CRM - August 2008 - (Page BP8)

8 August 2008 Sponsored Content SEAMLESS CUSTOMER CONVERSATIONS Driving intelligent interactions in the contact center As the leader designing the customer experience for your company, you struggle to keep up with the basic processes necessary to ensure continued growth and profitability — processes such as managing the sales cycle, providing quality customer service, and marketing intelligently to new purchasers. And you realize that even when you improve productivity in one or more of those areas, a disjointed experience for your customers is created because your processes lack true integration. For you, the focal point of building strong relationships with customers is your contact center. And, as the primary interaction point, the contact center agent may be your only opportunity to make a positive impact on that customer. Given the potential magnitude of this interaction, you have the opportunity to differentiate yourself from your competitors by making these customer interactions more personalized and intelligent. CHALLENGES IN THE CONTACT CENTER customer needs. And although money is spent on equipment and personnel to keep up with demand, the level of customer service rarely improves. Poorly integrated, poorly directed systems make it impossible to resolve customer problems in a timely manner. A simple call that should be resolved in minutes can turn into a drawn out activity as the contact center agent struggles to find the information needed to perform the requested task. In the end, customer dissatisfaction and churn become not just possible outcomes, but the most likely ones. INTEGRATION AND INTELLIGENCE: KEYS TO SEAMLESS CONVERSATIONS Many companies lack the technology to optimize their contact centers, and it often takes multiple interactions to get simple things done. Basic functions like customer service requests can trigger a chain reaction of repetitive activities that involve numerous employees. Such inefficiency can escalate the cost of serving customers, particularly when it is multiplied across a global customer base. Contact centers with inefficient processes experience an ever-expanding base of unmet In today’s global environment, your business processes must be integrated seamlessly across all divisions so that contact center agents can handle calls more quickly and resolve issues in a single interaction. To do this successfully, the agents need visibility into all of the data and processes associated with their clients. When customers call to check on the status of service requests, policy updates, credit approvals, or other transactions, agents in the contact center must be empowered to view and amend customer account activities on the spot. This means contact center agents must have systems that allow them to make every customer interaction “intelligent.” Customer preferences and analytics such as affinity for early product adoption and lifetime value must be available to determine the appropriate action the contact center agent should take. Intelligence-driven interactions can also help agents quickly identify an answer to a specific customer question or problem. FIND THE RIGHT SOLUTION consistent customer interactions and builds long-term customer loyalty. Smart companies are realizing that to retain valued customers and boost bottomline growth, they must empower the contact center, where customer-facing agents have the best opportunity to build stronger relationships with existing customers, capture higher revenue, and reduce churn. Unifying the touch points between the client and the company and creating seamless customer conversations has become a pathway to developing and growing the long-term, profitable relationships companies are striving to create. To achieve this level of customer service, it is recommended that companies turn to a customer-centric solution provider who can add customer intelligence into the enterprise’s existing systems and accelerate returns, helping to drive profitable growth now and into the future. Infor Service for the contact center can hold the key to unlocking this potential. ABOUT INFOR Infor delivers business-specific software to enterprising organizations. With experience built in, Infor’s solutions enable businesses of all sizes to be more enterprising and adapt to the rapid changes of a global marketplace. With more than 70,000 customers, Infor is changing what businesses expect from an enterprise software provider. Designed to provide unparalleled customer experience across multiple business units and channels, Infor CRM Epiphany integrates customer information from multiple enterprise systems into a single view. Infor CRM Epiphany drives innovation, competitive advantage and increased profitability by focusing on the customer experience to increase the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and sales success. For additional information, visit http://www.infor.com/solutions/crm Indeed, in today’s world of increased global competition, taking full advantage of each customer interaction has become a strategic imperative. And customer-oriented companies must focus on developing a contact center that drives effective, http://www.infor.com/solutions/crm

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - August 2008

CRM - August 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Maximum Security A Code Win Doesn’t Blow Forming the Platform CRM on Twitter CRM Class Is in Session Making CRM Mandatory for University Administration Required Reading Cover Story: Calling it Quits Wouldja Look at That? 8 Enterprise Strategies That Stick CRM Searches for Search All Lines Are Not Busy UC: As Easy as A-B-C Even Contact Centers Have Room for Improvement Money Lying Around? Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - August 2008

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