UP Your Service! on the Web
by Michael Alan Hamlin

Funnyman, acclaimed international motivational speaker, and customer service guru Ron Kaufman published his first book recently. UP Your Service!: Strategies and Action Steps to Delight Your Customers NOW! is a delightful yet value-packed handbook of the Dos and Don'ts of customer relationship management. The ultimate objective of CRM if you don't already know is to build greater share of customer, and thereby bigger profits. Its focus is profitability, rather than revenue.

You'll recall that Mr. Kaufman has visited this column - and the Philippines - fairly regularly. That's because - like attending his presentations -writing about Mr. Kaufman is fun (Full Disclosure: My firm, TeamAsia, regularly presents Mr. Kaufman here in Manila and in Hong Kong.). So reviewing the new book provides an opportunity to have some fun, and learn more about Mr. Kaufman's perspective of service.

But while Mr. Kaufman delivers his message in an often comedic, easy-to-absorb manner - an outstanding quality that makes his knowledge easy to internalize - the meaning is extraordinarily serious for firms intent on staying competitive in a global market that evolves at Internet speed. In Up Your Service Mr. Kaufman expands his service perspective to the Internet, insisting that, "the World Wide Web makes providing service easier than ever before," but cautions, "customers can leave your site and visit your competitors' easily, too.

To increase the stickiness - that quality that keeps profitable customers coming back for more - of a website, Mr. Kaufman recommends 11 qualities that all sites should clearly feature. First and most basic, the site must be fast. "The entire Internet universe is just a click away. Customers won't wait around." Successful webmasters have learned to stay away from technology for technology's sake, and big beautiful graphics (Remember when Microsoft's opening, or splash, page was a huge graphic of an old bus?) and instead favor relevant, high-impact text arranged in esthetically pleasing ways.

That's a particularly important point for Philippine companies selling to international markets because despite the recent addition of high-speed, broadband access, as J. Antonio Reyes recently reported, "it is estimated that the Philippines has only 5.7 Gbps of external bandwidth capacity, versus 42 Gbps in Hong Kong." Mr. Reyes says that Hong Kong's capacity will expand dramatically to 440 Gbps by 2003.

In layspeak, this means that the pipeline into and out of the Philippines is very small. As a result, most serious Philippine Internet-commerce sites maintain their sites on servers located in the United States. There's nothing to stop Philippine companies from continuing to implement their Internet strategies in this fashion, but if the Philippines wants to be a serious Internet player, and I believe it does, infrastructure remains a critical and largely un-addressed success factor.

After speed, relevance is Mr. Kaufman's second success key. He says that, "information on your website must be accurate and up-to-date. Customers won't stand for an inventory listing that's obsolete, specifications out-of-date, pictures of products that no longer exist, or exchange rates that expired last year." Seems obvious, but when was your corporate web site last updated? Incredibly, there are a number of very large corporate sites here that never seem to change.

That doesn't mean that change for the sake of change should be regularly undertaken though. Rather, it means that meaningful change must be regularly undertaken. And meaningful should be equated with value defined by answering questions like, "What do we do that can have immediate impact on our customers or their organizations?" And, "How can we make a contribution to resolving issues our customers consider about?"

Next, how should frequently be defined? In these days of business@Internet speed "frequently" can be defined in terms of seconds, minutes, and maybe hours. For example, if you visit Amazon.com or other online bookstores - although Amazon.com has evolved to be much more than a bookstore in the past year - you will see that books are ranked by how well they are selling. When a book first hits a market - a popular book by a popular author anyway - that ranking changes constantly as orders are placed. It is a running evaluation - and commentary - of the market value of the book.

Third, Mr. Kaufman recommends that every site include a page of frequently asked questions, or FAQs. "Every time you help a customer understand an issue, navigate a problem or choose between two options, take that knowledge and post it as a FAQ." Another benefit of helping the customer is that it probably illustrates how the site can be made easier to navigate, and that should become a lesson that is internalized and acted upon.

Which brings us of course is Mr. Kaufman's fourth quality of service-oriented web sites. "Make your website navigation easy to understand and follow," he says. "Provide clear internal links on every page." To return to our Amazon.com example, analysts generally credit founder Jeff Bezos for making the site exceptionally easy to move around, and especially to pay for things, when ranked against the competition.

Since a lot of building better customer relationships has to do with good will, Mr. Kaufman recommends as his fifth quality of champion Internet enterprise, external links to relevant resources. In this way, every site also becomes a valuable resource center. Naturally, it's critically important that links be constantly updated, as these tend to also change at Internet speed.

Sixth, Mr. Kaufman believes that visiting a site should be an interactive experience, "Make e-mail an extension of your website with a strategy to 'push' requested information to your customers," he says.

"Use autoresponders so customers can get data, articles, or information sent to them conveniently by e-mail." You can try out Mr. Kaufman's own autoresponders by logging onto www.RonKaufman.com and registering for his free newsletter. And experience how Mr. Kaufman practices his own recommendation to "create an opt-in newsletter to keep your customers updated, aware and well-informed."

Well, I've taken you through slightly better than 50 percent of Mr. Kaufman's recommendations for doing business@Internet speed. For the rest, and other valuable insights into CRM, get the book.

You'll appreciate the return on the investment. At Internet speed.

(Mr. Hamlin is managing director of the consultancy TeamAsia and the author of two books on Asian economies and managing in Asia. His latest book is The New Asian Corporation: Managing for the Future in Post-Crisis Asia. His e-mail address is mahamlin@teamasia.com.ph.)

Copyright © 2000 by Michael Alan Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright, Ron Kaufman. All rights reserved.
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