Turbocharging Customer Service

A look at how various companies are using technology to stay in touch with their customers.

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Do you know what's on your customers' minds? Here are some high-tech ways to find out and to act on what you learn

Yogurt maker Stonyfield Farm Inc. had hoped its new apricot-mango flavor would take off, but the company wasn't prepared for the accolade it received from one customer. So taken was the woman with the new product's color that she brought a container of the yogurt down to the local hardware store and asked a clerk to mix up a batch of like-colored paint for her bedroom. Now, presumably, a sea of apricot mango is the first and last thing she sees every day.

While that reaction may have been a little over the top, it's only one of thousands that Stonyfield CEO and president Gary Hirshberg can tell you about. That's because the Londonderry, N.H., company makes a point of soliciting and carefully tracking what consumers think about its yogurt. Thanks in large part to a friendly note on every container it sells -- a note that encourages consumers not only to write to the company but also to sponsor one of the local cows that contribute to the product -- about 150 calls and letters come in from customers each week. The gist of every message is entered into a database that Hirshberg and other Stonyfield managers pore over for opportunities to cement customer loyalty, spot promising new niches, and fine-tune the product line. "When you call Dannon, an operator reads to you from a script," says Hirshberg. "Here you speak to a yogurt maker."

Large companies have been using sophisticated systems to track customers and analyze consumer feedback for a long time. But now more and more small and midsize companies are enlisting technology to press what should be an inherent advantage in personalized service and focused marketing. The small-company emphasis on automating elements of customer service has arisen in part from the availability of cheap PC processing power and easy-to-use, easy-to-customize software well suited to the task of tracking customer responses. Furthermore, CEOs of growing companies are recognizing that staying on top of what ever-more-finicky customers are thinking, be it positive or negative, may be the best way to keep a company growing.

Just ask Larry Smith, founder and president of Boston-based bagel chain Finagle-A-Bagel. Or better still, call the 800 number Smith has set up to field customers' comments and suggestions. When marketing manager Heather Robertson answers, tell her you hate the wildberry bagel, and she'll send you a coupon for, among other things, a free half dozen of your favorite bagels or a free sandwich. Or tell her you refuse to eat another Finagle bagel without knowing exactly how many calories are in it, and she'll tell you that a jumbo plain bagel packs 350. Or tell her the person who waited on you in the Back Bay store was rude, and she'll have the store manager call you to make amends. In fact, there's a good chance Smith himself will write to add more weight to the apology.

Smith and Robertson used to keep track of the 15 or so weekly suggestion and complaint calls with Post-Its. But the $7-million company is rapidly expanding its retail operations by adding three new stores to the two it already runs in the Boston area. (Many of Finagle's 48,000 bagels a day currently go out to restaurants, colleges, and other institutions.) Concerned that the inevitable increase in caller volume would lead to some calls slipping between the cracks, Smith decided it was time for a customer-comment database.

Finagle is not a newcomer to information technology. The company has a part-time information-systems manager, Cosmo Nardella, and operates a fairly sophisticated software program designed for wholesale bakeries. Called Z-Bake and sold by Computron in Pasadena, Calif., the system tracks orders from wholesale customers and retail shops, and makes sure the commissary in South Boston has enough supplies to meet demand. That setup, along with PCs for his seven management employees, cost Smith some $50,000, and he considers it a smart investment. Now he's upgrading the program to include a point-of-sale component that will route real-time sales and inventory information from the stores to headquarters for analysis.

Nevertheless, Smith is leery of technological overkill. He still grumbles about the $45,000 dough mixer he recently bought, which he says can't keep up with the 40-year-old mixer he picked up a few years ago for $6,000. So Smith asked Nardella to keep the customer database as simple as possible. Nardella responded by building it in one hour using Microsoft Word, the word-processing program the company uses for its letters and memos. (Most high-end word-processing programs offer stripped-down database capabilities.)

Now every time a customer calls, Robertson records his or her name, phone number, and comments. The next time that customer calls -- and people who call once are likely to do so again, making them an invaluable source of feedback -- Robertson can retrieve the data and talk to the customer as though every detail of the last call were fresh in her mind. That sort of service can turn an angry customer into a fanatically loyal one, she says.

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