Delivering Value with IT
Customer service delivery is an important part of business operations. The quality of service delivery by a business organization will either improve or degrade the loyalty of customers to the business brand. With stiff competition in the current market, consumers have more than enough alternatives to choose from. Therefore, for a business to have a clear competitive advantage it must prove to be responsive to customers demands. Using modern IT in the operations of a business can help in anticipating customers needs. Information Technology is essential for tailoring the processes of service delivery to give the best services to customers and improve efficiency of business operations. Many companies are using IT in handling customer services in an efficient and cost effective manner.
Technology provides a means to improve internal communication, productivity, and efficiency with the business organization. Information technology helps the business organization to provide seamless services to customers. It helps in creating new and the most effective service delivery, which is important in the satisfaction of customers. On the other hand, there are portions of population that do not feel comfortable with technology. It may cause a barrier to service delivery. In modern business environment, the key to management of information and data collection, data mining, and analysis is the use of IT. The use of IT software in management enhances a collective management of knowledge from all departments of the business organization. The use of IT in a business environment applies a set of practices essential to maximize the business value of knowledge in terms of service delivery.
The use of IT is essential in collecting, structuring, and delivering services to customers in a satisfactory manner. In order to achieve a high value of delivery services, the IT services help organizations to understand patterns and relationships in the huge data from all departments of the organization. The management of customer relationship should incorporate software and database applications in order to recognize as well as identify and respond to customers needs. The best thing with IT application is that it automates and integrates the functions of the firms sales team, marketing team, and customer service professionals. It will allow the teams to anticipate and meet the needs of their customers in the best ways. Therefore, it is essential in shaping the strategies of the business.
The use of IT in a business organization is important in determining the needs of customers. The business is able to avail the products and services in the stock when the customers need them. The main aim of IT software in an organization is to personalize customer transactions and encourage high level of customers satisfaction and retention. Many business organizations view the role of technology in customer service delivery in two spheres. The first sphere is the role of technology in tracking and providing products and services to customers as per the customers needs. The second aspect is the ability of the technology to impact the sales transaction by quickly capturing customers information and paying trends for their purchases. Good IT software is able to do rapid verification of cheques and credit cards. It is important to retain existing customers because the cost of acquiring new customers is five times more than the cost of attracting new customers.
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As the computer and Internet technologies continue to evolve at a rapid rate, capturing, storing, and retrieving of information have become the major function of information technology. For example, cloud-computing technology has enabled many business organizations to interact with their customers through several channels simultaneously. These include services such as email, call centers, customer support services, and social media platform. Social media is a unique IT tool whose appropriate use can take the business organization to another level. For example, the Google Company uses the Google Plus as their social media platform. The media connects the company with different people. These people form a strong market for the Google related products and services . Google Plus as a social media has increased the strength of the Google in the Internet market.
Understanding, listening, and caring about the preferences of customers can help the business to improve customers loyalty towards their brand. Provision of superior services to customers is not static but it is dynamic and evolves constantly. Therefore, an organization should monitor its IT devices in order to evaluate their performance. Innovation in technology and skills results in continuous improvement in offering superior and personalized services to customers. A good IT will use multi-channel communication systems to engage the interaction between the organization and its clients in a timely and cost-effective way.
Today, many companies have developed new IT technologies to support their value delivery services. For example, the Google Company has embraced the cloud computing technology and social media services to promote their Internet operations. The cloud computing services allow their customers to store valuable information online. The company uses data mining tools to assist their target customers with free services such as online storage of data. These services have attracted many customers to the Google Company. It is only with the IT that a business organization can create clear path to drive the focus of the customers commitment to the operations of the business.
There are major areas where technology is able to help businesses to improve their services and thus increase customers loyalty. The most important platform in the current business environment is the website development. Almost every modern business organization has a home website. This is an online platform, which provides several services to customers simultaneously. Through the business website, a customer is able to order for a product, ask questions about the business operations and receive answers within 24 hours. The aim of having a website is to attract customers online. When a customer accesses the website of a business, he or she will have an opportunity to get to know many things about the business. A well-established website should contain all essential information about the business for its customers to access. Another way in which a business can improve its services for the customers is with email services. Quick response to certain needs of customers through the email can improve the customers trust towards the service delivery.
An improved IT system is able to integrate appropriate communication services between the business organization and its customers. A good IT system enhances the harmonization of communication. This helps in knowing customers who left voice mails and those who sent emails with the same requests a few days ago. A business organization can achieve all these through appropriate IT software and system. Modern software allows the organization to manage the relationships of the customers with sophisticated tools for gathering information. An example of such software is the customer-relation management software. Such software allows the company to give their customers everything they need at the right time.
The aim of any organization in terms of its customers interactions is to create loyalty. The best way to do this is to provide quality products and services and to be responsive to customers. New technologies are available to enhance easy provision of customer services. The current IT systems are able to increase the channels through which an organization can interact with its customers. They enable the business to deal with complexities, which surround those interactions. For a business to successfully use IT systems in raising the quality of their customer services they should focus on key areas.
One of the areas a business should focus on is the data management and analytics. Modern IT systems play important roles in analyzing and managing the organizations data. With appropriate IT software, an organization is able to collect data from its customers and analyze the data to evaluate customers preferences. For example, the Microsoft Company has been improving the usability of their products by analyzing their customers needs through the companys customer support services. Analysis of the customers information helps business organizations to gain insights to establish the most effective marketing strategies.
Another area of focus when using IT systems is the automation of marketing system. The main aim of online marketing of an organization is to increase traffic to business website. This will help in attracting more customers and increasing the business sales. Automation of marketing services consumes less time as compared to physical marketing. It also keeps the cost of marketing low. The best thing with marketing automation is that many customers can access the information at the same time. Online marketing gives the business an opportunity to reach many customers across the world within a short period. Automation of customers service delivery optimizes the aspect of self-service. This allows the customers to interact with the company at any time of the day. A good IT system should enhance the creation of effective workforce. It should encourage staff to improve the treatment of customers by providing them with appropriate tools and adequate training so that to deliver better services to the customers.
The best ways to use IT for the purposes of cost-effectiveness is to focus on adding value to the system. To achieve this, it is important for the business to understand areas with the greatest impact to the business and add the greatest value. The business should look at the total cost of the business ownership of each system and the value generated. This will help the IT team to streamline and focus on delivering quality results. Efficiency does not mean doing the similar task at a cheaper cost than the normal one. However, it means delivering the greatest value to the business by realizing full alignment of the business value with the IT system. The Companys IT system should always do more work to the company than the manual operation. A cost saving IT system should be able to deliver similar business value at a lower cost than the normal cost.
Having software as a service model will allow the IT system to deliver services to the end user in a timely manner. At the same time, it will help the business to avoid the costs that relate to buying and managing a service delivery solution. The modern IT systems no longer need a long-term implementation team with large capital outlay. A company can also decide to outsource IT services by hiring expertise from other companies and use their services. Considering the current business environment, it is a bit challenging for any business organization to succeed without modern IT systems. Modern IT systems are able to collect essential data about customers and analyze the data for the benefit of business. The most important thing in business operations is the quality of products and services. What a company produces determines their worth in the market. At the same time, the company will only realize customers loyalty by providing high value services. Appropriate IT system provides the best solutions for customers service delivery.