At Wilke/Thornton we understand the pivotal role Consumer Affairs plays as the "voice of the consumer" to the company and the "voice of the company" to its consumers. The technology Consumer Affairs professionals use to perform these roles should make that job easier, faster, and better. This technology should be robust and feature-rich enough to work the way you work--and flexible enough to meet your changing needs. 

CRS meets these requirements and frees you to put your time and attention where it is needed most. CRS is a highly scalable consumer relationship system used by organizations with as few as two representatives to those with several hundred. Consumer contact databases range from a few thousand records to over 6 million contacts, growing by 1.25 million new contacts a year. 

Implementing standards, procedures and guidelines 
Use CRS to build many of your established policies right into the data!  Some things you can do:

	Pre-determine the recommended letter, letterhead, enclosures, operator instructions, and notifications to "outsiders" based user-defined rules.
	Set up links to bookmarks in the knowledge base so that your representatives can go directly to a bookmark based on contact data.
	Set check limits by user so that management approval is required at different levels for different individuals.
	Specify when questionnaires are to be initiated.  The representative is taken to the correct survey at the click of a button.
	Determine which enclosures are to be sent. Literature fulfillment is easy. When letters mention specific enclosures, set those so they are filled in automatically. If not, the representative chooses one or more items from the list.
	Ensure that your data is appropriate by building validation tables -- prevent invalid combinations of critical codes. Automatic default entries can be defined for fields.
	Manage your operation at the user level. For example, set each user's default information (signature block, method, letterhead, etc.), permissions (display letters, customize letters, correct contacts and maximum refunds), and notes access (which types of notes a user may see and/or edit).
	Maintain audit trails - date, time, and user stamps.
	Protect contacts so certain contacts are restricted to access by a specific user, supervisor, or manager.
	Track the dollar value of checks and enclosures sent to consumers.

Knowing your consumer
The critical process of knowing your consumer begins with collecting the right information and ends with using it to your company's advantage. Satisfying your consumers' immediate needs is only part of the process.  Here is a sample of the information that you can collect and use in CRS:

	A complete history of all contacts and related customers. Not only does CRS enable you to track multiple parties (e.g. lawyer, physician, relative, or merchant) associated with a specific issue, it tracks the information by household.
	Multiple addresses - related customers, home and work addresses, prior address, and business associates. The address cleansing feature ensures that addresses are accurate and conform to USPS standards.
	Storing Multiple phone numbers tells you if a contact has contacted you in the past. Computer telephony integration (CTI) can check any of the numbers and pull up the correct customer information automatically.
	Multiple email addresses give you flexibility to work effectively in the ever-changing Web space and lets you know if a particular consumer contacted you in the past.
	Marketing profile data. Your customer database is linked with the leading repository of data on American households. From a contact's telephone number and email address, representatives can automatically check for duplicates and verify contact information, such as name, address and marketing profile--before beginning talking! You can use this information in creative ways to enable a closer relationship with customers. Such one-to-one marketing advantage gives representatives an edge.  In addition, you can use this information to verify that the profile of your actual customers meets the profile of your marketing targets. You can identify who is really using your product and how. For example, your packaging may be targeted to a different user than who is actually using--and perhaps having difficulty with--the product.
	Survey/Questionnaire history. All the information you have collected at representatives fingertips!
	Direct marketing history. What pieces have been sent and when via mail or email and what clubs/special services this customer is affiliated with.
	Order status and history. What has been ordered and when.

Monitoring and improving productivity
CRS is designed to help your representatives to smoothly, efficiently, and effectively handle every consumer inquiry and issue. We provide the tools needed to measure productivity and use those measurements to implement productivity improvement processes.  Examples:

	Representatives can use accelerator keys to mover quickly from field to field on their workflow screens.
	The fulfillment process is automated to reduce time needed to respond to the consumer and to improve the representative's productivity.
	Customer satisfaction surveys mailed on a regular or ad hoc basis measure the quality of work performed. When you link the survey response to individual contact, you will know who handled the contact and how long it took. As you implement new policies and procedures you can gauge the effect they are having on overall customer satisfaction and loyalty.
	The User Productivity Report tells who is processing how many of what type of contact and how long it is taking.

Establishing and implementing thresholds and alerts
How does your contact center recognize when an issue is hot and when it is not? Threshold monitoring notifies you when a defined tolerance level for a particular issue (number of contacts about the issue) has been reached. 

You may choose to warn the representative, email the manager, or display the threshold on reports. Perhaps you need to know immediately when a specific manufacturing code appears more than once for the same quality complaint.  Or, perhaps you wish to run a report that displays which complaints exceeded their threshold levels in the last week. 

Working in multiple languages
If your consumers converse with you in multiple languages, you want to respond to them in their native languages. CRS helps make that easily. The representative specifies the language, and CRS will

	Format dates and addresses correctly for each language.
	Translate dates and wording for checks and vouchers.
	Translate standard inserted values. For example, if a letter says "Thank you for you recent <letter> ..." the French word for letter is inserted into the French version of the letter.

Importing and processing email 
Email (free-form or web-form) processing and response are increasingly essential channels for Consumer Affairs centers. Customers prefer contacting you by email over toll-free telephone lines. But, the cost per contact can be high without careful attention to detail. Getting the right information from the customer the first time and establishing a seamless integration with the center's resources are only part of process.

	Incoming email messages and/or web-forms may be linked automatically with a new contact record and routed to the correct user or group email queue based on content, customer attributes, or skill level of the representative.
	Using rules-based email management technology, the system analyzes incoming messages and fills in as much of the contact's information as possible.
	Processing rules that you can set up determine how the contact is managed through the system. For example, will you complete the contact with a return email? Or, will you send an acknowledgement email and then follow up by mail?
	When a representative takes the next contact from the email queue, the contact has been started already, the original message is attached, and personalized answers recommended. The representative quickly and easily can review the customer's profile and history and dispatch the response.

Adding value to your company's self-help Web offerings
Adding self-service capabilities (knowledge bases, FAQs, email response, and order entry) to your Web site is becoming essential due to the increasing demand for customer care. 

Without it your organization may fall into a losing battle against increasing calls and cost. But, some customers still need and want interactions with live representatives. With CRS you can provide these new Web services, supported by the same resources that you use today.

From your Web site, consumers can send an email form, request a chat or meeting, or even a call back at a convenient time. Requests for these services are routed to queues, or specific representatives, within CRS. This process is managed and tracked as efficiently and easily as all other types of consumer contacts.

Attaching documents, faxes, emails, and chats to your contact file
Drag and drop functionality makes attaching documents easy. Any electronic document (email, fax, chat session, Word document, or scanned image) may be dragged from the representative's desktop into the contact's attachment repository. Documents you may wish to attach to contact records include incoming email messages, scanned consumer letters, comments cards, receipts, and evidence.  

Support staff can scan consumer letters, associate them with minimally filled out contact records and then place them in the queue for the next, or most appropriate, representative.

Integrating Order Entry functions into your operation 
If your consumer contacts result in the need to order products and/or parts, you can use CRS' Order Entry module to make the process easier for everyone!  No need to go into another system or send your consumer to another department!  The order entry is handled along with the rest of the consumer contact. And, the order is maintained with the customer record so it is available for future reference.  

To place an order, a representative simply enters items needed along with the appropriate shipping and billing information. Various reports support the processing and management of orders. 

Supporting Marketing campaigns 
Do you have special clubs, preferred customers, or targeted audiences? Is relationship marketing or 1-to-1 marketing a direction your company is heading? Is your company developing loyalty schemes to provide value-added products, services, and information to your customers? Use CRS' Campaign Management module to maintain the databases, provide the services, and manage the process.

	If consumers can join a club or subscribe to a newsletter on line, the information they enter can be sent directly to the customer file with no intermediate steps.
	If the database exists elsewhere, use CRS' standard features to import it so that the center has access to this important customer information.
	When consumers contacts you, you will know in advance what affiliations they have with your company, what services (e.g. direct mail pieces) have already been provided (and when), and how to best satisfy them now!
	Use CRS to clean, merge, and purge the data.
	Use CRS to provide a scheduled series of communications with customers. You can create mailings from your database.
	Use business rules to put new customers into the appropriate series.

Communicating within your company 
Communicating with consumers is just part of what you need to do well to be a successful Consumer Affairs center. You also need to communicate, in a variety of ways, with others internally. 

	Your department: You may send broadcast messages to staff via the Representative's Status screen.  Messages may be sent and received by representative who need to escalate issues to supervisors, request approval or advice.
	Other departments: Make sure departments or outside parties are notified when appropriate. Representatives can easily send email, fax, or hardcopy information to sales offices, manufacturing plants, or fulfillment houses.
	Use CRS' extensive analysis tools to analyze consumer response and to generate actionable reports and graphs. Well-researched information, clearly portrayed and documented, provides internal clients with ammunition they need to improve your products and services.
	Enhance and accelerate crisis management capabilities using CRS' messaging and notification features.

Details:

	Implementing standards, procedures and guidelines
	Knowing your consumer
	Monitoring and improving productivity
	Establishing and implementing thresholds and alerts
	Working with multiple languages
	Importing and processing email
	Adding Value to your corporation's self-help web offerings
	Attaching documents, faxes and emails to your contact file
	Integrating Order Entry functions into your operation
	Supporting marketing campaigns
	Communicating within your corporation