Workflow Sample: Customer service

Showing posts with label Customer service. Show all posts

Email newsletters are one of the tools to tell 'Valuable information for subscribers'.

The position of the e-mail newsletter, although which differs greatly depending on the issuer, for example, it is "marketing tool that directly related to the sales" for the mail-order company, also is an "Induction tool that greatly influences the access" for media sites. That is, it is not a few that email newsletters play a 'crucial role of the business'.

It is desirable that the process of creating manuscript would be 'processed quickly' and 'hardly mistaken'.

The following business process sample is an Email Newsletter Manuscript Creating Flow that about 20 manuscripts per month will be created. Both of "Regularly issuance three times a week Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday" and "Publishing in arbitrary timing" are assumed. These work procedures or automatic processing are devised to prevent retention and mistakes.

Automatically started on the day before the regular issuance
Deadline of each process is set explicitly
Automatically setting the stylized part such as 'date of issue' or 'Copyright Year'

< Organization Assumption >
One producer, one director, three Writers (Concurrently serving), three Illustrators (Concurrently serving) one Photographer (Concurrently serving)
(* The Director serves concurrently as an Illustrator)

[Email Newsletter Manuscript Creating Flow]

Split is different from Fork.

If it is railroad, trains will be led to either of the tracks at switches. If it is river, water flows into both of branches at forks. When it comes to Business, some cases it splits, some cases it forks.

The following Workflow definition, is for a quick decision on "Emergency" that should be shared in-house, at the time when "the earthquake occurred" or "weather warning issuance", or even "occurrence of serious service failure". Who should do what? What is the matters to be processed concurrently? The accurate information that has been organized as a result should be told quickly.

[Emergency sharing flow]

When it comes to duties such as 'Facebook marketing', for example, I don't want spare any time to make Operating rules separately. The time I finish making the Operating Manual, the spec of Facebook might have been changed. Just give up Business rules or Manuals filled with words, you'd rather regard a Workflow diagram (BPMN) as business rule. You can bring it running right now. (That will also reduce the time for Boards meeting.)

By the way, posting to 'Official Facebook Page' can be done by email. With a setting of automatic email sending in the middle of the Workflow, the article through the "necessary procedures" will be automatically posted without misses. (Can attach Images as well!)

[Facebook Page Posting flow]

"Proposal" is important in business for corporation.

In reality, although there is only way for those proposals 'To be created at the discretion of each individual salesperson', but their Sales executive must always worry that "I suspect if they present sloppy proposals..." But possibly, there might be a guy who is making 'a once in a lifetime proposal' at this moment. (It's the communication that counts!)

In anyhow, we would like to visualize 'the progress of creating proposal' for re-usability of it, and want to develop an environment conducive to give and to receive advices from colleagues. Here, we try to implement a business rule of "Get reviewed by at least one person before submit!" with Workflow.

[Proposal and Review flow(Taskfeed) ]

BPMS is also convenient as ' Supporting Complaint Tool'.
*BPMS: Business Process Management System

Indeed, even if a cross-department 'Complaints Support process' has determined, the 'Workflow To Be' would be changed. Adding handling products, changes in company organization, changes in business environment, in some cases it would be altered by periods and seasons. (It is difficult to conventional 'Workflow system' to make it out.)

In addition, we strongly suggest you to consider well on 'Data Items', when you build a 'Complaint Support Workflow'. That is,

What kind complaint and how often does it come in?
How long does it take to solve certain complaint?
Who supports it?

"Operational data" which enables analysis on these, must be recorded strictly.

For example, trying to think about choice data of 'Type of Complaint'... "1.Product Defect, 2.Unclear operating methods, 3.Gaps between the expectation, 4.Others" Are these enough? (Thinking over it, I can't sleep at night)

<Tasks>
1.Registration, 2.Designation, 3.Primary Response, 3b.Advise, 4.Final Response, 5.Rating

SFA stands for Sales Force Automation. That is a system to share "Sales information". Some information is by "walking his/her feet off", some is from "Information Request".

Examples of starting SFA process: Getting name cards at exhibition, applications for sales campaign, Product introduction during supporting claims, etc.

If you want to build your own sales flow, it is one of the way to study "business process to be" in BPM system, not using existing SFA services. The Flow you made would be "the competitiveness" of your own.

Incidentally, your policy that "what kind of Sales Information should be shared" must be seriously considered in advance in pursuing the originality. If the Policy was vague, it would end up mass-production of "salesmen struggling to futile entering work".

<Types of Sales Information>

A1. Grasp customer needs 'Visualization of Quote Data'
A2. Grasp competitors 'Competition with X's products'
A3. Feature customer interested in 'The modeling feature is very popular'
A4. Customer's budget 'The budget for 5 years is 100k'
B1. To share proposing activity 'I made a visit'
B2. To share personal connections 'That Director is my classmate'
B3. To share preparation 'Took 2 hours on PowerPoint'
B4. Advices 'Should send a letter not Email'
C1. Negotiation Schedule 'The settlement seems before the end of Oct.'
C2. Success - Failure management 'We Failed'

<Tasks>
1a. Request Support, 1b. Lead Info, 2. Assignment, 3. Primary Contact, 4. Contacts, 6. Result

Responding Query is a tough work. "Understanding" and "Expertise" are necessary, but also "Explanation" is much more important. Nobody can learn them overnight.
In any organization, it's good to share "Best Practices of answering query" among them. At first it takes time, but will gradually be improved in efficiency, quality and time it takes.
The following is, a Workflow that not only to create a statement in local language (e.g. Japanese) against a variety of queries, also on what should be managed as the FAQ, builds a database both in local languages and in English. Database compiling system may be different, but in any case data should be posted automatically upon completion of the Workflow.
-Internal Only FAQ: Groupware, In-house blog, Facebook Unpublished group, etc.
-Web Publishing FAQ: Official blog, Discussion site (Google Group), Facebook Published Group, etc.

<Tasks>
0. Manual, 0a. Exception, 1. Designation, 2. Create answer, 2a. Important clients, 2b. Advisory, 3. Passage, 4. FAQ, 5. Translate

[Query: [2. Create answer] screen]

"Cooperation of other divisions" is essential to handle complaints.

Even how sincere contact person heard and understood what Claimant thought and felt, it does not make sense if end up there.
It must be connected to,

Improve product quality (defective, missing, delayed delivery)
Improve services (denial of service, lower service levels)
Improve employee support (telephone calls, e-mail text)

in practice. There will be some complaint almost false accusation, of course. But before judging "to ignore them", there should be "appropriate steps". To establish procedures for their products first, and then to review its operating procedures, we want to apply the concept of BPM to handle complaint.

In the following Workflow model, employee who takes a complaint inputs the claim as it is at Task [1. Input Complaint]. And then designate who (all employees including the president, etc.) is responsible to it, but if no one can be designated, it goes to Customer Service Dep.
Should time and circumstances permit, we want to consider "complaints flow on Twitter or Facebook" found by chance as the target to handle.

<Tasks>
1. Input Complaint, 2. Designation, 3. Answer, 3b. Review

* Publish weekly since 6th of June for better quality!
* As the first of weekly issue, introducing <How to integrate Google Spreadsheets with QBPMS>Today

We offer Workflow Template for a variety of Business Category in "Workflow-Sample.net". Analyzing on the number of repeaters and duration of visits for each article, we see which category of business or business task draws attention. (Speaking of the recent developments in the Japanese version is "Telecommuting")

Among those categories, "Handling Complaints" gathers attention all the time. I guess all sorts of companies seek how they should build handling flow as well as how to contact with customers.
In particular,

When to share information with Supervisors and executives ?
By whom and how the handling be checked ?

would be difficult.

The following is a Workflow model assumed that handling complaint is the most important mission of the Director of Customer Service. All the answering sentence to the complaint will be sent after review (or modified) by the Director of Customer Service.

<Tasks>
1. Input Complaint, 2. Creating a primary answer, 3. The primary answer sentence review, 4. Creating a secondary answer, 5. Secondary answer sentence review

[Handle Complaints: "3. The primary answer sentence review" screen]

The key to smooth complaints treating is to share the know-how. In other words, how we manage "Best Practice".

It's alright to select the Best out of whole thing weekly or monthly. But we often apt to leave to chance putting it later for what you have right in front of you. You'd better put "Best Practice Point" sequentially through treating complaint.

Similar:

<Tasks>
1. Register Complaint, 2. Primary Respondent, 3. Correspondence, 4. Report, 5. Best Practice Point
2b. [Urgent] Primary Respondent, 3b. [Urgent] Correspondence

[Complaint Treatment-Best Practice: "5. Best Practice Point" screen]

The way how to treat complaints are different between companies for their scales or what the sell.
Even distributes on a distributes worth stationary, Listed company must treat it carefully. In other hand, for a company which distributes Free-software to the world wide, they must ignore some complaints. But in any case, accumulation of complaint and analysis on them are very important activity for maintaining their competitiveness.

In the Workflow model below, each complaint is filtered automatically and with higher priority can be acknowledged easier in sight.

Similar: "Shift Your Tension By "Type Of Complaint""

<Tasks>
1. Register Complaint, 2. Primary Respondent, 3. Correspondence, 4. Report
2b. [Urgent] Primary Respondent, 3b. [Urgent] Correspondence

[Complaint Treatment-Sort by Priority: "2b. [Urgent] Primary Respondent" screen]

"Complaints" should be treated in different ways up to such a case as the quality of merchandise or service was not good than company would provide, or as even the quality was good but the customer wasn't satisfied.

A. Deficient (merchandise or service was less than expected quality.)
B. Disappointment (Quality was enough but the customer expected more.)
C. Other (Complaint on others except merchandise or service)
D. Harassment

And about "a person who complains", we can classify into, for example,

1. Low risk of losing Regular
2. High risk of losing Regular
3. High chance of getting Regular
4. Low chance of getting Regular

Well now...A-1, B-3, C-2, which Complaint should be treated right away...?

<Tasks>
1.Register Complaint, 2. Primary Respondent, 3.Correspondence, 4. Report

[Complaint Treatment-Individual : "2. Primary Respondent" screen]

When managing complaint management with a Cloud computing workflow system, customer service staff can handle complaints at any time, from anywhere. It becomes relatively easy for global companies to prepare a 24 hour strong system.

Today's workflow sample allows customer service to return a prompt initial response, then follow it up later with a more detailed and accurate response. The two responses can be handled by separate members or by the same member.

<Related>

Tasks: 1. Confirm Complaint/Initial Response/Send On, 2. Second Response, 3. Approve/Revise/Return, 4. Handle Return, 5. Respond by Phone

[Complaint Management <Short-Cut>: "1. Confirm Complaint/Initial Response/Send On" screen]

Today is April Fools Day. (It's true!)
It's also the day that many Japanese companies accept new employees, just graduated from school. (No, we're not kidding!)

Today let's take our previous workflow from "How to Manage Complaints with Cloud Computing" and consider an example for companies that have new employees practice responding to complaints, as part of the orientation and training program.

Tasks: 1. Confirm Complaint/Respond/Send On, 2. Respond, 3. Approve/Revise/Return, 4. Handle Return, 5. Respond by Phone

[Complaint Management <Employee Training>: "3. Approve/Revise/Return" screen]

How speedily can your company respond to complaints?
The best way to manage complaints differs according to each company. In all cases, though, the quality and speed of responses are in reverse proportion to each other. Debates regarding Quick Response, customer satisfaction and concierge services are truly diverse, and solutions are never simple. This is where a BPM consultant's competence is tested.

One thing that is clear, however, is the importance of recording the current situation, or knowing how fast the current system is able to handle complaints. This is the first step to improvement.
For example, in today's workflow sample, the point is to measure the time between webform input and automatic email response.

Tasks: 1. Confirm Complaint/Respond/Send On, 2. Respond, 3. Approve/Revise/Return, 4. Handle Return

[Complaint Management <Record Response>: "1. Confirm Complaint/Respond/Send On" screen]

Speedily processing business data is one of the essential missions of workflow systems (BPMS). But sometimes, for example, in a workflow that handles external inquiries, something may come up that cannot be handled by one inquiry counter staff. In other words, the item has to be confirmed by other departments.

Today we'll be further improving the Inquiry Flow That Depends on Identified Keywords, which we designed to be able to monitor the amount of inquiries and respond quickly.

<Tasks>
0. Inquiry by Phone, etc., 1a. Emergency Inquiry, 1b. Password Inquiry, 1c. Application Inquiry, 1x. General Inquiry, 2b. Password Inquiry, 2c. Application Inquiry, 2x. General Inquiry, 3. Internal Advice, 4. Respond

[Inquiry Response <Internal Advice> : "1b. Password Inquiry" screen]

Routine work is good. As you continue handling external inquiries according to the workflow process, delivery and quality will naturally get better. The keyword here is "best practice management."

Today's workflow let's the team leader assess the responses. This makes it easier to find good samples to reuse or to use in new employee training.

<Tasks>
0. Inquiry by Phone, etc., 1a. Emergency Inquiry, 1b. Password Inquiry, 1c. Application Inquiry, 1x. General Inquiry, 2b. Password Inquiry, 2c. Application Inquiry, 2x. General Inquiry, 3. Assessment

[Inquiry Response <ML Share> : "Share" Email settings]

Processes for handling external inquires tend to become overloaded when the number of inquiries increase. That's the inevitable reality. Or is it? Even if the number of inquiries increases, the "number of types of inquiries" should not change dramatically. Automatically categorizing and separating the types of inquiries should be efficient for minimizing response time.

Today's workflow sample automatically changes the business rules if the system identifies a certain set of keywords within webform and email inquiries from external sources.

<Tasks>
0. Inquiry by Phone, etc., 1a. Emergency Inquiry, 1b. Password Inquiry, 1c. Application Inquiry, 1x. General Inquiry, 2b. Password Inquiry, 2c. Application Inquiry, 2x. General Inquiry

<Related Workflows>

If You Want to Assign Respondents Based on the Type of Inquiry

[Inquiry Response <Auto Category> : "1b. Password Inquiry" screen]

Inquiry Management is, actually, a business flow that requires collaboration between departments.

Specific needs differ depending on the business, but a frequent one is the hand-over to sales. Today's sample workflow adds a task for the sales department's action towards prospective clients (6. Sales Action).

Process owners should work on improving the operation of their workflows. If forgotten and neglected after being designed, workflows will not function smoothly.

In today's sample workflow, the process owner uploads exemplary responses to the FAQ page, and customer service members use these as reference. If this cycle continues, the response time should be reduced over time. It's also a good idea to share Kaizen goals with the team, such as "This month we want to break the 10-hour average response time. Next month, 8 hours!"

(Related articles)
"How to Measure Inquiry Response Speed"
"If You Want to Assign Respondents Based on the Inquiry Content"
"If You Want to Assign Respondents Based on the Type of Inquiry"