In an era, when technology is transforming the way people lead their lives, it’s increasingly becoming important for companies to use state of the art technology to communicate with the customer. Effective communication can be a competitive differentiator for most companies. In order for effective communication to occur, it’s imperative for companies to honor customer preferences with regard to the content, mode/channel, and timing of communication. However, companies are facing challenges in implementing customer preference management solutions due to perceived loss of control to customers, and disparate legacy systems. In response to this need, uPrefer Solutions has developed a rapidly deployable, low cost, and scalable solution built on an existing SAP CRM framework, making Customer Preference Management an integral part of SAP for Utilities and eliminating the need for expensive third party software. This solution enables companies to effectively communicate with the customer, thereby increasing customer satisfaction, as well as achieving better sales & marketing campaign results, and ultimately, an improved bottom-line.
Why is communication with the customer important and what is a Customer Preference Management solution?
For most companies, and for Utilities in particular, customer satisfaction is the most important performance indicator. Higher customer satisfaction results in an improved competitive position, and favorable rate case outcomes for utilities. Customer satisfaction is not only a function of the quality of the product offerings, but also dependent on effective communication.
Given the wide array of communication channels available, such as mobile, email, text, and social media among others, customers are bombarded with a wide variety of information. However, information overload without regard to the customer preferences on how they can negate the effectiveness of such information. An effective Customer Preference Management solution will take into consideration customer preferences with respect to what, when and how they would like to receive information. By employing such a solution, a company can tailor its communication strategies to deliver personal, relevant, and engaging messages. An effective Customer Preference Management solution will have the following elements:
- What to receive – content type: Alerts, promotions, new products, problem situations etc.
- When to receive – frequency and time of the day: Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or never; Time of the day to receive such messages
- How to receive – Mode/Channel of communication: Email, text, voice messages, snail mail, social media etc.
Companies sensitive to these preferences will likely lead the way in gaining excellent customer experience going forward.
How are companies managing customer preferences currently and what are the limitations of such strategies?
Custom data storage for each preference type, which suffers from the limitations in terms of,
- Customer data sits in disparate systems throughout the organization leading to multiple views of the customer
- Synchronization between customer preference data and the customer’s communication data has to be established manually.
A third party system to store all preferences, the limitations of which are:
- Needs on-line synchronization of master data and transaction data with 3rd party system
- Customer data is stored in a 3rd party hosted server and hence cannot be used for internal analytics purposes
- High maintenance costs due to multiple interfaces
Given the limitations associated with each of the existing solutions, there is clearly a need for a solution that provides a central repository for all the customer preferences, and yet be a part of the existing systems infrastructure, eliminating the need for third party independent systems.
How is an “UtiLitics®” solution better than the existing solutions in the market?
uPrefer Solutions has developed a rapidly deployable, low-cost, and scalable solution, “UtiLitics®” built on existing SAP CRM framework making Customer Preference Management an integral part of SAP for Utilities and eliminating the need for direct and indirect costs like data synchronization with third party software. The solution, UtiLitics®, is certified by SAP. The advantages of “UtiLitics®” solution are as follows:
From a customer point of view:
- Puts customer in control of their preferences
- Provides an easy to use interface that allows the customers to manager their preferences through their chosen medium.
From the utility company point of view:
- Less custom code; built on existing framework
- Provides central repository for all customer preference data, allowing for a single view of the customer
- Reduces Call Volume by providing flexible integration with transactions.
- Since data is native to CRM, it is available for other purposes like marketing, backend processes and BI integration
- Allows for better customer experience auditing and tracing
- Allows for Statutory compliance (Do Not Call etc.)
Can you provide a high level process flow of “UtiLitics®” Customer Preferences Management solution?
“UtiLitics®” Customer Preference Management solution uses the established SAP CRM framework to make Preference Management an integral part of the SAP for Utilities. High level process flow is explained in the link provided below:
http://www.uprefersolutions.com/how-it-works/
Conclusions:
“Sophisticated Utilities need sophisticated solutions”. “UtiLitics®” Customer Preference Management solution is one such. SAP Certified, low-cost and built entirely on the existing SAP CRM framework, this solution minimizes custom code, provides a single view of the customer, and integrates seamlessly into existing channels of customer communication.