<p>Copyright TM Forum 2006-2008<br/></p><p><br/></p><p><b>Overview</b><br/></p><p>Customer contact management, retention and loyalty applications are a varied group of functions that are generally sold as part of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) suite of applications. These applications allow an operator create, update and view the customer's information (names, addresses, phone numbers, organizational hierarchy), record and view all customer interactions across different communication channels and department, so that whoever is speaking to a customer can see the history of issues that have concerned that customer, be they order issues, billing enquiries or service problems. More sophisticated systems allow capabilities to highlight customers as risk of switching to an alternative carrier (churn indicator) and provide comparisons with other operator's service packages to allow customer care agents to try to persuade a customer that their current operator can provide the best value for money. These indicators can be provided via integration to business intelligence platforms.<br/></p><p><br/></p><p><b>Functionality</b><br/></p><p>In general, the functions provided by this application suite are:<br/></p><p><ul><li>Verify Customer Relationship. The purpose of this function is to verify that the customer is who they claim they are. The application verifies the identity of the customer and issues a unique Identifier and Authentication information. This function may also be used to 'clean-up' duplicates of customer identifying information that may exist within the organization.</li><br/></p><p><li>Interaction Management - Provide single point of user access to end to end business processes for Customer Acquisition and Management, Order Capture, Customer Service, Customer and Account Management, Trouble ticketing, Billing and Collections, Billing, Disputes, rate plan analysis. This function is used by customers directly (via self service) or by people dealing with customers (assisted service)</li><br/></p><p><li>Build Customer Insight - The purpose of this function is to ensure that Service Provider and the customer feel confident that the relationship is founded on up-to-date, accurate and legally compliant information. The Service Provider will incorporate into the customer profile, all relevant information gathered through all contacts with the customer (usage pattern, demographics, life stage, household, community of interest, business direction). Customer and market information from other sources may be gathered, which will build a better understanding of the customer. Customer Information must be made available to any process that needs to access it. This customer information will be used to continually refine the means and style of interaction, and the solution sets and customer experience offered. This functionality can usually be offered via script management tools.</li><br/></p><p><li>Analyze and Manage Customer Risk - The purpose of this function is to ensure that Risk analysis is based on information collected from all processes and that consistent risk assessment is used across the Enterprise. Its purpose is also to track and improve Operations, target and win the right customers, improves Sales Conversion rate. It determines the credit risk, fraud risk, influence risk, and churn risk. It identifies treatments to manage these risks and focuses on using customer information. This function is usually best served through integration with Business Intelligence platforms, with feeds provided by Charging, Collections, Accounts Receivable, and Prepaid Balance Management applications.</li><br/></p><p><li>Personalize Customer Profile for Retention & Loyalty - The purpose of this function is to provide the personalization opportunities for customers that will encourage them not to switch to another Service Provider. Personalization allows delivery of services that more closely match the customer's need. Collection of Personalization Information also discourages switching since the customer would have to build up the same personalized experience with the next Service Provider. Typical Personalization would be enforcing customer communications through the customer preferred communication channel, provide cross-selling and up-selling recommendations based on customer interests and leveraging the information gathered to help the operator build a more intimate relationship with the customer.</li><br/></p><p><li>Validate Customer Satisfaction - The purpose of this function is to validate that predicted/expected value is delivered by the product/service and that the after-sales processes (billing and assurance) are initialized. It validates that the customer is capable of realizing maximum value from the operation or use of the solution and that intense Provider involvement is no longer needed to manage the product/service. This process ensures that the customer is satisfied and that the product/service that was actually delivered meets original or updated expectations and agreements and that the product/service is operable by the customer.</li><br/></p><p></ul><br/></p><p><b>Supported Contracts</b><br/></p><p><ul><li>Application should support integration to Media Management: Voice (CTI), Email, Chat, Collaboration Tools</li><br/></p><p><li>Application should support integration to Knowledge Management</li><br/></p><p><li>Application should support integration to Quality Monitoring (ensure that the customer experience is being met)</li><br/></p><p><li>Application should support integration to Workforce Management & Scheduling</li><br/></p><p></ul><br/></p>