case study | twenty-one
fundamentally re-engineering the thinking
within the business and by allowing all
employees to contribute.
First Aid Programme
A key part of the Customer 1st aid programme
was to focus on identifying and resolving
failures across the business which could
negatively impact the customer experience,
whilst at the same time increasing
engagement by empowering all colleagues
to make a difference. The company wanted to
harness the experiences of its own employees
as customers by providing them with a way
to fl ag incidents; to highlight whenever
they had a bad shopping experience and
to suggest what a potential solution might
be. Not only did this allow customer-facing
issues to be investigated and resolved, it also
engaged colleagues across the business and
empowered everyone to make a difference
and improve the customer experience.
In response, a process was set up whereby
issues were logged on an Intranet page and
the Customer 1st aid Administration Team
would then use manual systems, such as A core part of company strategy, Customer “Understanding that
spreadsheets, to manage these issues. It 1st aid was a fast growing initiative that had
customers are the most
quickly became apparent that, although the buy-in from senior management, so it was
system was extremely successful, it could not critical that a solution was found as soon as
important part of any
continue in its existing form and that a unifi ed possible. Fortunately it quickly became clear
retail business prompted
system was needed to enable the Customer 1st that the process of ‘issue’ raising, assigning
aid Team to better manage incidents, identify and resolving was similar to the IT Incident
us to change the way
trends and put an end to avoidable recurring Management process; a well established we thought, by putting
customer issues. In order to improve the process within the IT team which had been
the customer experience
effectiveness of this customer service process, managed successfully for nine years with the
the business approached IT to ask if they help of the assyst software from Axios Systems.
ahead of everything else”
could design a more effi cient and practical
Sheila Liddell, change management team
solution.
leader, Shop Direct
How assyst aided
customer retention
A prime example of customer retention resulting directly from the
Customer 1st aid initiative:
When paying in ‘My Account’ on Shop Direct websites, customers are asked to enter the issue
date of their card using a drop-down box. The drop-down box, however, did not have an option
to enter any 2008 issue dates; anyone with a card issued from 01/01/2008 was therefore
unable to complete the transaction online. The customer then had to call the contact centre to
pay over the phone; an inconvenience which could potentially have discouraged that customer
from making further purchases. Having been identifi ed as a problem, the team was able to
quickly make the change and improve the customer experience.
august.september | 2009 SupportWorld
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36