Monday, June 23, 2008

Organizations Lacking in Customer Experience Management Capabilities

ciboodle, a provider of customer-oriented business software and services, is a sponsor of the customer experience management benchmark study released by Ventana Research. The survey of more than 250 companies from around the world evaluated the maturity of customer experience management and found that only 12 percent of organizations are truly mature in their focus on ensuring the optimal customer experience.

On the surface, the research results show a high degree of understanding of the customer experience management as a serious business strategy, with more than half the participants identifying the term as the process of improving customer interactions and a quarter recognizing it as a strategy for influencing customer behavior.

In the study, key themes emerged around multiple channels, the single customer view and the agent desktop:

-- Multi channel: The Ventana study found that nearly all interactions occur through a customer service agent in a call center or through the Web, and the research shows that customers are less than satisfied with the results of their calls. Few participants reported that issues usually are resolved during the first call. And despite the growing prevalence of multi-channel customer service amongst the organizations surveyed, less than a quarter of organizations record handoffs between communication channels, and only about two-thirds are capable of tracking interactions across channels.

-- Single customer view: Creating a single, comprehensive (or 360-degree) view of the customer is an objective that companies have talked about for many years. Yet the Ventana study shows that it remains a dream for most organizations — barely a third companies reported that they have currently achieved this.

-- Agent desktop: More than one-third of the organizations participating in the research said they intend to upgrade the desktop technology on which agents rely in the next 12 months. Only about one-third of respondents said their current desktop provides agents with relevant information that depends on the caller's profile and circumstances.

More information on Customer Relationship Management can be found at www.CRMindustry.com

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