Customer Relationship Management

Individual Assignment-1

“Service Automation to improve CRM”

Submitted by:-

Simanta Bora

161159

CRM-A

Date of Submission: - 19th February 2018

Contents
What is Service automation? ........................................................................................................................ 3
Benefits from service automation:- .............................................................................................................. 3
Literature review........................................................................................................................................... 3
Travel Agents’ Attitudes Towards Automation and the Delivery of Service ............................................ 3
A knowledge-based service automation system for service logistics ....................................................... 4
Automation in a Customer Contact Environment .................................................................................... 4
The Value of Automating Order Management Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc ............................................... 5
Referrences ................................................................................................................................................... 6
Appendix ....................................................................................................................................................... 6
What is Service automation?
Service automation is the application of computerized technologies to support service staff and
management in the achievement of their work related objectives. It is mostly a very useful tool for
people working in call centres, help desk staffs and mobile service staff operating in field. Academics,
practitioners and government agencies have attempted to understand and characterize customer
service and service quality.

Benefits from service automation:-

1. Enhanced service effectiveness: service requests can be completed more quickly to the customers
satisfaction by ensuring that the requests are handled at the first point of contact.

2. Enhanced service efficiency: Costs are taken out of service delivery when customers use self service
instead of interacting with the agents. Right first time means reduced level of rework.

3. Greater service agent productivity: Call and contact centre management systems ensure that the
optimal number of agents is scheduled and that their time is used productively. Field service
applications ensure that workload is equitably and optimally distributed

4. Better agent work experience: Agents have the right tools to do their jobs well, leading to more
enjoyable work experience

5. Improved customer experience: Agents have full visibility into the customer history and service
requested and can therefore ensure that service delivery is appropriate to customer status or agreed
service levels

6. Improve customer retention: Higher quality service and better customer experience means that
customers are less likely to churn

Literature review

Travel Agents’ Attitudes Towards Automation and the Delivery of Service

This article presents an exploratory study on travel agents’ attitudes towards automation. The research
surveyed 167 travel agents from both Canada and New Zealand. The research findings show that there
are four distinct groups of agents whose attitudes towards automation differ quite substantially, and
these attitudes are related not so much to current use of technology but more to perceived future
usage.

The extent to which attitudes and behaviour towards automation in the travel agency sector can be
evaluated depends on how well expected consequences are identified and understood. In many
instances there are clear differences about how automation is necessary to help business development
or whether it will result in the growth of external threats to travel agents. At the basic business level it is
also extremely difficult to quantify expected gains, especially in the areas of management productivity.
The travel industry is essentially an information-based industry and information technology has become
such an integral part of the communications process that it is practically impossible to survive and attain
a sustained competitive advantage as principal, carrier or agent without investing in automation. Overall
most agents are positive about automation of their systems and the resultant contributions to their
service offering and business development but they also perceive it as a threat in the form of direct
selling and vertical control.

A knowledge-based service automation system for service logistics

Effective service logistics can lower the cost and increase service value by improving customer
satisfaction and loyalty. However, the conventional ways of the service logistics are information driven
instead of knowledge‐driven which are insufficient to meet the current needs. The purpose of this paper
is to present a knowledge‐based service automation system (KBSAS) to enhance the competitiveness for
manufacturing enterprises in service logistics.

The KBSAS incorporates various artificial intelligence technologies such as case‐based reasoning which is
used for achieving four perspectives of knowledge acquisition, service logistics, service automation and
performance measurement, respectively.

A prototype customer service portal has been built based on the KBSAS and implemented successfully in
a semi‐conductor equipment manufacturing company. It is verified that the KBSAS provides high quality
customer services with fast and efficient customer responses. It also allows the company to capture the
valuable experience and tacit knowledge of the staff in performing customer and field services

Automation in a Customer Contact Environment

This article concentrates on this partly neglected aspect of service operations and seeks to evaluate the
future scope for front office technology. The problems and benefits of front office automation are
evaluated and a conceptual framework of the technology/customer interface is derived.

The most complete form of customer utilization is within a self-service operation, where the customers
perform almost all the necessary tasks themselves. The degree of customer involvement can be on a
continuum from full service to self-service, depending on a number of customer-based, organizational
and environmental factors. It is therefore suggested that the service organization can plan the degree of
involvement of the customer and an important implication will be the extent of the customer’s use of
technology.

Limitations to Service Automation

 The problem of training: Service organizations do not necessarily have the same opportunities
to train and assess their customers. This may inhibit the scope for the use of automation. There
are circumstances in which the opportunity does arise and the following factors are considered
relevant.
 The complexity of the service: If services are complex to operate, higher levels of training will be
needed to ensure correct use of the technology. The need for customer training can be reduced
if operational complexity is minimized
  Repetition of the service: The frequency of use or repetition of the service is an important
factor in two ways. First, if a service has to invest in the customer training and the technology,
then the payback for this investment will be greater if the customer samples the service on
more than one occasion. The greater the repetition, the more worthwhile the investment
becomes. Second, customers may have a tendency to forget how to use the technology and so
regular repetition will reinforce the training. If the time between service encounters is too long,
it is conceivable that the customer will require retraining.
 Customer loyalty: A highly automated service may encourage customer loyalty, but it is in the
interests of the organization to retain customers who have already been trained. Problems may
also arise if customers switch between competitors if the technology is operated differently in
each organization.
 Low variety or focus: Training will be easier if the customer is presented with a low variety of
tasks. This will help to minimize confusion

The Value of Automating Order Management Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc

Coca cola decided to install a single customer service touch point when their survey indicated that
although customers felt they were receiving good service, they wanted to a single point of contact for
customer service. So this is how Coca cola came up with the solution:

Architecture description:

 Microsoft Silverlight UI for intuitive user experience

 Web 2.0 and AJAX
 Cisco WAF handles layer 7 webServices Security
 User Authentication is handled in cloud
 Authorization is handled in SAP Master Data
 webMethods ESB hosts enterprise services
 SAP ECC 6.0 provides ERP functionality
 Multi-Language support for Dutch customers
 webMethods Optimize for infrastructure for real time monitoring

Impact of Automating the service:

 There was a positive impact on revenue, volume and customer engagement

 There was a change in the buying habit of the customer such that they havent used any other
ordering method other than the internet ordering solution
 Manual entry was eliminated plus the customer got to know about the products and promotions
 Foundation to drive future startegy was established
Referrences
 Shengliang Deng, Rob Lawson, Luiz Moutinho, (2000) "Travel agents’ attitudes towards
automation and the delivery of service", Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Vol. 12
Issue: 4, pp.60-72, https://doi.org/10.1108/13555850010764677
 C.F. Cheung, Y.L. Chan, S.K. Kwok, W.B. Lee, W.M. Wang, (2006) "A knowledge‐based service
automation system for service logistics", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management,
Vol. 17 Issue: 6, pp.750-771, https://doi.org/10.1108/17410380610678783
 Art Museum Libraries: Automation and Services to the Public by Catharine Jansen, Eiteljorg
Museum of American Indians and Western Art
 Paul Walley, Viresh Amin, (1994) "Automation in a Customer Contact Environment",
International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 14 Issue: 5, pp.86-100,
https://doi.org/10.1108/01443579410056830
 The Value of Automating Order Management Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc, Jag Ramaswamy, Senior
anager, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Dave Brooks, Sr. Director, Software AG

Appendix