WHEN SUCCESS IS THE ONLY OPTION SAP - University of Akron · WHEN SUCCESS IS THE ONLY OPTION CRM...

Best Practices Series eGainPAGE 16DO MORE WITH LESS INCUSTOMER SERVICE CRM

SAPPAGE 17BEST PRACTICES FORCRM IN THE ENTERPRISE

Brick StreetSoftwarePAGE 18DRIVING CUSTOMERENGAGEMENT IN ACROSS-CHANNEL WORLD:Five Key Principles for EffectiveEnterprise Marketing

Produced by:CRM Media

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3999 West Chester PikeNewtown Square, PA 19073Phone: 1-800-872-1727www.sap.com

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Enterprise CRM is big, complex, and not easy to accomplish. It is also in demand. Withexpenditures for CRM software and services expected to exceed $14 billion by 2014,the stakes are high, but the payoff is worth the risk if the systems perform as envisionedand the cost is on budget.

In the following pages of this month’s Best Practices Guide to CRM for the Enterprise,you will hear from three CRM solution providers who are experts in largeimplementations for global companies. Their experience and advice are invaluablesources of information for any company considering upgrading or replacing itsEnterprise CRM system. These recommendations are a great place to start as you beginyour research.

Bob FernekeesVP/Group PublisherCRM MediaInformation Today, Inc.

Bob Fernekees,Group Publisher212-251-0608 [email protected]

Adrienne Snyder,Eastern/Midwest Account [email protected]

Dennis Sullivan, Western Account [email protected]

WHEN SUCCESS IS THE ONLY OPTIONCRM FOR THE ENTERPRISE

1252 Borregas Avenue,Sunnyvale, CA 94089, USAPhone (US): (800) 821-4358Phone (EMEA): +44-(0)1753-464646Email: [email protected]

WP16 July 2012 | CRM Magazine Sponsored Content

Customer service CRMhas emerged as one ofthe few sustainabledifferentiators in today’shyper-competitive markets.

The companies winning in thisenvironment are those who provide“standout” customer service, whilecontrolling costs. eGain has been enablingCRM customer service excellence forclients around the world, through itscustomer interaction hub platform. Overthe past 15 years we have collected manyinnovations and best practices for doingmore with less. Here are some popular ones.

1. TAKE A PROACTIVE APPROACH TOCUSTOMER SERVICEIn today’s environment of

hypercompetition, businesses no longer havethe luxury of taking a wait and see approachto customer service CRM—whether it’sreacting to customer trends or competitormoves in their target markets, adding andunifying interaction channels, or addressingissues before inbound customer queries startto pile up. First-mover advantage indelivering exceptional customer serviceexperience and building brand equity isoften sustainable and irreversible.

Best Practices• Add next-generation web self-serviceoptions as well as up and comingchannels such as chat, SMS, andcobrowse and make sure they areintegrated. • Reduce inbound customer queries byimplementing proactive customer servicethrough outbound service campaignsand personalized notifications.

2. PROVIDE VALUE-BASED CUSTOMERSERVICEYour business needs to excel in customer

service without compromising profitability.Smart organizations provide the rightservice level by using robust frameworks todefine customer value. They nudge lowvalue customers to self-service, whilemaking it easy for high-value customers toget access to any kind of service they need.

Best Practices• Define customer value, based onstrategic variables such as customerlifetime value or tactical factors such asthe value of goods in an onlineshopping cart or a combination of both.• Make sure your customer interactionmanagement system is able tointegrate easily with ERP, CRM,and e-commerce systems.

3. LEVERAGE ONLINE CHANNELS ASPART OF A UNIFIED CUSTOMERINTERACTION HUBAdoption of electronic channels

continues to increase, fueled by increasedusage of the Internet, and generationalpreferences. Moreover, many industrystudies over the years have shown thatinteraction costs through these channels aresignificantly lower than the phone channel.It makes sense to leverage e-channels forcustomers, while driving down costs.

Best Practices• Implement a customer interaction hubto avoid creating channel silos andprovide a unified and consistentcustomer experience. Start with themost important channels first andsimply plug in other channels whenyou are ready for them.• Make sure traditional channels likephone and face-to-face interactions areintegrated with your other e-channels.Look for solutions with proven, out-of-the-box integration.• Establish and track service levels thatare appropriate for each channel.

4. EMPOWER YOUR AGENTS ANDCUSTOMERS WITH KNOWLEDGEContact center agents struggle to keep

up with their companies’ offerings due toincreased product proliferation andbusiness consolidation. Ever-changingprocesses and government regulations addto this challenge. Businesses must armagents with knowledge guided interactiveprocesses that are compliant with bestpractices and government regulations, aswell as knowledgebase content and flexibleaccess methods that will help themimprove first contact resolution.

Best Practices• Provide flexible access methods such asdynamic FAQ, search, browse, guidedinteractions, and chatbot interfaces tomaximize user adoption and ROI. Abroad set of access methods makes iteasy for agents and customers to findinformation based on their ownpreferences, experience level, problemtype, and stage in the customer life cycle,while reducing escalations and improvingagent and customer experience.• Do not ignore ongoing contentmaintenance. Automating contentperformance management tasks willhelp sustain content relevance, whilecurbing knowledge TCO.

5. ALIGN METRICS WITH GOALS ANDBUSINESS STRATEGYIf you intend to compete in your market

based on high-touch service and you’rerunning your contact center basedexclusively on throughput metrics, there’s aclear misalignment that will defeatcorporate intent.

Best Practices• Consider metrics such as “the number ofissues covered in an interaction,” insteadof “average call handle time” or “callshandled per hour” if your goal is todevelop deeper customer relationships.• Sales-related metrics are more suitable ifyour goal includes revenue generation.Compliance conformance may be moreimportant than handle time if you are ina highly regulated industry.

ABOUT EGAINeGain is the leading provider of cloud andon-site customer interaction software forsales, marketing, and service. For over adecade, eGain solutions have helpedimprove customer experience, grow sales,and optimize service processes across theweb, social, and phone channels. Hundredsof global enterprises rely on eGain totransform their fragmented salesengagement and customer serviceoperations into unified Customer InteractionHubs (CIHs). To find out more about eGainsoftware, visithttp://www.egain.com/products/index.asp.

Do More with Less in CustomerService CRM

Sponsored Content CRM Magazine | July 2012 WP17

Thanks to disruptive consumer andbusiness technologies, the business worldhas entered a new era of engagement.Mobile access, social technologies, cloudcomputing, advanced analytics and unifiedcommunications have taken hold in thehearts and minds of enterprise users andtheir customers, partners, and suppliers,allowing them to forge strongerrelationships and transform their staticbusiness models. At the center of these dynamic times is a

focus on the customer and the need to drivethe next-generation customer experience.Think of Facebook and Twitter — their richusability and intuitive design reflect howusers want to work in the enterprise world.As a result, customer relationship

management (CRM) systems are alsoundergoing a change, from a “systems oftransaction” era to “systems of engagement.”Whereas many CRM deployments arefocused on highly structured records anddata collection, the new customer centricitydemands agility and flexibility. New modesof engagement require systems that addressa conversational communication styleinstead of a dictatorial approach and thatoperate at real-time speeds. That's why over 85 percent of CRM

decision-makers in a recent survey byConstellation Research intend to upgradetheir CRM systems in the next 24months.Key drivers are tied to a new set ofbest practices: adopting disruptivetechnologies (social media, mobile accessand self-service analytics), completing the

customer view, and achieving business value(see table).It is clear from the survey that a key

best practice for CRM modernization willbe to consolidate the CRM core. Fromthere, enterprises will choose from fourpossible paths,all of which representpragmatic approaches to achievingcustomer centricity:

• Stay with the status quo:Organizations may choose to keeptheir CRM system as-is. In this case,they either have high adoption levels ofCRM, or they have not yet fully takenadvantage of existing capabilities.Backers of this scenario (14.3% ofsurvey respondents) find little businessvalue justification and line-of-businesssupport to make a change, and CIOsgain peace of mind knowing that theirCRM landscape remains consolidatedon one or two platforms and candeliver the power of an integrated core.

• Move to shiny new CRM: Others(21.2% of respondents) will upgradewith their existing vendor to avoidmass changes in training andimplementation costs. Another popularoption will be a full “rip and replace.”The financial wonks will weigh thecost of a reimplementation vs. the costof doing nothing vs. upgrading with anexisting vendor. CIO-led organizationswill want the power of an integratedcore and minimize point solutions.

• Consolidate CRM and augment withbest-of-breed. Another path (taken by37.9% of respondents) is to consolidatethe CRM environment and surround itwith best-of-breed applications. SaaSapplications and CRM point solutionsnow play a key role in enabling CRMextensibility. This approach not onlyensures that business users gain criticalfunctionality, but it also provides userswith leverage in future contractnegotiations. With CMOs and front-office executives taking back IT budgets,expect CIOs to argue for consolidationof the core as a call for sanity in overallIT strategy.

• Upgrade CRM and surround withbest-of-breed. Many line-of-businessexecutives want to upgrade their coreCRM system and then modernize theirintegrated core by adding best-of-breedapps on top of CRM (26.6% ofrespondents). This option resonates bestwith line-of-business-led organizationsand those with rapidly changingbusiness models and dynamic businesses.

Which CRM modernization path isright for you? Making the decision involvesa multi-step analysis that weighs thetangible benefits (ie, increased sales,improved margins) against the tangiblecosts (ie, hardware, software), as well as theintangible benefits (ie, improved decision-making and customer satisfaction) againstthe intangible costs (lost revenue as salesreps become accustomed to the newsystem). You also need to consider futureopportunities enabled by the investmentand balance these against the risksassociated with these opportunities.

To learn more about CRM best practices, goto www.360customerview.com.

Best Practices for CRM in the Enterprise

Challenge Percent of respondents

Enable social media channels and tools 90%

Improve mobile access 81%

Improve single customer view 79%

Deliver self-service analytics and visualization 78%

Reduce complexity and cost of integration 65%

Deal with release synchronization 52%

Undo over-customization 52%

EXISTING CRM CHALLENGESEnterprises will prioritize the following challengeswith their CRM deployments in 2012. Source: Constellation Resesarch

WP18 July 2012 | CRM Magazine Sponsored Content

As the world grows ever-more connected,the promise of cross-channel marketingoffers endless opportunities to deliverrelevant, personalized content. With theseopportunities, enterprise marketing and ITteams face the challenges of deliveringmillions, if not billions, of personal, relevant,and timely customer communications eachyear securely and within budget. To meet the increasingly complex needs

of today’s (and tomorrow’s) enterprisemarketers, messaging platforms should beable to handle advanced technicalrequirements including:

• Flexibility to support multi-channelcommunications• Scalability for high volume messaging• Managing deliverability and real timesystem monitoring• Integrating seamlessly between frontend and back end systems• Ensuring data security and protectingcustomer information

Designed with these challenges in mind,Connect is a robust, flexible, andconfigurable customer engagement platform.In order to help enterprise marketers toachieve fast ROI, drive engagement, andbuild customer loyalty, Connect offers afully-featured enterprise messaging systembuilt upon the following principles:

PRINCIPLE 1: THE MORE CHANNELS, THEMERRIEREnterprises are gathering complex and

nuanced data about their customers’preferences and behavior, and engaging withcustomers across multiple channels.Likewise, customers are choosing to sharemore ways to connect with enterprises theytrust. Customers have strong preferencesregarding where, when, and how theyreceive messages, and expect companies toseamlessly accommodate them.To respond to these preferences, Connect

has an extensible message delivery platformthat enables targeted message delivery tocustomer segments across a wide variety ofchannels including email, fax/pdf, SMS,social (Facebook, Twitter) message delivery,

and push notifications for iPhone (APNS)and Android (C2DM).

PRINCIPLE 2: IF A TREE FALLS IN THEFOREST...Marketers can craft excellent content, but

there are a number of barriers that canprevent those messages from ever reachingtheir target audience. Legal restrictions andcustomer preferences have shifted to client-controlled communications, enablingrecipients to opt-in (or out) of whichmessages they receive, raising the bar evenhigher for enterprise marketers.Connect puts customers in control by

enabling them to subscribe or unsubscribe tospecific content. This opt-in/out isautomated and instant through the use ofConnect surveys and rules, which can betriggered via the web, mobile devices andSMS. Connect helps enterprise teams tomanage their deliverability and reputationthrough a number of advanced features:seedlists from leading deliverabilityproviders, throttling outbound messages to acadence acceptable to ISPs, deployingmultiple priority-based message clusters, andautomatically processing FBLs, bounces,and unexpected replies.

PRINCIPLE 3: KEEP IT SAFE AND SECUREAn enterprise is only as valuable as its

customer data. Data security is of absoluteimportance, as the email addresses, mobilenumbers, and social account informationoften used by enterprise marketers is assensitive as any customer data held today.in order to retain the highest level of

control over sensitive customer data,companies often seek on-premise solutionslike Connect. Connect can easily beinstalled within a corporate data center,storing customer data securely behind thefirewall. Tracker nodes containing click-through and survey information can bedeployed outside of the firewall, protectingsensitive customer data from exposure.

PRINCIPLE 4: HERE TODAY, SCALABLETOMORROW As the world grows more connected, the

volume of messages delivered by enterprise

marketers is growing exponentially. From itsinitial development, scalability was always atthe forefront of the Connect architecture.As messaging volumes increase, its scalablemessaging platform allows additional“sending” and “tracking” nodes to be addedto the Connect cluster, resulting in a robustand highly-scalable system.

PRINCIPLE 5: NO SYSTEM IS AN ISLANDGone are the days of stand-alone

marketing software; for a messaging engineto be truly effective, it should be an integralpart of any corporate CRM infrastructure.To ensure customer-behavior drivencommunications, marketing systems arebeing integrated with CRM andtransactional systems.Going beyond traditional marketing,

Connect’s messaging platform operates as acore customer communication engine thatfits inside an enterprise’s larger CRMenvironment. Flexible configuration andevent listeners allow data to be shared backand forth between Connect and anenterprise’s front-end, middleware, andback-end systems, ensuring total integrationacross systems.By ensuring that high-volume messages

are delivered safely and securely acrossmultiple channels, Connect enablesorganizations to engage in targeted multi-channel conversations. Enterprises count onConnect to develop and implementsophisticated marketing and triggered-messaging campaigns that deliver on thepromise of cross-channel marketing: drivingmeaningful customer engagement.

To learn more about Connect, visitwww.brickstreetsoftware.com

Driving Customer Engagementin a Cross-Channel World:Five Key Principles for Effective

Enterprise Marketing

WHEN SUCCESS IS THE ONLY OPTION SAP - University of Akron · WHEN SUCCESS IS THE ONLY OPTION CRM...

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