Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Crm Must Meet Higher Consumer Expectations

CRM MUST MEET HIGHER CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS

Consumer expectations for customer service have been heightened as a result of e-commerce. When companies opened themselves on the Internet to 24/7 access, customers gained much more visibility into companies and their products, services, policies, pricing, and business processes. Customers began to desire a much smoother, more seamless, transparent experience in dealing with companies, according to customer service expert Patricia Seybold, as quoted in eMarketer. Customers also wanted, and took, more control over the information that companies had about them. Customer concerns led to their taking more control of their profile information and their transaction histories. Customers were suspicious that companies were using that information to segment them in order to offer them different levels of service based on which segment they were in. Some companies began following the lead of the airlines and car rental companies by telling customers what segment they were in and letting them know what level of service they could expect.

Customer service can be expensive. eMarketer 's CRM report found that online self-service costs businesses only three cents per customer, while live help costs $5 per customer. The goal for companies is to make their online self-help capabilities so good that customers come to prefer them to interacting with a live customer service representative. Cisco Systems, for example, designed an online customer service wizard that prompts customers, helps them get their complaint logged, but along the way also offers suggestions for fixing the problem. In this way, customers are able to troubleshoot their own problem and find a solution.