Database Reference
In-Depth Information
offers originate on the basis of the target group selection, the identification of appropriate
communication channels, and the available products and services. If the marketing management
decides on a telephone campaign, call lists are drawn up and passed onto to the interaction center
organization together with predefined scripts. The scripts are used by the agents as personalized
templates for their calls and often contain relevant customer data, for example, about preferences,
previously bought products, or preferred contact times. The call center manager assigns the call
lists to the individual agents or agent groups. The progress of the active campaign can be moni-
tored any time using the interaction center portal.
8.4.1.2 Telesales
Selling products and services by telephone has been popular both in the business-to-business
(B2B) environment and in the business-to-consumer (B2C) environment. Within order receipt,
the agent has access to all instruments that provide information about availability (available to
promise [ATP]), pricing, alternative products (up-selling or down-selling), and product accessories
(cross selling). Longer sales cycles for higher-quality goods require that the agent has access to
the entire interaction history. All customer-related data and functions for managing contacts and
follow-up activities, creating quotations, and converting the quotations to orders can be reached
using a single interaction step. By accessing the incentive and Commission Management, agents
can see how their sales success affects their salaries.
8.4.1.3 Teleservice
The majority of the interaction centers are in the service environment. They often take the form of
help desks that deal with internal and external complaints or problem messages. The quality of the
service processes can have a major influence on customer and employee satisfaction.
Depending on the complexity of the requests, the service processes are supported by the fol-
lowing functions:
◾
Activity management
: Confirmations to customers are documented and monitored for
acknowledgment (from the customer).
◾
Case management
: Increased focus on activity management, with the option of combining
different activities into a
case
.
◾
Service orders
: Monitoring of agreements incorporating services and spare parts.
Many companies in industrial maintenance integrate the SAP CRM service application with
logistics processes in the back-end system. This means that immediate check can be made to
determine whether specific spare parts are available in the store. Similarly, the integration with the
human resource systems enables query on the skills inventory of the service technicians—which
can be useful while allocating resources or manning the shifts at the interaction center.
8.4.1.4 Interactive Center Analytics
Companies that have already been using CRM systems for years are oftentimes confronted with
a peculiar problem wherein they have phenomenal amount of data on various customers, and yet
