In my last entry I focused on two areas — the peaking of customer satisfaction based on the ASCI index, and the first of three challenges that impact a firm's ability to service customers well: the new consumerism and shift of interaction power to the initiator.

The second challenge firms face is that of organization design. In most businesses, particularly large ones, no single entity "owns" the customer. And in many businesses, different groups have their own desired outcomes for the customer relationship.

A few years ago I was in a meeting with two somewhat hostile camps from the same business, in the same room.

On the left, the self-service team, whose singular goal was to increase containment rates in their IVR applications. They needed fewer callers opting out and fewer "carbon" resources required in the contact center to service incoming requests. For each percentage point increase of "containment" in the IVR, a quarterly and year-end bonus awaited.

On the right, the enterprise analytics team, whose singular goal was to be able to pull specific callers out of the IVR, and present them with enhanced offers based upon predictive analytics on their "likelihood to purchase". For each improvement in "products per household," a quarterly and year-end bonus awaited.

You see the picture — mutually exclusive goals, each based on the fact that each group felt they "owned" the relationship.

Too many organizations operate under the guise, "there's a hole in the boat (attrition), but don't worry — it’s not on our side.” Conflicting customer contact outcomes, unless under the banner of some strategic thinking, can fall into this category.