Utilities have invested substantial amounts of time and money deploying customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Yet typically, a few months after launch, they realise things have got worse, not better. Average handling time is still too long and customer frustration is high. Worse, adhering to compliance has become even more complicated, training time for agents has increased and agent errors still occur.
Why does this happen? One of the primary reasons is that CRM was never designed with customer service in mind. It was created for customer management. This becomes readily apparent when agents attempt to perform seemingly straightforward customer service-oriented tasks within the CRM system when talking to a customer. The agent normally has to perform at least eight steps, all within the first few minutes of the call, just to simply “know the customer” and satisfy compliance and regulatory obligations before the actual call even gets underway.
The complexity worsens where the agent using the CRM system is also required to navigate among multiple legacy customer information systems, originally built for back office management and not tailored specifically to agents. It is no wonder customers and agents experience frustration.
To an extent, such problems are evident in many sectors, but the situation is more difficult for utilities. For one thing, they do not have the luxury of expanding or changing their product portfolio, so improving customer service is one of the main ways to differentiate themselves in the market and control public perception. Perhaps even more importantly, utilities are burdened with regulatory requirements, and compliance is not easy when overly complex CRM systems are involved.
Recognising that CRM did not provide an optimal customer service experience, CRM vendors started to add functionality to make it more appealing. For instance, they introduced telephony integration and agent notes functionality, so call centre staff could annotate customer conversations.
However, time after time, feature after feature, the CRM vendors kept missing the mark. The net result is a cumbersome, often highly-customised, CRM application that serves as only one of many applications an agent needs to use during a customer call. To make matters worse, CRM systems are not often integrated successfully into the other desktop applications, resulting in considerable “alt-tabbing”.
Despite these shortcomings, utilities have long made CRM part of their business strategies and will continue to do so. Thankfully there are now some exciting options available to improve agents’ lot. Unified desktop solutions remove the need for staff to alt-tab among applications, re-key data on multiple screens, and generally fight the systems. The unified desktop gives the agent a single point of entry and interaction with all the underlying systems, speeding up the call process and helping to dramatically reduce call average handling times. This simplified desktop also reduces agent training requirements and standardises processes, enabling agents to verify crucial data for regulation purposes with minimal errors or frustration for the customer.
More recently, technology has also emerged that recognises utilities may prefer to simplify existing CRM processes without a costly “rip and
replace” cycle. This allows companies to create new views and processes on top of existing CRM systems without requiring changes or customisation to the CRM itself.
Thanks to better technology, organisations are creating new, more efficient processes out of existing CRM systems, and CRM no longer needs to be the barrier it used to be to delivering good customer service. This is making it easier for utility agents to address complex billing enquiries, serve customers and adhere to regulations and policies. Customers should be much happier and utility managers reassured that regulation compliance is being handled properly.
Gideon Hollander is chief executive of Jacada
This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 6 July 2012.
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