Measuring the Effectiveness of Customer

Measuring the Effectiveness of Customer Relationship Management at Time Warner Cable

Currently, Time Warner Cable (hereinafter alternatively "the company") invests a significant amount of time and resources in training its telephone customer service representatives to help their customers understand the services that are available and what features are best suited to their needs. The 3-week training program covers job skills training including product knowledge, how to assist customers with cable hookups, various package options as well as billing alternatives (Gale, 2002). All company new hires are certified in their jobs by AchieveGlobal, a third-party vendor that "teaches new hires how to connect with customers, build rapport, and ensure a pleasant experience" (Gale, 2002, p. 65).

Following their training and certification by AchieveGlobal, Time Warner Cable's new hires are monitored periodically by supervisors (both with their knowledge and without) to ensure their interactions with customers are appropriate and achieve the company's stated goals of ensuring their customers are satisfied with their telephonic experience (Gale, 2002). There is no indication, though, concerning how this potentially valuable CRM data is aggregated, trended and evaluated but two components of success, customer satisfaction and customer perceptions of quality, are readily discernible from this information.

Because the stated goal of the ongoing new hire monitoring program is to ensure customer satisfaction with the experience, this would be an important component of success to measure. In addition, Gale (2002) emphasizes that in many cases, even experienced customer service representatives are unable to answer all of a customer's questions, but the manner in which the representative handles the query can make all of the difference. In this regard, Gale reports that new customer service representatives are expected to "be honest, to set expectations, and to follow through on their promises. For example, if reps need time to research problems, they are expected to be up front with customers about how long it will take and make sure they get back to them within that time" (2002, p. 65). This level of customer service could reasonably be expected to affect customer perceptions of quality of the service they were provided, making this an important CRM metric to monitor as well.