CIOIN

Daya Prakash

CIO, LG Electronics India

Executive summary

"The result of a business is a satisfied customer," said management guru Peter Drucker. Customer service is the building block of brand loyalty and when LG Electronics India (LGEIL) saw a slip on customer service, they knew something had to be done.  IT came to help and their "Customer Delight" broke new ground.

LGEIL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of LG Electronics, South Korea, set up base 12 years ago. However, in 2004, the Rs 9,500-crore company realized that their customers' only point of contact with the company was through 5,000-odd customer service engineers - the people who fixed their appliances. These brand ambassadors, however, had no loyalty to LGEIL but to their bosses - 1,100 franchised service centers across the country. The result? In a 2004 Businessworld 'After Sales and Service' survey, LGEIL came in a poor last for the service of its refrigerators.

"The service center's attitude towards the customer was what LG's market depended on," says Daya Prakash, CIO, LGEIL. LGEIL's management were frightened by the realization that they had no control over the service levels the 5,000 service engineers offered. What was needed was a control mechanism that lay down the guidelines for behavior, service efficiency and communication skills of service engineers. In 2001, the company set up LGSCNET (LG Customer Support Online). The B2B portal was meant to help LGEIL's service franchisees (also called Area Service Centers or ASCs) maintain spare part stock, even if they were located in the backwaters.

In the meanwhile, LGEIL's customers were not being serviced as well as they wanted to be. Even when service engineers attended calls punctually, they couldn't tell customers how soon their problems could be fixed. Mainly because an engineer had no way of knowing if a crucial part could be sourced from the local service center or if it needed to be ordered from a regional depot or higher up the supply chain. Engineers could not give customers a time-frame and the lack of transparency left customers feeling helpless and cheated.

"One of LG's objectives was to promote the brand. Servicing one product well ensures that customers keep coming back," says Prakash. Another objective of enhancing LGCSNET was to create a call center for customers. But with the call center being a customer's first point of contact, it was clear that servicing would have to start from there. So, LGEIL decided to leverage LGCSNET with a campaign called 'Customer Delight'. The program meant to increase service quality with three initiatives. "Each of these initiatives (SMS service, 211 and Voice of Customer) were targeted at bringing about customer delight, service efficiency and employee efficiency," says Prakash. The system ensures that whenever the call center receives a call, an SMS is sent to the customer with a job code. Simultaneously, an SMS is sent to a service engineer assigning him that job. Their calls for service are instantly SMSed to a branch office and an engineer, to ensure stricter follow up of a complaint.

From the SMS service stemmed another initiative that made it possible to have greater control over service engineers - thereby increasing LGEIL's ability to keep their customers happy.  This came in the form of the 211 program. Under 211, service engineers have to return a customer's call within 2 hours of a complaint being lodged. They have to ensure that they can give their customer 1 hour of their time in the next 1 day. LGEIL's management ensures that customer feedback is  assed on to engineers and going forward, engineers will be evaluated on its basis. The result? In another Businessworld survey on consumer satisfaction - this time in 2007 - LGEIL scored first place for its ability to resolve customer problems on a first call and for the skill of its helpline personnel.