CRM + BPM: Raising the Bar to Deliver Better Customer Experience Date:   Wednesday , August 11, 2010 For decades, businesses have continually sought to deliver customer service that is effective, personalized, and simultaneously cost efficient. The pursuit of this goal has driven them to spend vast sums on the research and implementation of new customer service systems and even triggered the emergence of an entirely new field of business thinking known as customer relationship management (CRM). So why is it then, that so many of the customer satisfaction scores in this country show no signs of improvement? What is missing from previous customer service solutions? Well, the primary limitation of previous CRM solutions is they have traditionally been designed as standalone front-office systems with little integration into other department or back-office systems. For instance, traditional CRM solutions might allow customer service operators access to consolidated customer information - such as contact details and purchase history - when selling a product, but rarely access to real-time information outlining the status of an existing order in the warehouse. For this reason, along with advancements in technology, business process management (BPM) is now taking a greater role in CRM. BPM-powered CRM solutions are fundamentally different because they are not isolated. They manage customer orders and services in streamlined end-to-end, customer centric processes. The theory behind this revolutionary approach to CRM is to view business operations horizontally rather than vertically because that is how customers experience an organization. Take the example of a customer signing up for cable television. When the customer calls, they speak with a contact centre operator, who confirms their order, thereby touching on the provisioning department. The provisioning system then schedules an installation, which will touch on the supply chain. In the past, these different departments might act largely independently and communicate little. However, today’s BPM-powered CRM solutions utilise the latest technology to enable an integrated approach to all customer data, processes and communication across departments, accessible in real time. Imagine a system that automatically updates legacy systems and automates hand-offs to other departments, all the time providing real-time data so that customer requests can be monitored, right from the placing of an order through to the location of the truck delivering the product. Suddenly, customer service operators are empowered with the information to respond quickly and effectively to a wide range of customer needs. Indeed, CRM-BPM solutions based on sophisticated business rules do more than just provide customer service operators with real-time status updates on customer orders. They have also allowed for innovations, such as “adaptive intelligence”. Adaptive intelligence systems capture and analyse customer behaviour data, which can then be used to proactively design improved customer service processes, such as highly individualised guides that step customer service reps through a wide range of customer service interactions. Taking in the broader perspective of an organisation’s point of view, CRM-BPM solutions offer the key benefit over traditional CRM models of increased transparency, integration and uniformity of processes. For instance, previously when a company’s contact centre measured the average time its operators spent on each call, it did so in isolation to the provisioning department, which was tracking its installation response time. However, new generation CRM-BPM systems provide the technology to seamlessly integrate the two into a single process, measuring the total time from the first phone call to the completed installation. Similarly, customer complaints, resolution times, and the ratio of complaints received to those satisfactorily resolved can be viewed enterprise-wide as part of a single process. And if it is decided that changes to training or operational processes are needed to avoid future complaints, they can be rolled out more easily than in traditional CRM models. Additionally, because BPM distributes key CRM data enterprise-wide, it allows for input from financial departments, who can help engineer CRM solutions that react dynamically to the latest market trends. For example, financial departments can view inventory status reports and instruct concerned departments to up-sell to increase sales. Similarly, service departments can identify their prime customers and design phone call queues that serve them first, and customer service systems that prioritise their orders with adjacent departments. The end result of this streamlining, automating and optimizing of business processes is not just improved customer service but also an increase in cost efficiency. The savings can then (optionally) be passed on to customers. Next generation BPM-based CRM solutions ensure the best of both worlds. They provide effective and satisfying service to the customer that is simultaneously cost-efficient and streamlined for the service provider. Because after all, what good are low handling times when customers are not happy? Isn’t that what CRM was supposed to be doing all along? The author is Senior Director of Product Management, Pegasystems