It’s All About Consistency…

Often referred to as the ‘beautiful’ game, football (that’s soccer if you happen to live in the US), has its similarities with a service operation. Where am I going with this, you may think? Well, you’ll soon find out. Anyone who watches football, either live or on television will recognize that the result often hinges on key decisions. These decisions are made by one individual (the referee) possibly with the help of his two linesmen or assistant referees as they are now called (amongst other ‘unofficial’ names). These 3 individuals are called upon to make decisions over and over again. Sometimes they get them right and sometimes they get them wrong because even now, in 2008, technology has been kept away from the game – decision making is entirely manual and unaided by technology. When a wrong decision is made, the impact of this decision will determine whether or not the mistake is highlighted and criticized in the media and on post-match TV programs. A referee is called upon to make split-second decisions in situations that are unclear. For example, he may need to decide if the ball has completely crossed the goal line (and therefore scoring one goal for the team) when there is a crowd of players blocking his view. Because the referee does not have x-ray vision, this prompts the argument for technology to be introduced in order to ensure better (and hopefully accurate) decision making.

Another added dimension is the fact that one referee may make a different decision than another referee in what is essentially the same set of circumstances. Frequently, we are shown highlights of football games where almost identical tackles have taken place. One referee has shown a red card to the player making the tackle, interpreting it as ‘serious foul play’ while the referee in the other game let the game continue without even showing a yellow card, interpreting it as ‘a fair challenge’. Just in case anybody is reading this who is not familiar with football (a.k.a. soccer) let me explain the significance of these cards – a red card is serious. It is a dismissal from the game. There’s no sin bin, there’s no return – you leave the game early, take a shower, and are not seen again. Then, just to add further pain, you receive a fine and then a ban from the football association for the next few games so you’re forbidden from participating. The team’s manager will be upset with you. The yellow card is a warning – yes, you’ll still receive a fine from the football association after the game because you’ve been bad – but your role in the current game continues…unless you’re bad again, as two yellow cards equals a red card so you’re off…got it?

It should be clear now that showing a red card has serious consequences and can alter the balance of the game so the decision must always be made correctly, but it isn’t. This situation has led players, managers and pundits to call for consistency in decision-making. In defense of the poor referee, you often hear the phrase ‘we’re only human’ because making mistakes is simply part of the human DNA!

So what does the above tell us?

1) When a human has to make many split-second decisions in a short space of time they will make mistakes. Some mistakes will be more costly than others.

2) Consistency in decision-making is what everyone is looking for and the introduction of technology can help achieve this.

Service organizations that we speak to today are increasingly looking for solutions capable of fully automatic optimization, in which manual intervention is the exception for the extreme and unusual cases only. The decisions that are made by the computers are based on service policies that have been put together by the executives. In essence, humans do the thinking and the interpretation of the anomalies. They leave the routine and regular number crunching and its associated decision making to the computers. There is no emotion involved, no lunch breaks to take, no subjectivity, and certainly no vacations! Beyond the benefits derived from consistent decision making and minimal dependence on the experience and knowledge of specific people, automatic optimization has been proven to produce schedules and capacity plans with significantly improved business metrics: higher productivity, lower travel, and higher compliance with service level commitments. Computers will always consistently outperform humans.

‘The beautiful game’ is under threat from poor and inconsistent decision-making. With the amount of money involved and the pressure for success of manager, players and Board Directors, technology needs to be introduced. It has been in other sports (think Tennis and Rugby - and technology there can often add to the experience and the suspense, and not be a distraction)...

Don’t let your service delivery suffer from the same inconsistent and therefore costly decision-making.

Author(s): Simon Morris and Stewart Hill

Time to Adopt Service Optimization? SAP Thinks So…

The timing is right for service optimization solutions. Current economic conditions, rising resource costs, and increasing customer demands regarding speed and efficiency of service, make optimized scheduling, routing, and workforce management extremely integral to the health of service organizations. To alleviate these pressures, firms are seeking solutions that can help them improve service efficiency and optimize service delivery, as reported in Aberdeen's report, A Guide to Service Delivery Excellence (June 2008).



The concept of service optimization has been around for quite some time…but not necessarily acknowledged and adopted in the overall marketplace. With the recent announcement of SAP, the fourth largest software company in the world, as a reseller of ClickSoftware solutions, the market is finally starting to take notice!



Industry analyst Forrester Research out of Boston, MA recently commented on the announcement by stating, “the partnership is sure to generate positive buzz for both ClickSoftware and SAP as firms continue to squeeze greater efficiency out of their workforces and improve customer service.”



Click here, to read more about Forrester’s commentary.



Author: Joanna Giannotti

The service paradox: how call center agents know more than the on-site engineer

“Hello. Thanks for calling Customer Support, Ms. Davies.”“My printer doesn’t print.”“Is this the G73 printer you bought in February?”“Yes.”“I see it’s under warranty. Since you’re under business coverage with our company, we’ll have someone there within the next four hours. Also, I see that the last time you bought toner cartridges was in April. Would you like to buy more?”

This is an example of the service levels we’ve come to expect from a well-run call center– though we don’t always get it. We’ve seen improvements in personalization, multiple inbound and outbound channels, automated phone systems that understand your voice, and continuity of interaction across processes (purchasing/subscribing, installing, billing, supporting) and across products and services. All these not only give customers better service – they also reduce churn and costs for service organizations while creating opportunities for higher revenues (additional sales, offers and costs customized for customer type, etc.).

So far so good, but the printer is still not printing. To fix that, the service organization dispatches a field service engineer (FSE). Unfortunately, too often you won’t see the same level of quality in your interaction with the FSE. Are the following situations familiar?

• You sign up for a service or buy some equipment, and as a result you need an on-site visit. Only after you sign up or pay, you are told to call another number to arrange for the visit. And then you have to repeat the information about what you bought and what you need done.

• The FSE who arrives doesn’t know what the equipment is, doesn’t have the parts, or isn’t trained on maintaining this equipment.

• You tell the FSE it’s the third time this problem has occurred, but you’re still asked to repeat the problem description.

• The FSE immediately says “it’s a common problem, you need part X, I don’t have it in the van, I’ll ask headquarters to call you and set a new appointment.” Why didn’t they equip the engineer with this part when they knew the complaint and knew your model number? Why can’t the appointment be made on the spot? And why does the call, when it finally happens, start with “so what part did the engineer say you need”?

We have a paradox here: The faceless customer service representative is sitting hundreds of miles away or on the other side of the world, and yet she can help you with far more issues, and has far more information at her fingertips, than the FSE who’s right next to you.

Why is this happening?

First, the call center and the service workforce are often managed by separate groups, using different tools and processes, and recording different information about the customer and service incidents. Second, call-center service is conducted a few minutes at a time, in a single step: the phone rings and the interaction starts. Field service may take between 10 minutes to 8 hours, and involves up-front planning of several steps (e.g. getting parts, dispatching, routing). Therefore, there are many more opportunities for losing information, or for missing a crucial step.

Lastly, the FSE may be right next to you, but he might be too far from headquarters. He needs sophisticated mobile applications to reach the level of real-time information accessibility and usability that the call center has.

Obviously, this paradox is a lose-lose situation: Unhappy customers, unhappy FSEs, wasted customer time, wasted service workforce productivity, multiple drives to the same location leading to increased travel costs, not to mention the negative effect on the environment.

Imagine a world where the whole service process is smoothly connected. A world where no matter whom you talk to – call center agent, FSE, salesperson – that person has all the history to make things happen for you, with minimal costs to you and to the service organization. A world where the service experience is shared and improved every step along the way. A world where your feedback is sought, recorded and used.

We began with a call-center example showing that part of the world already exists. Would it be so difficult to extend its boundaries all the way to the customer’s premises?

Author: Israel Beniaminy

Customer Service: Is it 2008 or 1978?

I like this new ClickSoftware blog because it gives us all a great opportunity to highlight and discuss service management related topics. The only problem so far is that it’s all a little tame! So today, I am going to change this and have a good old-fashioned rant about poor customer service!

A while ago, I spontaneously decided to redecorate the living room in my house. Whether it actually needed doing has been a subject of great debate ever since I tore down the first strip of wallpaper, but let’s not go there right now! Several months later with the walls stripped, re-plastered, and painted (OK, these things take a long time in my house, but let’s not go there either) it was time to order some new furniture. A few swift visits to the Internet later, orders placed, delivery dates confirmed, I was feeling smug – everything was so easy, the job was done – well, almost.

But then one thing needed to get involved that had so far been avoided – a reliance on other people. (You could argue that if I had relied on other people in the first place, this ‘project’ wouldn’t have taken so many months to complete but still, I can be ignorant).

Considering the abundance of technology that is available today to all sizes of organizations to make the customer experience less stressful, more efficient, and more reliable it still amazes me how many of these organizations risk jeopardizing their customers’ satisfaction by either not investing, or not deploying effectively.

Here’s what happened next – remember it is now approaching the end of 2008. Let’s take a step back in time.

The original email confirmed my order with a delivery estimate of “three working weeks” time – I knew that because their website had clearly stated this in the ‘Stock Availability’ field next to the items. So, imagine my surprise when two days later, I receive another email saying “Your goods are ready for delivery. Our delivery agents will be in contact with you in a few days time to confirm the delivery date”. Now you may think I should be delighted because they had clearly under-promised and over-delivered. Woo hoo! Until you realize that I wasn’t being totally honest in my introduction. You see, here’s a website telling me that if I place an order today, I will have three weeks to wait so I planned the decorating around this – I haven’t exactly finished the painting yet. In fact I haven’t even finished the undercoat, or even chosen the color of paint, so I needed those three weeks to finish this epic project. With computerized inventory management and tracking systems available at cost effective prices, why are customers still misled so easily?

And then, things get worse.

I receive and confirm my delivery date and to my horror realize it’s an “All Day” appointment. And they work a long day too – “Your delivery will be made anytime between 7am and 7pm”. Oh please, customers have a life too – there’s technology out there that can give me a more precise slot so I don’t have to wait in all day. But at least there’s some good news, “The delivery driver will call you in the morning to provide you with an indication of whether you will receive a morning or afternoon delivery” – well, at least that’s something.

The day of delivery arrives, my phone rings at 7.20am – it’s the delivery man (so the email was accurate about the call). The conversation goes something like this:

Delivery man: “We’ll be there sometime this afternoon”
Me: “Great – when’s afternoon according to your diary?”
Delivery man: “Our afternoon is from 12pm until 7pm” – great a seven hour “window”
Me: “Can’t you be a bit more specific so I can at least plan my day better?”
Delivery man (after some debate with me): “We’ll most likely be there between 4pm and 4.30pm”

Great, a quick telephone call and I now have a thirty-minute delivery window. I can live with that. Who needs technology – apparently they do…

4.20pm, the phone rings “Uh oh, I know who this is” I grimaced.

Delivery depot (notice it’s not the driver!): “I am sorry, the driver isn’t going to get there at all today”
Me: “That’s interesting. Why not? He promised me a 4-4.30pm slot when he called this morning”
Delivery depot: “He shouldn’t have said that – he’s run out of hours so he cannot drive any more”
Me: “But he did, and how come he can’t drive any more? He has nearly 3 hours left in his day”
Delivery depot: “Well he shouldn’t have said it and he won’t be there today”

And this went on for a while. I was unhappy – there was no chance of a delivery today, tomorrow, the weekend, or on Monday so the next delivery attempt was agreed for the following Tuesday as their “first delivery” of the day. I am one unhappy customer.So what’s my point?

For many years, service management software has been out of reach for smaller organizations and many mid-sized ones too. But in 2008 this is no longer an excuse – scheduling, optimization, inventory management, mobility, real-time tracking, and more is all available as an online software-as-a-service making efficient service management available, inexpensively, to the masses. In this true story I experienced incorrect stock availability, an unacceptable “all-day” appointment, a still unacceptable “afternoon” (seven hour) appointment, an inaccurate commitment from the driver, and a depot who could have notified me far earlier that the delivery was going to fail that day. Technology solves all of this, and it doesn’t need to bankrupt their business either. My experience may have been the norm 30 years ago, but today it is totally unacceptable.

What happened next? The goods surely arrived at 6.41am on Tuesday – damaged…it’s still ongoing.

Author: Stewart Hill