Action Management drives fast action based on unresolved customer issues, allowing users to coordinate efforts to resolve customer concerns in a timely manner.   CustomerSat recently expanded the functionality of Action Management in its Enterprise Customer Experience Management (ECEM™) system through automated case management.   This new functionality, which complements and extends action alerts, helps organizations of any size save customers who may be at-risk and protect the recurring revenue they represent.    

This article and associated PowerPoint presentation show how CustomerSat's Action Management powers the systematic response and follow-up to customer feedback by staff across your enterprise.   Action Management enables users to enhance customer retention, favorably impacting profitability.

Customer Satisfaction Improves Retention

Attitudes and intentions drive behavior, and customer satisfaction is one of the strongest drivers and predictors of customer behavior.

Dissatisfied customers are more likely to discontinue purchases of a product or service, switch to a competitor, or both.   Additionally, depending on the level of dissatisfaction, these customers (or ex-customers) typically tell their friends and colleagues of their bad experiences, furthering the negative impact on your business. Gathering customer feedback via surveys across multiple touch points during the customer lifecycle provides invaluable advanced warnings of possible defections due to dissatisfaction with service, products, or other elements of the relationship.

Real-time Customer Feedback Drives Positive, Swift Action

Often times, an organization takes action only after customers have cancelled or defected, closing their accounts or issuing competitive bids for services that your firm currently provides.   By this time, it is often too late to affect customers' behavior.

In contrast, when corporations take immediate action based on real-time survey feedback, they are responding in advance of possible defections, in time to alter customers' behavior.   Using customer feedback to drive informed action leads corporations to retain customers and protect profits.  

Actions may range from the tactical and highly targeted, such as coaching a staff member or re-writing instructions to make them clear to customers, to the strategic and broad, such as re-designing products, adopting new market positions, and changing corporate strategy.

Action Management Streamlines Action Plans

Taking action begins with awareness of a problem or issue.   Once a customer issue surfaces, prompt action may be required to address the needs of and save the customer.   Issues may be either strategic, tactical, or both, and   their resolution may require staff from different departments and divisions.   CustomerSat Action Management provides the effective communications vehicle team members use to coordinate each unique action plan.   By streamlining and centralizing the response processes, Action Management speeds problem resolution.

Automatic Case Generation

How do you know a customer is dissatisfied and needs further attention?   If your organization conducts surveys, you are probably already asking them.   If, for example, you deliver surveys after technical support calls, you most likely are asking questions such as:

• How satisfied were you with the service delivered?
• Was the problem solved to your satisfaction?

CustomerSat's Action Alerts and Case Management, part of the Enterprise Customer Experience Management (ECEM™) system, uses survey responses to a) deliver email notices to a pre-defined list of staff members, partners or customers, b) automatically open a case, or c) both.   To fully understand the various levels involved in Action Management, let's consider a sample situation.

Case study: Software Upgrade Installation

Acme Corp. has rolled-out a key software product upgrade for their customers.   Their online survey process tracks customer satisfaction and success with upgrade installation.   Customers receive survey invitations via email three days after they download the upgrades from the website.   The survey includes two questions Acme will use to trigger the Action Management process:

• How easy was it to install the upgrade software?
• Were you able to complete the installation?

An action plan based on these questions will allow Acme to meet two separate objectives:

• Assure that customers are able to install the upgrade.   If they can't, Acme will proactively respond to the customer within 24 hours, and resolve the problemto the customer's satisfaction within three days of discovery.
• Uncover problems with the installation process itself and take the necessary actions to improve usability

Both objectives are important. The first focuses on tactical actions that will ensure that all customers can install the upgrade and remain satisfied with their Acme products and services.  

The second is more strategic: identifying larger customer issues with the entire installation process.   Findings may be applied to improve this installation process, the installation processes for other Acme products, and ultimately, accelerate the phasing out of all older Acme products to reduce support costs.  

Action Management Process

By using CustomerSat Action Management, Acme can meet both objectives.  

Tactical Action Plans

Action Alerts are generated by the ECEM system to immediately notify Acme staff of customers who answer NO to the question:   “Were you able to complete the installation?” (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Action Alerts are based on pre-defined templates, shown here, and   alert staff when customers require immediate attention. Larger View

The Action Alert, based on a pre-defined filter, immediately identifies responses which satisfy the filter's conditions as soon as the responses are submitted.   Once triggered, the Action Alert can optionally sendselected employees email notices containing links that provide direct access to the full survey response.  

Action Alerts can also automatically open cases.

Automatic Case Generation

By tying the Action Alert to a case, Acme activates ECEM's powerful case management functionality.   This allows you to establish teams of personnel (employees, partners, customers) within one or multiple departments that will be responsible for implementing a response plan to solve the customer issue.  

Case templates are used to set up cases.   Key steps include:

1. Defining the Action Teams

There are two types of team participants:   Case Managers and Team Members.   Each is able to view and contribute to the resolution of the issue, with Case Managers able to close the case.   Each team can include staff from across the enterprise.   In this example, team members may include technical support managers, support representatives, and a product manager.   In defining the action management process, case managers determine when case actions will alert case members through email, such as when a case is opened, status changed, or closed.  

2. Defining Case Options

These include Case Status (Open, Pending, Closed, etc.), Category (Installation Issues, At-Risk Customer, etc.), Severity (i.e., Critical, High, Low, etc.) and Closure Goal (the number of days from the time case was opened until it must be closed to avoid being escalated).   Definitions for each can be customized depending on the needs of each case manager.  

Severity and Closure Goal may be defined based on the level of service or customer type.   For example, a case involving a Bronze-level customer may have a closure deadline of 72 hours and be assigned Normal severity.   The same case involving a Silver customer may have a deadline of 48 hours and be assigned High severity.   The same case involving a Gold customer may have a deadline of 24 hours and be assigned Urgent severity.   Here, Bronze, Silver and Gold may refer to support policies covering thecustomers; the amount each customer has spent over the last twelve months; or similar measure of customer value.

Once the case template is defined and saved, it will automatically open a case when responses are received that meet the case conditions.   In this example, the case is opened when a customer has not been able to install the upgrade (Figure 2).

Figure 2:    Case Templates are used to define all case attributes, including team members, cases severity level,   category, and closure goal. Larger View

Case Management Drives Actions

Through their ECEM Dashboards, all team members have easy, fast access to review and act on their open cases.   Team members may receive email notices when the case is opened, at each change in status, and at other key events.  

Figure 3:   Open cases are listed on the user's ECEM homepage. Larger View

By simply clicking on the Open Cases link (figure 3), users can view all case details. This process allows Acme to respond immediately to customers who could not install the upgrade.   By taking immediate action, Acme assures that the new upgrade will be successfully installed across their customer base.

Overdue cases – those still open as of their closure goals - are prominently highlighted on Case Managers' and Team Members' ECEM Dashboards.

Figure 4:    Team members have ready access to all activities for assigned cases, and use a simple interface to add actions and alter case status. Larger View

Strategic Action Plans

In this example, an Action Alert is triggered by a score of five or lower on the ten-point scale in response to the rating question: “Ease of upgrade installation.”   The strategic goal here is to uncover actions that will improve the installation process for all customers. This process begins with setting a cross-functional team to review customer responses.   Team members include representatives from the following departments:

• Product development – to modify the product to simplify the installation procedure
• Tech publications – to document the new installation procedure for both online and printed media
• QA – to test the new procedure
• Web Operations - to publish new content & files on the website
• Marketing – to communicate changes to customers
• Account management – to follow up with customers to achieve closure with them.

Without Action Management, these different departments often work in self-contained silos.   Action Management provides the means to:

• Help them share information
• Agree on the right solution
• Coordinate efforts towards that solution
• Avoid duplicate effort.   

Once the cross-functional team is established, its members will make use of not only case management , but also ECEM's many analytics and reports to determine the changes that will make the installation process more user-friendly.

For example, as team members receive alerts and new cases each will review individual survey responses if a larger problem is indicated, team members can begin to review the wealth of information contained in the open-ended comments for customers dissatisfied with the process.   When appropriate, customers can also be contacted for more detailed follow-up.

Conclusion

Action Management creates cross-departmental, virtual teams to address the issues customers raise in their survey responses.   Action Management enables the right people across divisions and departments to come together, share information, collaborate and synchronize efforts, and address issues before valued customers are put at risk. With Action Management, teams can co-ordinate and pace actions -- setting deadlines depending upon case type and severity, and working as a unit to resolve even complex, multi-level problems.

For more information or a demonstration on how Action Management could work for your organization, please contact CustomerSat at 800-372-7772.