Event
Summary
eLoyalty defines strategies, outlines tactics, manages technology implementations,
and provides ongoing support for its clients. It has 14 practices that
focus on specific aspects of CRM such as Marketing, Internet, and Operations.
Its Field Service and Logistics practice focuses on effective utilization
of the field service staff; the goal is to improve customer satisfaction
while simultaneously making the best use of field service resources. Knowledge
management resource selections and dispatch optimization are the primary
technologies eLoyalty employs to ensure that service representatives have
the right skills and resources at the right place at the right time.
ServicePower
is a dispatch optimization vendor headquartered in England. Its main product
is ServicePower 2000. Dispatch optimization includes the following functions:
- Scheduling
service appointments
- Mapping
service appointments and required service skills with the proper available
field service representatives
- Optimizing
the service schedule to ensure field service resources are not being
wasted
In the new
partnership between the two companies, eLoyalty will provide implementation
and ongoing support services for ServicePower software, in addition to
creating field service strategy and tactics. eLoyalty told TEC that increasing
customer satisfaction through enhancing field service (and customer service
and support in general) is a fundamental, yet somewhat neglected aspect
of CRM. eLoyalty believes that demand for CRM software will increase as
organizations move from a product focus to a customer focus. eLoyalty
also believes that demand for field service and logistics components of
CRM will increase as organizations realize these can be just as valuable
as such popular components as call center management and campaign management.
The partnership with ServicePower signifies eLoyalty's commitment to provide
Field Service and Logistics services as this market grows.
Market
Impact
eLoyalty primarily competes against the Big Four consulting firms. These
firms have partnered with CRM vendors and built a workforce capable of
implementing CRM products. eLoyalty has partnerships with large CRM vendors
including Siebel, Vantive, E.piphany, and Kana. Each of these vendors
has also partnered with at least one of the Big Four. This creates a challenge
for eLoyalty because the Big Four have existing relationships with a large
percentage of the potential CRM market. Smaller consulting firms find
it very difficult to win contracts when they compete against Big Four
firms that have already done work for the client.
eLoyalty's
biggest competitive advantage is its workforce. Unlike many of the consultants
at a Big Four firm eLoyalty only hires seasoned veterans out of industry.
As a result it has a staff that brings more personal experience to a project
than what might be expected from the Big Four. eLoyalty is also completely
focused on CRM. Thus they may convince potential clients that their understanding
of CRM is deeper than what may be found in a large firm that hires recent
graduates and implements nearly every type of business application.
Although
eLoyalty's stock has suffered the plight of many technology firms (losing
over 74% of its value since mid February) eLoyalty is profitable and revenues
are growing. Their 3Q00 revenue was $46.8 million, up 11.4% from the previous
quarter and up 42% from 3Q99. Earnings per share for 3Q00 were $0.03.
User
Recommendations
Organizations should consider eLoyalty's Field Service and Logistics practice
(and ServicePower 2000) if their field service staff greatly impacts customer
satisfaction. The benefits of improving the field service operation are
reduced cost and increased customer satisfaction. Resource matching and
sophisticated dispatching reduce the number of missed appointments, enable
more cases to be handled per day, and shorten the time window that customers
have to wait. Overall field service optimization can improve service consistency
and predictability.
One
of the biggest challenges to effectively implementing sophisticated dispatching
is centralizing the scheduling and dispatch process. If it is currently
decentralized, convincing field service representatives to give up control
of their own scheduling and to handle more service appointments per day
may turn out to be more difficult and time consuming than implementing
the software. Some of the potential benefits to the staff (depending on
how the staff's free time is reallocated) are time for often-neglected
tasks such as account control and training. They may also gain a better
balance between work and home.