Customer Experience Management: The Experience is in the details...

I am not sure where you stand in the debate over Customer Experience Management -- or if you even stand somewhere. However, most people relegate it to management-consulting-fad category and would prefer that it goes away as quickly as Knowledge Management, Process Management, and Order Management... wait, none of those are going anywhere anytime soon, are they? Well, hate to say that neither is Experience Management.

However, we need to make more sense of it. Let's see if I remember how the typical vendor pitch goes... if you work with us we will redo all your processes, change your organizations into a customer-centric organization, and make your clients for life -- greatly enhancing your wallet-share, yada-yada-yada. Although some of the concepts are certain, most of the pitch sounds impossible to accomplish (and usually it is).

We are starting to see some successes in this arena though. No, it was not the "forklift" approach to process change, or the "complete redesign of the experience around the customer" that won. It was the detailed, meticulous approach to taking care of customers.

Yep, there may not be a need to change ALL your processes after all, or deploying costly and complex systems. You may just be able to do it by focusing on what you need to do, how you need to do it, and what you need to do it. If then, and only then, you notice you are missing some DETAILS, then - by golly - fix that. Chances are your business has survived quite some time by now... so you may know what you are doing. That does not mean you cannot improve it.

And, that is where the detail part comes in. Focus on the details, let the processes fix themselves (as a former mentor of mined used to say "if you take care of the minutes, the hours take care of themselves"). Don't spend your energy trying to come up with the ultimate experience - you will never be able to do it. Even if you do succeed, it will be outdated by the time you release it. No, you are better than that... You will focus on making sure your emails get answered within 12 hours (as Bank of America does), knowing that then your customers will come back to use that channel. You will make sure that you communicate with the client clearly in all your interactions (as ATT Wireless agents are trained to do) and that you manage expectations throughout the entire process ("I will place you on hold for no more than 2 minutes while I research the best plan for you", as opposed to "please hold"). You, in essence, will treat the customer the way they expect to be treated. And the hours will take care of themselves...

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2008 by Esteban Kolsky/ RWang. All rights reserved

Order Hubs: A Perfect Order's Just Really in the Eye of the Beholder

WHAT'S A PERFECT ORDER THEY ASK???

So I've been getting this question about once a week or so for the past 2 years. And basically, everyone starts the conversation from their perspective of what an order is. The supply chain guys think fulfilment, the CRM/eCommerce gals think order capture. and the ERP peeps think billing and payment. In fact, they are all correct! But let me suggest:

Take a process view first
However, you should take a process based view. This is about 4 key processes:

1. Opportunity to order capture - all the stuff to capture information for the order and send it on to the next step
   
2. Order capture to order fulfillment - the guts and logistics of fulfilling an order from pick,pack, ship to TMS, WMS.
   
3. Order fulfillment to order completion - the processes that may occur before an order is satisified such as returns, after market service, installation scheduling, and warranty claims.
   
4. Order completion to order settlement - invoicing, AP/AR, financial stuff.
   

Revisit what an order is really about
The basic notion is a stakeholder gets an order and they have their expectations to have this filled every time, without question and with minimal effort. Not the best definition, but when we drill further into major factors, it becomes apparent that there are about 10 key items to think about. A perfect order delivers:

1. The right product or service in the
   
2. The right quantity with
3. The right configuration that meets
4. The right levels of quality from
5. The right source delivered in
6. The right condition and packaging with
7. The right documentation in
8. The right period of time for
9. The right cost over
   
10. The right frequency
    

So, as you can imagine, there is such a thing as a perfect order, it's just in the eye of the beholder!

NOTE: Now I know others have had various versions of this and I do want to credit their work and especially Edward Marien at the University of Wisconsin who's talked about this for the past few years from a customer bill of rights perspective

(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2007 by R Wang. All rights reserved

Analyst 101: Debut of Beyond Order to Cash

Business pressures to grow market share, improve margins, reduce time to market, and retain customers with existing enterprise application investments compel enterprises to re-examine their existing order management cycle (OMC) strategies. With multiple categories of vendors offering order management solutions, business complexity across supply and demand chains should be the strategic driver in determining the appropriate solution fit. Companies looking to implement OMC strategies immediately will not find a single vendor solution.


Check out my first Forrester research report
Beyond Order to Cash


(The personal contents in this blog do not reflect the opinions, ideas, thoughts, points of view, and any other potential attribution of my current, past, or future employers.)
Copyrighted 2005 by R Wang. All rights reserved