Customer Service Management Software Solutions

Customer service management commonly known as CRM for Customer Relationship Management is an important consideration for any business that deals with customers and vital for the success of your organization.

It is a well established truth that happy customers make for a profitable organization. Therefore having the best in class customer service management software is key to give the organization a competitive edge in the industry.

In order to differentiate itself from its clients or customers, companies like to keep track of their history of interactions, complaints and purchases. This helps the organization to do a trend analysis and come up with specific preference patterns so as to better service their client base.

The Modules

Here are the modules that must reside in competitive Customer Service Management software.

Contact Management

It is vital to store the customer data as a master record and this would need to be pulled up for every interaction with the customer. This will aid in creating a master email/contact lists for campaigns with existing products, launch of new products and other customer specific features.

Relationship Management

It is critical to record the different transactions, refunds, change requests and complaints that the customer makes and track them to closure. This module also encompasses surveys and other feedback solicited from the customer to enhance the customer interactions.

Sales tracking

In association with the contact management and relationship management module, new sales related communications, campaigns to launch new products, refer a friend campaigns may be send out to the customer lists. Here again the sales campaign will vary with demographics, preferences, usage, spend pattern and various other factors.

Financial data management

While customer service management software deals mostly with the relationship management, it should also interact with financial systems to track billing, invoicing and other financial needs for the customer.

Reporting

A best in class customer service management software must have a robust reporting module. The reporting module can be tuned to report on a particular customer, demographics, spend patterns etc. This kind of reporting will help enhance customer experience.

Finding the right product

Although, we now know what to expect in Customer Service Management software, making the right choice seems very difficult. With so many available options in the market it is important to figure out the factors involved in making a smart, well informed decision. So see if the product will solve some of your key issues.

• Will it capture all the knowledge critical to customer support and allow tracking of it in a easy and efficient manner?
• Will it have an interactive web site with tasks that require no help from customer service personnel? Thereby will it reduce call volumes?
• If there are repeated issues, how efficiently will it take care of it (Example FAQs)?
• Does it have well defined work flows for problem solving?
• Is it easy to train for?
• Is it easy to customize, make changes or enhance the product whether during installation or in the future?
• How independently will it function - does it allow auto assignment of requests? And auto email notifications?

Answering these set of questions will help you conclude if the product is the perfect fit for your organization. Choosing the right product will help you establish that competitive edge and become a leader in the industry.

CRM - The changing face of Customer Service

Guy Letts, Head of Customer Service for Sage UK on Customer Relationship Management - Offers his views on changing customer expectations and the importance of having one view of a customer throughout a business.