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April 2001
Managing Content for Customer Service
by Frank Meister, Bill Chambers and Joe Fenner
"Focus on the customer." This is the mantra of many organizations today. Getting closer to customers and effectively responding to their needs is a great way to increase loyalty, deepen business relationships and drive additional spending. It's a much more effective route to success than cutting yet more costs and wringing more efficiency out of already lean operations.
Today's business climate has elevated customer relationship management (CRM) technologies into a highly strategic position in many companies. CRM technologies focus on managing all the interactions an organization has with its customers. CRM maintains contact information and customer status to leverage the data in applications, such as customer service, sales force automation, marketing automation and campaign management.
Nowhere is CRM more important than in actual customer service applications. While this may sound obvious, many CRM technologies only handle sales force automation and marketing analytics. Systems that support actual customer service applications are worth special attention because they are at the center of the customer's interaction with your business.
When it comes to serving customers, content is one of the most important assets an organization has to offer. Customer service applications need content to effectively meet customer requests and to track ongoing customer interactions. This content includes documents, data and rich media assets, and it must be well managed.
Those evaluating CRM tools should develop a clear understanding of which content and features their customer service applications require. Unfortunately, many of the CRM products on the market today do an inadequate job of managing documents, data and other content related to customer queries; service issues; and sales opportunities. While some products offer central knowledgebases, most products require significant integration and customization to bring advanced content management capabilities, such as self-service and unified customer views, to customer service applications.
This article reviews the major content management needs of customer service applications and analyzes the content management approaches of some of the leading CRM vendors that Doculabs has evaluated.
Why Customer Service Needs Content Management
Customers now demand service through more than just customer service representatives and phone support personnel. They want service through channels such as Web sites, email, fax, telephony systems, wireless devices and more. As a result, many organizations are converting their call centers into customer contact centers that can handle all channels of interaction. The goal is for customers to have a consistent experience across multiple channels, and for the organization to have a common view of each customer's interactions and contact histories.
This is where content management comes into play; it delivers customer-relevant content in support of the following business needs.
Self-service. Many customers want to help themselves to information rather than talk with a customer service representative. These users need access to a wealth of content, including recent bills and statements, policies, contracts, product documentation and answers to frequently asked questions. By providing rich content around customer transactions and self-service activities, organizations can increase the value of their customer service operations.
Personalization. Customer service applications should be able to provide customers with content that is related to their current activities or Web site navigation. For example, a customer who has recently moved and is looking for a new car insurance policy should also be presented with information about a new homeowner's policy. Personalization enables organizations to reach their customers with more impact and to generate incremental revenue through cross-selling and up-selling.
A single view of the customer. To deliver a consistent view, you have to track the various channels through which the customer interacts with the organization, understand the information requests at each point, track the current status of any pending requests and report on contact histories. With a common, unified view of the customer, the organization can ensure consistent service and follow-up, no matter which combination of interaction channels the customer chooses to employ.
CRM Approaches for Managing Content
Two major types of content must be managed as part of a sound customer service strategy. First, there are documents and other file-based assets, which can include any document that supports customer self-service. Such content requires publishing controls as well as appropriate security to limit access to those customers who have rights to view them.
The second major content type, data, includes customer contact data, which is usually managed by the CRM system database. This data is critical to providing customer service representatives with a common view of each customer. Data is also pulled from accounting system databases, inventory system databases and customer databases. There is also catalog data, which includes item numbers and descriptions from product or service catalogs.
CRM products use different approaches for managing content. Some vendors provide a central knowledgebase that acts as the repository for all information that may be needed to service customer requests. Examples of such systems include those from Kana, Remedy, Servicesoft (recently acquired by Broadbase) and Siebel. Others rely on integration with third-party knowledgebases or content management systems. Examples include CRM systems from Avaya, Nortel and Quintus.
Following is an overview of the CRM solutions from each of these vendors, along with analysis on how each product addresses content management needs.
Avaya. The company was spun off the Enterprise Networks Division of Lucent Technologies in October. The company's CRM system, CRM Central 2000, focuses on process management for customer service applications in call centers and customer contact centers. Most CRM Central installations are sold within a larger Avaya engagement in which the company provides hardware and services, as well as the CRM software.
CRM Central offers comprehensive support for traditional call center channels, as well as for nontraditional channels, such as the Internet, email and chat. It also offers extensive process management functionality, including visual workflow design, escalation and routing tools. However, the product falls short in response management, particularly in self-service options and supporting knowledgebase functionality. The product captures structured content from within channels, but it does not present this information simultaneously across channels to provide a complete view of the customer.
Kana Communications. The Kana eBusiness platform consists of products for marketing, commerce and service. For customer service applications, the company offers Kana Service and Kana Response, as well as "iMail," chat, voice and phone applications. Kana Service provides an integrated, multichannel view of customers for both customer service representatives and self-service applications. Kana Response focuses on email response management.
Kana Service and Kana Response employ different architectures, and the integration of their data models and administration modules is a work in progress. However, both applications use Web browsers as a client interface for all supported channels. And both applications share a single knowledgebase with self-service and content management capabilities that can be expanded using Kana Service's own workflow and content management features. Customers can also search and access knowledge-related content. Advanced search functionality requires an Oracle database or Microsoft Index server.
Nortel Networks. The company rounded out its line of network, telephony and call center technology with the acquisition in 1999 of CRM vendor Clarify. Clarify eFrontOffice 9.0 is now part of Nortel's eBusiness Solutions Suite, which includes service, sales and logistics applications.
eFrontOffice's customer service capabilities are enhanced with functionality such as graphical design tools for workflow creation, routing, channel support and database modification. The product's lack of a full-featured knowledgebase limits its ability to deliver more advanced content management capabilities for product- and service-related content. However, Nortel offers adapters to eService Suite from ServiceWare, Oakmont, PA, and eSupport, from Primus, Seattle. These knowledgebase products expand eFrontOffice's access to content.
Quintus. Quintus' CRM solution, eContact Suite 5.51, includes eContactWeb for Web-based sales and service, CallCenterQ for consumer relations, CustomerQ for technical support and HRQ for human resources. The system is well suited for organizations delivering customer service through nontraditional channels (Internet, email and chat), as well as traditional channels (integrated voice recognition, computer telephony integration and automatic call distributor).
Quintus' eContact Suite provides a graphical design tool for process management and for extending the product's data model. There's a frequently asked questions (FAQ) application to support customer self-service, and customers can access content through the product's original equipment manufacturer version of Hummingbird Search Server. However, the product lacks a full-featured knowledgebase, which limits its ability to incorporate content management capabilities for product- and service-related content.
Remedy. This vendor's Customer Support 4.4 system includes three elements: CRM Web, Remedy CRM Server and Remedy Customer Support. The solution has strong multichannel support, with the ability to capture email- and forms-based content and to display an integrated view of phone, email, Internet and data from face-to-face customer contact to customer service representatives. The product has an extensible data model with an interface for making alterations to the data schema.
Remedy Customer Support provides a central knowledgebase that is accessible through Internet, telephone and email channels, but content management capabilities are limited. Search functionality requires the separate purchase and integration of a Verity engine. The product uses a CRM Coach wizard to guide customer service representatives to content when servicing customer inquiries. Process management features include skills-based routing and escalation features, and the product offers extensive alerts and notifications for customer service representatives.
Servicesoft. This customer service software vendor recently announced plans to merge with marketing analytics vendor Broadbase Software. The merger will give the combined company a comprehensive set of technologies to address CRM.
For customer service applications, the company currently offers the E-Service 2001 Suite, which provides a knowledgebase and self-service functionality. The product's Knowledge Server gives organizations a centralized tool for managing the way information is maintained and shared across multiple channels and reaching different audiences. The product captures customer interactions as continuous sessions, and it also manages related content in the same knowledgebase. It allows users to set up multiple knowledgebases that span different contact centers. On the downside, the product's multiple administrative interfaces and lack of graphical design tools make it complex for business users.
Siebel Systems. This is the leading vendor in the CRM space. The company's Siebel 2000 product includes various applications that are part of its larger suite of eBusiness 2000 applications for channel, call center and dot-com solutions. For customer service, relevant Siebel 2000 applications include Siebel Call Center, eService, eChannel, eMail Response and eCollaboration - all of which leverage the same architecture but are sold separately.
Siebel 2000 supports phone, Web-based chat, email, Internet, fax, wireless and face-to-face channels, and it provides customer service representatives with an integrated view of phone, email, Internet and fax channels. The eChannel application has an organizational and classification model (with organization and account types) for customer data and application access. The Call Center application provides extensible case management, routing, graphical workflow and escalation capabilities.
Siebel 2000 includes an FAQ tool for direct access to its knowledgebase. The knowledgebase is limited in terms of content management functionality, but it includes an original equipment manufacturer's version of Hummingbird's Search Server for indexing and searching. Siebel offers adapters to more comprehensive knowledgebase products, including Servicesoft's Knowledge Builder and Primus' eServer.
Content Management Put Into Practice
For organizations looking to CRM tools for support in their customer service applications, the key is to get a firm grasp on content management needs.
Do you only want to capture customer contact information from multiple channels? If it's channel capture you're looking for, most CRM products can handle that task. However, such an approach will limit your ability to provide your customers with more value through customer service representatives and customer self-service access to content.
Are you looking for more advanced capabilities, such as content publishing, personalized presentation and self-service access to a common repository with library services? If so, plan on integrating a third-party content management solution, such as those from Documentum, Vignette and Broadvision.
Today, most CRM products don't offer the level of content delivery sophistication available in the leading content management products. This is understandable, as CRM vendors have been focused on adding new channels such as wireless access.
Still, few vendors provide packaged integration or formal partnerships with major content management systems. Quintus has partnerships with Broadvision and Vignette, and Kana offers integration with Documentum. However, such an approach is the exception rather than the rule.
As organizations realize the value of content in serving customers, they should focus on the big picture of their enterprise content management strategies. Customer service is one of several applications in which the same content can be leveraged to serve customer needs.
Many organizations are not yet looking at content management and customer service together in the context of their overall e-business plans, but they should.
If you're serious about content management in your customer service applications, be prepared, in the short term at least, to integrate a separate content management system with your CRM solution.
Over the next year or so, expect some CRM vendors to beef up their own content management capabilities to address these needs. Other CRM vendors will form strategic partnerships with leading content management vendors. They might also ally with leading e-commerce vendors that are adding content management as a way to differentiate themselves in the crowded e-commerce market.
Frank Meister is a senior analyst; Bill Chambers is a principal analyst; and Joe Fenner
is a senior technical editor, all with Doculabs, Chicago, a research and advisory firm that
helps companies choose technologies and strategies for e-business. Contact 312-433-7793,
www.doculabs.com or info@doculabs.com.
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