Valued Customers

Does it really matter if a customer is "Hight Value" or "Low Value"?

This is something that has been on my mind a lot lately. For years there has been a continued effort on the part of most every company to identify who their most "valued" customers are and then treat them with a different level of service. Whether it be being part of an airline club, a credit card brand or a customer on amazon, many companies have segmented their service by who is more "valuable" to them.

My question is whether or not that segmentation in service is still an intelligent strategic practice for a customer service group and ultimately a company.

There is no doubt that there is value in segmenting your customers to learn more about their buying habits or to group customers together based on trends or offers that the company believes will be value to the customers. But with customers becoming more a part of the dialog in how they get serviced and ultimately leading the dialog on how that service made them feel, is it really still smart to give a lower quality of service to the "low value" customer?

Sales Processes Re-Visited for Telecom

In my work with Telcos, we have seen a real need to optimize the sales and customer retention process. Traditionally, sales/retentions focused on gleaning data from customer interactions and providing an optimal offer. Now Telcos are improving the mechanics of the sales process - optimizing applications and processes to deliver effective, efficient and relevant calls that end in a sale. Let's look at three steps in the sales process that result in a successful call, and how they can be improved:

1. Dynamic identification of a relevant offer is problematic, as there is little existing information outside of age range, geography, and other generic demographics. Sales agents are left to ask probing questions at their discretion, or rely on the “Offer of the Month.” This outdated model leads to less than optimal use of the business intelligence systems.
2. The order entry process is ripe for optimization. With the multitude of systems trying to help make the process effective, we see telco sales agents spending more time than ever trying to properly input orders.
3. Closing the call can be time consuming, but very important. There are FCC regulations, company policy, and customer security concerns to consider. Depending on the sales agents' memories to recall every closure item is dangerous at best.

To improve the sales process, I see Telcos focusing their time on the following process improvements:

1. Start the call with automated prompting and call guidance to walk the agent through qualification. The data gathered is fed back to the offer system to return the best offer based on 10-12 variables and not just 3-4.
2. Automate the manual parts of the order entry process to move agents through the process cleaner and faster.
3. Automate and prompt agents through call closing to ensure completion of required tasks and order quality.

Whether it's acquiring new subs, or retaining or up-selling current subs, optimizing the sales order process is a must. Improving order quality, speed and consistency leads to a better customer experience and more sales.

Nexus One and Simplicity

Last week, Google made a splash with their new Google Nexus One phone. Features are said to be out of this world, the open nature of it both with applications and also with the phone network is great for us all.

But when are technology companies going to learn that the magic of Apple is not that they have the best ideas around products or that their CEO is some incredible genius in a black turtleneck.

The magic of Apple since Steve Jobs has been around is that they understand the customer experience. They understand that if they make it easy and they make it enjoyable, then they will have customers for life.

Google is going to learn a hard lesson on this release of the Nexus One that email and community based customer service will only suffice for a small few. If they plan on this phone being something that can appeal to the masses, they will need a real plan for customer service. And a real plan is not email responses in three days or forums where people suggest the best answer to you. It also is not calling one number if it is a hardware problem that goes to HTC. Another number if it is a network problem that goes to Tmobile and then trying to get a hold of Google over email if it is a software problem.

People want simplicity in their lives, not more complexity.

What is your core competency?

Core Competency…. This was a key buzzword for many years and a majority of the reason why the whole industry of outsourcing has gained such momentum over the last 10 years. The key sales message and value proposition for the outsourcers was: “Manufacturing is not your core competency, we can do it cheaper” or “Let us manage your supply chain for you, and cut costs” or “ IT help desk is our bread and butter and not yours, let us take that over for you.”

But here is my question, Is Customer Service your companies Core Competency?

If it isn’t, should it be?

Why did Amazon pay $900 million for Zappos, a website and brand that sells things over the internet that you can get for the same price at your local Target or Walmart?

With the dynamics between companies and customers/prospects changing every day and more power and influence being put squarely in the hands of the customers/prospects, I would submit that every company should make customer service their core competency. No one knows or understands your products/service better than you. So why would you want to outsource one of your most critical points of influence and learning to someone else?

Zappos leadership understood this and are $900 million more secure because of it.