Focus on customer interaction (e-service)

I predict that increasing competitiveness and focus on innovation and revenue growth are forcing B2C and B2B organizations to align and optimize customer interaction and service delivery. Moving from Content Management (ECM) to e-service is a shift from information delivery (content delivery) to customer interaction. In this paradigm shift I see that channels need to be aligned and integrated with common underlying workflows and business rules .

Why is e-service essential
Customer service has historically been the domain of phone based contact centers and e-mail based communication. However organizations of today must treat a wider spectrum of customer contacts points with a wider palette of contact points for the customer. Organizations need to align and develop multiple communication channels to capture every potential customer (prospect) and interact with existing customers.

Typically an e-service mission statement could be: “Increase sales and customer satisfaction by serving partners and customers better by unifying enterprise applications, information and business process delivered cross the web”

I mean that E-service is essential because organizations need to:

• Improve customer intimacy and customer loyalty
• Enable cross-sales and up-sales of products
• Turn prospects into clients
• Enable customer feedback for service and product development
• Moving customer service points upstream
• Enable customer web based self-service
• Enrich and coordinate knowledge management from several customer contact points

All this leads to a more efficient flow of information through the value chain, which again should lead to an increase in revenue.

Some recommendation in the shift to e-service:
If you build a unified customer interaction experience you need to align the organization, processes and toolset. It is important not to let current structures, policies and business-as-usual thinking slow migration to a unified customer service model. With this in mind you should:

• Describe and model it's current or selected customer interaction points – this will be the basis for understanding potential challenges and the basis for the GAP-analysis
• Perform the GAP-analysis and implement changes – mind that the solution to cover the GAP may not lie in technology.
• Build a solid, single and broad technology platform to support e-service initiatives. The platform should consist of cross channel information sharing, workflow, and a unified customer model.
• Consider technology consolidation – don’t try to integrate old systems into one platform for e-service. Move the company away from single customer point solution and implement a standardised platform with a modular and standardised presentation layer, the latter to ensure future flexibility.