sep 23. 2008 13:29 | telenorge.no

"New customers are, in reality, customers you have stolen from a competitor, often through an effective use of a call centre," says Thomas Wolf, CEO of NextCom. "At the same time," he stresses "good CRM services is a key to keep the customers."

- "We tend to talk about a market that is fully penetrated. Operators under such competitive conditions have to ensure a high volume of sales to maintain or increase their market share. The call centres become an invaluable resource."

- "We talk not only about new sales, but also on the cross-sale, upgrades, subscription renewal, win-back of lost subscribers, and a well-functioning service centre that reduces drop-out of existing customers," says Wolf.

Low level of knowledge

Telecom operators have often enough on their mind to take care of development and maintenance of their own infrastructure, product development, dealer network and brand. An equally important task is to maintain active sales and marketing by telephone, both towards their own customer base and new potential customers. Telemarketing has proven to be difficult for any telecom operator and nearly impossible when only selling their own products, if it's going to be done profitably.

The result is that increasingly numbers of telecom operators outsource this part of the business to the professional call centres that know telemarketing and telephone sales and call centre operations.

This has not been without problems, since a number of very young call centres represent a culture in which employees often come straight from the school. In other words,these students often have narrow experience of customer care and often only work a few months in a call entre before they move ahead to new challenges and experiences. It is a poorly hidden secret that turnover of employees in a call centre is huge and that this also reflects the professional level of the employees.

- "It is with all this in mind that NextCom has developed a tailor made system for professional call centre operations aimed at the telecom industry. The system is based on the current regulations, adopted industry standards, and guidelines from contractors," says Wolf who already has signed approved telecom operators for their list of customers.

Quality and efficiency - at all levels

- " The system manages all the tasks for the employees the entire work day, ensuring that everyone does as they are required, while performing the tasks without errors."

- "We have invested a substantial amount of effort to ensure quality in all aspects. The first time an employee logs into the system, he or she must fill in all their details before they can proceed," adds Mr. Wolf.

In practice what happens is that a seller writes his own employment certificate. Data from the contract has already been added.

Based on input from the manager, lists/leads, which the seller will process, are provided by the system. This way each and every one will know what tasks he or she should do during the workday. All possible statistics about a seller will be evaluated and synchronized into a measurement tool which, again, will give ongoing feedback to support each and every employee to improve performance. The system also monitors all information about the market which are sorted and presented to the seller's main page so that they are updated on market developments.

Customized to the client

"The system is also born with the restrictions and industry standards of Nordma, the Norwegian Direct Marketing Association, and the current rules that the government set for telemarketing operations," says Wolf. He also makes a point that The Central Marketing Exclusion Register regularly is processed into the system and that the system has a stop function that prevents a seller from calling someone in this registry.

The system adapts to the client's desires and requirements. If a client, for instance, has decided that a customer, who already has landline, are to not get inquiries about IP telephony, it will be a restriction in the system that makes it impossible for a seller to break this rule.

Complete set of CRM tools

The system has a complete set of CRM tools if that would be desirable. The advantage is that all the information for each customer will be logged. When a customer calls the service centre, the system will automatically scan the database for phone numbers to see if it can find a match. If the system identifies the customer, the customer card will automatically pop up with all the history. At the same time, new information achieved by the call will be logged.

The system also provides an advanced segmentation tool that suggests which customers to call, based on who are the most likely ones to make a purchase.

For each customer card a seller (the employee) receives, the system will suggest what services he or she should offer to the customer. The proposal is based on the historical development of the customer in the client's own database (the products he has ordered/cancelled, information from Statistics Norway, personal information and ultimately the seller's history).

The CRM system has also incorporated a separate e-mail generator. A seller (the employee) just clicks on an icon on the customer card to send e-mail to a customer. By this solution, every mail correspondence will also be logged to the customer. This way this important information will not be lost if an employee ends his or her career, and their ordinary e-mail account is deleted.

Ensures the follow-up service

Many procedures often starts without particular thoughts about the operation and development to come. Creating relationships can be done in many ways; but no matter which approach you choose, it is essential to store and systematize customer data to ensure the correct follow-up. It is a well- known fact that the lack of this service often is crucial to whether a particular customer ends the relationship or not.

As companies grow, it is often difficult to relate to each individual customer. There is more information to overcome and less time to follow-up customers closely.

Effective management of customer relationships is still a key to success. The cost of loosing customers is something your company does take seriously?