What's Your Problem?
A combination of CRM and KM software puts answers at the fingertips of 3M call center reps.
An added benefit for 3M is a detailed reporting capability that helps the company monitor the quality and responsiveness of its customer service efforts. "At the end of the month, the system tells our laboratory and marketing people how many people called, who called, which products were involved, what types of problems were encountered and the specific solutions that were offered," says Guanzini. That information helps the company develop new products and refine existing offerings.
3M is also working to leverage its CRM/KM investment throughout the company. The human resources, purchasing and procurement departments have already adopted the technology to help answer questions posed by 3M employees and business partners. Conway says other departments are evaluating the technology for potential applications.
Self-Service
Over the next several years, 3M plans to add new capabilities to its customer support system. In April, the company began a test allowing customers to question agents via e-mail. But e-mail support can be expensive, since agents and customers often have to bounce messages back and forth several times in order to nail down an answer. So the company is also implementing a self-service extranet with an online troubleshooting option that lets customers access a Web version of the eCRM software. The site will be personalized to focus on products the customer uses or has expressed interest in using. "It looks and feels just like the desktop tool used by our agents. It provides the same knowledge too," says Guanzini. The self-service extranet is currently available to customers of 3M's commercial graphics division. Support for other business units is scheduled to be added over the next couple of years.
3M views its customer-service efforts as an ongoing process. "We'll probably never complete the system, since new and improved technologies will always become available," says Guanzini. "As long as customers have problems, we'll be looking for better ways of solving them."
John Edwards is a freelance writer.
Cassandra Millhouse is a senior analyst at Ovum, a London-based consulting and analysis company. A specialist in CRM, she was the lead analyst for the Ovum reports "eCRM:Personalization Technologies for the Web" (2000) and "Ovum Evaluates: CRM in the Front Office" (2000). She gave the following analysis of 3M's approach:
3M has taken a fairly typical approach to customer service: First, sort out the process of managing inquiries, then apply knowledge management to help agents answer the inquiries themselves. However, most organizations find it difficult to move beyond the first stage, and 3M is to be congratulated for getting as far as it has. Further, 3M has measured its results, which is extremely important. When a technology reduces costs rather than driving revenue, the benefits need to be demonstrated, or they are soon taken for granted.
To continue to reap advantages from its CRM/KM system, 3M must be vigilant about keeping its knowledge base current. Often knowledge management projects achieve success only to fade away after the initial benefits seem to be won. Knowledge management must be an ongoing initiative, and knowledge must be kept up-to-date to be useful. In fact, out-of-date information in a KM system actively discourages use.
Plans to offer self-help to customers over the Web make it even more essential for 3M to keep support knowledge current. Although self-service can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty as well as reduce costs, it needs to be well executed. Customers are not nearly as forgiving with problems and glitches in the system as employees are. Employees often end up fine-tuning their search criteria to find the information they are looking for—and they find that the textual quality of the solutions sometimes hampers their efforts. Self-service makes it imperative that 3M maintain a high level of quality in the solutions in its knowledge base; although employees will persevere in their search, customers won't.
3M is wise to share its call center activity reports with the marketing and R&D departments. This priceless insight into customers' needs and requirements gives 3M the ability to continuously respond to customer demand. And in the end, that may be of more value to 3M than the improvements in productivity and training time achieved in the customer service operation.
