“Customer is King” is a cliché today. For organizations, the center of universe is its customers and banners proclaiming this are often displayed on service floors and customer touch-points. But how many customers think these businesses practice what they preach? Despite best efforts, businesses may not be able to deliver the experience that they aspire to or to the levels that customers demand.

As consumers, we expect any-where any-time service. With rapidly changing technology and consumer lifestyles, most enterprises are unable to cope with customer service expectations. There are, of course, ways to get there and many businesses are taking the right steps to that end.

In the endeavor to deliver customer delight, enterprises need to overcome a number of hurdles from within. Ironically, some of these hurdles have been self-built on their road to success till date:

• Disparate systems and inconsistent customer service processes –Businesses have not invested in standard and optimized customer service process across the organization, leading to inconsistent customer experience. A standard customer service process will ensure a single and coherent view of every customer, thus laying the foundation for customer delight.
• As consumers, we want access to customer service through all possible channels – voice, web, email, chat, handheld device and of course snail mail. Add social media to this and the concoction is heady for most enterprises. The demand today is more for an intuitive and interactive medium to engage with customers, not only when they face a problem, but also to elevate the overall customer experience.
• Capturing the ‘Voice of Customer’ –The new-age customer has uninhibited access to social networks, and does not hold back in letting his/her opinions go public. Communication is no longer on a one-to-one basis, but can be witnessed by millions. Rather than shying away, organizations have to participate in these conversations and in fact, create platforms for these conversations, so that they can adequately capture the ‘Voice of Customer’ and deliver a delightful customer experience.

The cost of transformation in customer service processes cannot be underestimated. To top it all, given the economic uncertainties, businesses cannot afford to invest in heavy capex to drive a transformational project. Hence, to achieve the level of experience demanded by customers today, organizations will need to change the very manner in which they ‘consume’ the process of customer service.

Enterprises need to take a holistic view of transforming their customer service platforms and operations simultaneously in order to survive and differentiate themselves. Business Process as-a-Service (BPaaS) comes to the rescue and is set to revolutionize the way many business processes are consumed, to deliver both top line and bottom line benefits to the organization.

Customer Service BPaaS will not only represent a new generation ‘Omni channel’ customer service platform with integrated service capabilities to manage customer service interfaces - it will also empower businesses to connect with customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways. What do you think? Do share your thoughts in the comments sections below.

Madhwesh Kulkarni - General Manager - Advanced Technologies at Wipro

Madhwesh is responsible for driving disruptive solutions around Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud, and BPaaS solutions across industries, globally.

Madhwesh has previously worked as the Vice President - IT Services Business- CSS at Aricent. He was responsible for IT services business globally for Aricent, working closely with telecom service provider customers across the world.

With over 22 years of experience in IT/Telecom industry, he has worked closely with over 40 telecom service providers globally. As one of the founder members of Telecom Service Provider Business Unit of Wipro, he has provided strategic inputs to leading Telecom Operators across USA, Europe, Middle East and Japan. He has also been associated with all major OSS-BSS ISVs and telecom equipment vendors in various roles and capacities. He has successfully led technology, outsourcing, transformation and innovation initiatives in the telecom space. During his stint at Aricent, he was actively involved in defining M2M, Customer experience management and Enterprise mobility solution strategies for operators.

Active in global forums, Madhwesh has spoken in many international events on OSS/BSS and Outsourcing related topics. He has served as an Advisory Director and member of advisory council for the board of Tele Management Forum for over 3 years.