Companies love to talk about customer service -- but too often
they seem to value share prices far more than customer loyalty. This
unfortunate reality has helped to set the once-shining ASP (application
service provider) world on its ear -- contributing to the tech shakeout that
has rocked the stock market.
 
 The question now is: Have ASPs learned
anything valuable about customer relationship management on the long slide
down? And having backtracked once, can they turn the ship around and head back
to a rosy future?
 
 Total Commitment to Satisfaction
 
 Some ASPs have
definitely learned from the industry's brief history. Take Qwest
Cyber.Solutions (QCS), for example.
 
 Last fall, the enterprise ASP rolled
out a new set of service level agreements (SLAs) designed to reassure its
customers that they would get the attention they needed. The program, called
"QCS ProofPositive," was designed to show QCS's total commitment to
customer satisfaction.
 
 To deliver on that promise and improve the end-user
experience with critical business systems, QCS also released QCS Sentry, a
process designed to ensure reliable delivery of applications with maximum
up-time.
 
 The company backed its initiative with a "total
satisfaction" guarantee, promising to refund monthly fees to customers
unhappy with their service.
 
 Prevention, Not Apologies
 
 However, Mike
Betzer, co-founder, president and CEO of Austin, Texas-based Ineto, Inc., a
customer communications service provider, told CRMDaily.com that initiatives
that make amends for system failures are not enough.
 
 "CRM should be
viewed in the full context," Betzer said. "Anything that interfaces
with the customer is important -- chat, voice, self-service."
 
 Other
industry watchers share Betzer's view. Analysts say that ASPs must put the
focus on providing solid service and fixing problems as they arise, rather
than just giving money back to dissatisfied clients.
 
 Seeing through the
Hype
 
 Customer relationship management is one of the thorniest challenges
facing ASPs. By their nature, application service providers are good at
accomplishing technological feats, but unless they comprehend the equal
importance of CRM, said Betzer, they probably don't have the slightest idea of
how to go about fully serving their customers' needs.
 
 "There is so
much hype around CRM," he told CRMDaily, "that customers go right
out and buy the first CRM solution that they find, but it's not what they
need." ASPs need to stop and look at their customer base to determine how
to serve them best, he said.
 
 An advanced automated system that works
beautifully for one sort of application or in a particular vertical market may
be wholly unsuitable for another.
 
 Multichannel Communications
 
"We're always guilty of swinging the pendulum too far," Betzer
maintained. "Everyone said that with the Web we didn't need customer
service, so ASPs didn't provide it. But in truth, you need to answer your
customers' questions and speak to your customers in whatever mode that they
are most comfortable with."
 
 In short, Betzer said, ASPs need to
implement CRM initiatives that include multiple contact channels. However, he
said not to expect too much, too soon.
 
 "There is a ton of technology
[in the CRM space] converging very slowly," he told CRMDaily. "As
much as I'd love to think it's moving really fast, I think it's going to take
at least three years before ASPs get it right."