by jason on June 23, 2009
I spent last week in Boston at the Internet Retailers Conference and Exhibition. The conference is billed as the largest of its kind in the world. It would be hard to dispute that.
Evidence of the continued growth of online commerce spread far and wide, as row after row of e-vendors tried to move their wares one demo at a time. If you consider yourself an observer of people, a conference like IRCE provides plenty of material for your consideration.
Email Center Pro set up shop at the Velaro booth (as we just completed an integration with the chat service) and fielded demonstration opportunities early and often. That lasted a day and half. On the third day, we pulled down our banner and began walking the floor. That’s when the understood truth about Email Center Pro came to light again: she was built to service the e-commerce industry.
The stories coming from some of the vendors themselves were rich with email management troubles and inconsistencies. And most of them caught the vision for how the service could aide their own customers. If I had a dollar for every time I got a sheepish smile when I said “Email Center Pro was designed to ensure that you’re no longer sending mixed or duplicated messages,” I would’ve had enough for at least one Boston cab fare.
And that came as no surprise. Email Center Pro was designed to fix that very problem at Palo Alto Software. Said one gentleman, who was in attendance as the owner of DSOL, www.danceshoesonline.com: “The new web has provided niche opportunities to sell just about anything online. But there’s always going to be a need for managing the email.”
I couldn’t have conveyed it better myself.
Flickr photo by fotogail
This is the third installment in the series, “Email: A View From Above”. Stay tuned while we continue to take an unconventional look at what email has to offer. This communication channel is not entirely based on spam or marketing blasts…
If you’re part of a large organization, there’s a chance that you’re using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application to track various interactions with customers. You get insight into conversations, the sales process and more. And you’re able to use that information to touch base with those customers, design campaigns for further sales’ pursuits and generally grow your business.
But maybe you “suffer” from any of the following:
- You’re not part of a large organization
- You don’t spend a lot of time in your company’s CRM (if one exists)
- You’re looking for information not directly related to a specific customer
Where do you go for a living history of your organization?
Well, if it’s managed in a transparent way, from a centralized interface, the answer to that question would be email. Perhaps email is the bane of your existence and right now you’ve just begun to compose the comment that says “the only thing that we could use email to track is the number of headaches from which we suffer daily.”
If that’s the case, then I’m sorry. Refer to this post from a couple of days ago to learn about a more effective way to manage email. Once you’re doing that, here’s a brief look at the kind of visibility you’ll enjoy:
1. Engagement with customers: At Palo Alto Software, the bulk of our customer interaction is managed through email. Is it safe to say you’re experiencing the same? Email provides a deep well of potentially organized touch points from which to draw.
2. Internal work ownership and flow: Who sent which email on what day? These could serve as important bits of information that relate to duty designation, and how questions and concerns are typically addressed.
3. Oversight and performance assessment: Using email to capture the living history of your organization is not just about tracking customer records. It’s also about looking at the inner workings of how certain members of your team are behaving on a day-to-day basis. The ability to peek at effectiveness and efficiency can be invaluable.
4. Feedback and customer service overview: Are your customers being served in a manner that fits with your foundational commitments? Email is a revealing place to look at how your staff, whether it’s one person or 100, is upholding the value system of the company.
5. Written record of an indisputable nature: It might be relatively easy to dispute a phone call gone awry. We know that every recording says “This call may be recorded for quality assurance.” But it’s still much easier to take a quick peek at email messages if you’re using a software solution that permits that kind of visibility. And that quick peek can reveal things related either to the customer or employee.
What it all means
Things at your organization likely move pretty quickly, and in various directions simultaneously. Perhaps you’ve set up methods for tracking all of this behavior. Is email one of them? Much of the information you need is in there, available if the appropriate systems are in place.
Be sure and check back tomorrow for the fourth, and final, post in this series: “Want to Acquire and Retain Customers? Try Email”
