New research findings released in Europe show for the first time that sound customer management is linked with sustainable strong business performance. The assessment of 21 top European companies was carried out using the customer management assessment tool (CMAT), developed by UK company QCi.
[VIDEO]CMAT uses a model that analyses all aspects of customer management - from strategic planning and people, to what competitors are doing and what technology is in place.
CMAT uses over 270 best practice questions and includes an investigation lasting up to six weeks to assess customer management performance. It also takes into account the existence of a documented customer management plan, evidence of implementation and measurable impact.
A white paper based on the assessments reports that senior managers often pay lip-service to customer management, without really believing that it has an impact on their bottom line. However, the white paper notes that many companies over-estimate the effectiveness of their customer service programmes.
It says the study showed a positive correlation between good business performance and good customer management, as measured using CMAT.
To enable local companies to quantify their customer management practices and benchmark them against global standards, Knowledge Factory is rolling out CMAT in southern Africa under a licence agreement with QCi.
Knowledge Factory CEO Doug Leather says CMAT offers the local market objective, independent and quantifiable assessment of customer management practices for the first time. He says over 500 CMAT assessments have been conducted overseas to date, delivering sound benchmarks for local companies to measure themselves against.
"The assessments completed so far show a clear correlation between good customer management and bottom line performance," says Leather. "Interestingly, the companies that scored highest overall in the assessments also had the highest score in areas relating to people and organisational practices.
"Based on global research, the most customer management-oriented companies are in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and the UK, followed by the US and Asia Pacific," says Leather.
"In the US, most companies scored higher in customer management areas focusing on measuring customer impact, while Asia Pacific countries tended to score best in areas related to information and technology. I suspect South African companies also tend to focus on technology, rather than organisational aspects of customer management."
However, the first local CMAT assessment has only been completed recently, so local patterns have not yet been established.
Leather points out that until now, measuring the effectiveness of customer management strategies has been difficult. In many cases, company management has a skewed view of how effective a company`s customer management is. "CMAT gives a quantitative, objective reality check that can be used as a key performance indicator," he says.
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