customer satisfaction

The CIO must keep the customer happy

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 06:59:59 -0500

With the New Year fast approaching, the first resolution for any CIO should be customer satisfaction. And that's a pretty big order for most CIOs who do not think customer happiness is their number one priority. A recent "State of the CIO" survey for CIO Magazine found that only 10 percent of those surveyed considered external customer focus to be a core competency for CIOs. Add to that the fact that respondents spend less than 10 percent of their time dealing with customers, and you have a very real problem that is not going away. "Many CIOs are a little cavalier about making raising customer satisfaction an explicit goal," says Harley Manning, vice president and director of Forrester Research's customer experience group.

The CIOs who do make customer satisfaction a priority get a rewarding return, saving money and increasing productivity at their organizations. In fact, CIOs can help reshape their role in a company by making customer satisfaction a key goal and integrating their work with the overall business objectives of their company.

Just to give one example of how it can work, listen to the story of Pat Lawicki, the CIO of Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a $12.5 billion San Francisco-based utility. With an energy crisis in California and the Enron debacle threatening to tarnish the utility's reputation, Lawicki began working on a series of customer-focused projects that were highly successful. She made it possible for PG&E to collect utility use data without going door-to-door or setting foot on a customer's property. And future plans will make it possible for customers to gather usage information about their bills online. That will allow consumers to determine the most efficient time to run a dishwasher, air conditioner or do a load of laundry.

"The SmartMeter project is geared toward letting our customers have more control over their energy consumption while helping them save money in the process," Lawicki said. There are plenty of programs that any CIO could find to make customers happier. The trick is to implement one.

For tips on customer satisfaction:
- Check out this CIO Magazine Article

ITIL v3: Ready for release this week

Mon, 28 May 2007 20:01:39 -0400

The latest version of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library, a framework for IT best practices, gets released tomorrow. The framework, developed by the U.K. government, is taking hold with American companies that are implementing Services Oriented Architectures, hoping to reap the benefits of greater efficiency, cost savings and increased customer satisfaction. According to the experts, the latest version will focus on facilitating and measuring business outcomes. The new ITIL release provides in-depth guidance on business issues like asset lifecycle management and return on investment analysis, Sharon Taylor, chief architect of ITIL v3, told Baseline magazine. And don't fret if you're already an expert on version 2: according to analysts, version 3 is a natural progression from the previous version.

For all the details on ITIL version 3:
- see this article from Baseline Magazine

Software partnerships offer great rewards and challenges

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:01:39 -0500

Partnering with software vendors can provide great benefits to companies in terms of price, continuity and integration. After all, who knows the intricacies of the software and how to make it sing better than the vendor itself? By partnering with a vendor, business users can access the innovation of smaller companies while maintaining a single set of technical standards through work with a large vendor. In addition, risk decreases, as do implementation times and costs. But let the buyer beware: in some ways, you might be making a deal with the devil. Once you've forged a partnership, it's much harder to break free if you decide to go in a different direction. Partnerships with large vendors in particular can distract best-of-breed solution providers away from focusing on your company. That can reduce rapid innovation, flexibility, responsiveness and customer satisfaction.

Read more about the pros and cons of software partnerships:
- read the article in Optimize

Getting the maximum value from website statistics

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 19:01:38 -0500

Monitoring your web site statistics is an important productivity and customer satisfaction tool, but you won't get the best value if you're not measuring the right metrics. It's critical to make sure that the metrics you're measuring are in line with your business objectives. If you're focusing on the wrong metrics, you could be leaving money on the table. Luckily, there is technology on the market to help you make sure that you're on track. One example is the conversion funnel, which helps track users' success rates as they make their way through the site. Conversion funnels demonstrate each step of the conversion process and pinpoint where visitors dropped out of the conversion process. Although the specific metrics you'll measure depend on your industry and business model, some baseline metrics include leads generated, lead conversion ratios, cost per lead, number of Web inquiries and Web inquiry failure rate.

Learn more about effective Web site monitoring:
- read the article at CIO Today

Faulty IT practices leads to customer attrition

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 19:01:39 -0500

Companies are losing customers because they are doing a poor job of resolving IT issues and neglecting to tailor IT-enabled business services to meet customer requirements. These findings, from a study from software vendor BMC, notes that poor call center practices and systems, neglecting to personalize fault resolution processes, and a refusal to offer the same benefits to existing customers as new customers all contribute to customers' refusal to stay with the company. To solve the problem, IT staff must be more attentive to customer requests and needs and use more automated methods that lead to customer satisfaction, such as online customer self-service, information management systems and incident management software that can track the causes of customer service problems.

To get more information about improving customer service:
- read the article at ITWeek

Online transactions demand range of security tools

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:01:35 -0500

Financial institutions that depend on good customer satisfaction with online transactions have their work cut out for them. Scammer and hackers are always trying to stay one step ahead of new security technologies firms are deploying. The quest to authenticate user information while protecting all that data from malcontents requires a slew of new solutions, such as using using predictive analysis to rules engines. And, if industry experts are right, that's just the start of what's going to be a long list of security and data collection initiatives.

For more on securing online financial transactions:
- check out the feature at Intelligent Enterprise

Dell's fighting the good customer service fight

Sun, 20 Aug 2006 20:01:35 -0400

It's got to be a bit tough working at Dell these days as the top PC maker was making strong inroads in boosting customer service until it was stopped in its tracks by a massive recall of the Sony batteries in its laptop product line. Yet the company's head, Michael Dell, says that the vendor is forging ahead and doing right by its customer in dealing with the recall and expects that customer satisfaction will not only stay high but will even increase as a result. However, as one of today's Also Noted items highlights, Dell is losing some top executives to growing competitors and that could stall their hopes just a little.

For more on Dell's customer service strategy:
-read more at C/Net News.com