, sales and project based information more effectively. Field people can use this information to close sales faster and managers can access this information input in the filed. This means that for SFA, data synchronization becomes most essential piece of technology.

The Data Synchronization Process Data synchronization takes up a fair amount of network infrastructure bandwidth. It actively involves a lot of what comprises the corporate information system, to take example of Sales Logix data synchronization system which is one of the most sophisticated CRM data synchronization systems in the market. Working of SalesLogix data synchronization system is as followsDia.

Field sales people with laptop computers need to download relevant subset of data manipulate and update data and need to synchronize changes with new information from host computer database. The typical process of synchronizing data between remote and host system requires several basic steps as shown in the figure.

Remote databases are created for mobile salespeople and branch offices. Each database is a subset of corporate database. It will contain information needed by only that particular salesperson; e.g. information on filed salespersons laptop is only pertaining to his particular account. The synchronization system tracks the information pertinent to particular salesperson to both remote database and host database. Remote salespersons can connect to home office using low bandwidth modem or WAN connection. Salespeople or managers who are at desk can connect via their local area network. Log files are exchanged that contain information to be updated in respective database. After connection is completed, new data is supplied to each database and should have up-to-date information. It is estimated that using localized version of data synchronizer [where only updates are done], 50% of the communication cost can be saved. Flexibility and Performance Synchronization system should be capable of supporting large scale field implementation with potentially 100s of reasons. Besides using most efficient means to distribute and post data, flexible support to modern client-server database is critical to meet demands of data synchronization. High performance synchronization requires powerful database capabilities and performance. Other SFA applications

Incentive compensation system - This is a functional feature and there are standalones devoted to it. This particular feature allows vice president of sales to design compensation plans and to track them.

Competitive information system - This is often tied to multiple sources so that as a salesperson, one could do the research online and internally fined what he should do. There are some external programs that are not tied to CRM. But there are some serious advantages to be able to integrate internet searching with server and desktop searches.

Telesales campaign management - This feature helps inside sales managers to design telemarketing campaigns. Thus they have an organized and sophisticated way to track activities of telemarketers.

Sales assistant - This feature is there for sales people without experience.

Expense reporting - This feature ties expensive reporting to both account and CRM system.

Learning management system/content delivery tool - This feature allows means for new employees to understand sales process and experienced employees to request and proceeds appropriate sales information and tools ranging from brochures to competitive information.

Marketing encyclopedia - this is a centralized depository for all marketing materials so all sales people have access to appropriate materials for their customers.

Partner management capability - This really doesnt belong to SFA applications but some limited functionality is there so that indirect sales opportunities are there.

Custom sales process and methodologies - This is a built in base practices and known methodology. The value is that, companies have benefits of using well established and consistently popular sales methodology.

Consistent sales methodology framework - This is a framework for preceding features.

Other SFA features

SFA centric flow - This is a sales specific workflow that assigns permissions and roles to either specific people or titles; e.g. sales manager might need to approve an opportunity entered into a system by a sales person because of resource cost of opportunity. A flag as opportunity would then notify the sales manager of the need to approve it before it can be officially registered into sales pipeline.

Customer need assessment - Using templates and comprehensive set of questions and interviews, the sales person is able to work with customer to determine what they are specifically looking for. This means that functionality has to include ability of sales person to understand customer business process.

Custom product competition - This allows sales person to provide customer with specific set of products that meets their actual needs.

Sales order creation from quotes - This generates actual order for customer based on quotes those were developed from price and product configuration designed via the needs assessment.

Automated customer billing - This is an integration point. It means that the back office can generate customer invoice automatically form information that the salesperson has entered into customer records. This feature is consequence of preceding features.

End Of Chapter 3

CHAPTER 4 - ENTERPRISE MARKETING AUTOMATION

Introduction There are two types of marketing

Interruption marketing Permission marketing

Pop-ups which arrive at your screen when the internet connection is established are good examples of interruption marketing. In the beginning, when the concept of internet was new, less number of users was using it, and even the number of products to be advertised was also less, this idea worked well. But now in this hi-tech world, one has to stick internet for so many jobs that these pop-ups are rather boring, especially when you are performing very important activity on the net. Thus in this era, interruption marketing is not a very good method to be adapted. The second type of marketing approach is permission marketing. It asks your permission to speak with you about the product and at the same time, provides consideration for your exit; every step on the way. Mr. Godden identifies this as dating your customers and defines this as a five-step process

Offer the prospect an incentive to voluntarily receive your mail or other marketing media.

Using attention offered by the product, offer a curriculum over time, teaching customers about your product or service.

Reinforce the incentive to guarantee tat the prospect maintains the permission.

Offer additional incentives to get even more permission.

Over a time, leverage the permission to change consumer behavior towards profit. This is a very pure and simple way of dealing with the customers. By the end of initial cycle, the prospective customer, having been through the five steps, will know your product, your company and you.

Now he or she will be in a position of becoming the actual customer who will remain loyal to you, because you didnt try to go all the way within the first five minutes of date. Enterprise Marketing Automation

It enhances this courtship trough mixture of e-mail, fax, web, telephone and other technology tools.

Intensifies technicians for prospective customers.

When personalized or segmented, customer preferences are determined by use of analytic tools. These tools define customer segments that are appropriate to the business and can help to evaluate the success and the failure of e-marketing campaigns in real time so that significant adjustments to incentives and directions can be made quickly. All the trials and tribulations of this courtship are monitored and adjusted continuously. Thus EMA is a type of permission marketing though it is not purely devoted to you. EMA is a technology of end-to-end marketing. Its core component is campaign management. The e-component of campaign management is the provision of a single view of the customer, which are all available with a browser. Most e-marketing toolsets are focused on a product that provide following-

o o o o o o o

Customer intelligence Extraction and analysis of intelligence Campaign definition and planning based on data analysis Campaign launch Campaign monitoring tools that handle lead generation Response management Workflow

So because of that there is uniform customer view across enterprise. When used in real time environment of EMA and response management, refinements are related to individual customer rather that ad hoc response analysis of service bureaus.

Marketing campaigns Opt-in and Opt-out method of marketing Opting-in means that for personal interaction or consideration, you allow the company you are interacting with to send a solicitation that they expect you to take interest in. Rather than just another e-mail address, you have become a potential customer for them with real existence. Opt-in e-marketing has two functions; that is intelligence and engagement. The first stage [even prior to clicking in a checkbox] is collecting information about the customer. This information is stored along with customers website activity which is monitored as he walks his way through the site after the form is filled up at the point that the customer has checked or unchecked the checkboxes. Opt-in is often contrasted to opt-out option as more favorable choice. In opt-out variation, the checkboxes are already checked and the customer has to uncheck it. Thus for the customer, it is just deleting the checkbox; but from company point of view, the customer is prohibiting them form using his e-mail ID for sending their services; i.e. the company is loosing one potential

customer which is not a very good piece of marketing. Hence, most companies prefer to have opt-in options. Campaign Management E-marketings great strength is campaign management. This is the creation of personalized marketing efforts that not only engage customer or prospect but also engage entire enterprise in effort and provide single view of activity to any department or segment of the company. The campaign management features of technology are end to end. They plan and monitor all activities includinga. Identification of prospect b. Generation of lead c. Prospect and customer information captured d. Lead qualifications e. Distribution of leads to appropriate segments f. Campaign planning g. Campaign execution [e.g. promotion, planning, event etc.] h. Response management i. Refinement j. Channel management [joint marketing campaigns]

EMA campaign methods dont seem very different from traditional marketing methods. The difference is internet. EMA use Internet to capture, extract and analyze information about each customer and each market segment. It then gives the company the design tools to plan, monitor and refine its marketing campaigns to the level of individual within market segment. EMA tools also provide consistent, continuous representation of a value proposition across multiple channels. The field, the call center, the web and internal departments all see a single view of the customer due to tight interaction between front office and back office. EMA workflow allows all parties to see exactly what they are permitted to see in all marketing campaigns as they evolve. No one is left out of the loop and thus mistakes can be minimized. Diagram-

Case study for EMAUnited Airlines sent Mr. Greenberg a mail that began with the following-

Dear Mr. Greenberg, During the past year, you purchased and flew our expanded united service departing form Dulles airport and we appreciate your business. To thank you, we would like to give you an opportunity to earn free travel and save on Untied Airlines. Earn double miles and save 15% on United. For more offers visit our website. This seems very simple and short; not too much information. Not much until one realizes that United Airlines has millions of customers and the mail was specific to Mr. Greenberg based on his flying habits. To send him this mail, United Airlines had to determine the followinga. He was a customer. b. He has flown on United Airlines within the last year. c. He was a mileage plus customer. d. He flew frequently enough. e. He flew from Washington D.C.s Dulles airport.

This was sorted and extracted from 10s of thousands of customers flying form multiple airports in United States daily. One that information was determined, theya. Identified Mr. Greenberg with a particular promotion that they thought good appeal to him. b. Decided an engagement media that United thought would capture his attention. c. Using opt-in methods, they then stated to receive additional offers join the mileage plus email by going to http;//www.email.mileageplus.com d. This was opting-I permission in the United Airlines-Paul Greenberg courtship to go from direct mail first base to e-mail list second base in exchange of some consideration such as 15% off and double miles. EMA tools EMA tools are distinguished from traditional marketing tools by their ability to capture, extract and analyze customer information form multiple and often platform independent sources and relative the results through the web. This can man e-mail, web, direct mail, fax, voice mail etc. good analytic software cant only reduce the cost, of customer acquisition via targeted and segmented results but can also identify these customers who are potentially going to take their business to your competitors. These tools have to be scalable. They also have to be rich so they can provide measurement and customization of matrix to get these measurements. They have to be clear and distinct with reporting tools that provide you with information. They also have to be fast since they are dealing with millions of transactions from multiple resources. The tools interpret in-depth profiles of customers who are accessing websites responding to mails, answering direct mail campaigns and accessing what is called customer touch points in any way. Touch point are either active or interaction nodes of customer communication. They are the areas of customer interaction that are considered central to success of any marketing efforts. The EMA

analysis provides in depth profile o customer performances, buying behavior, purchase frequency etc. successful analytic tools give organization the view of data that lets them interpret, identify and capitalize as emerging trends in key markets and focus their marketing and sales efforts on highly profitable marketing segments. Ultimate result of all this is personalized customer information. Lets have a look at what is done by EMA analytic application of a company which is a market leader in EMA implementation. These toolsa. Analyze looking, billing and backlog information. This means revenue can be segmented by customized sets of criteria which could be geographical or by industry segments.

b. Leverage data from other CRM and SFA applications to improve sales forecasts, measures sales process matrix and identify areas of sales focus.

c. Evaluate e-commerce purchasing patterns and website effectiveness. This will allow the user to identify how successful their e-commerce initiative is.

d. Monitor effectiveness of your customer service agents and systems such as average cost and time to service requests and profitability and effectiveness of individual/ call center representatives.

e. Analyze your customers care for a clear understanding of customers preferences, buying behavior, loyalty and profitability.

f. Develop customer segments based on profitability and lifetime customer value and link those to international, national and regional marketing programs.

g. Measure effectiveness of indirect channel partners and programs including distribution of sales, inventory trends, distributors profit margins, distributors sell by product line and channel tracking trends.

As in any analytical application, this data has to be extracted from somewhere. The development of data warehouse and creation of data marts as customer repositories are becoming commonplace in the larger CRM implementation. Much of this process is like traditional marketing. But the use of new media such as e-mail or web makes it interesting. Interactivity, instant response and little work on part of customer are keys of this game.

EMA components

Promotions - Web integrated marketing provides the same marketing themes that consumers have always been interested in; i.e. promotions, contests, cross selling of products, up selling of products and discount coupons. The calculation is that they will get a long term customer value through repeat customers overtime and that the loyal customers will stay loyal due to other things [such as excellent services and constant promotions]. In a way, price increases later on.

Events - Various vendors have developed EMA event management tools for capturing customer information through event registration and online interaction. The web is preferred e-marketing delivery mechanism. Registration for seminars, exhibitions etc. is possible using internet. However, even more interesting are webinars; i.e. seminars that are actually conducted over the web. One highly recommended is a series of newsletters called C-Biz by Robert Thomson. In that, a newsletter is sent in plain text format each week to the customers e-mail ID after he has given permission to do so by signing up on his website http://CRMguru.com. Within the newsletter are embedded URLs for location on web where you can register for webcast on some future date. A web-based registration form is filled out and an e-mail reminder is sent some time before webcast. The customer should have proper tools and then he is ready to watch live or prerecorded webinars. In the meantime, the sponsoring company has captured a qualified prospect. Registration page that is filled up on corporate webcast sponsors page is the part of e-marketing campaign management toolset, as is the letter received from Mr. Thomson. The site and the newsletter also provide a valuable opt-in service by providing consideration with the customers task; e.g. if the customer gives CRM guru names and e-mails of five subscribers, then he gets an electronic book and whitepaper on CRM or some other forms of consideration. Other registration and lead management features provided by most EMA vendors registration page include-

o o o o o

Registration page with opt-in. Unsubscribed [opt-out] capabilities. User controlled profile managements. Lead follow up from trade shows and other revenues. Campaigns on trade show floor.

User group registration and follow up.

Customer Loyalty and Retention Program - Customer loyalty is much difficult to retain when all it takes a different URL or a click on tool to switch brands. Customers are constantly bombarded by next great deal and access to that deal might not be a great effort. Even if the product is good, there is going to be a better new generation EMA applications built in those small, personalized touches that ensures quality and retain customers; e.g. Unicas affinian campaign management has templates for the following-

o o o o o o

Birthday greetings. Holiday and special occasion reminder. Welcome programs Delivery of gift ideas. Point based programs. Win back programs for inactive customers.

Partner Relationship Management - These includes features that incorporate targeted joint marketing program to promote both you and your partners business. Some features are -

o o o

Cross sell of campaigns complementary products. Promotion of new versions of upgrades of a companys products. Joint promotions with partners and affiliates.

Response Management - The campaign is in progress, you have thousands of customers and thousands of responses from the targeted markets of different offerings. Additionally, you have put a series of surveys online so that, you can find time to your marketing. During the course of this activity, there is a lot of data to look at. For this, your response management activities should be the best. The traditional response management is tedious even with the use of computers. The time it takes for response gathering analysis and refinement is too much. Also you must store the information somewhere and then do the analysis. After the analysis, you need to work through plan for the next campaign. Since the response gathering is often completed after the campaign is completed.

This is the point where EMA is appreciated the most using the Internet as a tool that works in real time, what is now called as a close group. Closed group feedback is then heart of internet based response management. It is the use of internet and the tools to compile extract and analyze information while the campaigns are in progress. Thus information is generating new information. Hence the time to gather and analyze information and response to campaign is notably shorter. Besides this, the EMA response management has following benefitsa. Information gathering, extraction and analysis time is dramatically reduced.

b. Refinement to the campaign can be done in midstream, improving the possibility of returns within the existing campaign. It is no longer a lesson learnt for the next time but instead a chance of success while the original campaign is in progress.

c. Automated tasks free up the labor time for other marketing tasks.

End Of Chapter 4

CHAPTER 5 - IMPLEMENTING CRM

Pre-implementation phase Time frame of pre-implementation phase changes from several weeks to several months according to the depth of preliminary work your company needs to do; e.g. in this time frame, decision is made to go with the CRM implementation. The criteria are those functions the CRM software functionality needs to answer and these corporate weaknesses software and the processes need to address. This is also the phase where software selection occurs. This is not at all an easy thing, because so many new CRM choices are hitting the market every day. But if your selection criteria are sharp and if you have some references to help you identify the established vendor, your path is considerably easier. Some of the criteria for the selection are as followso o o o o o

Scalability of software Toolset flexibility for customization Stability of existing CRM application code Level of technical support available during and after implementation Upgrade support Availability of additional modules like EMA, SFA etc.

Kick off meeting Once the software selection is made, you move on to kick off meeting. This meeting is where it all gets real. This is where the implementation partner meets with the customer to figure out the customers needs. This meeting which should take one or two days is where the customer and the partner decide which responsibilities are assigned to whom, the team members meet each other and the chemistry for implementation is established. A typical CRM vendors team consists of the following people a. Project Manager- The project manager is responsible for all aspects of implementation improving cost control, quality testing and customer satisfaction. If there is a problem, then the project manager is the person one speaks with and expects to work out solution. The project manager is the one with connections back at the companys headquarters and his own companys headquarters if he represents consulting services partner or system integrator. If there are changes to statement of work, this it is project manager who must work out details with the customer

b. Implementation Leader- Sometimes, this person is called technical head. He is responsible for technical aspects. He directs system engineers and normally is dedicated to only one project at a time. He tends to be on site full time till the end of the project. His strength is combination of people management skills and technical knowledge. He assists in preparing statement of work with project

manager. However, he doesnt resolve problems of the project. The technical head is normally focused strictly on technical issues and not much involved with customer relationship.

c. System engineer- Sometimes they go by their particular titles; e.g. java developers, functional sales specialists or whatever the company wants to call them. Their primary role is to do the coding part. They are also on site all the time unless there is a work which can be done at home. In many implementations, technical and functional expertise is necessary to do work; e.g. to work with SalesLogix archive tool, it is important for system engineers to know how corporate sales processed tend to function. They dont necessarily have to know the particular companys specific processes work.

Customer Team consists of the following a. Project manager - This project is different than the above mentioned one. He is the representative of the customer team and speaks to developers on behalf of the customer regarding any issues.

b. System/business analysts - These employees are the functional experts. They will be assigned full time to project. They provide inputs on business processes and flow that are specific to enterprise.

c. IT staff - These are administrators of system; i.e. the people who are maintaining and setting up the network and its software. They have to see that there are no significant problems during implementation period. Actually they have to do this all the time because a good deal of efforts during implementation is working bugs out of it and at that time, they have to be very critical.

d. Integration expert - This person guides the integration of CRM with other information system.

e. Heads of non-technical department - They provide input and approval on aspects affecting their department.

Requirements Gathering The length of this phase can change if the scope of the project is significantly bigger. Firstly, because there are a lot more people to interview. Secondly, the complexity of project means that the requirements phase is more complicated. Regardless of all this, this is a phase where meetings happen with the stakeholders, other corporate decision makers and IT staff. In other words, all those who are going to use the system must be involved in these meetings. This implies that the CRM is going to affect the interactions of every appropriate department in company; i.e. marketing, sales, finance etc. all have a direct need to have an input in the team during requirements gathering phase. There are number of actions necessary during this procedure. This is also the time for discussing some issues regarding how successful has the sales methodology been or what can be changed etc. ultimately, whatever the customer wants to carry forward will be architectures. Most CRM packages are fairly flexible in their toolsets permitting for wholesale or small changes to the business rules that govern the customers corporate life. Once requirements for front office processes are gathered, the next step is identification of input and output. This is the way the users will interact with the system. Some of the questions to be answered in this phase include 1. Which screens will be needed for input data? 2. How information will be obtained from the system? 3. How will the customer want to work with the system? 4. How many users must system accommodate and how they will connect to it? While these questions are answered, there is a lot of other work to be done; e.g. what would be systems optimal functionality if everyone had their wishes granted. The difficulty of this part is two-fold 1. The users unacquainted with what the system can technical do and what not. Often ask for functionality that is impossible.

2. A briefing of basics of CRM application before requirements gathering is often useful for these users who are not involved in these strategies. The plan is to include as much as possible to keep customer happy. But, technical boundaries and interactions of proposed functionality have a lot to do with ultimate restriction on what gets implemented.

Prototype and Proposal Generation This is the next phase where the actual work begins with the prototype. Purpose of prototype is to develop some key functionality for the customer to examine before the main activity is started. By doing it in a prototype, the amount of difficulty in achievement of functionality and issues it brings up are all on the table before a complete implementation to all users is done. The same goes for creation of mock screens. With the creation of these screens, workflow can be demonstrated. This allows user to participate at each step of workflow and prototype development. In most circles, the methodology that gives user maximum participation and inputs on deliverables as they are delivered is called interactive method. The prototype can satisfy needs by visualization. Still, not all customization require prototyping. On occasions where requirements are clear and processes also work well, prototype is not needed. Once prototype is done and demonstrated, and proposed changes to workflow and function are acceptable to both customer and development team, formal project proposal that states deliverables, timelines and the final costs is written for clients.

These CRM projects are often divided into four phases 1. Phase I - Sales modules customization- Here, product catalogue, sales process embedding, account and contact databases and sales pipeline management criteria are developed.

2. Phase II- Marketing module customization- These are no different in technical processes from sales module customization. They are only different in what needs to be continued.

3. Phase III- Integration with external applications- This is an analysis of existing IT infrastructure and network functionality. This work identifies integration points between existing systems, CRM applications and possible installation and customization of phase I and phase II and third intermediate phase.

4. Phase IV- Reporting integration- This is one of the most important points in the process. Reporting is a vital function especially for business that are scattered beyond one office. Customization of these reports and their generation are critical to corporate success. There are often problems when information is not

appropriately structured or appropriately routed. Hence reporting integration phase is quite important.

Development of Customization Once there are appropriate sign offs on the formal and final document, the next phase is development of customizations. The typical length of customization is 5 to 7 weeks and it depends on the following

Size of the project

Complexity of interfaces, workflow and functions

Availability of the employees/users to work with the team to improve customizations at a given interaction.

Technical problems not related with implementation but still effective. They can be resolved by creating an independent environment for development, esteem etc.

Midstream workflow and rules changes for customization generated because of changing corporate business process. They can be managed but still will affect the timetable and the price.

Some legal issues which may arise between developer and user by changes in rules etc.

The next step is to assign tasks for the vendors. An effective implementation partner will then set up a development environment that mirrors the customers site as closely as possible; e.g. a database is created which is identical with customers database. This means that the success in this environment will indicate likely success in project. The process initiated in the customization phase will be known to work on customers system simply because they are working as a mock up of a customers system. The project manager is responsible for a project plan at this phase also. The plan is a checklist of what the developers

and what team members are assigned to which task. Based on the successful checking of these tasks, status reports on the state of delivery reports can be given to the customer in agreed upon time phase. Depending upon the formalities of the project, status report can be just phone calls or formal written documents with specific successes or failures. Throughout this customization period, development team is demonstrating functionality to the customer and soliciting customers response. It is important that the customer is engaged all the times in the project. If there are changes to be made, several things must be done; e.g. a clear cut change management process has to be in place so that both contractors and customer can accept changes. The change management document should include understanding changes to statement of work in function also will cause extra cost, will increase deliver time and due date of total implementation partners for changes. It also must include workflow that identifies who the authority is that can sign off on the changes and thus add the changes to budget. Finally data routines are written, screens are developed and other communications are completed. The final part of this phase is development team testing; i.e. making sure that the basic system works. Power User Beta Testing This is where the actual users of the system get involved in finding the systematic discrepancies that arise when customization is moving to completion and data migration is being prepared. It is better if the users are more experienced. The first major step in this 2 to 5 day process is to create a testing environment at the customers site. For this, customer purchases a server that can be isolated from important operating systems and can work side by side. Very often the systems with the most extensive customizations exhibit fewest problems in beta testing because they have been checked so extensively during development. However, to achieve this stage, there has to be a close working relationship between development team, internal implementation team and IT staff. With some implementation methodologies, this is the beginning of knowledge transfer with customer IT staff performing beta implementation. The strengths and the shortcomings of efforts, what kind of back up resources are necessary, what kind of procedural automation is still needed and what kind of training will be paramount when time comes for consultancy services to leave the premises. Once beta implementation is complete and analyzed then comes tough part i.e. test data import. Before system goes live, there has to be a full scale test run. It will identify accuracy and usability of data. This must be done with full participation of customer. The customer must verify the integrity of data transfer. After gathering last minute usability requests, there is a consistency check for everything ranging from look and feel of the screen to spelling? Before system hand off, there is one more phase i.e. training. Training 1. Basic training - This is the training for the users. This is normally run by the vendor. There are two ways to do it depending upon which is cost effective. Either the company can send its users at the developers place or could also have a trainer come to the company.

2. Customization training - This is done by the now-trained employees who have been engaged in the project. This is done simply because of their familiarity with system.

3. Documentation training - The consultancy service is also responsible for providing documentation on customization system to see that the future use is ensured. Often, as a part of team, these consultancy services will provide documentation experts who know how to piece together useful documentation I a very efficient way.

4. Additional training - 1. Train the trainer - As name implies, whoever you send to this course will be the one who will train the remaining users in your company if you are customer. Hence it is essential that this particular person is well trained. 2. Integrator course - This training teaches the IT staff of company to make their own customization with or to consultancy services.

Roll Out and System Hand Off This is the final phase. Normally it takes one or two days and normally takes place on a weekend so that there is a minimal destruction of actual work week. If it extends beyond this, then some alternative arrangements can also be planned. The other significant part in this process is remote user or satellite database installed on their desktop/laptop. Each of them will be customizing it as they move through a given day. Ongoing Support - System Optimization and Follow-Up In spit of constant training provided by consultancy service, it is quite likely that initially there are some problems in smooth functioning of the system. Hence implementation partner must be ready to provide customer with rapidly turned-around support. The support has to be there till clients get used to the system. Even after that, it can be a good practice to contact customer to make sure that they are happy and functioning. Occasional on site assessments should also be done to get proper feedback from customer. This lets implementation partner assess whether the customer is getting maximum benefit from system.

End of Chapter

CHAPTER 6 - CALL CENTER

Introduction Call center is a place where calls are either made or received in a high volume by 100s of call center agents sitting together in a large group. The purposes are o o o o o o

Sales Marketing Telemarketing Customer service Technical support Specialized business activity

The set up can be considered as one of the followingo o o o o

Huge telemarketing center Customer service center Help line Service bureau Outsourcer

Earlier call center was defined as a place where various business transaction were handled through telephone that used to combine centrally located database with an automatic call distribution [ACD] system. An agent in a call center means a staff/person who is working in a call center. By seats, we mean number of people working together at any given time. Classification of Call Centers The call center can be classified as follows

Inbound - It specializes in handling calls from customer. The agents of inbound call center are supposed to handle customer queries. No calls are made to the customer in an inbound call center. This type of call center is more common in customer care where they are supposed to have facility of toll free number through which customer can call for making queries.

Outbound - Outbound call centers are those call centers from where the calls are made to the customer either for business transaction or for responding quires made. It can be further divided into two parts i.e. business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C). The main utility of an outbound call center is collecting finances from customer or parties. The other utilizations are being telemarketing, teleselling etc.

Domestic call center - It relates to geographical and political boundaries of customers call center is catering to. Such call centers are independent of certain key factors like time zone, laws, culture, spoken language etc. the problems faced by call center agents are relatively small. These call centers generally do not have 24*7 working hours because they operate inside their respective time zones.

International call center - If a call center is making/receiving calls from outside political boundary it is said to be an international call center. These call centers are dependent on key factors mentioned above. Agents in an international call center are expected to be highly trained professionals. They have 24*7 services. The agents mostly work in shifts.

In-house call center - A company which owns certain products/services sets up its own call center to provide a helpline to its customers. Such a call center is termed as in-house call center.

Outsourced call center - If a company hires a call center to service its customers, and then the call center is called as outsourced call center.

Technological aspects of call center

Headsets- Headsets are the key ingredients of a call center. They provide hand free operation for the agents letting them type faster, talk on the phone longer.

ACD (automatic call distributor) - It is linked to everything that goes in the call center. Its basic function is to take incoming calls and take them to right desk, i.e. customers desk. Basic ACD system process the received telephone calls on first come first serve basis. The system typically answers each call instantaneously and if needed hold in a queue till it is directed to agent. Many ACD software like PACER handle multiple queues and keep records of calls and depending on the user defined business rules, ACD routs different callers on different paths. Moreover a call centers business rules may be configured as ultimate goal should be to serve every caller quickly and efficiently to meet customer service expectations.

Salient features of ACD 1. Flexible in call distribution - The system allows you to customize the call handling to meet current operating requirements.

2. Call configuration - ACD directs the call either to call queue holding calls to be handled by specific person regardless of dialed number or a call lifter series of calls ordered on the basis of dialed numbers. On directing a call to call lifter, call center manager programs on how call is to be handled while it is waiting.

3. Agents- The serving team specifies the type of the call to be handled by the agent.

4. Heavy traffic handling - ACD is a control point for call centers and is capable of handling calls at the rate and volume not only far beyond human capabilities bur also beyond any other telecom switching system.

5. Best utilization of human resources - Using ACD assures that your human resources are used more efficiently.

6. Call queuing facility - ACD provides special services to all customers making them feel special. All calls that are in a queue are made available to respective agent if he is free else the customer is kept waiting in a queue. While in queue, delay treatment is provided to keep caller online.

7. Call origin display - Different types of calls each with its own call origin display can be directed to the same queue.

8. Call mapping - Incoming calls are resident to a call class and are mapped to a queue. By creating a queue mapping definition, different teams can be assigned to service a queue at various times through the day.

9. Interflow - An ACD helps to reroute the calls automatically to another call center if traffic encounters some conditions. Using an ACD system, automatically routes the queued calls to back up teams during heavy traffic periods.

10. Skilled routing - Skilled routing directs the caller to the agent with proper skills to meet needs of caller.

Importance of ACD

Power- Nothing has more raw call processing ability than a standalone ACD. It is best suited to todays requirements.

Technology- All factors mentioned above are to be considered.

Interactive Voice Response [IVR] It is an automated system for collecting customers information. It is like any other computer system that helps the caller to get the desired information by way of asking questions. The information is either entered through telephone keypad or voice. They caller then gets some kind of information back from computer system through digitized or pre-recorded voice. One can also achieve the desired information through fax machine or website. Use of this technology helps the call centers to tackle many typical queries which earlier required an agent to answer. Customers can retrieve virtually any sort of information from account balances to telephone number or from weather condition to booking a movie ticket.

Why to use IVRS? There are five good reasons why call center should use IVRS [interactive voice response systems] 1. System can have access to the callers background information and can route the call if necessary to relevant destination. This improves customer service.

2. Accessing information through telephone lets anyone interact with the system anywhere on the globe.

3. IVRS allows companies to provide real time information on demand 24 hours a day without human interaction.

4. IVRS reduces the length of queue. This reduces waiting time for response.

5. IVRS is cost effective because of number of questions it answers per unit time.

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) A call center has to deliver many types of interactions like fax, e-mail, web chat, voice interaction etc. this cross media interconnection is implemented by using a technology called as computer telephony integration. It is a way of combining data and voice together through open

connection based system. This it is all about using computers to manage telephone calls. This integration improves upon limitation of computer and telephone. Computer instantly receives full information about the caller and telephone provides real time voice interaction.

Features of CTI1. Caller identification appears on screen form existing caller database and remains for entire call session. 2. Called number identification is a special tool regarding number dialed by caller. It is displayed with each incoming call. 3. We application can be automatically launched using telephone software depending upon the data given by the phone system. 4. Automated dialing of outgoing calls- Point and click any phone number present in computer database and telephone will dial the call. 5. Predictive dialing and call blending- If same person handles both inbound and outbound calls, it is called call blending. 6. Conferencing- it involves a three way communication. 7. Virtual call centers- In it, several groups of agents spread over geographic location are treated together as single center for scheduling and call handling purposes. 8. Intelligent call routing 9. Online reporting- Certain CTIs include a comprehensive online reporting system plus the ability to customize reports.

Benefits of CTI1. Voice recognition is done either for authenticating or for message forwarding. 2. Manages voice or video conferences. 3. Collects and displays pending live calls/messages left by the caller. 4. Receives fax messages and routes them to appropriate fax machines. 5. Based on the call input, initiates smart agent application to provide help with callers request. 6. Call handling time is reduced by great amount. Hence overall operation is speeded up and thus CTI is also cost effective.

Web enabling the call centerWeb enabling the call center means interacting with the customer through web. Before web enabling the call center one has to keep in mind the following facts a. Though it is a technology being implemented, the customer is of much importance i.e. resolution is the central focus of the entire process. Even while problem resolution is the purpose, the experience has to be pleasant to the customer which means that the customer needs as much interactive control as possible over entire process.

b. The technology chosen should be such that it is most appropriate to business rules of company.

c. Web enablement is time consuming , not just for functional and technical implementation, but as far as support from personnel and increased complexity of job is concerned, i.e. people working there should be aware of managing e-mails, how to understand multiple channel information and use it and what appropriate response times are. Thus not only good communication skill, but also documentation skill and knowledge about current happenings are required.

d. One is advised to use existing tools as far as possible e.g. Siebel call center package.

e. Plan to give higher priority treatment or some other reward to self service web users. Encouraging that behavior is important because two things have occurred with the use of web-

User is normally not interacting with live agent.

Information captured is lot more effective and hence time consuming. So that more and more customers can be solved by self service.

f. One should not assume that it will take place of human being. It is just an alternative, which is valuable, useful but cannot be forced. g. Try to implement software that will capture information well enough to constantly improve your knowledge base. h. Keep interfaces simple.

Now lets look at the technology behind a phone call that is made by a customer to the CIC [customer interaction center]. The customer makes a call to the service center for the first time. He gives the corporate information ID, which is matched against a table that shows the customers company is a gold service holder, thus providing the customer with the highest level of service offered by the company which is running CIC. Then the individual gives name information and is assigned a unique configuration ID that is attached to the configuration ID of a company. Once that occurs, it will be used for recording the call, as well as for logging and monitoring future calls. The workflow is a very important part of the Siebel, PeopleSoft call center operation because it handles automatic routing that is critical for timely resolution of problems. Automated intelligent call routing Intelligent inbound and outbound traffic direction is a central condition for effective CIC. Call routing gets difficult when e-mail, chat and web routing gets involved. Managing this means using call-routing software that can handle increasing volumes, geographical dispersion of the call center representatives (CCRs), multiple channels and workflow. Typically it would identify who is calling and why, use the customer database to identify the history, and then find the appropriate party who is available at the time the caller calls. The software should have grated IVR so that some of the processes can be routed to automatic responses. It should have CTI to capture the information and use the databases effectively. Its distribution should be multichannel, which means an open architecture. It should

be easily scalable, since call volume will vary widely between companies, times of day, year and months. It should be able to capture real time data on the customer and use it in conjunction with the historical data on the customer that exists in the customer data repository. It should be webenabled so that web-based routing to the appropriate menus can occur and so that the information given is easily captured and centrally stored. It should allow live collaboration on the web. It should provide remote agent support so that branch offices and small office/small agents can be utilized in the problem resolution. This means that the home agent and the branch offices can access most of the functionality that is provided to the headquarter agent. The software should have strong scripting capabilities and an open interface. This means the interface can control IVR scripting that is governed by applied business rules. It should also integrate workforce management tools with its call-routing capacity so that the CICs agent capacity and scheduling forecasts can be integrated into the use of the call-routing functionality in micro specific ways. Workforce Management Software It lies on the top of the call-routing software. The two features that are most important are call volume forecasts and agent scheduling. Equally as important is sophisticated pattern recognition (more precisely pattern recognition anomalies). Logging and monitoring are also part or workforce management. The channels of communication are vastly expanded since 1990s and the factors that morphed the call center into a customer interaction center are at play in workforce management, too. The functionality behind the forecasting and agent scheduling also includes reporting, whatif scenario planning, and compliance with rules and regulations. Other features can include comparison between the forecasts and the results, and most importantly, multisided support. The most important part of this is done via multiple communication media. Logging and monitoringLogging and monitoring software provides the granularity needed to do precision scheduling and improve performance management. Besides such obvious things as collecting information that is based on caller IDs of some sort, there are several other features that good logging and monitoring software has

The means to develop criteria to capture appropriate samples across the entire CIC network. Extensive and very flexible reporting tools Universal connectivity to ACD systems Strong interfacing with the WFM applications Analytic tools that can score data so that weight can be assigned to captured information Easy export to other systems

One company that specializes in the performance management domain is e-talk Corporation. They provide some of the most comprehensive logging and monitoring tools in the business and have four applications. The two those are apt for this usage areRecorder- Enables customer contact centers to record and evaluate customer interactions simultaneously through telephone, email and web interaction. It even allows for live monitoring and recording sessions. What makes this particularly powerful is a deep search engine that can provide call selections based on any number of criteria. Recorder can be accessed from a touchtone phone. Advisor - A tool that measures agent or agent group performance. It imports productivity data from ACD of the company and other business systems and combines with the quality criteria of the company to give it a complete picture of agents performance. This is a web-based evaluation tool. End Of Chapter 6

CHAPTER 7 - APPLICATION SERVICES PROVIDERS [ASP]

Introduction An ASP is a company that hosts a software application and rents it for a monthly fee. The basic value proposition of an ASP is two-fold; firstly, to outsource the headaches and expenses associated with managing a business applications, thereby allowing its customers to free up resources for more strategic initiatives; secondly, to enable its customers to conserve capital by paying a monthly service fee instead of having t make the large up-front expenditures required to bring enterprise business applications on line. The economies of scale that an ASP can leverage for their customers are dramatic. Most companies simply cant afford to implement the levels of redundancy, reliability and security. By using an ASP, even the smallest business can gain access to leading business applications and what are often world-class system infrastructures. Like any important decision, choosing whether to use ASPs for the business starts by taking a high-level overview of their advantages and disadvantages. The value proposition of an ASP is targeted mostly toward small to midsize companies. ASPs give your business access to leading business applications, implemented rapidly and painlessly by a fully staffed, remote IT department, all for one fixed monthly fee.

Advantages of ASP

Rapid implementation- ASPs implement the same products on the same platform over and over again. This enables them to become extremely proficient at this task, even to the point of being able to automate the most repetitive parts of the process. Because the implementations all happen within the ASPs data center, certain application components can be pre deployed and/or shared among multiple applications, to further reduce the human effort and total time required for the implementation.

Lower cost of entry and ownership- ASPs rent applications for a monthly fee. This enables their customers to defer the large capital expenditures traditionally required to bring applications on line. Because ASPs are able to leverage tremendous economies of scale by centralizing and sharing resources such as network connectivity, hardware, software, facilities and human resources, they are able to pass additional savings on to customers and still maintain substantial profit margins.

Reduced people headaches- Its quite true that good people are difficult to find, difficult to recruit and even more difficult to retain. This has always been true, but never as prominent a problem as in todays IT market. ASPs directly address this business pain point by effectively outsourcing their customers IT department, or at least the part of the IT department required to manage each respective application.

Availability- Most ASPs advertise 24/7 uptime for their customers applications. That is, they are on line all the time. This is typically backed up by a service level agreement which essentially guarantees that the systems of the company stay up and running or the company starts getting portions of the money back. This is an especially significant guarantee for mission-critical applications.

Scalability- The very nature of the ASP business requires that they use high-performance, scalable technologies. Leading ASPs have invested millions of dollars to develop a scalable infrastructure because they must be ready to accommodate the needs of the new economys companies. Because it is already in place, all customers get to enjoy the same world-class infrastructure.

Disadvantages of ASP

Limited Choices - ASPs typically provide a very limited number of brands when it comes to applications. They are forced to do this if they are going to be able to produce repeatable, scalable results. Because most ASPs are completely reliant on the marketing efforts of the actual software vendors t drive brand loyalty, they are likely to host only the products with greatest market share. These products are not always the best solution for a customers business problem.

Integration with other applications - Because ASP applications are hosted outside the enterprise, integration with other enterprise apps becomes challenging. Even though actual data connectivity between the enterprise and the ASP can be reasonably robust, the fact that the applications (and the experts who manage them) are not part of the enterprises core IT function makes integration efforts more complex.

Security - For all practical purposes, data held at an ASP is very safe. However, discomfort still exists with many IT managers because not only their jobs, but the viability of their company depends upon the safety of enterprise data.

Connectivity - If an application is operating within the enterprise; it would take a LAN failure to break connectivity to the application. LAN technology is very stable, and in the event a problem does occur, it can be fixed directly by the enterprise. When using an ASP, there are several more variables introduced in the communication loop, including telecom companies. So the problem fixing, if the problem takes place, becomes even more difficult.

End Of Chapter 7