Case Management Takes a Dynamic Turn

Customer Contributions

Companies can lessen the workload on agents by investing in case management applications that allow customers to create their own trouble tickets or case folders and track them throughout the process.

And then, "the customer should be able to come back and amend [the case file] as needed," Chung says. "The customer should be able to add things—like photos—to the case file as necessary, and if the issue is resolved, the customer should be able to close the case on his own."

Similarly, customers should be allowed to check the status of cases on their own without having to call the contact center. "Having that kind of visibility online is tremendously helpful to the customer and does not take time away from the agent to report a simple status update," Chung says. "Let the agents work toward a resolution rather than delivering updates to customers."

This would, of course, require the company to create some kind of secure customer login process for its cases, but the rewards of doing so could be compelling. "That self-service experience of managing your own case empowers [customers]," Chung explains. "Customers sometimes feel that their service requests go into a black hole and nobody knows where they wind up."

That's not the case (pun intended) at TMA Resources, where customers can submit their own trouble tickets, get case status updates, and close cases once a resolution is reached, all via an interactive Web portal.

"Wizards simplify the entire process for them," Bitman says. "They pick the scenario and then we have the rules in place so the system knows where to route the case."

She estimates that in 90 percent of her company's cases, customers engage in some level of self-service, submitting their own trouble tickets rather than emailing them into to the reps, who then would have had to enter them manually into the company's internal ticketing system. That has freed up the agents, who previously spent about 25 percent of their time on administrative duties related to their cases, to concentrate on more important customer service issues.

Also in place at TMA Resources is a component in the case management system that lets customers provide feedback after the case is closed. On the 1,600 ticket feedback surveys that TMA got back last year, the company averaged a score of 4.55 on a five-point scale.

UserVoice's solution allows customers to reward support staff for providing good customer service with a "kudos" feature. Using a touch of gamification to acknowledge the good work of contact center agents, UserVoice's Full-Service application enables support staff to bask in the glory and watch the success of their colleagues via a group dashboard.

"It gives the agent a sense of accomplishment," White says. "It's been a very valuable tool."

Arussy agrees that this is an important feature. "You really need a customer feedback portal today," he says.

And then, it's vitally important that the contact center is able to share all information and feedback contained in the case file with other departments that could benefit from the information. "You want to take it all the way to sharing it with the rest of the company to avoid similar problems the next time around," Arussy says. "This helps to address problems proactively before they hit the contact center."

He adds, "That should be the key goal of any case management app: Do we have the ability to become smarter for the next time around?"

Pegasystems' Kim says it's even more basic than that. "Don't confuse case management with the simple act of routing documents or work," he says. "You need to implement [case management] with the notion of managing to specific business and customer outcomes."

Make It Multichannel

But where customers are concerned, there are so many reasons for calling, and so many possible desired outcomes. That's why, when selecting a case management app, it's important to choose one "that is sized right for the company and the types of interactions it gets," Leggett says. "Then try to understand what the customer wants to do and what customers are calling about."

Next, she suggests that companies look at the channels that their customers use to interact with them and seek solutions that support those channels. Applications should be channel-aware and capable of moving seamlessly between channels, the experts agree.

Having a case management application that can cut across channels is key to a successful deployment, but Ragsdale and others say it's easier said than done. The idea, "conceptually, is very straightforward, but, of course, all but impossible, since everyone implemented channels one at a time, from different vendors, with nothing integrated," Ragsdale says.

Leggett agrees, noting that transactional and customer data is neither consistent nor regularly available across channels. But, she adds, it should be.

More than that, when customers move from one channel to the next, the case management app should make it possible for all of their information to travel with them.

The company should be able to respond to the customer on the same channels where the case originated, but that is rare as well, Leggett points out. "If your case starts in email, it's usually stuck in email because the agent does not have access to what you did in any of the other channels," she says.

Part of the reason for that, according to Subramaniam, is that companies are still trying to figure out how and when to respond to customer issues. With each channel, there are certain service levels that are expected, he says, noting that customers who reach out via social media want an immediate response, while a company can wait up to a day to respond to an email.

Admittedly, though, many companies might not be ready to deploy a case management solution across all channels, but that shouldn't prevent them from moving forward. "Many companies can start with the phone and email. They can always add more later," Chung says.

---

News Editor Leonard Klie can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.

---

Related Articles

Pegasystems Enhances Its Customer Process Manager

The company adds collaboration, predictive features for customers and support agents.

Microsoft to Update Dynamics CRM

Enhancements include more social and video collaboration capabilities.

OpenQ Launches Social Enterprise Compliance Suite

Solution lets healthcare, life sciences companies flag, classify, and act on identified risks

KANA Introduces Enterprise-Class Social CRM

KANA enables enterprises to listen to conversations, derive insights, and engage with customers.

Pegasystems Extends Social Media Capabilities in CPM Solution

Offering enables organizations to seamlessly monitor, analyze, and act on social media interactions.