Keyword Service
26
MAR
Self service - a win-win and a challenge
26 MAR 2012 | Posted in business value, CMS, CRM, finance system, self service, service | Author Alex McLachlanPicking up a thread from my last blog post, I thought it would be useful to discuss self service. Self service is both a win-win - it provides better service at lower cost - and a challenge - implementing wide-ranging self service has its complexities. I've talk on a number of occasions about the advantages of self service. In this post, I'll focus more on the challenges.
08
MAR
Lean Service
08 MAR 2012 | Posted in business value, self service, service | Author Alex McLachlan |
1 Comment
I've written a few times on providing best service and believe it to be something that a number of household names don't deliver currently and should be aspiring to deliver in the future. So I was interested to come across a Harvard Business Review (HBR) blog post suggesting how to provide best service for best value.
20
APR
Role of IT and the Business in Service Improvement
20 APR 2011 | Posted in business strategy, business value, CMS, CRM, membership organisation, NFP, self service, service | Author Alex McLachlanThere are some aspects of service (and more general customer relationship management) that can be assisted by IT and some that are more within the ambit of the business. The business is responsible for the staff and their skills for example, whereas IT is responsible for the systems that facilitate delivery of the services.
18
APR
Best Service applied to Membership Organisations
18 APR 2011 | Posted in business strategy, business value, membership organisation, NFP, self service, service | Author Alex McLachlanPart of a commitment to managing customer/contact relations is the commitment to ensure that a person’s experience of the service they get from the organisation is the best it can be. Bill Price and David Jaffe's work on best service has a number of applications to Membership Organisations, particularly those where relationship management and development is important.
13
APR
Systems Thinking for Service in Membership Organisations
13 APR 2011 | Posted in business strategy, business value, membership organisation, NFP, self service, service | Author Alex McLachlan | 1 Comment
In my previous post, I introduced the potential benefits that membership organisations can obtain from looking at best practice service. The ‘Systems Thinking’ work carried out by John Seddon is one of the key contributions to moving organisations towards service excellence.
11
APR
Best Service in Membership Organisations
11 APR 2011 | Posted in business strategy, business value, membership organisation, NFP, self service, service | Author Alex McLachlanCustomer service is most often thought about in the context of large corporate call centres many of whom provide excellent service (Amazon and first direct are often held up as prime examples), but equally with some well known cases who provide appalling service to their customers with long waiting queues, tortuous telephone menus and dreadful operatives (it’s probably best not to name the guilty here). Significant research and practical experience have gone into understanding best practice for customer service.
23
AUG
Book Review: The Best Service is No Service
23 AUG 2010 | Posted in business strategy, business value, charity, CRM, IT, membership organisation, NFP, service, website | Author Alex McLachlanThe Best Service is No Service by Bill Price and David Jaffe is an excellent book that ought to be compulsory reading for all companies with a customer service element, mostly because so many of them are so very far from providing even reasonable service.
Note: their use of "No Service" in the title is a misnomer - their book is very much in agreement with John Seddon's work, that you need to focus on the service that provides value to the customer, and provide that service well.
The book gives clear, practical advice and loads of examples of where service has gone wrong and of best practice (plenty of examples from Amazon and first direct for instance in this category).
A few of the most significant points they make are:
- Good quality self service has major benefits, making it easier for users to do what they want, when they want and significantly reduce operational costs
- Get rid of unnecessary reasons for people to contact you ("dumb contacts" is the phrase they use in the book) - eliminate contacts that have no value to the customer and no value to the organisation
- Value those contacts and relationships that are most important to you and have the greatest benefit to the organisation
- Gather metrics on what people are trying to find out about, both on the website and through calls
- "Service" is not just the province of a contact / service centre, it is equally important across the whole operation
11
AUG
John Seddon - Lean for Service Organisations
11 AUG 2010 | Posted in business strategy, John Seddon, lean, Lean Conference 2009, service | Author Ross JacksonJohn Seddon is a well-known "management guru", and bestselling author. John acknowledges the influence of W.E Deming and Taiichi Ohno on his work and today he describes what his consultancy firm, Vanguard, does as a combination of systems thinking – ‘how work works’, and intervention theory – ‘how to change it’.