You can have all the technical functionality in the world, but without an agile decision engine and strong analytics, it’s not likely to provide your customers with a good experience nor is it likely to yield high levels of performance for your company. A decision management engine drives the processes a company uses to interact with its customers, its suppliers and its operations staff. Good decision management engines will drive processes that mold mass amounts of customer interactions into business outcomes. The trick is, no process is perfect right off the bat. To make a process hum, it has to be constantly analyzed and tuned, ensuring it’s driving your business objectives and at the same time, providing a great customer experience. Key Elements You've got to have two key elements to be able to constantly analyze and tune your processes: Solid business intelligence that is timely and granular enough to provide insights for optimization opportunities The ability to make decisioning process modifications quickly and easily (aka agility) Legacy systems running business applications usually miss the mark on both these requirements. Static, month-end reports aren’t adequate to drive timely or relevant insights. Furthermore, hard-coding is required to configure, test and deploy new processes, making modifications difficult and ...
We all know that a key element of an exceptional customer experience (CX) is consistency across multiple channels. My experience with your enterprise over the phone should be similar to the web experience, which should be similar to the social media experience, and so on. This is especially significant since many utilities are placing customer engagement near the top of their strategic priorities. Customers aren’t going to engage if the experience is fractured and awkward. So, what happens when I (as a customer) am mid-interaction on the phone, sitting in front of my computer and I decide to log on to the web interface? I’m channel-surfing across your enterprise. Are you ready for that? Does the new channel pick up where the last channel left off? Is the message consistent? Am I going to get lost? Channel Switching & Message Shifting Two of the coolest yet most underrated features we’ve built into Kurteus are channel-switching and message shifting. Customers can move from phone to web, for example, and the conversation picks up exactly where it left off on the previous channel. Also, if a customer changes the status of their account mid-conversation via a self-serve application (eg. makes a payment, schedules a service), the ...
"A rule of thumb is that a lousy process will consume ten times as many hours as the work itself requires." – Bill Gates What is a Business-as-a-Service (BaaS) Model? More and more, enterprises are seeking third-party vendors to host business solutions rather than source the hardware and software themselves. This is widely known as the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and it’s making enterprises more efficient as it continues to gain widespread adoption. The thing is, a tool is only as useful as the manner in which it’s applied. That’s why the business-as-a-service (BaaS) model is emerging. In the BaaS environment, a vendor not only hosts its solution on behalf of the enterprise, it also takes part in managing the tool to ensure business goals are met. This is quite valuable as vendors generally have experience across a range of customers and industries. So, the customer not only receives a hosted business solution, they also receive a wealth of knowledge and real-world experience about how best to apply the solution to meet business goals. This delivers a new knowledge-base to your business and a third-party perspective on current processes and ways to ...
With advancements in customer care technology, the traditional role of the customer service rep (CSR) is quickly changing from a glorified service portal to a specialized customer advisor. Traditionally, the CSR acted as the hub between the customer and the utility, fulfilling service needs between the hours of 9 and 5. Today, technology is enabling customers to interface directly to the enterprise, fulfilling service needs themselves through self-serve applications over multiple channels. This is beneficial to both the customer and the utility – self-service is more convenient for the customer and costs the enterprise less. In fact, most customers with a grasp on technology would rather fulfill service needs themselves than deal with an agent in a call center – it’s easier and faster. That said, there’ll always be a need for CSRs. They’re still required to fulfill non-standard service requests or to help customers who have trouble using technology to self-manage. Also, most enterprises insist upon having a human touch point for its customers. And, a computer is rarely going to quell an irate customer, unfortunately. Beyond that, there’s a new green field for CSR’s: becoming trusted customer advisors. This especially applies ...
If you build it, they will come. It worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams. Unfortunately, when it comes to delivering self-management functionality to customers, this approach is not as effective. Obviously, building customer self-service functionality is a key component, but it isn’t the end-point in providing exceptional customer experiences. The model used to deliver the services to your customer is as important as the functionality. Many utilities are experiencing low customer uptake on their new, state-of-the-art self-service offerings. Why is that? The two most common explanations are: 1) The customer base is not embracing technology 2) Customers would rather deal with live agents Let’s explore both of those explanations and then a third, more plausible reason for why many customer self-service initiatives don't gain the traction that was anticipated. Customers are eager to embrace technology to fulfill their service needs. But here’s the catch: only if it’s easily accessible and simple to use. Just look at the financial industry as proof – think about how you do the majority of your banking. Likely, it’s done over the internet or on your smartphone. Now think about why you use the internet or smartphone for banking instead of a phone-based agent or live teller. It’s easier. It’s more ...
With the proliferation of data-enabling technologies, customers are demanding more sophisticated methods of engaging with utilities to fulfill their service needs. kurteus™ helps utilities provide their customers with the information they need, in the right context, with the required tools to ensure an enjoyable and productive self-service experience. The self-service functionality is fully-integrated with the Talkonimics™ Process, allowing utilities to proactively identify and fulfill individual customer service needs. This is inherently different than most self-service models, where it is incumbent upon the customer to seek-out services on their own when a need arises. Each customer interaction is based on a four-point feedback loop. This feedback loop provides a customer experience that makes self-service simple and accessible. Action-inspiring information is provided in the right context along with the tools that allow the customer to take action in that moment. The customer experience remains constant across all channels, regardless of whether the customer initiates the conversation, or the utility does. Information It is impossible to deliver an effective customer experience if you can't provide the information needed to take action. Upon every interaction, kurteus™ dynamically generates a message containing customized information for ...
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Charge Off Management
Agency Management Use kurteus’ agency management interface to monitor agency performance across multiple markets. Easily add or delete agencies, change allocations, manage fee structures and benchmark agencies against one another.
