Knowledge workers

Can today’s new software solutions finally deliver?

by Mike Klemp

Has this conversation occurred in your company?

Manager: “How could you have taken an order from ABC Manufacturing Company? You know they are on our credit problem list.”

Customer service rep: “The list changes daily and it takes too much time to look through 50 company names each time I get a call.”

Manager: “Then make a copy of it in large type and pin it to the wall in front of you. You can find the name faster that way.”

Customer service rep: “Can’t our new computer system tell me there’s a problem with a customer? Or show me the credit status so I can decide how to handle the call?”

Manager: “That’s not how we do things around here.”

Another day in the frustrating life of a customer service representative.

But does it have to be that way?

The new workforce
Why do distributors hold back their staffs from performing the service the customer expects? Is it corporate policy? Or, does their business software hold them back?

Today’s Web-enabled enterprise business systems hold the key to building a staff of true knowledge workers. We have all heard that knowledge is derived from information; the problem was never the staff but the inability of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) business systems to deliver all the information from one central access point.

Excellent customer service is only possible with a highly motivated support staff empowered with the information and applications available at all times. Providing these business tools within an enterprise information portal (EIP) offers immediate connection to anything, anywhere.

The new candidates for customer service positions in your company have much higher expectations than ever before. They are smarter and better versed than in the past.

Try to take young, energetic new recruits and sit them down at a green screen terminal interface. A green screen interface is an unknown entity to these Internet-savvy workers. The first question they’ll ask is, “Where’s my mouse?” They have no concept of the transaction processing style of the past.

What they do know is how to quickly navigate in a Web-based environment and how to find information they need online. They know what the graphic icon links mean; they are used to following logical paths to information and expect to always find what they are looking for.

Giving these energetic, young recruits Web-based tools tied to an integrated enterprise system empowers them to find the answer to any question the customer may ask.

Customer knowledge
Every interaction with the customer is a business event. Self-service Web sites are important, but customers will ultimately call, and when they do, be prepared. The overall goal is to sell more products to more loyal customers.

How can you insure loyalty? Don’t forget that customers are people, too. Each time they call, a personalized interaction must occur. What seems like wasted time to some business process planners becomes a positive experience to the customer.

In Tom Siebel’s book, “Cyber Rules,” he writes, “Every time a customer calls, we learn a little more – and we are that much abler to respond, to interact, to communicate.” So, when your customer calls, use the profile information to comment on a personal issue, remind the customer that a quote in the system has not been approved, ask if they still stock a part they used to buy from you. It leaves the impression that you value them and their business. Your business system must be designed to provide this personalized information quickly and seamlessly.

Customer service knowledge
You must establish a culture within your organization focused on customer service. If you have not embraced technology within your organization, the challenges will be enormous.

The customer experience should be consistent during each interaction with your business. Whether customers buy products, discuss an invoice or negotiate a pricing contract, your entire staff must have all the information instantly available to make decisions immediately. Today’s customer has no time to be passed along interdepartment channels, impatiently waiting during each handoff.

Supplying your staff with an easy-to-use, information-rich business system simplifies the process of delivering excellent customer service and, by extension, builds customer loyalty.

Business process knowledge
How long does it really take to train a new customer service representative? A few days of practice on the business software? Weeks of expensive training to understand your business rules and policies?

Web-based integrated business systems can turn green recruits into powerful customer service representatives in a very short time. The integrated system of today has problem alerts, workflow triggers and search capabilities to guide you through the customer interaction. There should be no need to continually ask for manager approval on pricing, changes to orders, direct-ship procedures, etc. These systems offer interoffice workflow collaboration among the staff.

If you have a set of checks and balances for handling new customer pricing structures, you can build an automated workflow that passes the price-building process only among the two or three staff members who are responsible for these setups. Each step has a checkoff, and when that new customer calls with the first order, the pricing structure is ready and waiting.

Product knowledge
An integrated Web-based system combines your internal knowledge of products with the vendor’s information. For example, during the process of placing an order, the customer asks about the heat rating for a compressor he bought last month. In most systems, the product catalog may or may not be online and usually offers basic information on pricing levels, descriptions and packaging.

In a Web-based integrated system, a fast search to find the item displays a picture of the item (stored within the enterprise system). A direct Internet link to the supplying vendor’s Web site displays all the technical information about the compressor. It lists the heat rating of the compressor, so the rep can answer the customer’s question and seamlessly take the order.

There’s no paging through technical manuals or putting the customer on hold to ask the repair department for the answer. The power to assisting the customer is in information. In integrated Web-based systems, information can be found immediately, anywhere, anytime.

Integrated vs. bolt-on
The term “best of breed” is commonly used to justify finding the best software solutions from different suppliers and melding them together into a business system with what has recently been called “application-to-application glue.” Anyone who has attempted this system-building strategy has found it to be expensive, time consuming and fraught with difficulties.

Some of these implementations actually end up with the systems talking to each other in some sort of dynamic fashion. But if you are one of those warriors, you have seen what seems to be a never-ending investment in the number and type of computer servers, hardware administration, multiple system training and staff meetings.

Will anyone admit how much you have spent on high-level CRM packages that do not allow you to take and fulfill a customer order? Has the complexity of the multiple software applications (and release updates) on each staff member’s PC forced you to create a fully staffed IT department?

Integrated Web-based systems are a better choice. The business processes of customer relations and prospecting, order servicing, and inventory control and accounting all work together within a single set of business rules on an enterprise server.

The server always has current information and is not dependent on the latest upload/download process between disparate software solutions running on separate servers. For example, when a long-term marketing prospect finally calls to buy your products, immediately switch them to a sales account and take the order. All of the personalized information you have collected during the marketing cycles is merged with the sales information and stored in one place, accessed through one interface. There’s no waiting for the nightly batch update to merge the information.

For those with bolt-on solutions, this simple process is handled between different systems. Trying to match account numbers and names sometimes doubles and triples the information recording process.

Delivering the e-Enterprise
Of course, an integrated e-Enterprise system does not end with just the business processes. You must include your staff’s requirements for immediate access to historical analysis data, intranet and extranet service information, desktop office tools and intradepartment communications. The enterprise information portal (EIP) is the venue for community across the enterprise.

The EIP provides users with a single Web-based interface to business information and to the applications that produce business information no matter where they reside. Internet links pointing directly to vendor partner information on the vendor’s Web site reduces the need to continue to store your own online catalogs or to keep hard copy manuals. Think of this as the wrapping on the package. Everything your customer service representative needs is in the package accessed from the EIP wrapper.

Access anywhere, anytime, with mouse click navigation is an enormous time saver. Sometimes called a “Web-top,” it replaces the typical desktop shortcuts to applications. In the integrated system, the EIP also resides within the enterprise server, executing seamlessly with the user interface and the business rules. The systems administrator sets up each user and controls information access points. There are no stock tickers or links to the latest sports scores, just intranet and Internet access to all the information and applications needed to provide excellent customer service.

Consider the latest choices
There are many components to building a truly powerful and successful business software solution for the progressive distributor. After years of development, new integrated Web-based software solutions are coming to market. These new systems take advantage of the power of the Internet browser by placing the application processing back on the transaction server. Thin client devices and inexpensive PCs on the desktop connect to the system, replacing those expensive PCs required to support the many different software applications combined in a bolt-on system. Offering these Web-based applications and associated business information, along with direct links to even more information along the supply chain, makes it possible to finally turn your staff into empowered knowledge workers.

Now, let’s look at how that original discussion between the manager and CSR would look in a distributorship using an integrated Web-based system.

Manager: “How could you have taken an order from ABC Manufacturing Company? You know they are on our credit problem list.”

Customer service rep: “When I took the call, the system told me they were on credit hold. Their credit was exceeded by $2,000 and there was one unpaid invoice 90 days old. They really needed to order a part today, so I checked the unpaid items on the invoice and found the price of one of the items was at our list price instead of their contract price. I knew right away what was wrong, so I took the new order and sent an alert message to accounting so they could correct the old invoice.

Manager: “So the error was ours to begin with?”

Customer service rep: “Yes, sir, and this morning I received an e-mail from Joe at ABC thanking me for getting him that part yesterday. I checked the system again and accounting had already made the credit adjustment and ABC is back to being a Gold customer. Sorry if I was out of line, but I thought I did the right thing.”

Manager: “Great job. Our customers are important to us, so keep up the good work.”

Another successful day spent providing excellent customer service. Do you think that customer will remember this positive experience? Count on it.

Mike Klemp is chief technology officer of Systems Design Inc., developer of PRISM software. He can be reached at (708) 596-8888 or on the Web at www.sysdes.com.

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2001 issue of Progressive Distributor. Copyright 2001.

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