Personalize And Simplify The Customer Experience, Schwab Exec AdvisesPersonalize And Simplify The Customer Experience, Schwab Exec Advises

Personalize. Customize. Localize. Businesses pursuing better relationships with customers need to communicate with them whenever and however the customer prefers, Fred Matteson, executive VP for Charles Schwab, recently told a crowd at the PeopleSoft Leadership Summit.

"The Internet made speed essential and location irrelevant," said Matteson. "You can't have a customer use one communication channel and later get a different message when he decides to use a different channel to communicate with your business." Whether by phone, E-mail, or office visit, it's imperative for the customer to get the same message. That's why an integrated customer-relationship-management database and applications is necessary. "If choice becomes synonymous with confusion, you'll risk losing customers," he said.

But even when a company has integrated its systems, it needs to think about personalizing the customer experience, making it easy for the customer to communicate with the business. "Even though we've been operating with one customer database since the beginning of our existence, we're still not where we want to be with CRM," said Matteson.

Schwab is now thinking beyond the technology. "We want to make sure there are no unnecessary steps that our customers will have to make in order to communicate with us," he said. "It's important to let the customer decide how he or she wants to communicate with us and make that experience as easy as possible."

Matteson advises other companies to try to take the complexity out of their communication channels whether it's online, by phone, or at brick-and-mortar sites. "Don't make the customer recite their name, address, Social Security number, and phone number every time they choose to communicate with you. Don't make them recite their current situation to the call center when they just discussed it online," he said. "The more your CRM applications can be personalized, customized, and localized, the easier it'll be for the customer to communicate with you. The interaction between the customer and business needs to be interpersonal. It's not all about collecting data," he said.

Said Matteson, "Whenever you start thinking about the technology side of the business, there's a risk you'll leave the customer out of the equation."