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Sales Force Automation and Automated Customer Service
Centers
E-Customer Relationship Management
CHAPTER 6
Objectives
Outlines the tasks for sales force automation systems, and reasons for resistance to implementation
Overview of customer service centers
Sales Force Automation
Tasks for SFA 1. Contact and time management 2. Lead management and opportunity
management 3. Knowledge management and Intranet
access 4. Price quotes and order configuration 5. Follow-up management 6. Analysis and reporting tools
Understanding resistance to SFA systems
Sales Force Automation
relationship selling or consultative selling—the creation and maintenance of mutually beneficial long-term relationships with customers
One of the fundamental aspects of relationship selling involves
maintaining regular contact with clients and
being familiar with each customer’s circumstances and needs
Sales Force Automation
sales force automation (SFA)—the application of digital and wireless technologies to personal selling
sales process—a logical sequence of selling stages that occurs between the time an opportunity is recognized a prospect is identified—and the time of
follow-up activities after a sale is closed
Sales Force Automation
sales pipeline—a term used in the context of CRM where the tools of sales automation describe where prospects/customers are in the sales cycle
For example Records should show whether a lead is qualified,
contacted, developed, or closed (won or lost)
SFA may use data mining to integrate the pipeline data with other CRM data and make suggestions about specific activities to a
sales representative
The Sales Pipeline
Identify leads (suspected interest)
Re-contact (winback interest)
Contact buying centers (recognize key
players)
Develop relationships
(cultivate interest/desires)
Negotiate terms (long-term view)
Qualify leads (value
estimates)
No! Yes!
Close (ask for the
sale)
Sales Force Automation
leads—prospects who may or may not be interested in the organization’s offering
qualified leads—have been shown to have a positive expectation of lifetime value and an ability to purchase
As the salesperson develops the relationship with the prospective organization, negotiations over terms and product
specifications occur where the buyer is comparing the offer to
those available from competitors
Sales Force Automation
close the sale—ask for the order The buyer either agrees or rejects the offer
leading the another round in the sales pipeline
In this point the salesperson either acknowledges the sale with a thank you to the
buying center participants or plans how and when to re-contact the
organization with an offer designed to winback interest
CRM systems are critical aspects that can facilitate each step of this process
Sales Force Automation
SFA tools can cause conflict in the salesforce due to fear of disintermediation, fear of being replaced, as well as an irritation in changing traditional approaches
to the job
In essence, SFA forces people to change their perceptions of how the sales job is done
SFA Tasks
Contact and time management
Opportunity or lead management
Knowledge management
Price quotes and order configuration
Follow-up management
Analysis and reporting tools
Sales Force Automation
Tasks for SFA SFA consists of many tasks—focus on six key
tasks: 1. contact and time management, 2. lead management, and more broadly,
opportunity management, 3. knowledge management and intranet access, 4. price quotes and order configuration, 5. follow-up management, and, 6. analysis and reporting tools
Sales Force Automation
1. Contact and Time Management contact management—organizing data about
organizations and customers and prospects within these organizations
Contact management application typically allow a sales representative to enter information about previous contacts
and notes about facts such as a client’s birthday, hobbies, or favorite
restaurants that can help the salesperson personalize the
sales call
Sales Force Automation
Typically, contact management software enables the user to automatically dial phone numbers
Most contact managers are integrated with e-mail software so letters can be sent to contacts
Often they include e-mail templates (e.g. “thank you for your time” letters) that can easily incorporate personalized
customer information or tailor messages to address customers’
specific needs
Sales Force Automation
collaborative communication—a feature that allows contact information to be shared with others
Sale team members can be in constant communication and immediately informed about recent activity
Contact managers may also schedule appointments with contacts
Most SFA applications include a personal calendar that helps the sale representative with time management
Sales Force Automation
The salesperson is able to schedule travel, entertainment, and other activities
The software allows the salesperson to remember to make important phone calls, appointments, and meetings
Appointments and tasks can be associated with contacts and shared with team members
Sales Force Automation
2. Lead Management and Opportunity Management
prospecting—identifying potential customers who may be interested in the organization or its products
Referrals, advertising inquiries from postcards, records of visitors to company Web sites, and other sources may provide the names of
prospects or “leads”
Sales Force Automation
Consider the case of Tom Hertig, owner of a mergers-and-acquisitions
business in New Jersey called Saddle River
Hertig logs onto Zapdata.com, a provider of online sales leads, to create prospect lists based on very specific criteria such as sales volume, public or private
status, and number of employees
Sales Force Automation
After choosing the parameters, he downloads the list onto his personal computer and imports the information into his own database
Hertig has achieved response rates as high as 2.5% (in the industry, 2% is considered excellent) and a close rate of 18% for respondents
He estimates that 85 to 95% of his business is generated from Zapdata leads
Sales Force Automation
To be classified as a qualified lead, prospects must need the product, be in a position to place an order of
sufficient size, be able to pay for it, and be in a position to make -or at least
contribute to – the buying decision
Sales Force Automation
lead management software—helps determine if a lead is a qualified prospect or not, and may automatically direct the lead to the
most appropriate field sales representative
In fact, the lead management software may analyze the lead data to provide the sales representative with a recommendation that the prospect should be visit in person, should receive a phone call, or should receive a letter and brochure
Sales Force Automation
opportunity management—a comprehensive process that not only includes lead management, but also includes the management of other
activity and information throughout the entire sales pipeline
For example A sales representative who has called on a
customer at least once should be able to look at a record and know
what e-mails, faxes, and brochures have been sent
Sales Force Automation
A customer’s history of dealing with certain competitors may indicate the level of opportunity or threat
that competitors represent
Competitive information may be used during the proposal development stage to generate competitive comparisons as well
Sales Force Automation
As the selling cycle progresses, the sales representative enters information, such as when a prospect was contacted,
whether an offer was mad, or the likelihood of closing a sale for a certain number of units,
into the opportunity management system
This data may be automatically transferred to sales forecasting software
sales forecast—a best guess projection of the unit or dollar volume of sales expected from a customer
Sales Force Automation
Accurate sales forecasts are among the most useful pieces of planning information an organization can have
Complete accuracy in forecasting the future is not possible because change is constantly occurring in the market environment
Sales Force Automation
3. Knowledge Management and Intranet Access
knowledge management—a comprehensive and accessible organizational memory, often called intellectual capital
Many companies make a significant effort to capture, organize, and share what the organization and its
employee know
Sales Force Automation
intranet—a company’s private data network that uses Internet standards and technology
Company documents, data, graphics, video, and other information on an intranet are available only to company
employees and those specifically authorized to enter the system
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Thus, if a sales representative who is out of town needs an expense form, a contract template, sales histories, product literature, or a press release, the representative can access the
company information via an intranet
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extranet—an intranet that is shared with outside parties, such as customers
Often extranets are used as order-entry systems that allow customers to place their own orders
Sales Force Automation
For example General Electric this quarter will expand
auction, invoicing and demand forecasting capabilities
on its private Web exchange in an effort to cut administrative costs and
increase supplier participation
With some 36,000 supplier members, GE’s Global Supplier Network (GSN) already is one of the largest private Web marketplaces, eclipsing Wal-Mart’s 30,000-supplier exchange
Sales Force Automation
GE and many other firms use extranets for B2B interactions and intranets
to maintain contact with the salesforce and
to increase the efficiency of placing orders,
checking on their status, or pricing repetitively purchased items
Sales Force Automation
4. Price Quotes and Order Configuration SFA systems typically will include data
from product catalogs, price lists, discount schedules, and other order information necessary to provide price quotes
product configurators—software programs (often available on an organization’s Intranet) that configure and price products on the
spot, reducing the time a sales representative
spends working on a proposal
Sales Force Automation
Product configurators are very important for sales representatives who sell complex products that have to be custom-tailored for
particular customer’s situation
Some configurators, in addition to telling salespeople how to tailor products to order, can be used to suggest cross-selling
companions
Sales Force Automation
In many systems, configurators are programmed on an extranet to allow the customers to place orders at their
convenience
As more organizations order from the Web, interact with salespeople by e-mail, and track orders themselves, it becomes more important for selling
organizations to ensure an appropriate level of personal contact and effective methods for following up on each sale
Sales Force Automation
5. Follow-up Management Follow-up management, usually as a part of
the contact management software, is of great importance to SFA
The CRM system at headquarters may send an e-mail to the sales representative on the road to indicate that a shipment has been sent on
time
SFA software—indicates when products have been shipped or if there are problems in completing the order
Sales Force Automation
6. Analysis and Reporting Tools
SFA within CRM—eases the task of generating call or sales reports (automatic) enabling managers to assess performance
on a regular basis
It allows managers to ask questions, such as, what percentage of leads become
customers and how long it takes, on average, to close a
sale
Sales Force Automation
These data can then be easily inserted in to report templates
Sale analysis and reporting are valuable aspects of SFA for managers and can be intimidating, at first, for the sales
representatives
Sales Force Automation
UNDERSTANDING RESISTANCE TO SFA SYSTEMS The most difficult aspect of SFA may be
getting sales representatives to accept the system and to incorporate its aspects into their daily
routing automating activities/reports—causes some
sales representatives to feel threatened, overseen by ‘big brother’ (the manager, to
constantly spy on their daily activities), and unmotivated to do the work
Sales Force Automation
When initiating SFA, it is important that management do more than simply explain
that automation is an efficient tool that will help both the salesperson and the
customers
Salesperson should be in conversation with management to understand the degree to which SFA technologies will supplement the
sales process well before its purchase or implementation
Sales Force Automation
Despite initial enthusiasm over the system, many sales representatives can become
disheartened up to six months later
Thus, the organization should provide training in the new technology and continue to follow salesforce reaction to the
SFA tools as time progresses
Sales Force Automation
On innovative idea for increasing acceptance of new technologies, intranets, and extranets by the salesforce is to take the incentive program online
Online incentive programs—allow salespeople, or other employees, to select bonus gifts on an intranet which may increase the willingness to
accept the automatic features of SFA systems
Sales Force Automation
Early in the process of adopting SFA, organizations should work to hold discussions and
encourage input from the salesforce, consider offering financial incentives
for SFA adoption, gather and disseminate success stories
about how SFA assisted in gaining a sale, and
track salesforce usage and feeling over time
Sales Force Automation
Such steps may not guarantee a successful implementation of SFA systems but may mitigate the negative conflict that is
likely to occur during any major changes
After all, the goal is to automate repetitive aspects of offering service to customers and thereby free the salesforce to focus on more
complex issues
Automated Customer Service Centers
Call centers Characteristics of customer service
personnel Evaluation of call center data
Web-based self service
Automated Customer Service Centers
Call Centers call center—a unit that supports direct
customer interaction via telephone, well-configured information technology, and capable service personnel
In the old days, customers called telephone operators and gave them their account numbers, and the operators “pulled up” records on the
screen as callers waited There was the inevitable loss of calls
during high-volume periods when all agents were busy
Automated Customer Service Centers
Think about today’s typical call you might make to a computer company technical service representative You dial the computer company’s number
You press several buttons on the telephone that get you through menu options, ordinarily guided by a human voice
You wait for a customer service representative while music plays
If you haven’t punched in an ID of some sort on your phone prior to this, you are asked for an identification or account
number
Automated Customer Service Centers
The representative – reading off a screen that outlines your entire history with the company, including the recent calls or email inquiries
you made, the level of difficulty of your problem, and the success or failure of the results –queries
you on the nature of the problem, request, or concern
When you have spoken with the rep about it, the rep enters the information, checks several possible results that show up
on a screen
Automated Customer Service Centers
and if one of them resolves the problem, marks it off
If none of them resolves the problem, you are sent to a new level to undergo a
higher level of customer service (a manager if the matter is not technical, and a support technician if it is),
with all the new information on what didn’t work or what problem wasn’t resolved
Automated Customer Service Centers
Now think about what the company’s automated system needed to do with telecommunication and information technologies,
all without the customer’s knowledge: interactive voice response, caller identification, call routing , queue management, data integration, assignment management, problem resolution, and several other tasks
Automated Customer Service Centers
call routing—guides each customer’s call to the customer service representative who is most capable of helping or directs
the call to an interactive voice response system rather
than to a person to allow the computer to handle
the entire call
interactive voice response (IVR)—a convergence of computer telephone integration and voice messaging where the IVR can be thought of as a computer
talking to a person
Automated Customer Service Centers
The most common input device is a touchtone telephone, and the common CRM system response is a human voice A widespread us of IVR is the typical bank-by-phone system in which
a customer presses number 1 for option A, number 2 for option B, etc.
caller ID systems—send incoming
phone numbers to the data warehouse, where the caller is instantly matched to a customer record
Automated Customer Service Centers
Simple caller ID systems, such as those in households, provide the name, number, date, and time of the call
Sophisticated caller ID systems trigger information about the entire history of interactions and purchases of the customer with the organization
The call and record are passed to the “next available” customer service representative or another level of the IVR via an automatic distribution system (ACD)
Automated Customer Service Centers
automatic distribution system (ACD)—prioritizes calls making it possible to segment customers as they enter the system and handle them as individuals rather than
as members of a group
The least desirable customers might never exit the IVR, those in the middle might at least get an
option to speak to a human , and high-value customers might get to by
pass the IVR altogether
Automated Customer Service Centers
For example
The telephones at Capital One Financial Corp. ring more than on million times a week
Here’s what happens: Before a caller hears the first ring, the computers identify who is calling and predict the reason for the call
After reviewing 50 options for whom to notify, the computers pick the best option for each situation
Automated Customer Service Centers
Tim Gorman, for example, is a retention specialist who answers the call when the customer’s statement is “I want to close my account”
Gorman knows better Most of them just want a better deal or a
lower interest rate
Automated Customer Service Centers
Many call center operations begin the CRM process by creating a trouble ticket
trouble ticket—a caller note, where an identification number is assigned to the customer when he or she makes the initial call
The identification number to the customer when the customer makes the initial call
The identification number is then associated with the customer account number and a log of activities
Automated Customer Service Centers
Thus, information from each contact point can be accessed by subsequent customer service representatives working to resolve the problem or handle the customer's requests
Regardless of the level of automation, customer satisfaction often rests on the characteristics of the personnel hired and trained to interact with customers
Automated Customer Service Centers
Characteristics of Customer Service Personnel
qualifications—a good phone voice, proper phone etiquette, a positive attitude, self-motivation, and grace under pressure
Customer service personnel, especially technical support workers, should also have highly developed listening and problem-resolution skills, and
have in-depth knowledge of the company’s products and services
Automated Customer Service Centers
A company that offers “round-the-clock-support” may hire service personnel in several geographical locations that have been selected because they are indifferent to time zone
“follow-the-sun” concept –an organization may have workers in California answering the 9:00 p.m. calls from New York
Automated Customer Service Centers
call scripting—a prearranged and written response to varying, usually repetitive, problems from customers, often called a situational script
Once a customer service representative enters key word associated with the reason for the call into his or her computer, a situational script appears
Automated Customer Service Centers
Such scripts, when they appear on the monitor, eliminate the need for representatives to make assumptions about what response should be given and
allow the organization to hire less experienced personnel to work the phones
Scripts also allow a company to present consistent responses when having a uniform image is desirable
Automated Customer Service Centers
Scripts may be developed based on the following factors: Reason for contact Customer’s behavioral preferences Lifetime customer value Cross-selling opportunities and propensity
to buy Current sales promotions or price deals
For example, when Tim Gorman at Capital
One answered the phone to hear that Nancy from North Carolina wanted to close
her account,
Automated Customer Service Centers
the system identified Nancy as a valuable customer 4 years duration, no annual fee, no late payment within 12 months
Further, monitor displayed three counteroffers that Tim could make in an effort to keep her business
Automated Customer Service Centers
Evaluation of Call Center Data
CRM software can be used to analyze the effectiveness of the call center’s operations
The system should have built-in tracking features that allow the company to evaluate the
performance of individual agents and the unit as a whole
built-in tracking features—evaluate performance and monitor the
number of calls,
call type,
Automated Customer Service Centers
average call length,
time waiting on hold,
abandonment rates (how many calls result in a hang up),
time-to-resolution, and
average length of call
Automated Customer Service Centers
Web-Based Self Service
At the outset, it should be noted that the cost of interacting with customers on a Web site is miniscule compared to that of a live person
interacting with customers
Nevertheless, many aspects of call center management, such as situational scripting, also apply to
customer service and support via the Internet
Yet, the self-service on a company Web site offers some unique opportunities
Automated Customer Service Centers
goal—allow customers to use the Web and provide call center operations for those who need additional assistance; where, FAQs frequently asked questions,
provide input for improvements
Most companies can better serve customers if a list of common questions and answers is available on the Web site
live person chat software—allows live customer service agents to interact with Web users when the customer makes an inquiry, i.e.
such as that offered by LivePerson.com
Summary
The application of digital and wireless technologies to personal selling is known as sale force automation (SFA)
Mobile phones, voice messaging systems, fax machines, and e-mail can be efficient media that field sales representatives use to communicate with
prospects and clients Laptop computers, PDAs (personal digital
assistants), interactive Web sites, wireless data transmission, and especially CRM databases continue to dramatically change the administrative
activities of salespeople
Summary
In addition to the costs of the equipment, SFA may also incur personnel costs as people
attempt to incorporate the technology into their working lives
The sales process is a logical sequence of selling stages that occur between the time an opportunity is
recognized and a prospect is identified and the time of follow-up activities after a sale is
closed SFA applications are designed to help the
sales representative during each stage of the sales process
Summary
Records may indicate that potential customers are in various stages of the sales pipeline, including prospect, qualified leads, developed,
negotiated, or closed (won or lost) SFA consists of many tasks, including
contact management; lead management and, more broadly,
opportunity management; knowledge management and intranet access; price quotes and order configuration; follow-up
management; and sales analysis and reporting tools
Summary
Customer service and support issues can be resolved through multiple media where the customer can visit a store, telephone a call center, e-mail the company,
interact with the company on its Web site, fax the company, write a letter, or make other arrangements
CRM automates and makes many customer service operations self-service
A company’s call center is an organizational unit that supports direct customer interaction via telephone, well-configured information technology, and
capable service personnel
Summary
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a convergence of computer telephone integration and voice messaging
IVR can be thought of as a computer talking to a person
Call routing software is used to guide each call to the customer service representative who is most capable of resolving the specific
problem In many appropriate instances, call
routing directs the call to an interactive voice response rather than to a person
Summary
A trouble ticket, or caller note, with an identification number is sometimes associated with the customer account number and a log of activities
Thus, information from each contact point can be accessed by subsequent customer service representatives working to resolve the problem or handle the
customer’s requests
Summary
FAQs, live person chats, and many telephone call activities, such as situational scripting, also apply to
customer service and support via the Internet
A key issue is for managers to understand that their job is to supplement sales representatives and customer service personnel with technology as opposed to erroneously believing that all
problems can be resolved with self-service systems