By Michael Fields

I’ve witnessed and participated in many technology shifts throughout my career, from mainframes to client server computing, from salesforce automation to CRM, and from “call centers” to “contact centers.” The truly influential changes are those that deliver clear business value. Service enterprise management, or SEM, is one such shift. It brings business value in a time where such investments are vital for surviving this recession.

SEM is a new approach to managing customer service across an enterprise—it manifests itself in a composite, Web services-based solution that marries powerful knowledge management with integrated systems, applications and data. With such technology, businesses see dramatic increases in agent productivity while reducing error rates, agent training time and costs associated with high employee turnover. All these very quantifiable, business-critical metrics can be balanced to reach optimal cost savings. Wondering how? It allows the business to regain control over the service experience and enables them to deploy their enterprise knowledge to solve critical customer service problems in real time. With this control, business leaders can optimize processes, reducing steps and ensuring compliance with government and corporate guidelines. SEM also makes life easier for those on the frontlines, in the contact center, by putting all relevant customer information on one screen and guiding agents through the service process.

What about value that’s more difficult to count in dollars and cents? SEM also addresses the needs of customer satisfaction and loyalty initiatives. It enables companies to successfully implement a multichannel approach, which satisfies the customer’s desire to seek service through a variety of avenues. This gives the customer a feeling of control, too; they can choose the medium they prefer for each of their service experiences, but your business remains in the driver’s seat.

Or, take, for example, the age-old consumer businesses’ “best price guarantee” programs—where a customer finds a lower offer and the company refunds the customer the difference in value. In this multi-step process, agents must validate that it’s a real offer, that’s it’s indeed a lower price, subtract the difference and then refund the customers. By allowing businesses to effectively reduce the time and accuracy of these processes, aka the cost, SEM directly improves the value associated with this type of customer loyalty program.

There’s no doubt that SEM is a game changer. And, it’s now here!  Check it out at www.kana.com.