Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Data mining
It has been described as "the nontrivial extraction of implicit, previously unknown, and potentially useful information from data" and "the science of extracting useful information from large data sets or databases." Data mining in relation to enterprise resource planning is the statistical and logical analysis of large sets of transaction data, looking for patterns that can aid decision making.
Background
Traditionally, business analysts have performed the task of extracting useful information from recorded data, but the increasing volume of data in modern business and science calls for computer-based approaches. As data sets have grown in size and complexity, there has been a shift away from direct hands-on data analysis toward indirect, automatic data analysis using more complex and sophisticated tools.
The modern technologies of computers, networks, and sensors have made data collection and organization much easier. However, the captured data needs to be converted into information and knowledge to become useful. Data mining is the entire process of applying computer-based methodology, including new techniques for knowledge discovery, to data.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Customer value proposition
In the field of marketing, a customer value proposition consists of the sum total of benefits which a vendor promises that a customer will receive in return for the customer's associated payment (or other value-transfer). A customer relationship management software helps company to make customer value proposition.
In simple words: value proposition = what the customer gets for what the customer pays.
Accordingly, a customer can evaluate a company's value-proposition on two broad dimensions with multiple subsets:
- relative performance: what the customer gets from the vendor relative to a competitor's offering;
- price: which consists of the payment the customer makes to acquire the product or service; plus the access cost
The vendor-company's marketing and sales efforts offer a customer value proposition; the vendor-company's delivery and customer-service processes then fulfill that value-proposition. Agents web world needs to do a lot effort to have proper value-proposition.
Value-proposition as marketing tool
A value-proposition can assist in a firm's marketing strategy, and may guide a business to target a particular market segment. For example: "Firm Any Co. can provide benefits a, b, and c because of competencies x, y, and z."
Whether for a product, service or a company as a whole, this formulation can allow a firm to see if its competencies align with the segment that it plans to target.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Role of Technology in Customer Service
Technology has made available a wide range of customer service tools. They include support websites, the ability to have live chats with technical staff, databases tracking individual customer preferences, pattern of buying, payment methods etc., and tailoring products and service responses based on these advanced data. Specialist software that is designed for the tracking of service levels and for helping recognize areas for improvement are often integrated into other enterprise operational software tools such as ERP software.
Many companies have started to use new channels to capture customer feedback. With record number of people now communicating through mobile phone and sending texts, many argue that the next wave of customer feedback will primarily be captured through channels familiar to most consumers, such as mobile email and SMS. This will enable companies to track the opinions of their customers much more easily and gain valuable insight into how to improve service quality and enhance the customer experience.
ref: Insurnace Software, Insurance CRM, wikipedia
