A CRM Process Failure

As a Time-Warner RoadRunner Cable Modem subscriber, I recently called the company to request that my service be transferred to a new address on March 1, 2006.

I had previously made this transfer appointment effective for February 22. When I learned that I would not be moving to the new address until the first of March, I called the company to update my status.

The customer service representative who spoke with me was easily able to reschedule the new service connection in the online system. I was told to expect the engineer on March 1.

Then I found my service interrupted on February 22. Upon calling the company, I learned that it has been disconnected. While the service rep had successfully changed the appointment date, she hadn't changed the disconnection date, and I had not made the request myself (assuming that the rep made the connection between the two events).

This points to the importance of process within any CRM or customer-facing service system. The system itself needs to understand the connection between related requests; in this instance, ideally, taking the input of a changed appointment date and prompting the rep to ask if the disconnection date would need to be changed as well.

It was clear to me that changing a new appointment date meant that I would retain my old service until that date, but I can understand why it might slip the mind of a representative. What I can't understand is why the electronic system would fail to make the link.

Frankly, your systems may well have mechanisms to control these processes all the way down to a granular level. When we spoke to the CEO of GreenPages, a recent Salesnet customer, he pointed out how it was wrong to assume that people (specifically salespeople, but the concept extends to all employees) can rationally navigate through processes. You have to embed the processes so deeply in your system that, in this instance, a rep can't even make a change to a new appointment date without having a matched disconnect alert flash in front of him or her.

Of course, once you have a single failure, it cascades. Time-Warner dispatched a van to turn the service back on, failed to do so properly, then offered me the services of a network engineer who can't be reached. But that's another story.