Paul Rouke - Usability Professional

Ah the satisfaction of big businesses adopting simple new eCRM practises to improve the customer experience..

A few minutes ago I booked my car into my local Peugeot service department for an MOT. Requesting my registration number to check whether they had my details on record, the lady on the phone duly located my personal and car details from some work I had done earlier this year.

Confirming that I am OK to book in for 1st thing the following morning at 8.30am, I was a relieved man knowing that my MOT ran out on Monday and I’m currently driving round somewhat illegally (if only having got some beers for last nights Man Utd v Sheffield Utd game, but anyway I digress…)

At the end of the call I immediately headed to my Remember the Milk account to add this task in for the morning. No sooner had I clicked my Firefox tab containing my account I received a text message as follows:

Thankyou for booking your vehicle with us on 19/04/07 @ 8.30 Hrs. We look forward to seeing you. Kind Regards. Elton Peugeot Bury

What a simple yet satisfying piece of customer management – as I mentioned I have used them on other occasions this year and this is obviously a new facility within their customer management system when a job is booked in.

If I wasn’t already satsified with their telephone and face to face customer service (which for the record I am) this new method of customer contact is very pleasing to experience.

So there we are – joining the list of concert ticket ordering, event attending and other text message customer service events, car servicing from Elton Peugeot Garages in Bury is now using text messaging as part of their eCRM solution!

To summarise

As mobile use continues to grow and people use their devices for more than phonecalls and text messages, more businesses will adopt these more instant and personal customer relationship management systems. This will bring benefits to businesses and customers industry wide…