The Importance of Customer-centric Process Management

You would think that after decades of practice, Business to Consumer (B2C) companies would have worked out both the importance of customer service, and the mechanisms by which they deliver a good service at an affordable cost.

Luckily for purveyors of process improvement technologies and services (currently packaged as SOA or BPM), most of these companies are still struggling to provide anything like an acceptable service. Unluckily for the recipients of this service (including me) achieving a painless experience is nigh on impossible.

My latest experience is ongoing - the brakes failed on my car last week and I crashed into a 650 year old castle. As you may have guessed the car came off worse, and the castle was undisturbed. However, I have been extremely disturbed by the incredibly poor service I have received from the insurance company. On the plus side I have actually gotten through to UK-based call centre people whenever I have called. On the minus side they have provided misleading and conflicting information, and have left me car-less for a couple of weeks.

Part of this is standard business practice - minimise cost of claim, find someone else to blame and foist the costs onto them - no problem with this. But this can be achieved without making enemies out of your customers. The low quality of service I am receiving is unfortunately still typical of a lot of organisations.

In practice there is still a lack of understanding of the quantitative value of the quality of customer service in organisations that should know better. Although most companies put the customer first in their mission statements, very few have translated this into a cultural shift in the behaviour of the staff involved in key customer processes. This is very much a people-driven exercise that explains the benefits of good service, and encourages staff to improve the experience of customers when contact is made - the Moment of Truth. If the customer has a positive experience (a Moment of Magic), it will not only reinforce customer loyalty but also provide increased opportunity for the company through the social networking that the customer will engage in. However, a bad experience (Moment of Madness) will do the opposite - customer will look to take their business elsewhere, and tell everyone who will listen to avoid the company. Research has shown that Moment of Truth can have a ten-fold impact of the actual direct cost of the customer transaction, either negative or positive depending on the experience.

Does your organisation calculate customer service benefits this way? If not then your competitors soon will, if they are not already doing so. With customer service increasingly becoming a key differentiator in consumer decision making, it should be something that all B2C organisations should have top of their list of priorities.

Now, if you want to take part in my social networking and know who the insurance company is in this case contact me directly at john.moe@alphacourt.com. If you are that insurance company I suggest you contact me even sooner.

John Moe