Mgt503 Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management MGT503 Page 1 of 28 4/11/2023

Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee

Contents

1. Objectives and Scope of Report .………………………………………....2

2. Summary of Importance of CRM……………………………………….2

3. History, Background and Business Offerings of Ericsson. .....................3

3.1 History of Ericsson……………….………………………………….….33.2 Background of Ericsson……………………………………………….. 3 3.3 Business Offerings of Ericsson…………………………………………3

4. Introduction to eTOM.………………………………………………….....4

4.1 History of eTOM and its founder………………………………………44.2 CRM in eTOM…………………………………………………………..64.3 Knowledge Management Environment in Ericsson………………….21

5. Recommendations………………………………………………………….24

6. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………. 27 7. References ………………………………………………………………….28



1.0 Objectives and Scope of Report

The Objective of the Report is to study Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Ericsson which is being practiced globally by Ericsson. The report will be starting with History and Background of Ericsson followed by details on eTOM (enhanced Telecom Operations Map) .eTOM is a business process framework being practiced by Telecom service providers and network operators worldwide. CRM is one of the major pillar in eTOM.

The main objectives of the report are:

a) To analyze and understand the concept of CRM in eTOM.b) To study the present CRM system in Ericsson.c) To learn more about customers of Ericsson India and study their Reviews on

Ericsson.d) The value addition i.e. Recommendations and Improvements on CRM in Ericsson

India Ltd.

2.0 Summary of Importance of CRM

Customer Relationship management literally seems to be 3 letter word but when given a deep thought, it’s a key of many big fortune 500 companies success.

The bottom line, though, can be summarized as follows: CRM can work as a differentiating business strategy. CRM delivers a return on investment. CRM success starts with putting customer interests first.

CRM is a business strategy to acquire, grow and retain profitable customer relationships, with the goal of creating a sustainable competitive advantage. Product/price-based differentiation is waning because of four broad trends: maturing markets, global trade, efficient manufacturing and the Internet.Now CRM is emerging as a critical strategy simply because relationships are coming to the forefront of the competitive battleground. CRM should mean creating mutual wins for customers and all the company stakeholders, including employees and business partners. It’s just common sense. Would you willingly continue to do business with a company if you didn’t feel you were a “winner” in the relationship?



3.0 History, Background and Business Offerings of Ericsson

3.1 History of Ericsson

Ericsson began in the year 1876, in a repair workshop for telegraph instruments in downtown Stockholm. 30-year-old mechanic Lars Magnus Ericsson laid the foundation for one of the world’s leading telecommunication companies with his former work colleague Carl Johan Andersson. It was, coincidentally, the same year that Alexander Graham Bell filed his patent application for a telephone in the United States. Ericsson starts off by repairing foreign-made telephones but soon starts making and selling his own telephones, then a few years later forms an agreement to supply telephones and switchboards to Sweden's first telecom operating company, SAT (Stockholms Allmänna Telefonaktiebolag).

3.2 Background of Ericsson

Today, over 1,000 networks in more than 175 countries utilize Ericsson network equipment and 40 percent of all mobile calls are made through Ericsson systems. Ericsson is one of the few companies worldwide that can offer end-to-end solutions

for all major mobile communication standards. Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications joint venture offer a range of mobile devices, including those supporting multimedia applications and other services allowing richer

communication. Ericsson invests heavily in R&D and actively promotes open standards and systems. Ericsson has one of the industry's most comprehensive intellectual property portfolio containing over 23,000 patents.

3.3 Business Offerings of Ericsson

• NetworksEricsson is the world’s principal supplier of mobile networks. Ericsson’s industry-leading network solutions include radio access network, (radio base stations for GSM, WCDMA, HSPA, LTE) core network solutions, (like soft switch, IP infrastructure, IMS, media gateways), transport solutions (like microwave radio and optical fiber solutions) and fixed access solutions for copper and fibre. Networks account for about two-thirds of Ericsson’s net sales.


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee • Services

Our services portfolio includes network rollout and professional services, such as managed services, consulting and education, systems integration and customer support.

Sales of professional services represent more than 22 percent of net sales and are reported separately.

• MultimediaThe multimedia organization was established January 1, 2007. It includes service layer products, revenue management systems, enterprise solutions and mobile platforms.

• Mobile phonesSony Ericsson delivers leading-edge mobile phones and other mobile communication devices. The 50/50 joint venture combines the mobile communications expertise of Ericsson with the consumer electronics and content expertise of SONY Corporation, and forms an essential part of our end-to-end capability for mobile multimedia services.

4.0 Introduction to eTOM (enhanced Telecom Operations Map)

4.1 History of eTOM and its founder

eTOM is a business process framework for categorizing all the business activities that a service provider will use. These activities can be combined in many different ways to implement end-to-end business processes that deliver value for the customer and the service provider.eTOM is not a business model. It does not address strategic issues or questions of who a service provider’s target customers should be, what market segments should the service provider serve, what are the service provider’s vision, mission, etc.

eTOM is model for telecom operations developed by TeleManagement Forum (TMF).TeleManagement Forum have 700 member companies in 75 countries including

a) Service Providersb) Network Operatorsc) System Integratord) Equipment Vendors e) Independent Software Vendors

Few Big Names which are member of TeleManagement Forum includes

1. Accenture


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee 2. Agilent Technologies3. Alcatel-Lucent4. Amdocs Management Limited5. Bharti Airtel Ltd.6. Boeing Company7. China Mobile Communications8. China Unicom9. Cisco Systems10. Cognizant Technology Solutions U.S. Corporation11. Convergys12. Computer Sciences Corporation.(CSC)13. Ericsson14. Fujitsu15. GE Energy16. HCL TECHNOLOGIES17. Hewlett-Packard18. Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.19. IBM Corporation20. Microsoft Corporation21. Motorola22. Nortel23. Oracle Corporation24. SingTel Optus25. Sun Microsystems26. Telenor ASA27. Vodafone28. Zain

And the list goes on ………………………………

Mission of tmforum: To help service providers and network operators automate their business

processes in a cost- and time-effective way. Provide guidance on the shape of business processes. Agreeing on information that needs to flow from one process activity to another. Identifying a realistic systems environment to support the interconnection of

operational support systems. Enabling the development of a market and real products for integrating and

automating telecom operations processes.



4.2 CRM in eTOM

CRM in eTOM is a part of Customer Experience Management. CRM is a group of practices mentioned below and it depends on how an organization practices these processes individually to give a successful CRM implementation.


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee 1. Churn Management2. Customer Loyalty Management3. Customer Segmentation4. Key Factor Analysis5. Customer Profitability6. End-to-End Quality Management7. SLA Management8. Sales Channel Management

4.2.1 Churn Management

Churn remains one of the most compelling challenges in the communication industry, and by all indications the problem is likely to get worse before it improves. With providers annually losing as many as one-third of their customers, strategies to acquire and retain customers have become critical.

Customer Churn Management is inherently cross functional. It requires the integration of technology and technical analysis with sales and marketing and customer facing initiatives (CRM functions) apart from data mining and calculation of churn parameters. In a customer centric market place, the price, product and even the customer service are fluid by necessity. The service provider’s ability to offer choice and respond to the needs of individual customers becomes a major advantage to both the customer and the service provider, which is largely a challenge in Customer Relationship Management (CRM).The below figure tries to mention the “Causes of Churn “in Communication Industry.



Model for Effective CRM application for Churn Management

Churn management should identify valuable customers who are likely to churn. To conduct such analyses, the equipment vendors need a model to identify and classify customers with low, medium or high churn risk.

Calculation of Churn Parameters and CRMAfter the business identifies the churn parameters, the data mining and analytics applications perform calculations based on some weighing factors and give a value to each churn parameter for every customer. The two general churn parameters based onwhich the churn actions taken are as follows:1. Churn score: This value comes from the calculation of customer behavior performed by an external data warehouse and/or data mining application.2. Customer value: This results from the analysis of customer value performed by an external application. Through interfacing with the data analytics application, thesevalues are fed to the CRM system periodically. This information is critical in deciding what actions are to be taken by the vendors to prevent churn called churn actions.

4.2.2 Customer Loyalty Management

Loyalty is a feeling of a connection to and a belief in an enterprise and its proposition. Ensuring customer loyalty has now become a critical business requirement.Equipment Vendors and Service Providers do not wish to be left off the bandwagon; but the focus across most of them has been to implement “Point Based Loyalty Systems”.


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee Every vendor and service provider realizes that the key to Loyalty lies in how it uses its IT infrastructure and business processes as an enabler for customer loyalty. This has been duly recognized by the TeleManagement Forum in the Enhanced Telecom Operations Map (eTOM) The Business Process Framework Version 3.6. This has formally included the “Retention and Loyalty” processes which have been decomposed into various functional areas as depicted below

There are many tools which do analysis on customer Retention and Loyalty. One of the those powerful tool is Kano Model.The Kano Model is a powerful tool that enables vendors to identify the few critical customer needs that have the highest impact. The model segments these needs according

to: Must be's: Must-be's are those needs and wants that have to be met for a customer

to even begin to have a positive relationship with the enterprise One-dimensional: One-dimensional needs are the needs a customer will discuss

and are typified by a "win-lose" negotiation Delighters: Delighters are when wants or needs are met when a customer is not

expecting itThis is shown in the illustrative diagram below.



Below mentioned points are important to link their Loyalty Program to the overall CRM strategy.

Leadership commitment is critical: Loyalty cannot exist in one department. It must have adirection with goals and processes that permeate throughout the business so that it can beexecuted at all points of customer interaction.Loyalty Program must strengthen the Core Value Proposition: Extend loyalty strategy fromcore value. Kano Model™ provides important tool to build a foundation of relevant products / service offerings and essential customer satisfaction. Remember, that loyalty can only come after customer satisfactionVendors & CSPs must use the Loyalty Hierarchy: It is important to progressively move in the direction of unifying customer information, differentiating customer experience and innovating new products / services based on this understanding. To give example British Telecom sends bills in bigger fontvsizes for senior citizens and in Braille for the visually challenged.

Finally, change management is critical for any such program. Hence there is the need toeducate, train, empower align employees with this initiative. For, while data models and systemsprovide the tools for building loyalty; implementing that is in the hands of the employees, moreso those who actually interface with the customers.

4.2.3 Customer Segmentation

Segmentation can be driven by the balance between “cost to monitor” and your business interest. Customer Segmentation is being followed in Ericsson. Ericsson has segmented customers as per the business interest into two categories:-


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee 1. Global Customers2. Local Customers

For Global Customers, premium services are offered. Proactive detection and troubleshooting is being offered to these customers. And Special Quality of Service is maintained for them. Below is the list of Global Customers of Ericsson:

AMTEL AT & T Deutsche Telekom France Telecom Hutchison MTN Telecom Italia Telefónica Telenor Vodafone

4.2.4 Key Factor Analysis and CRM

Customer Experience is the result of the sum of observations, perceptions, thoughts, feeling arising from interactions and relationships (direct and indirect) over an interval of time between themselves and a supplier. The customer holds the commercial relationship and legal responsibilities with the supplier. The customer may also have indirect interactions and relationships though users of the contracted services with the supplier.For example in a company context the customer -an enterprise - may buy mobile service for its employees who are the users. In a domestic context the head of the household my hold the customer relationship but the service may be used by the entire household. These indirect relationships will also affect the Customer Experience and may have a more significant effect in total than the direct relationship.Quality of Customer Experience (QoCE) is the (proposed) measurement used to model the net effect of these interactions, both direct and indirect. QoCE is subjective and time varying. To gauge QoCE it is necessary to establish and maintain an understanding of the relationships, the interaction and the varying importance of them via these relationships with the customer. This can only be discovered by establishing formal mechanism to assess and track Customer Experience QoCE and its relationship with technical measures such as Customer Satisfaction, Customer Advocacy, Customer-Would-Recommend, , Key Quality Indicators, Key Performance Indicators, and customer analytics / business intelligence methods.Such an approach is wide adopted in mature retail industries such as Food retailing and Automotive.Note the deep analytics and heuristics methods are unlikely to ever be standardised.As described above the customer experience is positioned as an end customer. The customer supplier relationship can be applied at any point in a value network and Customer Experience QoCE established. It is probable that other points in the value


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee network that the traditional style of KQI KPI measures have a greater influence on Customer Experience than at the retail end point.Key Factor Analysis - Customer Needs

Customer Experience is influenced by a number of Customer needs expense by the following general forms of interactions:I want it when I want it ( fulfilment Lead2CashI want it fixed when I say it is to be fixed( Assurance Trouble2Resolve)I want it billed like we agree (Billing, Revenue ManagementI want it to work the way it says in the brochureAnd the sum effect of those interactions over an internal of time.The first three are related to the performance of enterprise processes, systems and people and the fourth to the service itself (Applications, Content, Networks,...)The interactions can be by the party that is the customer, or by the users of the services made available to the customer.General observations:Customer defined timesPerforming L2C and T2C to match customer expectations means completing the task when the Customer wants it completed – not necessarily as quickly as possible.BillingCustomers need to be able to relate bills to their behaviour which is based on their perception of how the service works, and poorly positioned and described services can lead to poor Customer Experience.Degraded Service performanceUsers experiencing poor service performance will lobby the party representing the customer role to the provider. This can negatively affect Customer experience as it may be multiplied by a the effect of a large number of user complaining to one individualRepeat Incidents over a period of timeRecurrent Service performance issues will have a magnified effect on customer experience as repeat incidents annoy customer and substantially lower confidence in the supplier and motivate the customer to consider switching suppliers. Getting processes to work Right first Time is a major contribution to avoiding reductions in QoCE Service provider GoalsGenerally the goals of the provider are to improve the customer and user experience and to develop the customer from a passive consumer to a pro-active advocate of the provider. There are psychological models for representing the state of customer.

4.2.5 Customer Profitability

Customer Loyalty = Increased Profits

As we said earlier, customer experience programs are no longer fundamentally altruistic exercises, but rather a strategic means to improving competitiveness andprofitability in both the short and long term. Loyalty is essential to deriving long-term results from customers.


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee Some of the earliest loyalty programs date back to the 1930s, when packaged goods companies offered embedded coupons for rewards to buyers, and eventuallyretail chains began offering reward programs to frequent shoppers.These programs continued for decades but were leapfrogged in the 1980s by more aggressive programs from the airlines. This movement was led by AmericanAirlines, which launched the first full-scale loyalty marketing program of the modern era with its AAdvantage frequent flyer program. This revolutionary program was the first to reward "frequent fliers" with reward miles that could be accumulated and later redeemed for free travel. Many airlines and travel providers saw the incredible value in providing customers with an incentive to use a company exclusively and be rewarded for their loyalty.Within a few years, dozens of travel industry companies launched similar programs. Loyalty programs are now achieving near-ubiquity in many service industries,especially in those where it is more difficult to differentiate by product attributes.Again, the goal of these programs is profitability, and not altruism. The belief is that increased profitability will result from customer retention efforts because:

The cost of acquisition occurs only at the beginning of a relationship–the longer the relationship, the lower the amortized cost;

Account maintenance costs decline as a percentage of total costs, or as a percentage of revenue, over the life time of the relationship;

Long-term customers tend to be less inclined to switch and less price sensitive which can result in stable unit sales volume and increases in dollar-sales volume;

Long-term customers may initiate free “word-of-mouth” promotions and referrals; Long-term customers are more likely to purchase ancillary products and higher-

margin supplemental products; Long-term customers tend to be satisfied with their relationship with the

company and are less likely to switch to competitors, thus making market entry or competitors' market share gains difficult;

Regular customers tend to be less expensive to service, as they are familiar with the processes involved, require less "education," and are consistent in their order placement;

Increased customer retention and loyalty makes employees' jobs easier and more satisfying. In turn, happy employees feed back into higher customer satisfaction in a virtuous circle.

Figure below represents a high-level example of a virtuous cycle driven by customer satisfaction/loyalty, depicting how superiority in product/service offerings as well asstrong customer support by competent employees lead to higher sales and ultimately profitability. As stated above, this is not a new concept, but achieving success is difficult.It has eluded many a company driven to achieve profitability goals.



4.2.6 End-to-End Quality Management

Creating loyalty through end-to-end Service Quality

Competitive differentiation for advanced and converged services will rely on more than traditional service performance targets. “Roll-ups” of metrics related to networks, applications, and IT infrastructure are no longer enough for matching service quality to customer expectations. To truly “manage” the customer experience, service providers have to build end-to-end views of not only the customer and services consumed, but also of the preferences, behaviors, personas and social network affiliations that define the customer.


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee By understanding what defines their customers, service providers have a better chance of meeting not only present-day expectations, but also future expectations in a proactive manner. With an emphasis on management of the pre-custom, pre-service aspects of the customer/provider relationship, service providers can work toward building “loyalty” among their customers. Loyalty comes from understanding the customer experience from before first contact with the service provider, all the way through to the point where a customer either recommends the service to another person, or does not recommend the service. Simultaneous to building an understanding of that complete lifecycle, service providers must also grasp their growing value chains, which tend to muddle visibility into processes, people and operations supporting new-generation services. To assure services and to better manage customer perceptions, service providers have to monitor complicated SLAs, cooperative partnerships, revenue settlements/rebates and different types of conflict resolutions. To address both the end-to-end view of the customer lifecycle and of the value chain, TM Forum’s Managing the Customer Experience Program takes a phased approach to:

Developing a single framework for measuring and effectively managing service quality;

Defining key service quality metrics at each point along the service delivery network;

Identifying service quality issues and the necessary accounting and rebating information; usage information, and problem resolution information;

Defining management capabilities to support each step in the service delivery network;

Specifying appropriate interfaces to enable the interchange of such information electronically between the various providers in a service value network.

The Quality of Experience Framework The Quality of Experience Framework is the key deliverable from the project and described in the project team’s technical report TR149. A companion report TR148 Managing the Quality of Customer Experience describes a set of business scenarios that set out the service requirements on the framework.

The TM Forum end to end Customer Experience Framework model for Quality of Experience (QoE) is based on the Kilkki Quality of Experience Model.



The notion is that Quality of Experience (QoE) is a general concept around human behavior and feelings. It is influenced by marketing from vendors and providers, both before devices and services are provided, and during service operation. Marketing can involve simple product feature adjustments right the way through to the development of completely innovative means for meeting customer needs.

User Experience is related to Mean Opinion Score assessment of technical performance measurements usually referred to as Quality of Service (QoS). However, it can also be affected by the expectations that are set by marketing.

The TM Forum Service Level Agreement Management Handbook extends the QoS concepts to Key Quality Indicators (KQI) for the Services, and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for the network and infrastructure.

Further derived concepts are identified in this model:

Quality of Customer Experience (QoCE) Quality of User Experience (QoUE) Quality of Group Experience (QoGE)

The essential requirement is to create metrics for each of these categories which have some common properties and structure.

In the end to end Customer Experience Framework the following aspects are separated:

The Quality of Experience metrics which are subjective and are influenced by relationships amongst Customer, User and Group roles. The Benchmarking


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee Customer Experiences metrics partly address the needs of this aspect of the model.

A Service Delivery Chain that models the arrangement by which services and resources are delivered to the User. The Technical Performance metrics are largely based up the SLA Management Handbook and the best practice guide Key Quality Indicator and Key Performance Indicators. A Business Value Chain that models the organizational and commercial arrangements used to deliver the end user service to the customer. The value chain is a mixture of Service and Resource providers. The customer only sees those aspects that the service provider who sells them service, chooses to expose to them. The value chain contribution to customer experience is a set of metrics grouped into Pre-Service and In-Service aspects: Pre service covers marketing and corporate aspects; and In-Service aspects are related to processes used to deliver the customer service and the management of the Service Delivery Chain.

4.2.7 SLA Management

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) define expectations among two or more parties regarding service quality, priorities, and responsibilities. While SLAs have traditionally been a contract between a Service Provider and an Enterprise customer, the expanding value chain for new-generation services has made SLAs important for a myriad of partnerships, including:

• Service Provider to End User;• Service Provider to Vendor;• Service Provider to Enterprise (e.g., a large business or an MVNO);• Enterprise to End User;• Service Provider to Enterprise (i.e., an MVNO);• Network Provider to Service Provider (e.g., i.e., a network access provider)• Vendor to Network Provider, Service Provider, or Enterprise;• Content Provider to Content Aggregator or Advertiser.

To compete successfully, companies must proactively manage the quality of their services. Since provisioning of those services is dependent on multiple partners, management of partner services SLAs become critical for success. SLAs are used to define and manage expectations among partners for performance, customer care, billing, service provisioning, and other critical business areas.

SLA Management can also be used to assess predefined penalties when SLA parameters, such as failure to meet performance, timeline, or cost requirements, are not met. For example, if network downtime exceeds one hour, the penalty is a 10 percent rebate of service fees.

4.2.8 Sales Channel Management


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee The process flow rests on CRM, Customer Relationship Management and Customer Satisfaction. These two areas represent the approach and activities that are part of every customer interaction.

The Sales and Marketing process is supported by the Core Three Concept, and based on Value Based Selling, VBS.

The process flow starts with the continuous processes of

Ericsson Planning – the core of all activities

Marketing – to understand the customer, create customer offers and firmly position Ericsson as the preferred supplier thereby creating fertile soil for successful sales.

Create sales opportunities– the continuous search for business

The following processes after Sales Decision Point 1 – Pursue Sales opportunity, contain the focused work on a qualified sales opportunity from the moment of the decision to bring it to a profitable business until the business is fulfilled. Several such flows may work in parallel.

The Sales Decision Points are part of the Management process. The decisions are based on information provided by the Core Three Team. This team of senior executives, headed by the Account Manager, brings together the respective line responsibilities and bears the ultimate responsibility for the successful business relation with the customer.

The Team works closely together in order to bring customer business forward and hold a number of reviews as specified below with an agenda that covers the complete scope of activities needed to pursue the business opportunity. The Team follows all activities from initiation to fulfillment of the business in order to create confidence through continuity.

The processes define WHAT is to be done; HOW it is a matter of competence supported by a number of tools and checklists indicated under each heading.

To proactively bring sales opportunities into profitable deals with the customer.

Our business solution shall be positioned as the best choice for the customer as early as possible in the customer buying process, before the customer has made the specification.



Sub-processes and activities

Create sales opportunities

Customer buy-in

Prepare proposal

Get acceptance for proposal

Negotiate contract

Contract handshake

Contract execution

Final acceptance and payment

Sales Decision Points

Sales Decision Points form the top of the hierarchy. They are built on the input from the Core Three finalization Reviews. The Core Three Team members meet and report to the person who has the decision authority according to normal rules.

Decision Points:

SDP 1 Pursue sales opportunity

SDP 2 Submit proposal


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee SDP 3 Sign contract

SDP 4 Business fulfilled

Core Three Reviews

Core Three Reviews serve to secure the progress according to decisions taken and to provide the firm basis for coming sales decisions. The Core Three team members meet, if applicable together with other participants in the project and specialists. Filled out checklist is the basic input for the meetings.

There are three occasions for reviews: initiation, progress and finalizing. The Reviews shall be short and to the point and cover goals, progress and quality. The same agenda should be used for all three review occasions. Information will be gradually built up, fine-tuned and concrete. The Core Three Team decides when a review should be made in accordance with the criteria of the Sales Decision Points. During Preparation of Proposal and Negotiation all three review occasions shall be covered. There is possibly a need in large projects for more than one progress review. There is one standard agenda used for all sub processes.

Checklists

The basis for the everyday work is the checklists. They serve two purposes: to be a support for the daily job and to be input for the Core Three Reviews. The relevant checklists are indicated under each Sales Decision Point.



4.3 Knowledge Management Environment in Ericsson

Knowledge management is a Tool of CRM which is important for the successful implementation and running of CRM.Having the right answer is the key weapon for the CSR (Customer Service Representative) who needs to quickly resolve an issue. Access to knowledge is a key driver of value in the contact center, and IT is the enabler that provides the right information to the right person at the right time.However, processes need to be in place for knowledge to be used appropriately.Knowledge management has long been strategic to service organizations and isbecoming more and more strategic to contact centers as CSRs are called upon toaddress a wider range of issues. The process, called Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) is being practiced in Ericsson worldwide. Details of the process can be accessed at www.serviceinnovation.org.

This Funnel and the cloud model looks at support from the customer’s point of view.


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee The Funnel and the Cloud Model proposes a customer view of support which is much broader perspective than the traditional assisted support model. An integrated view of the various customer interaction channels and realization that support is network are key elements in the scope of the Adaptive Organization. This represents a profound shift in thinking about service and support and proposes that the vast majority of the customer experience for support is not an interaction with the support center (the assisted model) but is through self-service and online communities. The Adaptive Organization seeks to improve the customer experience supporting and learning from customer interactions across the entire customer experience.KCS is a set of practices that integrates the creation and maintenance of knowledge into a set of clearly defined customer interactions. As a result, these practices specify a powerful process for continuous learning and improvement that is driven by the customer experience.

Knowledge-Centered Support (KCSsm)KCS has four basic concepts:

Create content as a by-product of solving problems Evolve content based on demand and usage

http://www.serviceinnovation.org./our_work/adaptive_organization/


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee Develop a knowledge base of our collective experience to date Reward learning, collaboration, sharing, and improving

A Rich MethodologyOver the course of four revisions, KCS has evolved and grown to become a rich methodology: a set of practices for creating and maintaining knowledge in a support environment. Unlike the traditional add-on process of knowledge engineering, KCS is an integral part of day-to-day operation in support centers - KCS becomes the way people solve problems and creates knowledge as a by-product of problem solving.While KCS is enabled by technology, KCS is primarily about people. People are the source of knowledge. KCS has proven that the best people to capture and maintain support knowledge are the people who create and use it every day - the support analysts.For optimum performance, KCS practices and the tools that support them must be integrated with other support and business systems, including incident management, change management, and service level management processes and systems.

Why KCS?There are both quantifiable and qualitative benefits to adopting KCSConsortium members who have implemented KCS in both their internal and external support organizations are reporting dramatic improvements in incident resolution and training times, in customer satisfaction, and in analyst job satisfaction. As a result, they are realizing substantial savings in operating costs at the same time they are seeing improvements in service levels. They find they can:

Solve Cases and Incidents Faster 50 - 60% improved time to resolution 30 - 50% increase in first contact resolution

Optimize Use of Resources


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee 70% improved time to proficiency 20 - 35% improved employee retention 20 - 40% improvement in employee satisfaction

Enable eServices Strategy Improve customer success and use of web self-help Up to 50% case deflection

Build Organizational Learning Actionable information to product development about customer issues 10% issue reduction due to root cause removal

People choose to adopt KCS because they see a need to scale and extend their support

capabilities, but do not have endless staffing or budget resources.

KCS breaks through the limitations of current support strategies and enables support

organizations to deliver greater value with more efficiency. The secret? Capitalizing on

what they already have - knowledge. This increased value is created and managed by

capturing the collective experience of solving problems and answering questions, making

it reusable, and evolving it to reflect organizational-level knowledge.

KCS takes teamwork to a new level. The organization must shift to a perspective that

sees knowledge as an asset owned and maintained by the team, not an individual or a

small group of dedicated content creators. The focus of the team is to capture and

improve the collective knowledge - not only to solve individual customer issues, but also

to improve organizational learning.

5.0 Recommendations

1. Understand the big picture–We believe that virtually every point of touch between customers and their service providers or partners contributes to customer perception,satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately to the profitability of the service provider. Service providers must develop and manage an enterprise-wide vision of all aspects of customer interaction if they are to deliver an appropriate experience to customers. An overall, enterprise-wide view is most certainly how the customer “experiences” a provider, even if that customer interacts with individual departments within the CSP and vendor organization. In final analysis, that is the more important view.


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee 2. One size does not fit all–While all service providers and vendors perform similar functions, their customer experience strategies, priorities and programs may differ significantly.Developing a customer experience (CE) strategy does not require the CSP be “worldclass” at everything. For many service providers, that would serve only to overwhelm them from the start, ensuring failure. Rather, the CSP must determine what is important to its target customers in its serving domain, and to prioritize those things that will differentiate it to those customers.A service provider operating in a single geography may choose to make certain aspects of its CE strategy “good enough” (i.e. competitive) for particular situations, but not necessarily the best possible solution. The concept here is that the CE strategy mustbe tailored and affordable. After all, as we said at the outset, this is not an exercise in altruism, but rather a way to enhance competitiveness and profitability.

3. Consider a continuous improvement strategy–Given the scope and complexity of the industry, the volatility of the larger digital value chain, and limitations on investment capital, it makes sense to approach customer experience from a continuous improvement perspective. This does not mean that different areas of improvement will not move at different speeds; in fact, the strategy formulation described in recommendation 2 will likely drive major investments. However, improvements in all areas must be somewhat balanced, and this approach offers the opportunity to accomplish that. Moreover, the continuous sampling of customer experience as behavior changes lends itself nicely to this approach. A handful of our respondents are already pursuing this approach.

4. Top management support–“don't try this without it”–Given the scope, cross-functional nature and complexity of planning and executing a CE strategy, top management sponsorship and approval is essential. Customer experience improvement, after all, is a business strategy, and not just an opportunity to implement the latest technology widgets to render the status quo business process better, cheaper and faster. Not only must top management set the vision, it must determine affordability, allocate appropriate resources, ensure cross-functional coordination, and remove some of the barriers that will inevitably pop up during the course of implementation.

5. Don't neglect program management–As noted in many researchs, program management was cited as the second-most important success factor. This is not surprising given the scope, complexity and organizational conflicts that must be addressed in a CE program. Program governance must drive achievement of program goals on time andwithin budgets, but also implement critical sub functions, like change management, to minimize risk. Risk and change management are particularly important given the cross-organizational nature of customer experience programs, where changes in one domain often impact another. That means close coordination is necessary.

6. Manage customer data as a corporate asset, because… that's what it is!–Virtually every aspect of customer experience hinges upon the accuracy and accessibility of data. Unfortunately, this data is found in every nook and cranny of the service provider


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee organization. It is also found in every imaginable format, and at times those formats conflict with the similar data from other sources. Data management programs must, therefore, address quality issues, and ensure data accessibility and usability. Another critical and highly relevant aspect of data management is privacy. While CSPs have the advantage of housing huge amounts of customer data, that data must be administeredresponsibly to engender trust with the customer, and avoid punishment from regulatory agencies or from the customer.

7. Effective Knowledge Management is the Key–Clean data is not enough-CE effectiveness depends on getting the right information to the right person at the right time. Whether it is a marketer trying to initiate a campaign, a customer service representative (CSR) trying to solve a customer problem, a sales representative trying to close on an opportunity, or a business manager is seeking to create the “killer offer.” All require rapid access to tailored or tailor-able data, presented in an appropriate format. If data is the backbone of CE processes, then analytics is the nervous system that distributes it to its usable destination.

8. Leverage the interaction channels–With the rise of the Internet, it is clear that some customers prefer on-line self service, email or chat to speaking with a CSR or an interactive voice response (IVR) system–at least for some tasks. As Web 2.0applications proliferate, certain customer segments are gravitating to new forms ofcommunication, such as instant messaging and social networking.Service providers need to recognize that these channels are increasing inimportance to customers; they must evolve their inbound and outbound customer communications to suit the customers. Clearly, all new functionality needs to be designed to be “channel agile.”

9. Design your metrics for success–The most successful service providers in our discussions had an adaptive metrics strategy. Early on, to gain momentum andestablish credibility, the primary measurements were based upon delivery performance (i.e. did we complete to acceptance on time?) Later though, they shifted to business effectiveness (i.e. was the program deliverable achieving the expected return?) The lesson here is to plan your success measurements carefully. This may seem like a lot of recommendations, but it is really the minimum set from our perspective, given thescope and complexity of customer experience. We could go on and on with domain-specific recommendations, but those would likely vary by service provider and strategy.What is important to remember is that the payback for companies that have made the commitment and executed has been worthwhile, even though the overall effort mayseem daunting. We believe that service providers who can differentiate themselves with a superior overall customer experience will be winners not only in their traditional service markets, but also as enablers of the digital value chain.

10. Customer experience (CE) is also important to service provider partners–CE initiatives can benefit not only service providers and their customers, but also theirpartners. Think of Amazon, as it provides shipping, logistics and customer support services to its partners. In that vein, service providers can help their partners-and gain


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee market power in doing so-through a variety of CE-related functions. Make sure that partner management is a part of the overall planning and execution of CE programs.

11. Take advantage of existing frameworks–Given the breadth and complexity of the problem, assistance with best practices, data management and domain frameworks is very important. TM Forum, the world’s leading industry association focused on improving business effectiveness for service providers, has a number of frameworks and collaboration programs designed to help service providers achieve their transformation goals –most notably its Information Framework (SID), the Applications Framework (TAM) and Business Process Framework (eTOM).

6.0 Conclusion

Successful CRM is about competing in the relationship dimension—not as an alternative to having a competitive product or reasonable price—but as a differentiator. If your competitors are doing the same thing you are (as they generally are), product and price won’t give you a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. But if you can get an edge based on how customers feel about your company, it’s a much stickier—sustainable—relationship over the long haul.The essence is that you can dramatically improve your chances of getting an ROI fromyour CRM initiative by following three simple steps: 1) Understand the value your customerwants, 2) deliver that value profitably and 3) repeat. Simplistic? Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Most companies have entrenched ways of doing things, focusing on products, rather than customers. In simple words it can expressed as follows

“If Ericsson would have loved their customers more than the radio waves, there would have been no problems”.

Said another way, you can succeed with CRM by being SMART: Define a customer-centric Strategy; use appropriate Metrics ; ensure your organization is Aligned with your objectives; Redesign work processes as needed; and use appropriate Technology tools as enablers. But it all starts by putting your customers first and creating a better relationship with them than your competitors offer.

In Customers Are People: The Human Touch, author Jon McKean states that in competitivemarkets, where customers have a choice between similar products and pricing, “Seventy percent of customer decision-making is based on how customers are treated.”Does relationship-based differentiation really work? Tesco thinks so. With humble beginnings as yet another low-cost grocery retailer in the U.K. market, Tesco has grown into the market leader in a few short years by using data-driven customer insight to manage millions of relationships, creating a loyal bond. If you investigate the success of IBM in computer technology, Nordstrom in retail clothing, HSBC in banking, Ritz Carlton in hotels and Singapore Airlines in air travel, you’ll find that all of these companies turned customer relationships into a differentiator.


Submitted by Mohammad Yasin(UBI101768) Facilitator: Daniel Lee References

Rudraswamy, M., 2008.Proactive Performance Management. [Online] Available at : www.tmforum.org [Accessed 23 Nov 2009]Senf, D.,2004. Customer Needs and Strategies. [Online]Available at : www.tmforum.org [Accessed 24 Nov 2009]Sekhar, R., R.,2005.Churn Management and CRM.[Online]Available at : www.tmforum.org [Accessed 24 Nov 2009]Kumar, M., 2004.Enhancing Customer Loyalty: The New CRM Frontier.[Online]Available at : www.tmforum.org [Accessed 24 Nov 2009]Keber, B.,2004. Applying eTOM to Public Utilities Industry.[Online]Available at : www.tmforum.org [Accessed 25 Nov 2009]Thompson, B., 2004. Successful CRM: Turning Customer Loyalty into Profitability.Available at: www.CRMguru.com [Accessed 25 Nov 2009]

http://www.CRMguru.com/

http://www.tmforum.org/





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