CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SERVICE QUALITY:THE FUTURE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SERVICE TECHNOLOGY

5. THE FUTURE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SERVICE TECHNOLOGY

The 21st century will be an era when customer satisfaction and service quality will be defined by providing customers (business to business and consumer to business) consistent accessibility. Total customer touch, at anytime, from anywhere, in any form. However, few businesses use customer access as a key component of a business strategy. Access seems to be developing piecemeal, not as the central core of an overall strategy to allow customer access and deliver customer value anytime and anywhere.

Customer Access Is the New Marketing Paradigm

It really is very simple. If you want people to solve problems right now, give them right-now infor- mation. And magically, if you want employees to create an enhanced customer experience (internal and / or external), give them the right information exactly when they need it. Access will be realized in a combination of bricks-and-mortar storefronts, the call center, and the Internet. If you don’t deliver consistent accessibility, someone else will.

Dell Computers understands the new paradigm probably better than any company as we enter the new millennium. It began selling products online in 1996. In 1999, it received 2 million hits per week and did 40% of its business on the Web. That is 20 million dollars of computers and ‘‘stuff’’ each day. No computer is built until it is ordered, making inventory expenses minimal. Michael Dell believes that three words control the future of business. Businesses that understand the power of these words and can implement them will win. What are these three words? ‘‘The consumer expe- rience.’’ That expression placed on or in view of everyone’s desk reminds all Dell employees that their salaries, cars, desks, and retirement accounts and the presents they give all depend on the experience they provide to the customer at all customer touch points. To make certain they are on top of that ‘‘experience,’’ Dell created the Consumer Experience Council, a group that scrutinizes every aspect of how Dell interacts with the customer.

Technological advances have made the ability to integrate telephone and computer technologies with front- and back-office functions a realistic weapon in creating and maintaining long-term cus- tomer relations. The business that treats the telephone, the Internet, e-mail, and storefronts as com- plementary channels will just create more opportunities for capturing market share and the share of the consumer.

There are some very strong reasons why accessibility is the central issue, but none more important than the simple fact that lack of accessibility turns out to be the prime customer dissatisfier and reason why consumers desert a company. Research at our Center for Customer Driven Quality at Purdue University has affirmed that over 50% of consumers who desert a company because of bad service experience (Figure 3) and that bad service is primarily defined as an accessibility issue (Fig- ure 4).

In order to support the total customer experience with information and intelligence at all points of contact, businesses must develop systems that can pull information from many differing databases. This requires a technology platform that allows for real-time reporting to the business and immediate updating to the customer experience file. Our points of contact must be aligned with all databases. Finally, the people who work in all of the customer access channels (contact centers, storefronts, and webcenters) need to understand the value that is added at each and every point of customer contact. This requires a redefinition of the role of each person who is acting in one of these contact channels. As an example, storefront people need to be comfortable with the Web and the call center. They need to be aware of how each of these access channels operates. This will require them to access to these other channels within the store. The company face to the customer should be such that whatever channel the customer selects, he or she will be able to conduct the business he or she wants and be recognized by his or her contact point as a person, not a transaction. No story will need to be told twice. No problem will go unsolved. No question will go unanswered. The customer will be proac- tively informed of any changes.

The organization must realize that this is not simply a technology purchase. This is not just pasting the latest electronic gizmo or switch or software onto your call center or website. Technology only enables the organization to enhance the customer experience. Customer relationship management (CRM) is not a toolbox; it is a new way of seeing the customer and then using a set of tools to enhance the total customer experience.

In a similar manner, the director, manager, or senior executive will have access to a set of cockpit- like analytical tools that will provide her or him enterprise-wide access to aggregate real-time infor- mation. So while the individual performance of a telephone service representative may not be

important to her / him, the enterprise-wide customer issues being probed in the contact centers are an issue—and this cockpit-type software provides that information when requested in real time.

So companies must remember to keep the customer at the focus of the decisions and solutions. Systems must be based on processes and technology that allow for simplified customer relationship management. General Electric has over 200,000 products across 80+ industries but only one number to call with a question, problem, concern whether it is about a jet engine, MRI machine, or a lightbulb . . . and they do this 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The systems must be open and easily integrated. The news is that this version of the future is available with technology today (and it will only get better and cheaper and easier).

Perhaps the most critical but undervalued aspect in creating total enterprise access will be the development of a layer of technology infrastructure called middleware. This middleware is critical for integrating the information now housed in separate and disparate databases. This ‘‘plumbing’’ does not get the attention it deserves. It is not glamorous or fashionable, partly because it is difficult to get a handle on, and it represents separate and distinct territories, each protected by herds of executives and workers who have vested interests in status quo systems. Middleware is the bridge between the databases. It is the piece that prevents the customer from hearing, ‘‘I am sorry, but the system does not allow me to do that’’ (heard often at airline counters) or ‘‘I don’t have access to that database here’’ (heard often at banks)—the kinds of things that frustrate consumers and drive them elsewhere. No more ‘‘Why is it so hard for you people to get the order right?’’

Accessibility is clearly a business issue. Dell has recently moved past Compaq computer as the leading PC in the United States, yet Dell doesn’t sell a single computer in the store. Intel and Cisco will book more from direct Internet orders than all the business-to-consumer sales that have taken place up until now. We can check inventory levels, place orders, and track these orders and delivery dates from these companies anytime we want to from our desk (as well as answer or have answered any of the questions we might have).

Accessibility is a control issue. Our ability to track our FedEx and UPS packages gives us power (and satisfaction). Imagine my smile when, after the recipient of a report I sent by FedEx claimed not to have received it, meaning my bonus for doing the work at that date would not be forthcoming, I was able to access (while we were speaking) the very signature that signed for the FedEx package exactly one hour before the due time (signed by this guy’s secretary).

Accessibility is not just a marketing issue but an enterprise one. The story of how Avis trains its people better and more efficiently is the story of accessibility. Avis had the goal of consistent training across all employees anywhere anytime in the organization. The company developed a system called Spotlight, a virtual multimedia learning center that can be accessed in any of the 15,000 offices across 1,210 countries. After hearing a greeting and motivational talk by the CEO and learning the basic Avis skill set, the new employee meets a customer who takes him or her through the most common problems (representing 80% of all the escalated customer dissatisfaction issues). There are multiple lessons of accessibility here. First, anyone in the organization has immediate access to training. Classes do not have to be scheduled. Trainers do not have to be trained. The associate in Asia can access the training as well as an associate in New York City. This training is infinitely repeatable. But less obvious is the accumulation of customer information so that employees can know and learn from the top consumer problems, questions, and difficulties in an almost real-time process. While Avis is training to the specific situation, the competition is talking about general issues of customer dissatisfaction / satisfaction. Accessibility of information has led to specificity of attack.

Accessibility is an inventory issue. Accessibility among vendors, manufacturers, and retailers will lead to automatic replenishment. The complex accessibility among Dell, FedEx, and the many man- ufacturers who make Dell’s parts results in FedEx managing just-in-time delivery of all the parts needed to build that special PC that the consumer just ordered today. At the end of the day, the system will tell us what we have on hand compared with what we want. If there is a difference, the difference will be ordered and the system will learn about proper inventory levels so that differences will be less likely in the future. In other words, the system learns from its experiences today and adjusts for tomorrow.

Accessibility is a retooling issue. Retooling a company for customer access means reengineering the technology and the people.

Most importantly, whatever the bottom-line impact of accessibility is on running a better business, the bottom-line impact on consumers is key. Accessibility enhances the customer’s total experience. Accessibility builds customer and employee relationships with the company that empower them to change the enterprise and the enterprise to change them.

Accessibility builds brand meaning and value. Consumers are finding accessibility as a differen- tiating brand value.

Accessibility can create ‘‘delight’’—the difference between the just satisfied and the WOWed.

In addition to accessibility, the future of service quality and customer satisfaction has to do with how information about the consumer will lead to extraordinary relationship building. Many names are emerging for this, such as database marketing, relationship marketing, and one to one marketing.

This is not a new name for direct mail, or an order-taking system, or a substitute for a solid marketing strategy, or a solution to a bad image, or quick fix for a bad year. This is a new paradigm that Peppers and Rogers (1997, 1999) call ‘‘one to one marketing.’’ The goal is to identify your best customers (‘‘best’’ can mean more profitable, most frequent purchasers, highest proportions of business, loyalty) and then spend the money to get them, grow them, and keep them loyal. You need to fence your best customers off from competition. How easy would it be for another company to come in and steal these clients? How easy would it be for these best customers to form a relationship similar to what they have with you with another company?