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Development and Implementation
of Customer Relationship Management Strategy,
U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Electronic Tax
Administration
IRS Electronic Tax Administration (ETA) contributes
to the overall mission of the IRS by facilitating
the shift of critical resources from processing
paper to providing customer service. ETA's overarching
strategic goal is to have 80 percent of all tax
returns filed electronically by the year 2007.
The Assistant Commissioner of ETA asked ICF International
to develop and implement a customer management
strategy to ensure that ETA will meet its strategic
objectives. We performed a comprehensive review
of ETA's business strategies, services, programs,
operating procedures, organization structure,
staffing, and technology resources to determine
whether they are properly aligned and sufficiently
leveraged to achieve the ETA's stated customer
objectives. We conducted a gap analysis and developed
recommendations to eliminate the gaps in functionality
and performance between best practice customer
management and ETA's current reality. These recommendations
included the definition of several customer management
principles (e.g., performing customer segmentation,
customer account identification and selection,
implementing a national and field-based account
management program, creating channel management
programs, developing technology based CRM tools,
development of customer and marketing databases,
etc.). We developed interim, midterm, and long-term
implementation projects for closing the gaps and
conducted human, technological, and organizational
realignments.
CRM Strategy Refinement
and Contact Center Planning, U.S. General Services
Administration, Federal Technology Service, Heartland
Region
The General Services Administration (GSA), Federal
Technology Service (FTS), Heartland Region, wished
to refine their CRM strategy by implementing a
customer care center to improve marketing, sales,
and customer service. A customer care center implementation
plan was delivered with both strategic and tactical
recommendations. Three levels of customer care
were recommended to meet their goals, including
Web-based self-service as the first tier of support,
customer care center for mid-level support, and
one-on-one account management for large account
customers. From a CRM perspective, the customer
care center offered customers another way to interact
with FTS and provided FTS with another vehicle
to offer improved customer support.
Assessment of CRM Processes
and Best Practices, U.S. Postal Service
The USPS Business Services Network (BSN) initiative
provides customer service to the Postal Service's
premier accounts. Although the BSN was initially
well received by customers, its future role was
uncertain given the absence of a clear strategy
and dramatically inconsistent operating procedures
across its regional BSN centers. The USPS wanted
to understand how it compared to companies known
to have proven results in providing world-class
customer service and how that service created
value for both the company and its clients. To
meet this challenge, ICF International audited operating
procedures, conducted interviews with best-in-class
organizations to determine their customer management
strategies, and conducted focus groups with existing
customers to discuss their experiences with the
BSN. The findings from these activities were leveraged
to identify improvement areas and create an implementation
strategy to improve sales success and customer
service.
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Developing a Marketing
Information System, U.S. Postal Service
Faced with true competition for the first time
in its history, the Postal Service's marketing
organization found it had very little information
on its largest customers, such as their characteristics
and purchases. The Postal Service needed better
information, both to understand the underlying
reasons for the erosion of its customer base and
to support a totally new focus on marketing. ICF International surveyed the USPS field-marketing organization
to determine their needs for the establishment
of an Account Management Information Systems to
track customer information. These efforts led
to the creation and development of a database
that provides the marketing department with critically
useful business, economic, and demographic information
about the top USPS 16,000 customers.
Customer Segmentation
Analysis, U.S. Postal Service
The USPS was in a market development effort to
capture new customers and increase volume from
existing customers. This created the need to identify
and target customer segments that were receptive
to new products, services, and initiatives. Then
efforts could be focused on the principal customer
contact channels to reach the segments with enhanced
products or services and new initiatives. Fifteen
business customer clusters were identified and
grouped based on their mailing intensity. ICF International profiled each cluster to include relevant
mailing characteristics, product usage, financials,
contact channels and typical customer industry
types.
Developing a Customer
Service System—Direct Link, U.S. Postal Service
Direct Link was designed to support the processing
of very large business mailings for the U.S. Postal
Service. These mailings generate over $18 billion
in revenue per year, and each one generates an
enormous amount of paperwork that is burdensome
for the mailers to produce and nearly impossible
for the Postal Service to use efficiently. ICF International consultants were responsible for helping
the Postal Service create the vision for Direct
Link and then turn it into reality. We documented
their business process and created visualization
for how the process could be automated and enhanced.
We gathered detailed requirements from the Postal
Service and then translated them into specifications
for implementation. In the latter half of the
development, ICF International performed system testing,
customer acceptance testing, and acquired and
installed the hardware for placing the Direct
Link application at three sites. We also developed
a training package, including a hands-on training
presentation and user guide.
IRS Feasibility Assessment
for CRM Outsourcing, U.S. Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) toll-free telephone
operation involves call sites staffed with telephone
automation technology and customer service representatives
to answer account-related and technical tax law
questions. To reduce operating costs while maintaining
or increasing customer satisfaction with the tax
law assistance provided, the IRS wanted to explore
the alternatives to internally handling these
calls through a third-party outsourcing vendor.
ICF International utilized a four-step process to
develop recommendations to the IRS request. The
research identified the processes and best practices
for successfully outsourcing technical services
and addressed the data requirements of outsourcing
activities related to government agencies. In
addition, the research revealed several improvement
opportunities for performance and cost control,
as well as the best practices for workforce management,
agent training, technology integration, and disaster
recovery activities.
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