INTERFACE ADVANTAGE
Your monthly window into the front office revolution!
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
In this edition: The Importance of Managing Customer Experience across All of the Interfaces - Book Excerpt: Best Face Forward, Why Customer Interfaces Are the Next Frontier of Competitive Advantage, CMO Magazine
- Study Shows Where Multi-Channel E-Tailers Must Improve, E-Commerce Times
- Consolidate Customer Interactions to Manage Customer Experience, destinationCRM
- Is a Customer Interaction Hub in Reach? CRM Daily
- REI Investigates Multi-Channel Mysteries, Inside 1to1
- Coming Soon To Stores Near You: Smart Shelves, Faster Checkout, The Christian Science Monitor
- Hunting a Rare Breed: Human Online Support, CRM Daily
- Ernestine, Meet Julie, CFO Magazine
BOOK EXCERPT: BEST FACE FORWARD, WHY CUSTOMER INTERFACES ARE THE NEXT FRONTIER OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
CMO Magazine, January 2005
January 20th marked the official publication date for Best Face Forward, and the availability of tangible copies of the book reminded us of the importance of the book’s practical messages: understand customers, understand interfaces, and understand the experiences created at all those points where your firm touches your customers – face to face, screen to face, and combinations or hybrids of people and machines. The lead article in this month’s newsletter underscores the importance of coordinating efforts within and across all of a company’s interfaces with customers. And some companies have done extremely well. Our experiences with firms tells us that most have more than one interface with their customers and most have difficulty managing customer experiences across all of the interfaces – and particularly in managing the movement of customers through and across these interfaces. Managers need to ask themselves some hard questions. How do customers use or move through these interfaces? How many customers leave unsatisfied? Why do they leave? Do they leave at the same points? The answers to these questions, and the actions taken to address the weaknesses in both individual interfaces and in the system of interfaces, mark a start towards supporting competitive objectives and achieving interface advantage. - Read the whole story...
STUDY SHOWS WHERE MULTI-CHANNEL E-TAILERS MUST IMPROVE
E-Commerce Times, January 21, 2005
Once consumers have started shopping online, they nearly unanimously expect retailers will conveniently support the continuation of the process throughout other channels. In fact, 97 percent of consumers expect a seamless shopping experience across online and offline channels. However, that isn't always happening, according to Craig Stevenson of IBM Websphere Commerce. - Read the whole story…
CONSOLIDATE CUSTOMER INTERACTIONS TO MANAGE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
destinationCRM.com, December 29, 2004
There are few things that irritate customers more than interacting with several members within an organization across various channels to get their issues resolved. In some cases, effectively managing customer touch points across channels may be the differentiator between strengthening customer loyalty and watching customers defect to a competitor. But, according to the first document in the "State of Customer Experience, 2005" report series by Forrester Research, most companies have yet to centralize how they manage the customer experience. - Read the whole story…
IS A CUSTOMER INTERACTION HUB IN REACH?
CRM Daily, December 20, 2004
Even with vast product improvements and increasing choices on the market, analysts say that there is more than technology at stake in the customer interaction hub quest. "It isn't the technology – it is how companies transform the way they provide service by leveraging the technology," says Forrester's John Ragsdale. Despite years of effort to bring all customer contacts under one roof, the goal of a truly seamless customer interaction hub is still in the future – though analysts say it is almost in reach. - Read the whole story…
REI INVESTIGATE MULTI-CHANNEL MYSTERIES
Inside 1to1, December 13, 2004
Recreation Equipment Inc. (REI) may appear to share the same CRM concerns as any other multi-channel retailer: fostering more intimate relationships, attempting to maintain cross-channel consistency, and so on. But when creating a multi-channel customer strategy, REI was most interested in learning how certain online behavior patterns foreshadow offline shopping and purchase decisions. - Read the whole story...
COMING SOON TO STORES NEAR YOU: SMART SHELVES, FASTER CHECKOUT
The Christian Science Monitor, January 21, 2005
Retailers, hoping to lure shoppers at a time of soft sales, are tapping technology to make browsing and buying easier. In the future world of shopping, customers might encounter: overhead cameras that beam lines of light to help shoppers navigate through store aisles, salesclerks who can tell – instantly – if something is in or out of stock, and computers that track customers' buying preferences at department stores. - Read the whole story...
HUNTING A RARE BREED: HUMAN ONLINE SUPPORT
CRM Daily, January 5, 2005
In the pursuit of customer service, the challenge of making contact with a human defines the automated age and can sometimes feel like a full-time job. Many consumers have developed any number of tricks for reaching a sentient being. Most people, for instance, know to press the zero on the telephone keypad even when the option is not offered. - Read the whole story…
ERNESTINE, MEET JULIE
CFO Magazine, January 1, 2005
Try to book a train ticket on Amtrak's home page and you might just swear off train travel. For sure, you'll swear. A recent attempt to book a journey from New York to Boston, for example, required toggling between windows, looking up obscure station codes, and waiting for slow page repaints. When the order was finally submitted, an error message came up noting that, due to technical difficulties, the request could not be processed. If only Amtrak's Web designers were as attentive as the makers of the railroad's telephone self-service system. That system, which features the digitized voice of an operator named Julie, is a primer on good customer service. - Read the whole story...
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