The customer is king. Or so the mantra goes. But in execution, customer service remains a tenuous balance between improving customer satisfaction and managing the cost to serve. And not all customers are, in fact, equal. Some represent greater revenue or profit potential. Some represent a strategic gateway to new markets or the broader acceptance of new products. Some are willing to pay for premium services that dictate delivery against elevated expectations. Contracts that reflect various levels of commitments -- Service Level Agreements (SLAs) -- need to be respected.

Self-service portals are the most advanced solution to this challenge -- a new means to simultaneously address objectives that can seem at odds: delivering against rising service expectations while reducing operational costs. But many IT strategies seem little more than an elixir -- a magic potion to cure all that ails you, but often failing to deliver financial results. Real-world complications -- information availability in a usable format, systems integration and the human factor -- all can quickly erase expected benefits. An experienced and reliable partner is needed to bring practical and executable IT solutions to the table. Astea’s more than 20 years of experience have taught them what elements of new technologies will best serve each unique enterprise. Customized Web self service solutions are proving to be affordable solutions with promise for bottom line results.

The cost of handling customer issues is rising, as are service expectations. When well deployed, Web self-service can reduce operating costs while providing more timely and accurate information to users -- whether customers, employees or trading partners. But these self-service portals must not be treated as a standalone solution. Unless connected to broader business processes and practices, little may be achieved.

The real benefit of Web self-service is attained when viewed from a larger service perspective. Terms such as Service Lifecycle Management (SLM), Service Process Management (SPM) and Enterprise Service Management (ESM) have emerged to embrace the best of traditional Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and meld it with elements of Supply Chain (SCM) to holistically support service-related business practices for financial return. In a recent study of the so-called "aftermarket" industry, "Service Lifecycle Management (Part 1): The Approaches and Technologies to Build Sustainable Competitive Advantage for Services," AMR Research found that while service divisions of manufacturing companies typically generate only about 25 percent of a firm's revenue, they represent 40 to 50 percent of the company's profits, and yet only receive 20 percent of corporate IT investment. "This spending gap originates from the widely held but outdated perception that the service business is just a cash cow... However, leading companies are changing their attitude about services, moving away from the break/fix and spare parts mentality and becoming value-added service providers responsible for improving customer profitability and creating loyalty... To maximize revenue, companies should look at the service opportunity as a lifecycle rather than an event or even a series of discrete events. The lifecycle starts with the initial product sale and continues through the adoption of new products."

CAN YOU WAIT?
In a recent Webinar hosted by Astea International, Inc. speaker Michael Maoz of Gartner Inc. forecasted that through 2003, an inability to centrally coordinate customer service across channels will result in less than 20 percent of enterprises being able to present customers with a consistent experience (0.8 probability). He also forecasted that enterprises that do not reengineer their systems, operating environment, policies, procedures and staff as they add new channels will see their operating expense increase by 40 to 80 percent for each additional channel (0.7 probability).

By coordinating efforts across the enterprise, linking sales, service, support and marketing with a holistic view of the customer, and by providing customers access to preferred company touch points with consistent and coordinated knowledge, self-service provides a gateway to significant corporate performance improvements.