InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
June 21, 1999
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Mark Kieffer knows about Compaq's problems firsthand. The Plymouth, Minn., resident recently called Compaq's customer-support line about a faulty keyboard. The service representative was polite but took nearly 20 minutes to find Kieffer's registered serial number in Compaq's computerized records. It was the second time Kieffer was stuck on the phone with a Compaq support rep in conversations that, in his opinion, took too long and accomplished too little. "That's why I don't care to deal with them," he says.
US West also has work to do in improving its reputation with customers. The phone company came in last among the regional Bells in a 1998 satisfaction study by market researcher J.D. Power and Associates, ranking five points (on a scale of 1 to 100) below the industry average in customer service, a measurement based mainly on the competence of agents but influenced by the technology available to those agents.
US West's capital construction budget is almost $300 million, much of which goes toward IT. The investments are meant to provide some things that customers have asked for in satisfaction surveys: advanced products and services; reasonable prices; friendly, knowledgeable service agents; quick repairs; and an easy-to-read bill. "Those are some fairly tall orders when you think of the systems requirements," says David Laube, VP and CIO at US West.
Laube attributes the company's poor showings to one problem in particular: held orders. Seven of the 14 states US West serves are among the 10 fastest-growing regions in the United States, and an explosion of Internet use in the region has driven up average call times and requests for second lines. The company hasn't been able to keep up. "It creates the impression that US West is struggling to service its customers," Laube says.
When it comes to speeding US West's efforts to increase capacity, Laube says, IT can only do so much. "We can streamline the ordering process or the forecasting process, but we don't have the ability to influence the delivery schedule," he says. "Systems are not a panacea." (See sidebar story, "Call Centers Shape US West's Service.")
United Airlines Inc. placed last on a 1998 airline quality survey conducted by Wichita State University and the University of Nebraska that took into account several measures of customer service. That's despite the fact that the airline embarked in 1997 on a "customer-satisfaction philosophy" with plans to invest some $930 million in in-flight comfort, entertainment, and technology, and another $93 million to improve airport communications and check-in.
United's IT systems include Unix decision-support tools that help determine the impact cancellations will have on operations, and another data-analysis application for flight planning. "It helps us improve our on-time performance by doing better planning," says senior VP and CIO Bruce Parker.Going forward, United plans to use its Web site to boost customer service by capturing data collected from visitors' profiles so agents can use that information when customers book flights. United is also prototyping a system that will combine a customer's profile and mileage statistics with operational performance. "If we've serviced you multiple times and you approach an agent, the system looks in the background at a number of parametersand calculates the service we've given you. Then the system can make recommendations that agent may want to take,'' Parker says.
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Illustration by John Bleck
Photo by Ray Ng
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