12 - Customer Service

Abstract

Every Web site is a self-service operation inasmuch as it is interactive and driven by the customer. The quality and levels of customer service experienced by so many on the Web have undermined users' confidence in the medium as a channel for resolving their customer service needs. As a result of this disappointment and frustration, however, Web-based customer (self-)service has become a key area of competitive advantage. Improving the quality of customer service one delivers via the Web site is thus an important part of maintaining and evolving a successful commercial site. For Web-based customer service to really work, the site must be just that: a front end to a much larger, and integrated, customer service back-end system. Single customer view is vital when it comes to offering really top-class customer service across all customer contact points. There is a need of a fully integrated customer service operation that can feed off a single customer view if every customer service representative or Web-based self-service system is to be fully up to date on who a customer is; what the status of their account, inquiry or order is; and what their interaction history has been. Getting all the back-end systems integrated and the processes in place to make all this possible is no small task, but it has to happen if companies are going to meet the rising expectations of their customers.