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CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Chapter 8
Marketing automation
Marketing automation definition
 Marketing automation is the application of
computerised technologies to support marketers and
marketing management in the achievement of their
work-related objectives.
Benefits from marketing automation 1
 Enhanced marketing efficiency
● The replication of marketing processes delivers greater
control over costs. When marketers use manual systems
and ad hoc processes, there can be considerable
inefficiencies. MA enables companies to develop more
streamlined, cost-efficient processes, that can be operated
by any marketing incumbent, whether experienced or new-
to-role.
 Greater marketing productivity
● MA enables companies to run dozens, even thousands of
campaigns and events through multiple channels
simultaneously.
Benefits from marketing automation 2
 More effective marketing.
● MA allows marketers to employ what is known as closed-
loop marketing (CLM). CLM is based on a Plan-Do-
Measure-Learn cycle.
 Improved accountability
● MA provides better data and analysis on which to judge the
commercial return from marketing activities, improved
transparency, and faster (almost real time) information for
management.
Benefits from marketing automation 3
 Enhanced responsiveness.
● Marketers have traditionally created and implemented
annual marketing plans with campaigns and promotions
planned and scheduled many months ahead. MA allows
marketers to respond instantly to opportunities, even if not
part of a plan.
● MA functionality enables companies to engage in real-time
marketing, responding immediately to an identified
opportunity.
Benefits from marketing automation 4
 Improved marketing intelligence.
● MA’s embedded reporting and analytics functionality
provides valuable management insights into markets,
customers, campaigns, events etc.
 Improved customer experience.
● Customers receive personalized, relevant communications
and offers at appropriate times.
 Improved customer engagement.
● Customers develop a stronger sense of emotional and
behavioural identification with the firm.
Closed-loop marketing
Figure 8.1
Database
Measure
Learn Do
Plan
Functionality offered by MA software
Table 8.1
Marketing campaigns Online - digital
marketing
Strategic and other marketing
Campaign management Social media marketing Integrated marketing
management
Direct mail campaign
management
Programmatic advertising Marketing performance
management
Email campaign
management
Content management Loyalty management
Event-based marketing (also
called event marketing and
trigger marketing)
Keyword marketing Partner marketing
Marketing optimisation Search engine
optimisation
Product life-cycle management
Tele-marketing Web analytics Asset management
Document management
Marketing analytics
Workflow development
Campaign management
 Campaign management is the technology-enabled
application of data-driven strategies to select
customers or prospects for customised
communications and offers that vary at every stage of
the customer lifecycle and buyer readiness
Key components of campaign management applications
 Workflow
 Segmentation and targeting
 Personalization
 Execution
 Measurement
 Modeling
 Reporting
Oracle multi-channel campaign management application
Figure 8.2
Direct mail campaign management
 Direct mail campaign management is a specific
form of campaign management in which the
communication medium is direct mail.
 Direct mail has many applications including lead
generation, lead conversion, building awareness, up-
selling and cross-selling, customer retention,
database building or image enhancement. Important
contributors to direct mail success are the list, the
creative execution, the offer, and the timing.
Email campaign management
 Email campaign management is a specific form of
campaign management in which the communication
medium is email.
 Email is cheap, easy to use and ubiquitous.
 Opt-in (or permission-based) email marketing
message usually contains text and a link through to a
website.
 Open and click-through rates, the most commonly
used email marketing metrics, provide marketers with
some insight into how an email message has
performed.
Email campaign management workflow
Figure 8.3
Event-based marketing
 Event-based marketing occurs when an event
triggers a communication or offer.
 Event-based campaigns are usually initiated by
customer behaviours or contextual conditions.
Trigger marketing
 Trigger marketing is the practice of responding to
some customer-generated or customer-related event
in a way that is designed to achieve some marketing
goal such as make a sale, identify a cross-sell
opportunity, prevent negative word-of-mouth, or
promote positive word-of-mouth. The event triggers
the response.
Marketing optimization
 Marketing optimization software allows companies
to select an overall goal, such as sales or profit
margin maximization, and specify all of the
constraints of a marketing campaign strategy
 The software then determines which customers
should get which offer through which channel to
ensure the campaign objectives are met.
Marketing optimization: scenario testing
Figure 8.4
Tele-marketing
 Tele-marketing is the use of the telephone to identify
and qualify prospects, and to sell and service the
needs of customers.
 Tele-marketing takes two forms: inbound (calls from
customers) and outbound (calls to customers). Some
call centres perform a blended function with agents
both making and receiving calls.
 Tele-marketing is widely employed in both B2C and
B2B environments, but is subject to legislative control
due to its intrusive nature.
Tele-marketing functionality
 Auto-dialling
 Predictive dialling
 Automated voice-messaging
 Contact list management
 Agent management
 Do Not Call compliance
 Screen pop with caller ID
 Scripting, including objection response
 Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing (CATI)
 Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
Lead generation
 Lead generation is an important marketing objective,
particularly in business-to-business contexts. Sales
people challenged to grow the numbers of customers
served need to be presented with high quality leads
for follow-up.
 Marketers can deploy campaigns, events, seminars,
Webinars and other tactics to generate the leads.
Online marketing
 Online marketing is the process of creating value by
building and maintaining online customer
relationships.
Online marketing functionality
 Develop and manage online content
 Create a social media presence
 Establish a blog
 Create an engaging online customer experience
 Develop and promote apps
 Search engine optimization
 Keyword marketing
 Online advertising campaigns
 Perform web analytics.
Content management
 Content management applications allow marketers
to manage digital content throughout its lifecycle,
including creation, editing, approval, storage,
publishing, versioning (updating) and deletion.
 Marketers deploy content in many different
environments, including advertising, corporate
website, blogs, social media, user manuals, and print
materials for example.
Keyword marketing
 Keyword marketing is the practice of generating
website traffic from Internet users who have entered
keywords (search terms) into search engines such as
Google and AOL.
Marketing performance management
 Marketing performance management (MPM)
software enables companies to measure their
marketing performance though analysis and reports,
and improve outcomes over time through closed-loop
marketing.
 Senior management is progressively becoming more
demanding that marketers be accountable for their
expenditure, and MPM helps marketers meet that
expectation. MPM, which is typically focussed on
analysis of marketing tactics such as events and
campaigns, is routinely built into most MA
applications.
Search engine optimization
 Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of
improving the quantity and quality of website traffic
generated by search engines.
 Usually, the higher ranking results that appear earlier
in the listings generate more visitors. SEO aims,
therefore, to achieve high rankings, preferably on the
first or second pages.
Social media marketing
 Social media marketing is the practice of using social
media for customer management purposes.
 Social media platforms include Facebook, YouTube,
flikr, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, wikpedia and LinkedIn.
 Social media have disrupted communication between
organizations, communities, and individuals.
 Marketers no longer control brand-related
communication. Communication is now multi-lateral,
not unilateral.
Gartner technology hype cycle
Figure 8.5
5 stages of social media customer management
1. Track consumer sentiment in social media.
2. Use social media to communicate with customers.
3. Integrate social media into customer service.
4. Create a social media team across all customer
touch points.
5. Develop an integrated company-wide social media
strategy.
Digital analytics
 Digital analytics explore data generated by
customer behavior in interactive channels including
online, mobile and social media.
 Web analytics, a major component of digital
analytics, focuses on the behavior of website visitors.
Technologies that collect website data
 Logfile analysis
● Web servers record all website activity in a logfile, which can
be read by web log analysis software. Logfile analysis can
deliver inaccurate readings of human website visitors
because of caching and visits by web spiders from search
engines.
 Page tagging
● Page tagging requires webmasters to insert some extra
Javascript or HTML code onto webpages, so that analytics
software can identify how many visitors originate from
search engines, the search terms used and whether they
arrived from paid-for or free listings.
Web analytics terminology
 Building block terms: page, page view, visit/session,
unique visitor, new visitor, repeat visitor, return visitor
 Visit characterization terms: entry page, landing
page, exit page, visit duration referrer, internal
referrer, external referrer, search referrer, visit
referrer, original referrer, click-through, click-through
rate/ratio, page views per visit
 Content characterization terms: page exit ratio,
single-page visit, single page view visits (bounces.
Bounce rate
 Conversion metrics terms: event, conversion
Measures used in web analytics
 Hit
 Page view
 Visit or session
 Visit duration
 Engagement time
 Event
 First visit or first session
 Unique visitor
 Repeat visitor
 New visitor
 Impression
 Singleton
 Bounce rate
 Exit rate
Google analytics dashboard report
Figure 8.6
Integrated marketing management
 IMM applications offer wide-ranging functionality to
support large organizations with 50 or more
marketing practitioners.
 The main role of IMM solutions is to help marketers
align their analysis, planning, implementation and
control activities so that they can become more
effective, efficient and accountable.
Marketing performance management
 MPM software enables companies to measure their
marketing performance though analysis and reports,
and improve outcomes over time through closed-loop
marketing.
 Basic MPM includes a data repository, business
intelligence tools and analytical workbenches. More
advanced MPM provides role-based access to
information and KPIs through dashboards,
visualization, point-and-click analysis, modelling,
simulation and optimization.
Marketing resource management
 Marketing resource management applications
consist of a range of automated tools that enable
marketers to manage their marketing processes and
assets more effectively.
 MRM toolkits enable:
● Plan and budget marketing activities and programs.
● Create and develop marketing programs and content.
● Collect and manage digital content and knowledge.
● Fulfill and distribute marketing assets, content and collateral.
● Measure, analyze and optimize marketing resources (MRM
analytics)
Loyalty management
 Loyalty management functionality allows
organisations to develop and operate loyalty
management programs.
 The development of customer loyalty is a goal of
many CRM programs. The availability of loyalty
management applications is a direct response to this
need. Loyalty, or frequency, programs are important
to several constituencies – the brand owner who
operates the program, the member who collects and
redeems credits, and the channel partner who
transacts with the member.
Loyalty management functionality
 Set-up one or more loyalty programs
 Manage multiple targeted membership schemes
 Manage multiple tier models and classes and and control all the
aspects of tier management from the number of tiers and tier
rewards to point expiration rules
 Set-up partners, products and services offered for accrual and
redemptions including product catalogs
 Create and deploy targeted loyalty promotions
 Setup and manage simple to complex accrual rules and
promotions
 Define and manage redemption models using multiple payment
modes and currencies
 Perform membership and partner administration tasks
 Run statements and manage member communications.
Google analytics audience report
Figure 8.7
Partner management
 Partner management solutions enable companies to
coordinate and work collaboratively with channel
partners and others.
 Partner management solutions are used to manage
processes:
● partner qualification and sign up, development of joint
business plans and objectives, cooperative advertising and
promotions, lead management, co-branding of collateral and
point-of-sale materials, measuring partner performance,
partner training, administration of marketing funds, and
specialist partner incentive schemes.
Partner management screenshot: NitroMojo
Figure 8.9
Market segmentation
 Market segmentation is the practice of partitioning
markets into homogenous subsets so that each
subset can be addressed as a unique marketing
opportunity.
Customer segmentation and selection
 Customer segmentation is the practice of
partitioning customers into homogenous subsets so
that each subset can be addressed as a unique
marketing audience. This is the foundation of
customer portfolio management.
Product life-cycle management
 Product life-cycle management (PLM) applications
help marketers manage life cycle stages effectively
and profitably.
 PLM software solutions facilitate collaborative intra-
and extra-enterprise engineering, product
development, and improved management of projects,
product portfolios, documents, and quality. PLM
applications can provide a single source of all
product-related information to use in the innovation,
design, engineering, feasibility, launch and market
development processes.
Asset management
 Asset management enables companies to identify,
manage, track and control the assets that customers
purchase, license, use, install, or download. Assets
can be either tangible, intangible or blended.
Document management
 Document management software allows companies
to manage marketing documents such as brochures,
product specifications, price lists, and competitive
comparisons.
 Typically, these documents are a held in a central
repository and made available to users in their
browsers.
Marketing analytics
 Marketing analytics is the application of
mathematical and statistical processes to marketing
problems.
 Analytics are used for 3 main purposes:
● Description
● Exploration
● Explanation
Three types of analytics
 Standard reports
 Online analytical processing (OLAP)
 Data mining
Standardised email campaign report
Figure 8.10
OLAP
 OLAP transforms customer-related data into strategic
information.
 An OLAP solution extracts and displays customer
data from any angle.
 OLAP users can choose different display formats
including pie chart, bar graph, or worksheet.
Data mining
 Data mining offers the most powerful statistical
routines including:
● descriptive statistics (frequency, mean, median, mode,
variance, standard deviation),
● data reduction,
● bivariate statistical analysis (cross tabulation, correlation),
● multivariate statistical analysis (multiple regression, factor
analysis, discriminant analysis, cluster analysis, multi-
dimensional scaling, conjoint analysis),
● decision trees and neural networks
● data visualization
Data mining outputs
 Scores
● the likelihood a customer will purchase a product; which
customer to target for a particular offer;
 Predictions
● how much a customer will spend in the coming year; the
probability of a customer defecting;
 Descriptions
● the characteristics define profitable customers; the multi-
dimensional profile of a customer segment;
 Profiles
● the common characteristics of each customer segment; the
lifetime value of a customer
Work-flow development
 Workflow development software is useful for
designing marketing-related processes, such as the
campaigning process, event-based marketing
process, or the marketing planning process.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Chapter 9
Sales force automation
Section C: Operational CRM
Section C consists of 3 chapters focused on the
following.
Chapter 8: Sales force automation
Chapter 9: Marketing automation
Chapter 10: Service automation
CRM strategy limited by operational capabilities
 Single view of customer (SVOC) integrates all
customer data from sales, marketing, service,
accounts.
 Operational CRM uses SVOC to improve customer
experience
 Operational CRM capabilities are enhanced by
investment in sales force automation, marketing
automation and/or service automation.
Sales force automation definition
 Sales Force Automation is the application of
computerised technologies to support sales people
and sales management in the achievement of their
work-related objectives.
Key technologies for SFA
 SFA hardware includes desktop, laptop and
handheld devices, and contact/call centre technology.
 SFA software comprises both ‘point’ solutions that
are designed to assist in a single area of selling or
sales management, and integrated solutions that
offer a range of functionality.
Oracle’s SFA solution
Figure 9.1
Members of the SFA ecosystem
 Solutions providers
 Hardware and infrastructure providers
 Service providers
Classification and examples of SFA vendors
Table 8.1
SFA specialists SFA as part of CRM
suite
SFA as part of Enterprise
suite
Pipedrive Microsoft Dynamics IBM
Vertafore Salesforce.com Oracle
ContactWise Sage CRM SAP
How users access SFA solutions
1. Installed on the user’s own servers or computers
● Known as on-premise, offline or installed SFA
2. Hosted on another party’s servers and accessed by
browser
● Known as hosted, online, on demand, or web-service SFA or
the Software as a Service (SaaS) or Application Service
Provider (ASP) model.
Customer overview configured for iPad
Figure 9.2
SFA functionality
Table 9.2
Tools for salespeople Tools for sales managers
Account management Document management
Activity management Incentive management
Collaboration Product encyclopaedia
Contact management Sales analytics
Contract management Sales forecasting
CPQ Configure-Price-Quote Territory management
Event management Workflow development
Lead management
Opportunity management
Order management
Pipeline management
Product configuration
Product visualization
Proposal generation
Quotation management
Account management
 Account management offers sales reps and
managers a complete view of the customer
relationship including contacts, contact history,
completed transactions, current orders, shipments,
enquiries, service history, opportunities, and
quotations. This allows sales reps and account
managers to keep track of all their obligations in
respect of every account for which they are
responsible, whether this is an opportunity to be
closed, an order or a service enquiry.
Account management screenshot
Figure 8.3
Activity management
 Activity management keeps sales reps and
managers aware of all activities, whether complete or
pending, related to an account, contact, or
opportunity, by establishing to-do lists, setting
priorities, monitoring progress and programming
alerts. Activities include preparation of quotations,
scheduling of sales calls and following up enquiries,
for example.
Contact management
 Contact management functionality includes tools for
building, sharing and updating contact lists, making
appointments, time setting, and task, event and
contact tracking .Contact list data includes names,
phone numbers, addresses, preference data, and
email addresses for people and companies, as well
as a history of in-bound and out-bound
communications.
Oracle contact summary screenshot
Figure 9.4
Contract management
 Contract management functionality enables reps
and managers to create, track, progress, accelerate,
monitor and control contracts with customers.
Contract management helps manage a contract's
lifespan by shortening approval cycles for contracts,
renewing contracts sooner, and reducing
administrative costs. The software may use security
controls to ensure only approved people have access
to contracts.
Document management
 Document management software allows companies
to manage sales-related documents, keep them
current and ensure that they are always available to
reps, managers and partners when needed.
 Many documents support the sales process -
brochures, product specifications, installation
instructions, user manuals, case studies, white
papers, price lists, warranties, competitive
comparisons, spread sheets, email templates, and
templates for preparing quotations, etc.
Event management
 Event management enables reps and managers to
plan, implement, control and evaluate events such as
conferences, seminars, trade shows, exhibitions and
webinars, whether run solo or jointly with customers
or other partners.
 Functionality includes event calendaring, event
website design, event marketing, integration with
social media, online registration, contact
management, online payment and refund, partner
management tools, event reports and analytics,
attendee communications and management tools.
Incentive management
 Incentive management is an issue for sales
managers who use commissions to lift, direct and
reward sales reps’ efforts.
 Incentive management models that consider quotas,
sales volumes, customer profitability, customer
satisfaction, customer retention, Net Promoter scores
and other performance criteria can be created.
Lead management
 Lead management allows companies to capture, score,
assign, nurture and track sales leads.
 Lead coring applies a set of criteria established by sales
management, so that the company can focus its limited
sales resources where they are likely to generate most
return.
 User-defined rules allow leads to be allocated or routed to
reps and account managers on the basis of role, territory,
product expertise or other variables.
 Lead nurturing is the practice of maintaining a healthy bi-
lateral relationship with the lead until ready to buy.
Lead management screenshot
Figure 9.5
Opportunity management
 An opportunity is a record of a potential sale or any
other type of revenue generation.
 Opportunity management software enables reps
and managers to monitor progress of an opportunity
against a predefined selling methodology, ensuring
that opportunities are advanced towards closure.
Opportunity management report
Figure 9.6
Order management
 Order management functionality allows reps to
convert quotations and estimates into orders once a
customer has agreed to buy.
 Order management software may include a quotation
engine, a pricing module, and a product configurator.
 Order management functionality accelerates the
order-to-cash cycle by eliminating manual processing
and errors and by quickly advancing the status of a
sales quotation to approved order.
Pipeline management
 Pipeline management is the process of managing
the entire sales cycle from identifying prospects,
estimating sales potential, managing leads,
forecasting sales, initiating and maintaining customer
relationships, right through to closure. A well-defined
sales pipeline helps minimize lost opportunities and
breakdowns in the sales process.
Oracle pipeline overview screenshot
Figure 9.7
Product encyclopaedia
 A product encyclopaedia is a searchable electronic
product catalogue, that generally contains product
names, stock numbers, images and specifications.
These can be stored on reps computers’ and/or made
available to customers online.
Product configuration
 Product configuration applications enable
salespeople, or customer themselves, automatically
to design and price customized products, services or
solutions.
 Configurators are useful when the product is
particularly complex or when customization is an
important part of the value proposition.
Build your own Jeep
Product visualization
 Product visualization software enables sales reps
and customers to produce realistic images of
products before they are manufactured.
 This is a useful application when linked to a product
configurator.
 Static images can take the form of a simulated
photograph, 3-D model or technical drawing.
 Animated visualizations can be rendered in different
ways to show how products are built, installed or
used.
Proposal generation
 Proposal generation software allows users to create
customized branded proposals for customers.
 Users draw on information held in one or more
databases to create proposals which may contain:
● cover page and letter, introduction, objectives, products,
product features, services, benefits, prices, specifications,
pictures, drawings, embedded video, people, experience,
resumes, references, approach, schedule, organization,
scope of work, and appendices.
Quotation management
 Quotation management software allows reps and
managers to quote for opportunities. The software
allows users to create, edit, approve, and produce
costed, customized, proposals quickly and reliably.
Some vendors enable users to create multimedia
proposals with audio, animation and video.
Sales forecasting
 Sales forecasting applications offer sales reps and
managers a number of qualitative and quantitative
processes to help forecast sales revenues and close
rates.
Sales management reporting
 Reporting functionality is integrated into all SFA
systems.
 Offers users a number of standardised reports that
can help sales managers evaluate and enhance the
effectiveness and efficiency of their sales team.
 In addition managers can create ad hoc reports on
any variable or mix of variables maintained in the
sales database.
Examples of sales management reports
Table 9.3
closed opportunities sales cycles
customer profitability sales by close date
lead conversion by source sales person productivity
pipeline progress unresolved cases
Sales management report
Figure 9.8
Territory management
 Territory management software allows sales managers
to create, adjust and balance sales territories, so that
sales reps have equivalent workloads and/or
opportunities.
 Applications generally enable companies to match sales
coverage to market opportunity, create sales territory
hierarchies (cities, states, regions) and reduce the cost of
selling by reducing travel time.
 Some applications integrate geographic mapping or geo-
demographic data into the application.
 Call cycle scheduling, calendaring and lead management
is often enabled by the software.
Workflow development
 Workflow development software is used to design
sales-related processes including as the lead
management process and the event management
process
Benefits for SFA stakeholders
 Salespeople: shorter sales cycles, more closing
opportunities, higher win rates
 Sales managers: improved salesperson productivity,
improved customer relationships, accurate reporting,
reduced cost-of-sales
 Senior management: improved visibility of the sales
pipeline, reduced risk of unexpected variations from
sales forecasts, accelerated cash flow, increased
sales revenue, market share growth, improved
profitability
Motivations for investing in SFA
Table 8.4
Motivation % of sample reporting
Improve efficiencies 72
Improve customer contact 44
Increase sales 33
Reduce costs 26
Improve accuracy 21
SFA will enhance performance when….. 1
1. Sales people find that the SFA application is easy to
use
2. Sales people find the technology useful because it
fits their roles well.
3. Availability of appropriate-to-task SFA training
4. Users have accurate expectations about what SFA
will deliver
5. Users have a positive attitude towards innovation
SFA will enhance performance when….. 2
6. Users have a positive attitude towards technology
7. Availability of user support after roll out, for example,
a help desk.
8. Involvement of user groups including sales reps and
managers during SFA project planning and
technology selection.
9. Deployment of a multi-disciplinary team in the SFA
project planning phases
10.Senior management support SFA.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES
Chapter 10
Service automation
About customer service 1
 Customer service has been a necessary
preoccupation of service organisations, because they
have understood that customers are responsive to
the quality of the service they experience.
 The quality of customer service is just as important
for agriculturalists, miners, and goods manufacturers.
This is particularly so when there is product parity,
and customers are unable to discern meaningful
differences between alternative suppliers or brands.
About customer service 2
 Customer service standards can be assessed by
customers when a service is being performed, as well
as after the service has been delivered.
● The service experience as perceived from the dentist’s chair
during service delivery might be very different from the
assessment a few days later.
 Customer service can be experienced at any stage of
the customer purchase cycle: before, during, or after
purchase.
Nordic model of service quality
1. Technical
2. Functional
3. Reputational
SERVQUAL model of service quality
1. Reliability
2. Assurance
3. Tangibles
4. Empathy
5. Responsiveness
Known collectively as ‘RATER’
Integrative quality
 Integrative quality is determined by the way the
various elements of the product and service delivery
system work together.
● High integrative quality means that the processes, people
and technology complement each other, working efficiently
and effectively to deliver excellent customer service.
6 attributes of companies renowned for excellent service 1
1. Customer service is pervasive.
● It is everyone’s responsibility; it is neither delegated nor
relegated to a single department or function.
2. Their operations run smoothly with minimal product
and service defect rates, allowing them to focus on
pleasing customers.
3. They are always looking for ways to improve.
6 attributes of companies renowned for excellent service 2
4. Customer service lies at the heart of the value
proposition.
● Customer service is the main selling point.
5. They build personal relationships with customers.
6. They employ the latest IT to
● allow their customers to interact with them more
conveniently
● develop a profound understanding of what customers need
and want
● track activities and processes that influence customer
experience.
UK’s customer service excellence model, 5 criteria
 Customer Insight
 The Culture of the Organisation
 Information and Access
 Delivery
 Timeliness and Quality of Service
TISSE model of service excellence
Figure 10.1
Service automation definition
 Service automation is the application of computerised
technologies to support service staff and
management in the achievement of their work-related
objectives.
Where is service automation deployed 1?
 Contact centres
 are configured to communicate with customers across
multiple channels including voice telephony, web, mail,
email, SMS, multimedia messaging, instant messaging, web
chat, social media and fax. call-centres
 As contact centres spend more time interacting with
customers in social media, somefirms re-imagine their
contact centres as customer engagement centres.
 Call centres
 are generally dedicated to voice telephony communications,
whether through a public switched telephone network, cell-
phone network, or VoIP.
Where is service automation deployed 2?
 Help-desks
● are usually associated with IT environments where
assistance is offered to IT users. SA applications such as
case management, job management and service level
management are used in this setting.
 Field service
● is widespread in both B2C and B2B environments. Service
automation applied to field service operations involves
technologies such as job management, scheduling, mapping
and spare parts management.
Key technological elements of SA 1
 Infrastructure
● When service is delivered through a central call-centre or contact-
centre, in a multi-channel environment, there needs to be tight
integration between various communication systems, including
telephony, email, and web.
 Data
● Access to the right customer-related data, to enable the service
agent to identify and fix the issue promptly is critical to the delivery
of responsive customer service.
Key technological elements of SA 2
 Devices
● Where service is delivered by a distributed work-force, smaller,
lighter, devices such as laptops, Windows-enabled hand-held
devices, and smart phones or cell phones such as Blackberries,
tend to be employed; these are typically not found in call- and
contact-centres. Synchronisation is also an issue for a distributed
service team. Periodic synchronisation with the central CRM
database enables service engineers and others to ensure that they
are fully apprised of their daily scheduled appointments.
 Software.
Benefits from service automation
 Enhanced service effectiveness
 Enhanced service efficiency
 Greater service agent productivity
 Better agent work experience
 Improved customer experience
 Improved customer engagement
 Improved customer retention
Full visibility into customer service history (RightNow)
Figure 10.2
Functionality offered by SA software
Table 10.1
Key assessment criteria Elements
Customer insight Customer identification; customer engagement and
consultation; customer satisfaction
Culture of the Organisation Leadership, policy and culture; staff professionalism
and attitude
Information and access Range of information; quality of information;
access; co-operative working with other providers,
partners and communities
Delivery Delivery standards, achieved delivery and outcomes;
deal effectively with problems
Timeliness and Quality of
Service
Standards for timeliness and quality; timely
outcomes; achieved timely delivery
Activity management
 Activity management enables service staff to review
their workload, to-do list and priorities as directed by
their manager or scheduler, and to report back on
progress and issue resolution. Some applications
allow activities to be updated in real-time by
dispatchers and routed to the technician, so that work
can be reprioritised. Alerts can be set so that
appointments are not missed, or to notify agents and
their managers that issues are unresolved or service
levels are about to be, or have been, violated.
Agent management
 Agent management is a high priority for call- and
contact-centre managers.
 Managers want to employ the lowest head-count
compatible with the desired level of customer service.
Too few agents and customers will be dissatisfied
with wait-times; too many agents and payroll costs
will be unnecessarily high. Customers and managers
both want issues to be resolved quickly by agents.
KPI’s for call- and contact-centres
 Volumes received
 Average queuing time
 Average handle time (AHT)
 Abandon rate
 Average speed of answer
 Response time
 First call (or contact) resolution (FCR)
 Self-service issue resolution
Case assignment
 Case assignment applications ensure that each
enquiry or issue gets routed to the right agent or
technician for resolution.
 Customer service agents might, for example, be
organised according to language skills, and field
service agent by product category
Case management
 Case management covers the full cycle of activities
involved from receiving initial notification of a matter
of concern to a customer to its final resolution and the
case file being closed.
● Case management is also known as incident management
and issue management.
 Cases, incidents or issues are initiated by the
creation of a trouble ticket.
● Customers may be allowed to do this by web-form, or by
emailing or calling a service or contact centre.
Trouble ticket screenshot
Figure 10.4
Contract management
 Contract management functionality enables service
engineers and managers to create, track, progress,
accelerate, monitor and control service contracts with
customers.
 Many companies now sell extended service contracts
to customers when warranty periods have expired.
Customer communications management
 Aim to “improve an organization's creation, delivery,
storage, and retrieval of outbound and interactive
communications with its customers.”
 CCM applications enable customer interactions
through a wide range of communication media,
including email, SMS, websites, social media, print
and customer self-service.
 Core elements of CCM applications are a design tool,
a composition engine, a workflow/rule engine,
multichannel delivery and reporting capabilities.
Agent response to Twitter feed
Figure 10.3
Customer self-service
 Customer self-service is an attractive option for
companies because it transfers the responsibility and
cost for service to the customer.
 Customers who self-serve are much less likely to
place demands on contact-centre, call-centre, help-
desk or field service staff.
 Customers are typically more competent at self-
serving when transactions are involved (e.g. online
banking or music downloads); however, they are less
competent when problem-resolution is concerned.
Customer self-service technologies
 Web self-service
 Interactive voice response (IVR)
 Kiosks
 Self-checkout
 Apps
Email response management systems
 Email response management systems (ERMS) are
not only useful for handling inbound emails but also
for delivering outbound emails and SMS messages.
 ERMS are designed up to manage the reception,
acknowledgment, interpretation, routing, response,
storage and analysis of incoming email securely and
effectively.
Escalation
 Escalation ensures that issues get escalated
according to internally determined rules.
 Higher levels of authority typically have greater
discretion to resolve issues.
● A front-line customer service agent might be required to
escalate to higher levels of management issues that have a
potentially high cost or reputational consequence.
Inbound communications (or call) management
 Inbound communications management (ICM)
applications allow companies to receive, route, queue
and distribute incoming communications from any
channel – voice telephony, email, fax, instant
message, SMS, fax, web form – to agents in any
location including contact centre, in the field or at
home.
 A unified queue, issue/content recognition, intelligent
routing, and knowledge-base integration allow agents
to deliver a consistent customer experience and to
respond effectively to service requests whatever the
communication channel.
IVR
 Interactive voice response (IVR) uses voice or
touch tone key pad input from callers to guide them
through a tiered menu structure to the information
they require as quickly as possible.
Invoicing
 Invoicing is a useful application for service
technicians who are called to site to provide out-of-
warranty service. Having completed the job to the
customer’s satisfaction, and captured the customer’s
signature electronically, the invoice can be raised on
the spot, thereby accelerating cash flow.
Job management
 Job management applications offer a range of
functionality
● cost estimation, quotation generation, creation of trouble
tickets, job planning, project management, travel time and
distance calculation, GPS mapping, job clustering (to reduce
travel time), calendaring, scheduling, spare parts
management, job progress tracking, invoicing, service level
management, technician despatch, time management and
product configuration.
Job management application
Figure 10.6
Knowledge-base self service
 Knowledge-base self-service enables customers to
search a database for answers to their service
queries.
 The database may consist of FAQ’s, articles and
videos produced by the company, and content
generated by customers or acquired from third
parties.
 A ‘call-me’ web-chat button, or telephone number can
be offered customers who can’t find the answer they
seek in the knowledge base.
Mapping and driving directions
 Solutions that provide mapping and driving
directions are very useful for service engineers who
need to visit customers’ homes or business premises.
Taking into account the engineer’s point-of-origin,
service locations, job priorities, service level
agreements and other variables, mapping solutions
can minimize travel times and distances to ensure
that service tasks are performed optimally.
Outbound communications management
 Outbound communications management software
applications are used in a service environment to
acknowledge service requests, make and confirm
service appointments, advise on the progress of a
service task, invoice for out-of-warranty service, and
follow-up after service to ensure that the customer is
satisfied.
Predictive dialling
 A telephony technology widely used in contact and call
centres.
 Automatically dials groups of telephone numbers, and
then passes calls to available agents once the call is
connected.
 The technology quickly terminates calls that are met with
no-answers, busy signals, answering machines or
disconnected numbers while predicting when an agent will
be available to take the next call.
 Predictive diallers measure the number of available
agents, available lines, average handling time and other
factors to adjust outbound calls accordingly.
Queuing and routing
 Queuing and routing applications allow issues to be
routed to agents with particular expertise and
positioned in that agent’s queue according to some
criterion.
 Routing is usually determined by case assignment
rules and position in the queue is determined by
customer value or some other metric.
 The objective of queuing and routing is to ensure that
every service issue is presented to the most
appropriate agent for handling and resolution.
Scheduling
 Scheduling involves planning and organising a
service technician’s activity plan for a day, week or
other period.
 A technician’s schedule contains details on the
customer, location, time, product and issue.
 Some scheduling applications take into account a
range of considerations to ensure that the right
technician is sent to service the customer
● travel time and distance, technician availability, technician
skills, customer access hours, service level agreement,
availability of spare parts, and the technician’s hourly rates
of pay.
Scripting
 Enables agents to converse intelligently with
customers to diagnose and resolve problems, co-
creating good customer experience and complying
with regulatory requirements
 Scripts are essentially linked screens that the agent
talks through with the customer.
Scripting
 Scripting enables customer service agents to
converse intelligently with customers to diagnose and
resolve problems, even though they may be
untrained as technicians. Scripts can be designed so
that they flex dynamically according to customer
response. Scripts also reduce agent training time.
Customer service scripting screenshot (Kana)
Figure 10.5
Service analytics
 Service analytics provide managers with information
on how effectively and efficiently customer service
generally, and individual agents or technicians
specifically, are operating.
 Important metrics for managers of field service
operations, for example, include technician utilization,
parts inventory, travel time, first time fix rate (FTFR),
mean time to resolve (MMTR), and job backlog.
Oracle inbound telephony dashboard
Figure 10.7
Service level management
 Service level management applications allow
managers to control the level of service that is offered
to customers, and technicians to deliver the level of
service agreed.
 Service levels can be agreed for a number of
variables including availability (the percentage of time
that the service is available over an agreed time
period), usage (the number of service users that can
be served simultaneously) and responsiveness (the
speed with which a demand for service is fulfilled).
Spare parts management
 Spare parts management is an important
application for field technicians. They can see what
parts they have with them on the road, check the
inventory levels held by other technicians and at
regional and central warehouses, order new parts,
transfer parts from colleagues, manage excess and
defective parts, and check on the progress of orders
thereby ensuring that when they turn up at a job, they
are properly equipped
Voice biometrics (voice recognition)
 Voice biometrics verifies identity by comparing a
person’s voice with their voiceprint, a previously
recorded representation of their voice.
 Voice recognition can be used as a standalone
authentication protocol, but is more commonly
deployed as an additional security layer, especially
for organizations targeted by fraudsters - banks,
insurance companies, and healthcare providers.
Web collaboration
 Web collaboration is a collective term for the online,
social and software tools that enable customers and
customer service agents to interact in real-time to
solve customer problems.
 Technologies include instant messaging (web chat),
web-conferencing, co-browsing of web-pages, and
file-sharing (calendars, to-do lists, videos,
documents, presentations and other files).
 Web collaboration allows the agent to help the
customer to resolve the issue in real time.
Web chat window
Figure 10.8
Workflow development
 Workflow development software is useful for
designing service-related processes, such as
problem diagnosis and issue escalation.
● Work-flow for field service operations will define how service
requests are validated, how service tickets are issued, how
tickets are allocated, how problems will be diagnosed, how
parts will be ordered, how problems will be fixed, how
customers will be invoiced, and so on.

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Chuong 3_CRM tác nghiệp trong kinh doanh.pptx

  • 1. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES Chapter 8 Marketing automation
  • 2. Marketing automation definition  Marketing automation is the application of computerised technologies to support marketers and marketing management in the achievement of their work-related objectives.
  • 3. Benefits from marketing automation 1  Enhanced marketing efficiency ● The replication of marketing processes delivers greater control over costs. When marketers use manual systems and ad hoc processes, there can be considerable inefficiencies. MA enables companies to develop more streamlined, cost-efficient processes, that can be operated by any marketing incumbent, whether experienced or new- to-role.  Greater marketing productivity ● MA enables companies to run dozens, even thousands of campaigns and events through multiple channels simultaneously.
  • 4. Benefits from marketing automation 2  More effective marketing. ● MA allows marketers to employ what is known as closed- loop marketing (CLM). CLM is based on a Plan-Do- Measure-Learn cycle.  Improved accountability ● MA provides better data and analysis on which to judge the commercial return from marketing activities, improved transparency, and faster (almost real time) information for management.
  • 5. Benefits from marketing automation 3  Enhanced responsiveness. ● Marketers have traditionally created and implemented annual marketing plans with campaigns and promotions planned and scheduled many months ahead. MA allows marketers to respond instantly to opportunities, even if not part of a plan. ● MA functionality enables companies to engage in real-time marketing, responding immediately to an identified opportunity.
  • 6. Benefits from marketing automation 4  Improved marketing intelligence. ● MA’s embedded reporting and analytics functionality provides valuable management insights into markets, customers, campaigns, events etc.  Improved customer experience. ● Customers receive personalized, relevant communications and offers at appropriate times.  Improved customer engagement. ● Customers develop a stronger sense of emotional and behavioural identification with the firm.
  • 8. Functionality offered by MA software Table 8.1 Marketing campaigns Online - digital marketing Strategic and other marketing Campaign management Social media marketing Integrated marketing management Direct mail campaign management Programmatic advertising Marketing performance management Email campaign management Content management Loyalty management Event-based marketing (also called event marketing and trigger marketing) Keyword marketing Partner marketing Marketing optimisation Search engine optimisation Product life-cycle management Tele-marketing Web analytics Asset management Document management Marketing analytics Workflow development
  • 9. Campaign management  Campaign management is the technology-enabled application of data-driven strategies to select customers or prospects for customised communications and offers that vary at every stage of the customer lifecycle and buyer readiness
  • 10. Key components of campaign management applications  Workflow  Segmentation and targeting  Personalization  Execution  Measurement  Modeling  Reporting
  • 11. Oracle multi-channel campaign management application Figure 8.2
  • 12. Direct mail campaign management  Direct mail campaign management is a specific form of campaign management in which the communication medium is direct mail.  Direct mail has many applications including lead generation, lead conversion, building awareness, up- selling and cross-selling, customer retention, database building or image enhancement. Important contributors to direct mail success are the list, the creative execution, the offer, and the timing.
  • 13. Email campaign management  Email campaign management is a specific form of campaign management in which the communication medium is email.  Email is cheap, easy to use and ubiquitous.  Opt-in (or permission-based) email marketing message usually contains text and a link through to a website.  Open and click-through rates, the most commonly used email marketing metrics, provide marketers with some insight into how an email message has performed.
  • 14. Email campaign management workflow Figure 8.3
  • 15. Event-based marketing  Event-based marketing occurs when an event triggers a communication or offer.  Event-based campaigns are usually initiated by customer behaviours or contextual conditions.
  • 16. Trigger marketing  Trigger marketing is the practice of responding to some customer-generated or customer-related event in a way that is designed to achieve some marketing goal such as make a sale, identify a cross-sell opportunity, prevent negative word-of-mouth, or promote positive word-of-mouth. The event triggers the response.
  • 17. Marketing optimization  Marketing optimization software allows companies to select an overall goal, such as sales or profit margin maximization, and specify all of the constraints of a marketing campaign strategy  The software then determines which customers should get which offer through which channel to ensure the campaign objectives are met.
  • 18. Marketing optimization: scenario testing Figure 8.4
  • 19. Tele-marketing  Tele-marketing is the use of the telephone to identify and qualify prospects, and to sell and service the needs of customers.  Tele-marketing takes two forms: inbound (calls from customers) and outbound (calls to customers). Some call centres perform a blended function with agents both making and receiving calls.  Tele-marketing is widely employed in both B2C and B2B environments, but is subject to legislative control due to its intrusive nature.
  • 20. Tele-marketing functionality  Auto-dialling  Predictive dialling  Automated voice-messaging  Contact list management  Agent management  Do Not Call compliance  Screen pop with caller ID  Scripting, including objection response  Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing (CATI)  Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
  • 21. Lead generation  Lead generation is an important marketing objective, particularly in business-to-business contexts. Sales people challenged to grow the numbers of customers served need to be presented with high quality leads for follow-up.  Marketers can deploy campaigns, events, seminars, Webinars and other tactics to generate the leads.
  • 22. Online marketing  Online marketing is the process of creating value by building and maintaining online customer relationships.
  • 23. Online marketing functionality  Develop and manage online content  Create a social media presence  Establish a blog  Create an engaging online customer experience  Develop and promote apps  Search engine optimization  Keyword marketing  Online advertising campaigns  Perform web analytics.
  • 24. Content management  Content management applications allow marketers to manage digital content throughout its lifecycle, including creation, editing, approval, storage, publishing, versioning (updating) and deletion.  Marketers deploy content in many different environments, including advertising, corporate website, blogs, social media, user manuals, and print materials for example.
  • 25. Keyword marketing  Keyword marketing is the practice of generating website traffic from Internet users who have entered keywords (search terms) into search engines such as Google and AOL.
  • 26. Marketing performance management  Marketing performance management (MPM) software enables companies to measure their marketing performance though analysis and reports, and improve outcomes over time through closed-loop marketing.  Senior management is progressively becoming more demanding that marketers be accountable for their expenditure, and MPM helps marketers meet that expectation. MPM, which is typically focussed on analysis of marketing tactics such as events and campaigns, is routinely built into most MA applications.
  • 27. Search engine optimization  Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of improving the quantity and quality of website traffic generated by search engines.  Usually, the higher ranking results that appear earlier in the listings generate more visitors. SEO aims, therefore, to achieve high rankings, preferably on the first or second pages.
  • 28. Social media marketing  Social media marketing is the practice of using social media for customer management purposes.  Social media platforms include Facebook, YouTube, flikr, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, wikpedia and LinkedIn.  Social media have disrupted communication between organizations, communities, and individuals.  Marketers no longer control brand-related communication. Communication is now multi-lateral, not unilateral.
  • 29. Gartner technology hype cycle Figure 8.5
  • 30. 5 stages of social media customer management 1. Track consumer sentiment in social media. 2. Use social media to communicate with customers. 3. Integrate social media into customer service. 4. Create a social media team across all customer touch points. 5. Develop an integrated company-wide social media strategy.
  • 31. Digital analytics  Digital analytics explore data generated by customer behavior in interactive channels including online, mobile and social media.  Web analytics, a major component of digital analytics, focuses on the behavior of website visitors.
  • 32. Technologies that collect website data  Logfile analysis ● Web servers record all website activity in a logfile, which can be read by web log analysis software. Logfile analysis can deliver inaccurate readings of human website visitors because of caching and visits by web spiders from search engines.  Page tagging ● Page tagging requires webmasters to insert some extra Javascript or HTML code onto webpages, so that analytics software can identify how many visitors originate from search engines, the search terms used and whether they arrived from paid-for or free listings.
  • 33. Web analytics terminology  Building block terms: page, page view, visit/session, unique visitor, new visitor, repeat visitor, return visitor  Visit characterization terms: entry page, landing page, exit page, visit duration referrer, internal referrer, external referrer, search referrer, visit referrer, original referrer, click-through, click-through rate/ratio, page views per visit  Content characterization terms: page exit ratio, single-page visit, single page view visits (bounces. Bounce rate  Conversion metrics terms: event, conversion
  • 34. Measures used in web analytics  Hit  Page view  Visit or session  Visit duration  Engagement time  Event  First visit or first session  Unique visitor  Repeat visitor  New visitor  Impression  Singleton  Bounce rate  Exit rate
  • 35. Google analytics dashboard report Figure 8.6
  • 36. Integrated marketing management  IMM applications offer wide-ranging functionality to support large organizations with 50 or more marketing practitioners.  The main role of IMM solutions is to help marketers align their analysis, planning, implementation and control activities so that they can become more effective, efficient and accountable.
  • 37. Marketing performance management  MPM software enables companies to measure their marketing performance though analysis and reports, and improve outcomes over time through closed-loop marketing.  Basic MPM includes a data repository, business intelligence tools and analytical workbenches. More advanced MPM provides role-based access to information and KPIs through dashboards, visualization, point-and-click analysis, modelling, simulation and optimization.
  • 38. Marketing resource management  Marketing resource management applications consist of a range of automated tools that enable marketers to manage their marketing processes and assets more effectively.  MRM toolkits enable: ● Plan and budget marketing activities and programs. ● Create and develop marketing programs and content. ● Collect and manage digital content and knowledge. ● Fulfill and distribute marketing assets, content and collateral. ● Measure, analyze and optimize marketing resources (MRM analytics)
  • 39. Loyalty management  Loyalty management functionality allows organisations to develop and operate loyalty management programs.  The development of customer loyalty is a goal of many CRM programs. The availability of loyalty management applications is a direct response to this need. Loyalty, or frequency, programs are important to several constituencies – the brand owner who operates the program, the member who collects and redeems credits, and the channel partner who transacts with the member.
  • 40. Loyalty management functionality  Set-up one or more loyalty programs  Manage multiple targeted membership schemes  Manage multiple tier models and classes and and control all the aspects of tier management from the number of tiers and tier rewards to point expiration rules  Set-up partners, products and services offered for accrual and redemptions including product catalogs  Create and deploy targeted loyalty promotions  Setup and manage simple to complex accrual rules and promotions  Define and manage redemption models using multiple payment modes and currencies  Perform membership and partner administration tasks  Run statements and manage member communications.
  • 41. Google analytics audience report Figure 8.7
  • 42. Partner management  Partner management solutions enable companies to coordinate and work collaboratively with channel partners and others.  Partner management solutions are used to manage processes: ● partner qualification and sign up, development of joint business plans and objectives, cooperative advertising and promotions, lead management, co-branding of collateral and point-of-sale materials, measuring partner performance, partner training, administration of marketing funds, and specialist partner incentive schemes.
  • 43. Partner management screenshot: NitroMojo Figure 8.9
  • 44. Market segmentation  Market segmentation is the practice of partitioning markets into homogenous subsets so that each subset can be addressed as a unique marketing opportunity.
  • 45. Customer segmentation and selection  Customer segmentation is the practice of partitioning customers into homogenous subsets so that each subset can be addressed as a unique marketing audience. This is the foundation of customer portfolio management.
  • 46. Product life-cycle management  Product life-cycle management (PLM) applications help marketers manage life cycle stages effectively and profitably.  PLM software solutions facilitate collaborative intra- and extra-enterprise engineering, product development, and improved management of projects, product portfolios, documents, and quality. PLM applications can provide a single source of all product-related information to use in the innovation, design, engineering, feasibility, launch and market development processes.
  • 47. Asset management  Asset management enables companies to identify, manage, track and control the assets that customers purchase, license, use, install, or download. Assets can be either tangible, intangible or blended.
  • 48. Document management  Document management software allows companies to manage marketing documents such as brochures, product specifications, price lists, and competitive comparisons.  Typically, these documents are a held in a central repository and made available to users in their browsers.
  • 49. Marketing analytics  Marketing analytics is the application of mathematical and statistical processes to marketing problems.  Analytics are used for 3 main purposes: ● Description ● Exploration ● Explanation
  • 50. Three types of analytics  Standard reports  Online analytical processing (OLAP)  Data mining
  • 51. Standardised email campaign report Figure 8.10
  • 52. OLAP  OLAP transforms customer-related data into strategic information.  An OLAP solution extracts and displays customer data from any angle.  OLAP users can choose different display formats including pie chart, bar graph, or worksheet.
  • 53. Data mining  Data mining offers the most powerful statistical routines including: ● descriptive statistics (frequency, mean, median, mode, variance, standard deviation), ● data reduction, ● bivariate statistical analysis (cross tabulation, correlation), ● multivariate statistical analysis (multiple regression, factor analysis, discriminant analysis, cluster analysis, multi- dimensional scaling, conjoint analysis), ● decision trees and neural networks ● data visualization
  • 54. Data mining outputs  Scores ● the likelihood a customer will purchase a product; which customer to target for a particular offer;  Predictions ● how much a customer will spend in the coming year; the probability of a customer defecting;  Descriptions ● the characteristics define profitable customers; the multi- dimensional profile of a customer segment;  Profiles ● the common characteristics of each customer segment; the lifetime value of a customer
  • 55. Work-flow development  Workflow development software is useful for designing marketing-related processes, such as the campaigning process, event-based marketing process, or the marketing planning process.
  • 56. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES Chapter 9 Sales force automation
  • 57. Section C: Operational CRM Section C consists of 3 chapters focused on the following. Chapter 8: Sales force automation Chapter 9: Marketing automation Chapter 10: Service automation
  • 58. CRM strategy limited by operational capabilities  Single view of customer (SVOC) integrates all customer data from sales, marketing, service, accounts.  Operational CRM uses SVOC to improve customer experience  Operational CRM capabilities are enhanced by investment in sales force automation, marketing automation and/or service automation.
  • 59. Sales force automation definition  Sales Force Automation is the application of computerised technologies to support sales people and sales management in the achievement of their work-related objectives.
  • 60. Key technologies for SFA  SFA hardware includes desktop, laptop and handheld devices, and contact/call centre technology.  SFA software comprises both ‘point’ solutions that are designed to assist in a single area of selling or sales management, and integrated solutions that offer a range of functionality.
  • 62. Members of the SFA ecosystem  Solutions providers  Hardware and infrastructure providers  Service providers
  • 63. Classification and examples of SFA vendors Table 8.1 SFA specialists SFA as part of CRM suite SFA as part of Enterprise suite Pipedrive Microsoft Dynamics IBM Vertafore Salesforce.com Oracle ContactWise Sage CRM SAP
  • 64. How users access SFA solutions 1. Installed on the user’s own servers or computers ● Known as on-premise, offline or installed SFA 2. Hosted on another party’s servers and accessed by browser ● Known as hosted, online, on demand, or web-service SFA or the Software as a Service (SaaS) or Application Service Provider (ASP) model.
  • 65. Customer overview configured for iPad Figure 9.2
  • 66. SFA functionality Table 9.2 Tools for salespeople Tools for sales managers Account management Document management Activity management Incentive management Collaboration Product encyclopaedia Contact management Sales analytics Contract management Sales forecasting CPQ Configure-Price-Quote Territory management Event management Workflow development Lead management Opportunity management Order management Pipeline management Product configuration Product visualization Proposal generation Quotation management
  • 67. Account management  Account management offers sales reps and managers a complete view of the customer relationship including contacts, contact history, completed transactions, current orders, shipments, enquiries, service history, opportunities, and quotations. This allows sales reps and account managers to keep track of all their obligations in respect of every account for which they are responsible, whether this is an opportunity to be closed, an order or a service enquiry.
  • 69. Activity management  Activity management keeps sales reps and managers aware of all activities, whether complete or pending, related to an account, contact, or opportunity, by establishing to-do lists, setting priorities, monitoring progress and programming alerts. Activities include preparation of quotations, scheduling of sales calls and following up enquiries, for example.
  • 70. Contact management  Contact management functionality includes tools for building, sharing and updating contact lists, making appointments, time setting, and task, event and contact tracking .Contact list data includes names, phone numbers, addresses, preference data, and email addresses for people and companies, as well as a history of in-bound and out-bound communications.
  • 71. Oracle contact summary screenshot Figure 9.4
  • 72. Contract management  Contract management functionality enables reps and managers to create, track, progress, accelerate, monitor and control contracts with customers. Contract management helps manage a contract's lifespan by shortening approval cycles for contracts, renewing contracts sooner, and reducing administrative costs. The software may use security controls to ensure only approved people have access to contracts.
  • 73. Document management  Document management software allows companies to manage sales-related documents, keep them current and ensure that they are always available to reps, managers and partners when needed.  Many documents support the sales process - brochures, product specifications, installation instructions, user manuals, case studies, white papers, price lists, warranties, competitive comparisons, spread sheets, email templates, and templates for preparing quotations, etc.
  • 74. Event management  Event management enables reps and managers to plan, implement, control and evaluate events such as conferences, seminars, trade shows, exhibitions and webinars, whether run solo or jointly with customers or other partners.  Functionality includes event calendaring, event website design, event marketing, integration with social media, online registration, contact management, online payment and refund, partner management tools, event reports and analytics, attendee communications and management tools.
  • 75. Incentive management  Incentive management is an issue for sales managers who use commissions to lift, direct and reward sales reps’ efforts.  Incentive management models that consider quotas, sales volumes, customer profitability, customer satisfaction, customer retention, Net Promoter scores and other performance criteria can be created.
  • 76. Lead management  Lead management allows companies to capture, score, assign, nurture and track sales leads.  Lead coring applies a set of criteria established by sales management, so that the company can focus its limited sales resources where they are likely to generate most return.  User-defined rules allow leads to be allocated or routed to reps and account managers on the basis of role, territory, product expertise or other variables.  Lead nurturing is the practice of maintaining a healthy bi- lateral relationship with the lead until ready to buy.
  • 78. Opportunity management  An opportunity is a record of a potential sale or any other type of revenue generation.  Opportunity management software enables reps and managers to monitor progress of an opportunity against a predefined selling methodology, ensuring that opportunities are advanced towards closure.
  • 80. Order management  Order management functionality allows reps to convert quotations and estimates into orders once a customer has agreed to buy.  Order management software may include a quotation engine, a pricing module, and a product configurator.  Order management functionality accelerates the order-to-cash cycle by eliminating manual processing and errors and by quickly advancing the status of a sales quotation to approved order.
  • 81. Pipeline management  Pipeline management is the process of managing the entire sales cycle from identifying prospects, estimating sales potential, managing leads, forecasting sales, initiating and maintaining customer relationships, right through to closure. A well-defined sales pipeline helps minimize lost opportunities and breakdowns in the sales process.
  • 82. Oracle pipeline overview screenshot Figure 9.7
  • 83. Product encyclopaedia  A product encyclopaedia is a searchable electronic product catalogue, that generally contains product names, stock numbers, images and specifications. These can be stored on reps computers’ and/or made available to customers online.
  • 84. Product configuration  Product configuration applications enable salespeople, or customer themselves, automatically to design and price customized products, services or solutions.  Configurators are useful when the product is particularly complex or when customization is an important part of the value proposition.
  • 86. Product visualization  Product visualization software enables sales reps and customers to produce realistic images of products before they are manufactured.  This is a useful application when linked to a product configurator.  Static images can take the form of a simulated photograph, 3-D model or technical drawing.  Animated visualizations can be rendered in different ways to show how products are built, installed or used.
  • 87. Proposal generation  Proposal generation software allows users to create customized branded proposals for customers.  Users draw on information held in one or more databases to create proposals which may contain: ● cover page and letter, introduction, objectives, products, product features, services, benefits, prices, specifications, pictures, drawings, embedded video, people, experience, resumes, references, approach, schedule, organization, scope of work, and appendices.
  • 88. Quotation management  Quotation management software allows reps and managers to quote for opportunities. The software allows users to create, edit, approve, and produce costed, customized, proposals quickly and reliably. Some vendors enable users to create multimedia proposals with audio, animation and video.
  • 89. Sales forecasting  Sales forecasting applications offer sales reps and managers a number of qualitative and quantitative processes to help forecast sales revenues and close rates.
  • 90. Sales management reporting  Reporting functionality is integrated into all SFA systems.  Offers users a number of standardised reports that can help sales managers evaluate and enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of their sales team.  In addition managers can create ad hoc reports on any variable or mix of variables maintained in the sales database.
  • 91. Examples of sales management reports Table 9.3 closed opportunities sales cycles customer profitability sales by close date lead conversion by source sales person productivity pipeline progress unresolved cases
  • 93. Territory management  Territory management software allows sales managers to create, adjust and balance sales territories, so that sales reps have equivalent workloads and/or opportunities.  Applications generally enable companies to match sales coverage to market opportunity, create sales territory hierarchies (cities, states, regions) and reduce the cost of selling by reducing travel time.  Some applications integrate geographic mapping or geo- demographic data into the application.  Call cycle scheduling, calendaring and lead management is often enabled by the software.
  • 94. Workflow development  Workflow development software is used to design sales-related processes including as the lead management process and the event management process
  • 95. Benefits for SFA stakeholders  Salespeople: shorter sales cycles, more closing opportunities, higher win rates  Sales managers: improved salesperson productivity, improved customer relationships, accurate reporting, reduced cost-of-sales  Senior management: improved visibility of the sales pipeline, reduced risk of unexpected variations from sales forecasts, accelerated cash flow, increased sales revenue, market share growth, improved profitability
  • 96. Motivations for investing in SFA Table 8.4 Motivation % of sample reporting Improve efficiencies 72 Improve customer contact 44 Increase sales 33 Reduce costs 26 Improve accuracy 21
  • 97. SFA will enhance performance when….. 1 1. Sales people find that the SFA application is easy to use 2. Sales people find the technology useful because it fits their roles well. 3. Availability of appropriate-to-task SFA training 4. Users have accurate expectations about what SFA will deliver 5. Users have a positive attitude towards innovation
  • 98. SFA will enhance performance when….. 2 6. Users have a positive attitude towards technology 7. Availability of user support after roll out, for example, a help desk. 8. Involvement of user groups including sales reps and managers during SFA project planning and technology selection. 9. Deployment of a multi-disciplinary team in the SFA project planning phases 10.Senior management support SFA.
  • 99. CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS AND TECHNOLOGIES Chapter 10 Service automation
  • 100. About customer service 1  Customer service has been a necessary preoccupation of service organisations, because they have understood that customers are responsive to the quality of the service they experience.  The quality of customer service is just as important for agriculturalists, miners, and goods manufacturers. This is particularly so when there is product parity, and customers are unable to discern meaningful differences between alternative suppliers or brands.
  • 101. About customer service 2  Customer service standards can be assessed by customers when a service is being performed, as well as after the service has been delivered. ● The service experience as perceived from the dentist’s chair during service delivery might be very different from the assessment a few days later.  Customer service can be experienced at any stage of the customer purchase cycle: before, during, or after purchase.
  • 102. Nordic model of service quality 1. Technical 2. Functional 3. Reputational
  • 103. SERVQUAL model of service quality 1. Reliability 2. Assurance 3. Tangibles 4. Empathy 5. Responsiveness Known collectively as ‘RATER’
  • 104. Integrative quality  Integrative quality is determined by the way the various elements of the product and service delivery system work together. ● High integrative quality means that the processes, people and technology complement each other, working efficiently and effectively to deliver excellent customer service.
  • 105. 6 attributes of companies renowned for excellent service 1 1. Customer service is pervasive. ● It is everyone’s responsibility; it is neither delegated nor relegated to a single department or function. 2. Their operations run smoothly with minimal product and service defect rates, allowing them to focus on pleasing customers. 3. They are always looking for ways to improve.
  • 106. 6 attributes of companies renowned for excellent service 2 4. Customer service lies at the heart of the value proposition. ● Customer service is the main selling point. 5. They build personal relationships with customers. 6. They employ the latest IT to ● allow their customers to interact with them more conveniently ● develop a profound understanding of what customers need and want ● track activities and processes that influence customer experience.
  • 107. UK’s customer service excellence model, 5 criteria  Customer Insight  The Culture of the Organisation  Information and Access  Delivery  Timeliness and Quality of Service
  • 108. TISSE model of service excellence Figure 10.1
  • 109. Service automation definition  Service automation is the application of computerised technologies to support service staff and management in the achievement of their work-related objectives.
  • 110. Where is service automation deployed 1?  Contact centres  are configured to communicate with customers across multiple channels including voice telephony, web, mail, email, SMS, multimedia messaging, instant messaging, web chat, social media and fax. call-centres  As contact centres spend more time interacting with customers in social media, somefirms re-imagine their contact centres as customer engagement centres.  Call centres  are generally dedicated to voice telephony communications, whether through a public switched telephone network, cell- phone network, or VoIP.
  • 111. Where is service automation deployed 2?  Help-desks ● are usually associated with IT environments where assistance is offered to IT users. SA applications such as case management, job management and service level management are used in this setting.  Field service ● is widespread in both B2C and B2B environments. Service automation applied to field service operations involves technologies such as job management, scheduling, mapping and spare parts management.
  • 112. Key technological elements of SA 1  Infrastructure ● When service is delivered through a central call-centre or contact- centre, in a multi-channel environment, there needs to be tight integration between various communication systems, including telephony, email, and web.  Data ● Access to the right customer-related data, to enable the service agent to identify and fix the issue promptly is critical to the delivery of responsive customer service.
  • 113. Key technological elements of SA 2  Devices ● Where service is delivered by a distributed work-force, smaller, lighter, devices such as laptops, Windows-enabled hand-held devices, and smart phones or cell phones such as Blackberries, tend to be employed; these are typically not found in call- and contact-centres. Synchronisation is also an issue for a distributed service team. Periodic synchronisation with the central CRM database enables service engineers and others to ensure that they are fully apprised of their daily scheduled appointments.  Software.
  • 114. Benefits from service automation  Enhanced service effectiveness  Enhanced service efficiency  Greater service agent productivity  Better agent work experience  Improved customer experience  Improved customer engagement  Improved customer retention
  • 115. Full visibility into customer service history (RightNow) Figure 10.2
  • 116. Functionality offered by SA software Table 10.1 Key assessment criteria Elements Customer insight Customer identification; customer engagement and consultation; customer satisfaction Culture of the Organisation Leadership, policy and culture; staff professionalism and attitude Information and access Range of information; quality of information; access; co-operative working with other providers, partners and communities Delivery Delivery standards, achieved delivery and outcomes; deal effectively with problems Timeliness and Quality of Service Standards for timeliness and quality; timely outcomes; achieved timely delivery
  • 117. Activity management  Activity management enables service staff to review their workload, to-do list and priorities as directed by their manager or scheduler, and to report back on progress and issue resolution. Some applications allow activities to be updated in real-time by dispatchers and routed to the technician, so that work can be reprioritised. Alerts can be set so that appointments are not missed, or to notify agents and their managers that issues are unresolved or service levels are about to be, or have been, violated.
  • 118. Agent management  Agent management is a high priority for call- and contact-centre managers.  Managers want to employ the lowest head-count compatible with the desired level of customer service. Too few agents and customers will be dissatisfied with wait-times; too many agents and payroll costs will be unnecessarily high. Customers and managers both want issues to be resolved quickly by agents.
  • 119. KPI’s for call- and contact-centres  Volumes received  Average queuing time  Average handle time (AHT)  Abandon rate  Average speed of answer  Response time  First call (or contact) resolution (FCR)  Self-service issue resolution
  • 120. Case assignment  Case assignment applications ensure that each enquiry or issue gets routed to the right agent or technician for resolution.  Customer service agents might, for example, be organised according to language skills, and field service agent by product category
  • 121. Case management  Case management covers the full cycle of activities involved from receiving initial notification of a matter of concern to a customer to its final resolution and the case file being closed. ● Case management is also known as incident management and issue management.  Cases, incidents or issues are initiated by the creation of a trouble ticket. ● Customers may be allowed to do this by web-form, or by emailing or calling a service or contact centre.
  • 123. Contract management  Contract management functionality enables service engineers and managers to create, track, progress, accelerate, monitor and control service contracts with customers.  Many companies now sell extended service contracts to customers when warranty periods have expired.
  • 124. Customer communications management  Aim to “improve an organization's creation, delivery, storage, and retrieval of outbound and interactive communications with its customers.”  CCM applications enable customer interactions through a wide range of communication media, including email, SMS, websites, social media, print and customer self-service.  Core elements of CCM applications are a design tool, a composition engine, a workflow/rule engine, multichannel delivery and reporting capabilities.
  • 125. Agent response to Twitter feed Figure 10.3
  • 126. Customer self-service  Customer self-service is an attractive option for companies because it transfers the responsibility and cost for service to the customer.  Customers who self-serve are much less likely to place demands on contact-centre, call-centre, help- desk or field service staff.  Customers are typically more competent at self- serving when transactions are involved (e.g. online banking or music downloads); however, they are less competent when problem-resolution is concerned.
  • 127. Customer self-service technologies  Web self-service  Interactive voice response (IVR)  Kiosks  Self-checkout  Apps
  • 128. Email response management systems  Email response management systems (ERMS) are not only useful for handling inbound emails but also for delivering outbound emails and SMS messages.  ERMS are designed up to manage the reception, acknowledgment, interpretation, routing, response, storage and analysis of incoming email securely and effectively.
  • 129. Escalation  Escalation ensures that issues get escalated according to internally determined rules.  Higher levels of authority typically have greater discretion to resolve issues. ● A front-line customer service agent might be required to escalate to higher levels of management issues that have a potentially high cost or reputational consequence.
  • 130. Inbound communications (or call) management  Inbound communications management (ICM) applications allow companies to receive, route, queue and distribute incoming communications from any channel – voice telephony, email, fax, instant message, SMS, fax, web form – to agents in any location including contact centre, in the field or at home.  A unified queue, issue/content recognition, intelligent routing, and knowledge-base integration allow agents to deliver a consistent customer experience and to respond effectively to service requests whatever the communication channel.
  • 131. IVR  Interactive voice response (IVR) uses voice or touch tone key pad input from callers to guide them through a tiered menu structure to the information they require as quickly as possible.
  • 132. Invoicing  Invoicing is a useful application for service technicians who are called to site to provide out-of- warranty service. Having completed the job to the customer’s satisfaction, and captured the customer’s signature electronically, the invoice can be raised on the spot, thereby accelerating cash flow.
  • 133. Job management  Job management applications offer a range of functionality ● cost estimation, quotation generation, creation of trouble tickets, job planning, project management, travel time and distance calculation, GPS mapping, job clustering (to reduce travel time), calendaring, scheduling, spare parts management, job progress tracking, invoicing, service level management, technician despatch, time management and product configuration.
  • 135. Knowledge-base self service  Knowledge-base self-service enables customers to search a database for answers to their service queries.  The database may consist of FAQ’s, articles and videos produced by the company, and content generated by customers or acquired from third parties.  A ‘call-me’ web-chat button, or telephone number can be offered customers who can’t find the answer they seek in the knowledge base.
  • 136. Mapping and driving directions  Solutions that provide mapping and driving directions are very useful for service engineers who need to visit customers’ homes or business premises. Taking into account the engineer’s point-of-origin, service locations, job priorities, service level agreements and other variables, mapping solutions can minimize travel times and distances to ensure that service tasks are performed optimally.
  • 137. Outbound communications management  Outbound communications management software applications are used in a service environment to acknowledge service requests, make and confirm service appointments, advise on the progress of a service task, invoice for out-of-warranty service, and follow-up after service to ensure that the customer is satisfied.
  • 138. Predictive dialling  A telephony technology widely used in contact and call centres.  Automatically dials groups of telephone numbers, and then passes calls to available agents once the call is connected.  The technology quickly terminates calls that are met with no-answers, busy signals, answering machines or disconnected numbers while predicting when an agent will be available to take the next call.  Predictive diallers measure the number of available agents, available lines, average handling time and other factors to adjust outbound calls accordingly.
  • 139. Queuing and routing  Queuing and routing applications allow issues to be routed to agents with particular expertise and positioned in that agent’s queue according to some criterion.  Routing is usually determined by case assignment rules and position in the queue is determined by customer value or some other metric.  The objective of queuing and routing is to ensure that every service issue is presented to the most appropriate agent for handling and resolution.
  • 140. Scheduling  Scheduling involves planning and organising a service technician’s activity plan for a day, week or other period.  A technician’s schedule contains details on the customer, location, time, product and issue.  Some scheduling applications take into account a range of considerations to ensure that the right technician is sent to service the customer ● travel time and distance, technician availability, technician skills, customer access hours, service level agreement, availability of spare parts, and the technician’s hourly rates of pay.
  • 141. Scripting  Enables agents to converse intelligently with customers to diagnose and resolve problems, co- creating good customer experience and complying with regulatory requirements  Scripts are essentially linked screens that the agent talks through with the customer.
  • 142. Scripting  Scripting enables customer service agents to converse intelligently with customers to diagnose and resolve problems, even though they may be untrained as technicians. Scripts can be designed so that they flex dynamically according to customer response. Scripts also reduce agent training time.
  • 143. Customer service scripting screenshot (Kana) Figure 10.5
  • 144. Service analytics  Service analytics provide managers with information on how effectively and efficiently customer service generally, and individual agents or technicians specifically, are operating.  Important metrics for managers of field service operations, for example, include technician utilization, parts inventory, travel time, first time fix rate (FTFR), mean time to resolve (MMTR), and job backlog.
  • 145. Oracle inbound telephony dashboard Figure 10.7
  • 146. Service level management  Service level management applications allow managers to control the level of service that is offered to customers, and technicians to deliver the level of service agreed.  Service levels can be agreed for a number of variables including availability (the percentage of time that the service is available over an agreed time period), usage (the number of service users that can be served simultaneously) and responsiveness (the speed with which a demand for service is fulfilled).
  • 147. Spare parts management  Spare parts management is an important application for field technicians. They can see what parts they have with them on the road, check the inventory levels held by other technicians and at regional and central warehouses, order new parts, transfer parts from colleagues, manage excess and defective parts, and check on the progress of orders thereby ensuring that when they turn up at a job, they are properly equipped
  • 148. Voice biometrics (voice recognition)  Voice biometrics verifies identity by comparing a person’s voice with their voiceprint, a previously recorded representation of their voice.  Voice recognition can be used as a standalone authentication protocol, but is more commonly deployed as an additional security layer, especially for organizations targeted by fraudsters - banks, insurance companies, and healthcare providers.
  • 149. Web collaboration  Web collaboration is a collective term for the online, social and software tools that enable customers and customer service agents to interact in real-time to solve customer problems.  Technologies include instant messaging (web chat), web-conferencing, co-browsing of web-pages, and file-sharing (calendars, to-do lists, videos, documents, presentations and other files).  Web collaboration allows the agent to help the customer to resolve the issue in real time.
  • 151. Workflow development  Workflow development software is useful for designing service-related processes, such as problem diagnosis and issue escalation. ● Work-flow for field service operations will define how service requests are validated, how service tickets are issued, how tickets are allocated, how problems will be diagnosed, how parts will be ordered, how problems will be fixed, how customers will be invoiced, and so on.