CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
This section provides an overview of the Departments approach to
CRM in support of the E-Government Framework. CRM focuses on who the customers
are and how DOL will better serve them. It addresses building the customer
relationship, improving customer value, measuring progress in customer support
service, and identifying and implementing key CRM initiatives. Although the
Department has always made an effort to improve customer value, the
E-Government Strategic Plan takes these customer support efforts to a higher
level by addressing service within the E-Government Framework. The Plan expands
customer support from an agency-specific effort to a customer-centric
mission.
BUILDING THE
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
Being customer-centric means creating an environment for understanding
and improving the customer relationship. To facilitate this improved
relationship, the Department has categorized customers to help it identify
opportunities for common approaches and to enable it to leverage economies of
scale. On the basis of the Departments GPEA Progress Report and GPRA
documentation, DOL associated its services with the following major customer
groups: citizens, businesses, other governments, and employees. Appendix E
provides an overview of departmental services by customer type. DOLs
categorization of its customers has provided the basis for further analysis and
segmentation to target and improve customer service. Analysis is based on
customers and services, not on the agencies that provide the services; it,
therefore, helps integrate DOLs efforts into the broader Federal
approaches to customer identification and service improvement.
IMPROVING CUSTOMER VALUE
The set of activities an organization performs to create and distribute
its goods and servicesincluding direct activities, such as procurement
and production, and indirect activities, such as human resources and
financeis known as the value chain. In the private sector,
companies achieve competitive advantage by linking the activities in the value
chain less expensively or more expertly than do competitors. In the public
sector, the concept of the value chain is most often applied to improving
customer service.
With the advent of the Internet, the concept of the value chain is
coming to be superseded by that of the value network. For example, the focus on
G2C (Government to Citizen) services in todays customer-driven value
chain is evolving into a focus on C2B2G2B2C (Citizen to Business to Government
to Business to Citizen) in the new value network. To best serve the
Departments customers today, DOL needs to redefine its relationships with
other agencies, businesses, and suppliers to add the greatest possible
valuefrom the customers perspective. In this way, DOL becomes not
just a service provider but also a participant in value creation for the
customer. The key to value creation is working with customers to understand
their requirements, then networking with other transaction partners to deliver
superior service. Figure 5 provides an overview of the value creation process.
Figure 5. DOL Value Creation Process
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