Contact Management

We are living in an information driven society. Companies have to act as information driven organizations if they want to survive. If this is the truth, where can we find information about the most important asset of the company? Of course, at the interface of an organization and the customer, because this is where the interaction between the organization and it's most important asset, the customer, takes place.

All communication channels that can be used for customer interaction have their own specific characteristics, and has to be managed as a specific source for information. An account manager in direct personal contact with a customer can provide an organization with a lot of information, which is not dedicated to the specific transaction that is being discussed. On the other hand can a Web-site be used to provide customers with a lot of information. It can however not get so much information about the customer as the account manager can.

We define the specific characteristics of a communication channel as the "customer touchpoint".
The customer relevant information that can be acquired from a communication channel is called the "customer fingerprint".

The integration of the customer fingerprints provides an organization with a holistic view of the customer.

One of the biggest problems in management is having the necessary information available to make a decision. As organizations are becoming more customer focussed and customer driven this problem won't disappear. Driven by external influences (like a customer) an organization will create more flexible and dynamic business rules. To manage those dynamic business rules the need for the right management information (within the right time-scale) will become even more important over time as it is nowadays.