There is nothing like a crisis to make people, and organizations, examine what they are doing and how they are doing it to get their processes right in order to survive. The ones who realize this may also find that the solutions, such as applying the right technologies are often surprisingly feasible, and can help them achieve greater success when the bad times have passed.

 

Ron Wegmann, Sr.,CEO of Vertical Solutions, which makes service and contact center management software, pointed out in a dialogue with TMCnet that when times are good it is easy to overlook business problems. Everyone is too busy handling the incoming work to even think about what they could be doing better. Yet when the economy turns sour, the first reaction for most companies is to save cash by putting off any new investments, and ride out the storm. Either way the underlying issues are ignored.

 

“Challenging economic times definitely stress a company’s budget, but they can pose an opportunity for companies to discover and fix things that are costing them money, preventing them from growing, or both,” observes Wegmann. “While it might seem counterintuitive, investing in technology is sometimes the best way for companies to achieve success in a down economy.”
 
No vendor can control a buyer’s budget he points out. But companies can control how they treat existing customers. Customer service is often the most important differentiator in customer retention.

 

“In our work with the service divisions of multiple large companies, we’ve found that companies that do the work of discovering and rectifying bad business processes reap rewards many times the cost of their investments,” says Wegmann. “Companies do have to invest in tools and technologies to support positive change. But, with the multitude of choices available with support technologies, it’s possible to structure those investments to deliver returns quickly without busting the budget.”

 

The Vertical Solutions CEO offers these steps that companies can take to use this time to effect positive change.
 
*Revamp your business processes

Few companies have well-documented, current records of their core business processes. Do you know all of the steps that your agents have to take and applications they must access to receive, research, resolve, log, and close service calls? Can you track what’s involved in getting that information to the groups that manage warranty information and bill for services? These processes tend to morph over time, with most companies developing bad habits and work-arounds that can create hidden problems.
 
“When we work with companies to document business processes, we often find that agents and service personnel have to go back and forth between multiple systems, databases, tools, and departments just to find and use the basic information they need to support customers,” reports Wegmann. “This frustrates agents, slows down the pace of service, irritates customers, and wastes time and money.”

 

The root cause lies in maintaining what he calls “dinosaur apps.” Just about every company has vital business information in an outdated legacy application, but which everyone fears to touch because it is so fragile, and because they perceive it will be too expensive to replace.

 

But companies waste so many dollars maintaining these dinosaur apps. And the hidden costs are staggering: when companies start measuring the time agents spend bouncing between systems and applications, they are surprised at how fast the costs add up. In a down economy, the pace of business is slower, and offers an opportunity to get an accurate picture of your business processes, and do the work involved to streamline and improve them.
 
*Invest in the right technology 

With streamlined business processes in hand it’s time to invest in the technology that will bring them to life. For many companies, it is counterintuitive to spend money in this economy on new technology. However, the opposite is true: for every $100 that companies “save”, they can be losing upwards of $150 by not taking advantage of streamlined processes and maximizing customer relationships.

 

“The right technology can enable your agents to do more with less, and boost customer satisfaction in the process,” says Wegmann.
 
While deploying technology is an expense, there are several approaches that can make it more palatable for companies on tight budgets, he says. The first is by taking advantage of SaaS (News - Alert), or web-based applications. Unlike on-premise applications, which are a capital cost, SaaS applications are usually billed on a subscription basis, and qualify as operating costs. Companies don’t need to invest in the entire package outright, and can avoid the internal IT costs associated with installing and maintaining the application. For some companies, SaaS is a good long-term solution; others may want to migrate to an on-premise approach eventually. Find a vendor that offers both options to ensure that your company can make the move when the time is right.
 
Another way to save money is using a modular approach. While many enterprise software applications require companies to completely re-do their entire support infrastructure, others offer modular applications that can be deployed a piece at a time. This not only lowers expenses, it ensures that companies can quickly take advantage of the benefits of improved technology. Review the business processes to discover those that cost the business the most in terms of lost productivity, or that hinder the company’s growth. Those are the areas that should be tackled first, and a modular software approach enables companies to reap the gains immediately.

 

“Processes that would be ‘nice to fix’ can wait until the company’s coffers are flush,” Wegmann recommends. “Those that are holding the company back should be addressed immediately.”
 
*Invest in training your support team

Once you have streamlined your processes and have implemented technologies to support them, ensure that your customer-facing service and support team knows how to use them to maximum effect. Help your workforce understand how to use the new tools, and explain to them the benefits of the new processes. Happy support agents provide better support, he says, and customers readily notice when they are not happy.