New technologies like social networking, and new legislation such as the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), are empowering consumers like never before.
This emerged at the ITWeb CRM Summit in Bryanston yesterday. Speakers at the event pointed out that the contact centre had to be reinvented, enterprises had to pay close attention to what was being said about them online, and businesses needed to study the new CPA or risk running foul of stringent new laws.
In a talk designed to “scare the hell” out of delegates, Durban attorney and CPA expert Roger Knowles said the CPA forces businesses to not only be responsible, but also proactive in their customer service.
“Organisations will face criminal consequences if they do not adhere to the legislation,” he said, pointing out that the Act makes provision for substantial fines and even imprisonment for those who contravene it.
“This is the first American-style legislation that SA has seen, where the customer is always right,” he said.
Other speakers echoed Knowles' sentiments, warning that failure to ensure an exceptional customer experience has a negative impact on business on several levels.
They noted that organisations need to take greater care of their contact people, ensuring that the proper training and technologies are in place to support them. Contact centres are vitally important and are often the customer's only point of contact with an enterprise, said Karmy Padayachee, head of client services at Discovery Health.
Technology plays a vital role in the contact centre and tools like interaction analytics, which identify key words and phrases, allow calls to be routed to an agent suited to handle the type of customer they will be speaking to, will assist in alleviating frustration levels in service, Padayachee noted.
CRM may not be easy, but there are many technology innovations available to assist organisations with the challenges faced.
So added Graham Davis, director of IMMIX online solutions, who said CRM is a business strategy first and a technology second.
The only way to be truly successful with CRM, he said, is to mitigate risk and continuously nurture organisational behaviour to produce the desired result.
Speakers noted that the Internet is changing the face of CRM through its associated options for cloud computing, and through the way customers interact with companies and each other.
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