Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »
Webcast: In the Google Apps Cloud: How to Achieve Your Business Objectives
Dec 3rd, '09, 1 - 2 pm US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Council member Brent Hoag, Director, Global IT, at JohnsonDiversey, as he discusses the adoption of Google Apps which has helped meet four corporate goals; sustainability, simplification, increased employee productivity and global collaboration.
Webcast: Collaboration Initiatives: Benchmarks & Best Practices
Dec 15th, '09, 4 - 5 pm US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Council members Ruth Thorpe, VP & CIO at the U.S. Pharmaceutical Operations of Sanofi-Aventis, and Gary Kuyper, CIO at Bethany Christian Services, as they speak about their collaboration initiatives and experiences in how and why they chose the social networking and collaboration tools they are using and their business goals for collaboration, and facing culture change challenges.
Data Overview: Collaboration Initiatives Field Guide: Benchmarks & Best Practices
This appendix to the Council Field Guide provides an analysis which discusses benchmarks for collaboration IT implementation costs, adoption rates and payoffs. The overview identifies top IT and business goals and satisfaction rates for collaboration initiatives as well as best practices and lessons learned for implementing collaboration IT.
Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »August 22, 2005 — CIO —
Next up was a discussion of Innovation in Customer Service, kicked off by the CIO of ING Americas, David Gutierrez, who was wearing orange shoes to reflect his company’s logo and mission: fresh and refreshing service. Like orange juice.
To deliver service, says Gutierrez (right), you need to know your customers. To do that, Gutierrez says, metrics are key. To know how to improve, you need to know where you need to improve. To know that, you need to be able to measure performance.
ING trains rigorously to teach its employees to focus on the customer, and listen to the customer. Contrary to what Whitney said, Gutierrez believes that the customer can tell you what he needs, what he wants.
Gutierrez and ING have found that the Web does not materially change the customer service environment. Customers want their questions answered and their problems solved quickly. On the Web, for Gutierrez, that means a goal of two-click resolution.
The cost of processing on the Web is 10 cents. Answering a letter is $6. Answering a phone call is $10. Everything done off the Web erodes ING profits, and if customers become too expensive, ING will “invite them to leave.”
Next came Sue Kozik, EVP and CTO of TIAA-CREF. She says what attracted her to TIAA-CREF was its passion for customer service (the nonprofit is really owned by its customer-participants) and the fact that it placed IT at the center of its business model.
For example, call center reps at TIAA-CREF are judged on resolution, not time spent per call. “If it takes an hour to solve a client’s problem,” says Kozik, “spend an hour.” As we all know, that’s an unusual way to run a call center.
TIAA-CREF’s customers have been with the company for 20 years on average (it’s portable from institution to institution). This is quite unusual in the financial services business (and the portability is unique). Given that span of time, and the portability, IT has a big job to do tracking the customer’s investment history.
When Kozik came to the company, IT was very complex, siloed, and dispersed among the various lines of business. As she says, “I didn’t have best of breed; I had most of breed.” Kozik has responded by building an open platform that is accessible to its competitors. Why? Because it was advantageous to its customers—the company’s core value—offering them choice. Which is pretty bold.
After Gutierrez and Kozik spoke, they sat down with CIO Senior Writer Tom Wailgum. The first question Wailgum posed was about IT’s role in protecting customer information. The challenge, says Kozik, is to maintain that balance between security and ease of use. It’s easy to be secure by asking the user a dozen questions each time they want to access an application, added Gutierrez, but the customer doesn’t want to do that. He wants to be safe, and he wants the process to be easy.