Internet, Wireless Build Customer Engagement

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Internet, Wireless Technologies
Build Bridge to Customer
Engagement
By Dawn Kehr, Correspondent for Source
Technologies
Businesses in all industry sectors
realize the importance of maintaining strong
customer relationships. Traditionally
customer satisfaction initiatives have
stemmed from data generated from
customer purchases and direct marketing
campaigns. But the paradigm for customer relationship management is showing signs of a slow, but
significant shift in how companies provide service and respond to customer inquires.
The Internet has served as the catalyst of this change. Gerald Adams, co-founder and chief software
architect for VISION, a management and technology consulting firm, believes the Internet is helping to
repair the lost art of personal communication.
"Computer systems have reduced the costs of doing business and have improved convenience for
customers ...but technology also has fractured conversations and replaced them with data flows and
mechanical interaction," Adams said. "What's exciting about the Internet is that it demonstrates daily how
to reorient technology designs around human interactions."
To characterize this new vision of customer relationship management, a new crop of acronyms has
emerged. Known collectively as Internet interaction management (IIM) technologies, this group of
platforms can be referenced as Internet customer relationship management (ICRM), Internet relationship
management (IRM) and electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM). Regardless of the
terminology used, the ultimate goal of companies choosing IIM technologies is to offer a variety of
communications tools—accessible via the Internet or wireless mobile connection—that customers can
use to enhance their customer service experience. These include, but are not limited to, text or video
chat, e-mail, wireless short message service (SMS) or Web self-service.
In a March 2007 report written by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Adobe Systems,
more than 300 executives worldwide offered their thoughts regarding customer engagement and
described how they are investing in technologies that are positively impacting business performance.
Ohio Casualty Group, a representative for independent insurance agents across the country, has chosen
to implement video chat technologies to develop stronger relationships and assist with real-time
application processing for its agents. "If you can engage in a video chat, ...if you can see the body
language, it's a lot tighter bond than just picking up the phone," said chief technology officer, John
Kellington. These days, industries like banking, credit unions, telecommunications and retailing are most
concerned with personally identifiable information and how it can be compromised. That can cover all
manner of financial information, including, of course, credit card numbers stolen to create illegal account
transfers. Part of the concern is related to disclosure laws. "If you lose personal information on people,
even if it won't result in financial fraud, in many cases you're going to have to disclose that and so you
take a reputation hit," says Mogull.
Rudy Chang, vice president of customer care and global e-commerce for Pitney Bowes uses text chat
technologies to help the company interact with its customers, and regularly reviews chat transcripts to
assist the company in making adjustments to customer service protocols. "The beauty of chat is it
> Feature Article
Internet, Wireless Technologies
Build Bridge to Customer
Engagement
> Toner Addict
Stop the Presses
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MFPs Versus Regular Printers
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Source Technologies Launches
Multi-Function Interactive Kiosks
for Retailers
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1 of 4 11/8/2009 2:09 PM

actually exposes you to a lot of useful information about what you can improve on and where you can
add more value to the customer interaction," he said.
During one such review session, it became evident to Chang that customers did not understand that they
had access to reset personal passwords on the company's Website. "Within a month, we were able
to...produce a new experience that reduced that one issue by 80 percent," he said. "These kinds of
problems cannot be identified until a company really engages with the customer."
Epson, the printer manufacturer, uses communications tracking systems to eliminate redundant e-mail
messages and streamline customer response. "Previously we would have some complaints from
customers where they had already sent an e-mail or they sent multiple e-mails in a very short time frame,
and we may have responded differently depending on which agent picked them up," said Ian Bodsworth,
customer interaction manager for Europe. "Now all the relevant material on the customer's case can be
reviewed and the customer given one answer...not three or four slightly different responses."
For companies who generate a significant amount of revenue from their Websites or want to ensure a
consistent brand message across all channels of their customer service process, Website optimization
can also support customer interaction. "In short Web visitors want to be persuaded, they want their
emotions engaged, and they want assurances of trust," said Susan Weinschenk, chief of technical staff
for Human Factors International Inc, a Web and software usability consultancy.
Weinschenk has developed what she calls a PET (persuasion, emotion, trust) scan that she encourages
clients to use to guide them in assessing the engagement potential of their sites. The three step process
involves building trust by using social networks and interactive web communications tools like blogs and
wikis; engaging customers emotionally through the use of 3D graphics and streaming audio and video;
and persuading visitors through the use of live chat that the company initiates as a way to encourage
feedback about what the customer is interested in purchasing.
Thirty-seven percent of the executives interviewed for the Economist Intelligence Unit survey believe
they lose 25 percent to 75 percent of annual sales because their companies have not succeeded in
engaging customers. These somber numbers underscore the significant strides companies like Ohio
Casualty Group, Pitney Bowes and Epson have made to improve, and in some cases, reinvent
relationships with their customers.
While there are several best practices that companies could adopt when developing their customer
engagement processes, the ones that were best demonstrated by Kellington, Chang and Bodsworth
include offering and supporting an array of communications tools to engage customers in two-way
conversation; discovering the preferred communications channels of customers and tailoring them to their
needs; and finally maximizing the data generated from these channels to learn and understand what
works or doesn't work in your customer service process.
Chang believes the eventual maturation of customer engagement technologies will allow companies to
not only learn about specific customer preferences, they will also drive individualized product
development.
"It's the ultimate one-to-one relationship because it's not just personalization based on a few superficial
attributes," he said. "It's not about who you are in a generic customer segment, but about the specific
device you have in your office."
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