SaaS Notes

Leadership - Customer Care as a Virtual Business Process

Customer care is the buzz phrase of 2008. Depending on which vendor you speak with the phrase can have various unique meanings rooted in what the vendor is selling. Customer care is becoming a source of significant differentiation between firms. In the virtual world of e-Business, customer care must include the full life cycle of care: target, acquire, transact, service, retain and grow with each step being in alignment with business processes.  A sound customer care program provides substantial benefits to the Internet-enabled business.

 

A sound customer care initiative integrates all of the contact points with the customer throughout the customer life cycle. For example, the target phase would include personalized customer interactions to identify individual needs. The service phase would provide service when and where the customer needs it. The retain phase would engage with customers to increase understanding and responsiveness to their evolving needs. 

 

Within the e-Business model, two processes within the life cycle that have become increasingly more important are acquiring and retaining customers. Acquiring customers requires the company to invest in messaging activities that attract customers' interest enough that they take the time to examine the value proposition of the goods or services being offered. Retaining customers requires the firm to invest in building the hooks throughout the life cycle process that incents the customers to continue doing business with the firm. Retention efforts are particularly important in e-Business for two reasons. First, it is relatively easy for a customer to switch to a competitor, so the hooks a vendor uses have to be many and deep throughout the lifecycle. Second, it is more expensive for a firm to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer.

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