Arhaus

June 26, 2009 by Yuval Brisker

Arhaus has a special place in our hearts. John Roddy got it fast, recognized us early, gave us a huge chance, pushed the envelope of what our solution could do. John has always thought outside the box and recognized talent and value for what it is. John has really used TOA’s system more completely than any customer I can think of… and it’s all about customer service.  and has kept innovating and thinking all the way.

John and Arhaus are all about the customer – it is first, second and last on their minds – in fact John says in this article about his use of TOA: “the delivery and scheduling side of the operation are highly ranked among customers. Customer approval hovers at 98 percent, whereas in the past, the rating topped out at 85 percent. We’re white glove service …We fluff pillows, remove trash…and we’re clean shaven. We do it all. We run a tight ship here.”

That’s what every customer focused business should be about.

Service Innovation: The Next Big Thing

June 19, 2009 by Yuval Brisker

Last week I spoke to Chris Bucholz from InsideCRM about what I call “Service Innovation”. Chris wrote a great article as a result of that interview and you can read it here.

I have been thinking about this a lot: Most companies focus much of their creativity on the products they sell, not the service they provide.

This means that 90% of the innovation in the world is product innovation. This makes sense, right?  After all, without great innovative products that people can buy…in most cases…who needs service…?

But long term very few companies can provide a sustainably great product without great service and it doesn’t matter whether you are Dell or Apple or Cisco or Delta Airlines or GE. The fact of the matter is that you need to interact with the customers long after they bought your product in order to make them truly happy, to keep them loyal and positive, to keep them coming back.

And this is where most companies get it wrong and why I believe that there is a great untapped opportunity here and that the next big wave of innovation could easily be Service Innovation…

Imagine if companies like Apple focused an equal part of their brain power on innovating their service, not just their iPhones.  The result could be an iPhone grade revolution in customer service!

Wouldn’t that be interesting? Wouldn’t that be nice?

Chicken or Beef?

June 11, 2009 by Yuval Brisker

The companies that I personally am most exposed to in the realm of customer service are the airlines.  My job puts me in an airplane seat almost every week and on most weeks 2 or 3 times a week.

Despite the ubiquity of travel people are still fascinated by it (something I find quite fascinating in and of itself…). Even the people who do it all the time love to talk and think about travel. In fact, it never ceases to amaze me how many people I know can spend hours talking about the most mundane minutiae of their trips. Somehow it ties right into something very basic in human experience – the wanderer fantasy – and never stops fascinating. Doesn’t matter how much time you actually spend on the road.

And me, with my special sensitivity to customer service, I have the privilege of being even more aware of the details of the airlines’ massive customer service machines.  I have, thus, come to both admire them AND see them as a metaphors for everything that’s good and everything that’s bad about operations and/vs. customer service today.

So today I am launching a bi-monthly column I will call “Chicken or Beef” (the boring choices of entrees most airlines used to give you when you flew… but now only sometimes offer on long-haul flights).

Through this column,  I will be sharing my pleasures and my pains; the good the bad and the ugly experiences that I have on the phone, on the internet, at the boarding gate and mostly – in the air, with a view towards the greater customer experience (r)evolution.

Last week I had two radically different experiences on two radically different airlines plus one perception change. Tuesday night I flew Continental to Berlin. Thursday night I flew Lufthansa to Tel Aviv. Both were overnight flights. Which airline had the best service? Tune in next posting to find out….

p.s. I want to acknowledge a little bit of  inspiration from the Wall Street Journal column ‘The Middle Seat”.  Thanks!

Amdocs and TOA sign a watershed agreement to provide complete care for Telecom,Cable Satellite companies and Beyond

June 3, 2009 by Yuval Brisker

We just announced that TOA Technologies signed a global reseller partnership agreement with Amdocs.

Amdocs, is a company that has dominated the telecom billing and customer care software industry for as long as I have been in the software world. Over time they have built a strategic portfolio of solutions to address almost every aspect of managing the customer experience for telecom, cable, broadband and satellite companies and more. What they have never had was the ability to manage the customer relationship in the “Last Mile of Customer Care”- the appointment experience.Yes, they have partnered with Mobile Workforce Management vendors before, but they have  have been ‘legacy’ providers and could never crack that Customer Appointment Management experience nut. Until now…until TOA!

Our new relationship with Amdocs will transform this and is thus significant not only for us or for Amdocs that is adding a significant solution set to their sales portfolio, it is most significant for the clients we serve and their customers.

Together, we are bringing to market for the first time a state of the art, modern, flexible and holistic solution for managing the customer experience from the moment an order is taken all the way to the minute it’s delivered successfully and beyond. This is what consumers around the world have been waiting for… Congratulations to the customers!