CRM = Human Capital Management
CRM = Human Capital Management
By Justin Smith, VP of R&D, AIM Technology Ltd
Published: November 7 2008 15:37 | Last updated: November 7 2008 15:37
Customer relationship management (CRM) is regarded as “understanding the customer”, but many organisations and technology developers approach it as a data-segmentation and profiling exercise. I contend that effective CRM must also involve adopting a 360-degree view of the performance of the staff who manage customer relationships.
Managing customers is only truly possible through managing customer-facing staff. It is simply not possible to achieve effective CRM by only looking at one side of a multi-faceted issue. Systems and solutions geared to analysing customer data are only analysing part of the picture.
Overlooking how the staff who deal with customers are performing is perhaps the biggest issue affecting customer satisfaction. If maximising revenue from customers is an organisation’s objective then a simultaneous objective needs to be the maximising of service delivery to customers.
Metrics looking at staff performance need to be in place to support CRM. However, the step organisations need to take before implementing metrics is to think strategically about their business and how its aims and objectives are communicated internally. This ensures that each layer of an organisation is aligned to the same objectives and can be measured accordingly by the layer above it.
Many organisations fall down by prioritising short-term sales-focused measures versus a longer term, strategic approach to CRM. Metrics are too often thought up in isolation. Each particular operation within an organisation needs to think about itself in the context of the overall framework. Another good pointer to the establishment of good metrics is to consider that a metric measures a process. Without relating a process to a metric, no improvement can be concretely affected, measured or reported.
Once an organisation has defined its aims it can define ways of measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) and who owns them, using the threefold approach of metrics-drivers-owners. The drivers are the influencing factors on a metric – for example, the behaviours they encourage. Over time, behaviour influences quality of service and, consequently, revenue performance.
In the contact centre environment, team supervisors are the owners of the KPIs and consequently play an important role in coaching and mentoring the agents who are on the front line of handling customer relationships.
Supervisors should spend time each day making sure they are coaching, mentoring and empowering their teams based on a scorecard to appraise and monitor performance in managing customer relationships. Similarly, the frequency and regularity of coaching sessions can be monitored. Ideally, teams should consist of between eight and 10 people, with a manageable portfolio of products and services.
When done correctly, coaching in handling customers should take place throughout the working day. This makes agents’ performance reviews an ongoing exercise rather than something dependent on the supervisor hastily gathering fistfuls of data once per month/quarter. Management information that supports the efficient running of an organisation needs to be at the fingertips of those who need it and who monitor the staff looking after customers.
Taking a higher level view of how customer relationships are managed gives a wide perspective on the factors influencing those relationships. In a contact centre, effective measuring is achieved through a balanced indicator that looks at more than call handling time or average revenue. If a call is handled quickly, but unhelpfully, then the relationship with the customer may be harmed and the time the agent has spent could be self-defeating and counter-productive.
Contact centre agents should not be measured just on cross-selling or up-selling; in fact measurement should not be confined to any one part of the customer relationship. It takes time to embed and drive the business through a well crafted framework of metrics. To this end, contact centre management should not just look at absolutes at any point in time, but also measure improvements in an agent’s customer service performance between when they joined and a given point, as it takes time to bed metrics in.
Using business process oriented applications (eg coaching, quality monitoring) to know how calls are being handled can be followed through into the effect on product and service delivery and how this affects customers. Managing contact centre agents by giving them personal performance information on a dashboard motivates them in managing customer relationships.
Every agent of a particular type can be assessed in the same way, enabling organisations to measure improvements in their staff’s customer handling techniques as well as the amount of products they are selling. This blends “softer” metrics into the mix. The results of having procedures to monitor patterns affecting customer relationships and buying trends can be seen in the bottom line.
Human capital management is at the core of analysing performance and trends in customer relationships. A scorecard approach gives an end-to-end perspective, deeper and more detailed than the sales figure oriented approach of most CRM. Technology plays a vital part in the continuous gathering and analysing of management information, but it is the context of effective coaching and monitoring that enables it to improve staff’s relationships with customers.
AIM Technology is a provider of analytical performance management software solutions for contact centres and service organisations.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Justin Smith, VP of R&D, AIM Technology Ltd
Published: November 7 2008 15:37 | Last updated: November 7 2008 15:37
Customer relationship management (CRM) is regarded as “understanding the customer”, but many organisations and technology developers approach it as a data-segmentation and profiling exercise. I contend that effective CRM must also involve adopting a 360-degree view of the performance of the staff who manage customer relationships.
Managing customers is only truly possible through managing customer-facing staff. It is simply not possible to achieve effective CRM by only looking at one side of a multi-faceted issue. Systems and solutions geared to analysing customer data are only analysing part of the picture.
Overlooking how the staff who deal with customers are performing is perhaps the biggest issue affecting customer satisfaction. If maximising revenue from customers is an organisation’s objective then a simultaneous objective needs to be the maximising of service delivery to customers.
Metrics looking at staff performance need to be in place to support CRM. However, the step organisations need to take before implementing metrics is to think strategically about their business and how its aims and objectives are communicated internally. This ensures that each layer of an organisation is aligned to the same objectives and can be measured accordingly by the layer above it.
Many organisations fall down by prioritising short-term sales-focused measures versus a longer term, strategic approach to CRM. Metrics are too often thought up in isolation. Each particular operation within an organisation needs to think about itself in the context of the overall framework. Another good pointer to the establishment of good metrics is to consider that a metric measures a process. Without relating a process to a metric, no improvement can be concretely affected, measured or reported.
Once an organisation has defined its aims it can define ways of measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) and who owns them, using the threefold approach of metrics-drivers-owners. The drivers are the influencing factors on a metric – for example, the behaviours they encourage. Over time, behaviour influences quality of service and, consequently, revenue performance.
In the contact centre environment, team supervisors are the owners of the KPIs and consequently play an important role in coaching and mentoring the agents who are on the front line of handling customer relationships.
Supervisors should spend time each day making sure they are coaching, mentoring and empowering their teams based on a scorecard to appraise and monitor performance in managing customer relationships. Similarly, the frequency and regularity of coaching sessions can be monitored. Ideally, teams should consist of between eight and 10 people, with a manageable portfolio of products and services.
When done correctly, coaching in handling customers should take place throughout the working day. This makes agents’ performance reviews an ongoing exercise rather than something dependent on the supervisor hastily gathering fistfuls of data once per month/quarter. Management information that supports the efficient running of an organisation needs to be at the fingertips of those who need it and who monitor the staff looking after customers.
Taking a higher level view of how customer relationships are managed gives a wide perspective on the factors influencing those relationships. In a contact centre, effective measuring is achieved through a balanced indicator that looks at more than call handling time or average revenue. If a call is handled quickly, but unhelpfully, then the relationship with the customer may be harmed and the time the agent has spent could be self-defeating and counter-productive.
Contact centre agents should not be measured just on cross-selling or up-selling; in fact measurement should not be confined to any one part of the customer relationship. It takes time to embed and drive the business through a well crafted framework of metrics. To this end, contact centre management should not just look at absolutes at any point in time, but also measure improvements in an agent’s customer service performance between when they joined and a given point, as it takes time to bed metrics in.
Using business process oriented applications (eg coaching, quality monitoring) to know how calls are being handled can be followed through into the effect on product and service delivery and how this affects customers. Managing contact centre agents by giving them personal performance information on a dashboard motivates them in managing customer relationships.
Every agent of a particular type can be assessed in the same way, enabling organisations to measure improvements in their staff’s customer handling techniques as well as the amount of products they are selling. This blends “softer” metrics into the mix. The results of having procedures to monitor patterns affecting customer relationships and buying trends can be seen in the bottom line.
Human capital management is at the core of analysing performance and trends in customer relationships. A scorecard approach gives an end-to-end perspective, deeper and more detailed than the sales figure oriented approach of most CRM. Technology plays a vital part in the continuous gathering and analysing of management information, but it is the context of effective coaching and monitoring that enables it to improve staff’s relationships with customers.
AIM Technology is a provider of analytical performance management software solutions for contact centres and service organisations.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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