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Friday
- September 29, 2000
Online Customer Service Spending: $297 Million
by 2005
In its latest report, Meridien Research examines
the impact as customers' relationships with financial institutions
shift to the Internet, changing the variables for delivering
customer service forever. "Online Customer Service: It Has
Only Just Begun" provides an in-depth look at solutions that
support online customer service and the challenges it represents.
"Instead of having a live person dynamically
communicate and interact with the customer to assist and
answer inquiries, financial institutions are trying to determine
how to ensure the same level of customer service on the Internet
and at the same time satisfy the customer's needs," said
Judy Wong, analyst at Meridien Research.
Technology providers now range from e-mail
management type vendors to providers of live chat, Web collaboration,
and most recently, voice-over-IP. Each tries to find the
best way to mimic the live, dynamic interaction of a customer
speaking to an agent over the phone or meeting with a branch
representative.
The report analyzes twelve vendor solutions
using four broad solution elements: types of online customer
service; repositories of customer information; cross-sell
functionality; and integration to other systems.
"Clearly, the leaders in the financial services
industry understand that customer service over the Internet
is another channel that needs to be managed effectively -
financial institutions are in an online fish bowl," said
Bill Bradway, research director at Meridien. "The results
of a fully implemented, online customer suite remain to be
seen in the next one to three years. We expect online brokers
to lead in online customer service out of necessity."
Companies Missing Chance to Influence Customers
The Yankee Group has introduced new research that indicates companies lavish
far too much attention on the mechanical side of selling – processing the
transaction — to the detriment of where the sale is really created: influencing
the customer. The study, "Taxonomy of Selling in a Multichannel World," underscores
that the roadmap for successful selling is to create an optimal balance of
online and offline selling strategies. Consequently, selling on the Internet
must integrate and enhance traditional sales channels.
There are a variety of solutions available
that address selling — from traditional CRM solutions that
include sales force automation functionality, to self-service,
sell-side solutions on the Internet. As a result, The Yankee
Group has identified nine software categories that are necessary
to successfully sell in a multichannel world. These categories
not only help companies transact on the Internet, but also
illustrate how to influence and guide the potential customer,
partner, or salesperson in a virtual and traditional environment.
"The fading allure of pure dot-com business
models has made clear that, for most companies at least,
multichannel solutions are most appropriate. In other words,
selling on the Internet must also integrate and enhance the
more traditional selling channels as well," said Chris Selland,
vice president for The Yankee Group's Customer Relationship
Management Strategies and E-Sourcing Strategies Planning
Services. "Also, the increased power of the customer and
the availability of alternatives makes influencing the customer
equally, if not more, important."
The Internet has enabled a whole new generation
of software that is now at the core of successful selling
and extends collaboration beyond company boundaries. However,
choosing the right combination of best-of-breed software
or suites is still a daunting task for all businesses. Yet,
in order to create an effective e-commerce channel for selling
complex products and services along with automating the multifaceted
selling activities within traditional direct and indirect
selling channels, a company will need a combination of technologies.
"The emerging opportunity we see is the need
for a unified platform for the entire range of selling processes
across all selling channels to provide a complete view of
the customer's behavior and transaction patterns," said Sheryl
Kingstone, program manager of The Yankee Group's Customer
Relationship Management Strategies Planning Service. "The
problem today is that no single vendor provides either the
full range of application or platform capabilities to build
such a system."
The Yankee Group will discuss the new research
regarding how to bring solutions together to create a successful
multichannel selling environment at its upcoming Digital
Customer Loyalty conference on August 21-22, 2000 at the
Ritz-Carlton in Boston, Massachusetts. The conference will
also address how these new technologies will enhance a company's
business strategy in order to realize the true potential
of CRM and reap the benefits of interacting with customers
either assisted or unassisted — with the end goal of attracting
and converting the customers into repeat buyers.
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2000 News Archive
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