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9/1/05 - Customer Retention Gone Wrong
Tell me how I'm measured and I'll tell you how I'll act. That's the story with AOL. It turns out AOL customer service reps were given financial incentives to prevent subscribers from leaving the business.
Although AOL defended their customer retention program, they agreed to pay a $1.25M fine and change the practice. What was the practice? AOL customer representatives received bonuses of thousands of dollars if they managed to retain about half of the people who called trying to cancel service -- and that led some employees to fail to process such requests.
This is a classic case of having the right objective (retain customers that want to defect) but doing it in the wrong way (failing to process requests). It's certainly legitimate to point out potentially overlooked features that might keep customers in the fold but incentives that ignore customer wishes is just plain wrong. Care to share your experience with customer retention gone wrong?
Gary Lemke, Publisher
(Share your thoughts)
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TODAY'S NEWS (more)
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Salesboom.com announced the release of Salesboom.com v6.0, the latest release of Salesboom hosted CRM software updates. Salesboom v6.0 introduces a wide range of new features, from tools that its competitors do not have like Sales Team Management as well as Recurring Events and Tasks management; to a new focus on the Customer Lifecycle & Value, and Return on Customer (ROC) metrics.
Siemens Communications announced HiPath Xpressions Version 4.0, a solution that enables employees - especially mobile workers - to more efficiently manage and retrieve voice, e-mail and fax correspondence via a personal computer or telephone. The HiPath Xpressions portfolio provides enterprises with more deployment options and now includes a speech recognition command module and other mobility features designed with the message-management challenges of remote and on-the-go workers in mind.
SDL International announced that its client SMS Demag improved customer satisfaction by using its SDL global information management solution for the translation of engineering and operations documents. With SDL, SMS Demag accelerated and improved the information it produces for customers.
Mercury Interactive and Deloitte Consulting announced an alliance to cooperatively deliver sustainable compliance offerings to help address compliance mandates such as Sarbanes-Oxley. Deloitte Consulting will utilize Mercury IT Governance Center(TM) and Mercury's IT service management accelerators to compliment its approach to help companies establish a sustainable Sarbanes-Oxley compliance infrastructure.
SITEL announced it has been awarded a multi-year contract with Telenet, a leading Belgian cable television, high speed internet and telephony provider, to manage a substantial part of their customer contacts. The three-year agreement further underscores SITEL's success in building long term partnership with major brands on the Belgian market.
Sage Software announced a partnership with the Association of Small Business Development Centers (ASBDC). The partnership aligns Sage Software certified consultants with Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs) to offer start-ups and growing businesses the management tools, training and support services that aid efficient business operations.
Telefonica Moviles has launched its 3G mobile broadband services in Guatemala using CDMA2000 1xEV-DO technology from Nortel. The new EV-DO high-speed network allows Telefonica to expand its subscriber services to include 'anytime, anywhere' access to a variety of services such as Web browsing and downloads of large video and music files at speeds comparable to wireline broadband connections like DSL.
Don Schenker, President, Synergistix Data Solutions, announces that Stiefel Laboratories has extended their contractual agreement to work with Synergistix as their Sales Force Automation solution provider for an additional three year term.
Ross Systems announced that it has attained Gold Certified status in the Microsoft Partner Program with a competency in Microsoft Business Solutions. As a Gold Certified Partner, Ross and the company's flagship offering, iRenaissance, have both demonstrated expertise with Microsoft Technologies and proven ability to meet customers' needs.
Virtual-Agent Services (VAS) announced that it has established its twelfth customer care location in the Village of Rogersville, New Brunswick, Canada. VAS currently provides inbound services to a number of high profile clients including CVS Pharmacy, CenterPoint Energy Minnesota Gas, Mobil Travel Guide, TravelCLICK, Passkey International, and Morgans Hotel Group.
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 FEATURE WEBCAST (more) |
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"Transforming Your Enterprise with A Real-Time Contact Center"
Donna Fluss, Principal, DMG Consulting
From her soon to be released book ("The Real-Time Contact Center), Ms. Fluss shares her thoughts on how new systems, tools and best practices can transform your contact center from a closed operating environment into an essential corporate player. Learn how hot trends like IP, offshore outsourcing, performance management and real-time analytics will make the next five years the most exciting in contact center history.
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| CRMAdvocate Stock Index |
| CRMSI | 38.69 |  | 0.48% |
| Dow Jones | 10,481.60 | | 0.66% |
| Nasdaq | 2,152.09 | | 1.04% |
| S&P 500 | 1,220.33 | | 0.98% |
| Top Gainers |
| NICE | 43.24 | | 0.88 |
| Amdocs | 29.35 | | 0.85 |
| SAP | 42.67 | | 0.67 |
| Top Losers |
| West Tel | 38.74 |  | -0.67 |
| eLoyalty | 6.39 | | -0.23 |
| Interact Intell | 6.01 | | -0.12 |
| Complete Stock Index |
| As of close 08/31/05 | |
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 Case Studies (more)
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AXA Australia With Verint - Learn how Axa Australia used Verint's ULTRA suite of Contact Center Actionable Intelligence Solutions to improve process efficiencies, boost supervisor productivity, enhance compliance with regulatory requirements, and significantly increase agent quality scores.(Verint Systems)
|  | | Prophet 2004, a Sales Opportunity Management Solution - After looking at sales management software including Prophet 2004, ACT! and custom development, Brandrud selected Prophet to help their sales organization establish a sales process for the first time in company history.(Avidian Technologies)
| | | Carlson Hospitality Worldwide with IEX - In the first year, CHW said it eliminated 1,000 hours of shrinkage per month and reduced labor costs by 8 percent. Manual processes were automated and cycle time was reduced.(IEX Corporation, a Tekelec Company)
| | | MEDEX Global Group With Epicor - MEDEX needed a CRM system with integration capabilities to enable sharing of information across the organization. They found their solution in Epicor Clientele CRM.NET and can now share detailed contract and service information, have improved flexibility in adapting to growth and changing business processes through Web services architecture, and the ability to create HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliant reporting.(Epicor Software Corporation)
| | | EDS-Saturn Can Grow with Witness - The most critical factor in EDS-Saturn's decision to implement eQuality was the software's ability to grow with the organization and meet ever-changing industry demands. While EDS-Saturn currently uses eQuality to record interactions from both a voice and data perspective, the software can evolve with EDS-Saturn as the organization adopts other mediums for interacting with customers, including e-mail and Web chat.(Witness Systems)
| | | Carlson Marketing Group With IEX - Within six months of implementing IEX Carlson Marketing had already seen a service level increase of nearly 10 percent.(IEX Corporation, a Tekelec Company)
| | | Opalis Software Uses CRM and Reduces Time Per Transaction - To gain clarity into their own business, learn more about their customers, and improve the way departments interact with each other and with customers, Rob Tavares, Vice President of Sales, Opalis Software, invested in a customer relationship management (CRM) system and integrated it with existing technologies, like Intuit's QuickBooks.(Maximizer Software)
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"OUR TAKE"