Customer Service

Enhancing Performance
to Achieve Revenue Growth

To help its clients to strategically grow their revenues—and build long-lasting customer relationships—GMT offers a broad range of capabilities targeted at enhancing customer service. GMT helps clients to arrive at fact-based, actionable answers to these and other questions:

	Who are our customers—and what do they value?
	What are our customers' complaints and unmet needs?
	How effective are our sales force and our customer service staff?
	What supply chain improvements can help us to serve customers better?
	How can information systems enhance our sales and service levels?

By addressing these types of critical issues, GMT provides a basis for meaningful improvements—and a solid return on investment.

Measurement: The Key to Change
Establishing Meaningful Performance Metrics
The Critical Role of Information
Leading the Customer Service Revolution

Measurement: The Key to Change

Working with client teams, GMT begins each customer service engagement with an analysis phase, during which the firm studies current customers: who they are, their satisfaction levels, and their values and issues.

But the bulk of GMT's upfront analysis is directed at measuring the effectiveness of the internal resources that serve customers, including:

	The performance of key customer contact personnel, including salespeople and customer service representatives
	The efficiency of key supply chain processes such as sales and operations planning, forecasting, order management, and claims resolution
	Service accuracy and speed, including delivery efficiency, inventory levels, order cycle times, and backlogs
	The effectiveness of information systems used to manage customer relationships, automate fulfillment and replenishment, and integrate with customer systems
	The metrics and measurement process for assessing customer service levels—and the root causes behind shortfalls

By documenting where their businesses are today, GMT helps clients to set realistic goals in both service excellence and sales growth.

Establishing Meaningful Performance Metrics

Most businesses have metrics—but they do not always reflect actual customer needs or real-world business conditions. Because GMT begins with analysis, clients can define measures that are both fact-based and realistic—leading to meaningful change. In addition, GMT's experience enables the firm to benchmark clients' customer service centers against best-in-class companies. GMT identifies gaps in performance—as well as the organizational, skill, process, and technology requirements for filling those gaps.

GMT helps clients to define measures and goals in the following areas:

	Daily service levels. GMT helps clients to measure day-to-day shipping volumes, fill rates, on-time shipments, and reserve inventories.
	Customer service quality. Clients assess how orders are received, complaint types, and the root causes of complaints—forming the basis for both organizational structure and training.
	Staff responsiveness. GMT helps to monitor call volumes, call wait times, call abandonment levels, call-back/transfer frequency, and repair times.
	Speed of service. Clients improve speed and reduce costs by measuring order cycle times and backlogs.
	Problem resolution. The efficiency of problem resolution is a key factor in customer satisfaction. GMT helps clients to develop processes to ensure quick response to issues.

By monitoring these key metrics—which are the real determinants of customer satisfaction—GMT's clients work toward improvements that actually produce revenue benefits. GMT helps clients to define an action plan, as well as a return-on-investment analysis.

The Critical Role of Information

An essential element of customer service excellence is information—about customers, historic performance, future sales trends, and the effectiveness of people and processes. Working with alliance partners who understand the strategic importance of information, GMT helps clients to specify the right technology systems for their unique challenges.

Unlike specialized information technology consultants, GMT focuses on strategic goals—and has no vested interest in specifying one solution over another. Instead, GMT works with a variety of partners to cost-effectively specify and install whatever systems are needed for a specific client to manage customer relationships, maximize personnel effectiveness, and automate work processes.

Leading the Customer Service Revolution

Increasing competition in the marketplace has made outstanding customer service an imperative—and every business is feeling increasing pressure to understand its customers, create value-added products, and deliver those products faster and more cost-effectively.

While technology systems have done a great deal to enable customer service excellence, a key component is often missing: a fact-based understanding of actual service issues, as well as a realistic way to measure and improve internal efficiency.

By conducting an in-depth analysis of both market and internal conditions—and then creating meaningful metrics that ensure improvement—GMT helps clients to overcome this challenge and grow revenues through industry-leading customer service performance.