Omni-channel CRM Development

Although it is believed that 'customer journey mapping' is a new phenomena, actually it is not. Since the 1980s, mapping the customer journey has been practiced by the airline sector as part of customer management, which was introduced as a new business practice. 

Those days, the customer journey was named 'the circle of contact' and included all stages of the customer journey such as: information search, reservations, ticketing, payment, check-in, boarding, in-flight, etc. For each of the service classes (e.g. Economy or Business class), complete customer journey maps were drawn up as a starting point for the service design and operational service delivery procedures.

Customer Interface Design

The main aim of Omnichannel CRM is to offer the (prospect) customer a seamless and low effort experience along the experience journey regardless the customer life cycle, channel, or technology used. 

The main metrics is a minimum NPS of 65 along the complete customer experience journey, regardless the chosen channel of interaction. In order to achieve this goal, it is essential to understand each customer type in order to design the optimal interface-mix based on the customer's profile, media consumption, preferences, needs and journey path. 

The main function of Service Concepts is to ensure consistency and persistency along the customer experience journey driving operational service performance and customer satisfaction. 

Therefore, the service concept fulfills a key role in the design process of the customer journey, as well as the design of services and products.

The primary role of the service concept is to ensure that the organization's strategic intent - which is often expressed by means of the brand position guide - is translated into consistent service deliverables that fulfill or exceed the customer's expectations related to their issues, needs, and desires. The aim is to develop and implement an organization-wide service concept that is substantiating the brand position and associated brand values. 

The service concept describes not only the core service, but also the support services are that will be delivered along the customer experience journey. 

A crucial aspect of the service concept design is the articulation of the service recovery policy that is being applied at each stage of the customer experience journey. This is often forgotten and a main cause for operational disruption and customer dissatisfaction.

Nowadays, as a result of the high number of digitized brand touchpoints, a superb customer experience is achievable only when omnichannel CRM is executed at a consistently high quality level resulting in a minimum NPS of 65. 

The starting point of this goal is  the development and execution of a comprehensive service strategy that ensures an excellent implementation of the brand position and service concept, which are both addressed under the chapter of our Strategic Planning Solutions.

Along the experience journey, not all service components have an equal share in the creation of satisfaction and retention. Since certain service components deliver a greater contribution to customer satisfaction than others they have a different cost/benefit ratio. As a consequence, different choices are to be made in terms of investment, out of pocket expenditure, and implementation priority. 

The main purpose of the service strategy is to arrive at a balanced and feasible implementation plan with regards to service design and delivered service components along the customer experience journey. 

Most CRM systems are over-specified and too complicated to use. Why is this the case? 

We have been developing CRM systems for 20 years and have encountered many situations in which customer journeys are not mapped and leadership/staff engagement is not achieved, leading to unsatisfactory results. 

Although systems have become more intelligent and somewhat more user-friendly, many of them are still too complex to operate due to over-specification driven by system vendors instead of customer journeys and staff needs. Hence, we apply our experience to develop CRM support systems that match the current capabilities of the organization while at the same time catering for future maturity.