What are the business benefits of outsourcing customer care to a specialist?
MT. What you have to realize is that you are outsourcing the main touch points of the customer to someone outside of your company. Having this outsourced specialist contact may look good on the surface but if there is a disconnect with your company’s values it can spell disaster. It is very important that ramping up a specialist with the right company training and setting up the right metrics to track what is going on. CXO. In your opinion, what issues in general need addressing in the industry? MT. I think companies have to rethink their CRM strategy and migrate it to a more Customer Experience Management model. Earlier CRM initiatives were pretty much one-sided and one directional. The emphasis today should focus on aligning their CRM strategy, with the customer facing employees and making sure that the customer is actually receiving and acting upon this strategy. Michael Thomas is National President and Board member of the CRM Association (www.crmassociation.org). In 2004 he receive
