How the Best Bricks-and-Clicks Businesses Deliver Seamless Service to Their Customers
-The Secrets of Multichannel Customer Service

Anytime, Anywhere is an essential resource for any business whose success depends on delighting customers and enticing them back for more.

The main premise of the book is that the best companies are able to provide a consistent customer service experience across each one of their customer-contact channels: Brick-and-mortar store or office, telephone, Web site and/or mail-order catalog. The customer will choose the channel.

Anytime, Anywhere showcases the pioneering efforts of over a dozen companies who never stopped focusing on the customer, and who increase their market share by combining the best of the physical and virtual worlds. From Wells Fargo to Powell's Books to the San Francisco Giants, companies in virtually every industry are discovering that "seamless service" - integrating all elements of the customer experience with consistent messages and execution - offers a competitive edge that technology alone can never achieve.

Packed with colorful, in-depth stories from the front lines and practical advice (on everything from making your web site easy to navigate to offering value-added services such as newsletters, on-line chats, and cross-channel promotions), Anytime, Anywhere shows any business how to meet, and exceed, the expectations of customers-who are only a mouseclick away from your competitors. The book reveals powerful insights for promoting products and services across channels, building customer loyalty, and anticipating such issues as privacy, returns, and customer feedback policies. For anyone committed to building their business around their customers' experiences, Anytime, Anywhere will be an invaluable guide.

“Spector does the seemingly impossible: explains how to align the channels of your business. This book will enable you to provide the highest level of customer service.”

-Guy Kawasaki, author Rules for Revolutionaries , and CEO, Garage Technology Ventures

“Anytime, Anywhere service has been a longstanding principle of Wells Fargo. Robert Spector has shown how this principle can apply to virtually any business interested in becoming a success in their industry.”

-Dick Kovacevich, CEO/Chairman, Wells Fargo

“Robert Spector offers great lessons on how to surge beyond satisfying customers to delighting them by combining the best online and offline tactics and creating, unified, knock-their-socks-off strategies.”

-Dr. Roger Blackwell, author Customers Rule!

Customer service must reach online, off-line customers

© 2003 American City Business Journals Inc.
William S. Knudsen, former vice president of General Motors, once said, "A big corporation is more or less blamed for being big, but it is only big because it gives service. If it doesn't give service, it gets small faster than it grew big."

After examining leaders in brick-and-mortar and Internet customer service, it became clear that the future of customer service belongs to companies capable of providing a unified strategy across all channels.

Regardless of the industry, many customers want to do business with you across all channels. This is especially true in Seattle, home to a wide range of companies — from technology to biotech to outdoor adventure. As an advanced market, many Seattle companies are amongst the first in addressing the issue of how to best integrate their online and offline offerings. Wells Fargo's CEO Dick Kovacevich rightly claims, "the winners will be those who can deliver on the promise of anywhere, anytime accessibility and enhanced service, convenience, and advice."

Though perhaps a bit overhyped at its inception, the Web has proven to be an invaluable channel that lowers communication costs and increases information flow. Even as we harness the Web's potential, the reality is that customers will never stop shopping in brick-and-mortar stores.

The Web is an incredible tool, but it's only a part of the business. What it has done is make customer service even more important, as today's consumers are loyal to the deal first, the dealer second.

What hasn't changed is that customers demand more each day, resulting in companies being pressed to do more, which unfortunately often leads to poor service. A few forward-thinking companies, however, have learned the best way to achieve customer loyalty and satisfaction is by making themselves and their services available anytime, anywhere, and via any channel.

Companies such as Seattle-based Nordstrom and Recreational Equipment Inc. (REI), along with Portland's Powell Books and San Francisco's Wells Fargo, strive to successfully deploy seamless services to their customers. This is a difficult challenge, but they have learned it requires strategies that incorporate the following elements:

1. Commitment: Make customer service a way of life.

Wells Fargo, which was recently ranked ahead of all other banks for e-finance innovation by Institutional Investor, took its commitment to a new level by creating "Doing It Right For The Customer," a group covering issues ranging from how to process paperwork to ensuring customers are signing up for financial services that best meet their needs. Across all divisions of Wells Fargo — ranging from Internet Services to Small Businesses — employees champion customer service around four actions that always keep the customer top-of-mind: Commitment, Assurance, Responsiveness, Empathy. The program is known by the acronym CARE, and strives to understand what it means to customers when Wells Fargo touches them.

2. Preparation: Train your people to give great service.

REI's salespeople gain knowledge by using the gear they sell. Targeting a more holistic approach in what they provide their customers, REI's goal is to help people enjoy the outdoors. Vice president of retail Brian Unmacht looks for sales people with passion who enjoy and respect the outdoors. A closer look at REI's channels reveals passion and sincerity in helping customers enjoy the outdoor experience — results that are revealed in both the bottom line and overall customer satisfaction.

3. Knowledge: Understand your customers intimately across all channels.

Customers don't want to repeatedly give the same information to different channels. At Wells Fargo, Steve Ellis, executive vice president of wholesale services, informs that seamless service means no matter where you are — the bank branch, the ATM, or online — Wells Fargo makes sure they know who you are, and ensures you are treated the same, wherever completing a transaction. This also gives customers immediate insight into how their finances are distributed. By providing customers the ability to access account information 24/7 and in real time — whether depository, loan or brokerage, as well as international and domestic transactions from a single Web site anytime, anywhere — Wells Fargo helps their customers save time and money.

4. Communication: Communicate internally within your organization, and externally with your customers, suppliers and partners.

Poor communication — internal or external — is the Achilles' heel of most companies. Because internal and external communication often intersect, company divisions must communicate with each other. If you can't manage this internally, what are the prospects for communicating with your customers?

5. Foresight: Be proactive in anticipating customers' needs.

Nordstrom understands the complete needs of its customers — whether they're in-store or online mavens. Nordstrom realizes that customer service, in addition to providing helpful and knowledgeable salespeople, is about making the customer feel good and look forward to visiting the store. A Nordstrom store features a simple, open design with an emphasis on convenience and comfort. Plush seating provides a resting point for customers, while a concierge is available to provide expert service. Parking validation, piano players, and special privileges for Nordstrom cardholders are a few of the additional touches that distinguish Nordstrom from the competition in its ability to anticipate what makes shopping easier and more enjoyable for customers.

Wells Fargo's anytime, anywhere service for small to midmarket businesses encompasses all customers, taking into account the unique needs of their businesses. Wells Fargo's Commercial Electronic Office (CEO), an online portal that provides a single point of entry for all wholesale services, is a further proof point of the company's commitment to providing multi-channel anytime, anywhere access to innovative, easy-to-use online wholesale banking services through secure and trusted channels. CEO offers access to integrated banking solutions including: cash management and treasury services, international services, trust and investment services, customized financial news and e-mail communications, and enhanced customer service.

Customers want you to be able to take their information and use it to deliver great service. If you are able to forecast what customers need before they know it, you may have gotten yourself a customer for life — anytime, anywhere.

© 2003 American City Business Journals Inc.