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Luck Stone Corporation:
When Customer Service Matters, Portals Come Alive
It’s not just about having a
customer service line anymore; today’s
technology trends demand more. In order to
compete, organizations are turning to
Internet enabled portal systems that empower
their customers to get the information they
need, on demand, on line, and without the
on-hold music. It is innovative
organizations like Luck Stone Corporation
that recognized the trend. In their first
portal initiative, Luck Stone decided on a
Customer Access Portal that would reveal key
transactional data and related information.
Luck Stone knew that just
the consolidation of the data alone would
not be an easy task. The rollup would
require reaching out to Oracle Financials,
different data marts, and even multiple
databases. There was also the question of
system maintenance; who would maintain the
users and administer the system? Considering
that the implementation would require the
latest technology and a short time frame to
delivery, the clear choice was to turn to
CRT.
“We chose CRT because of
their reputation in Oracle development,
their consistency with staying on top of the
newest delivery tools, and the comfort in
knowing they have a successful track record”
said Donald Jones, Vice President of
Information Systems. “We didn’t have time to
risk going with a ‘body shop’ or someone
that would charge us an hourly rate to learn
Oracle Portal. We knew CRT had the
methodologies and the expertise in place to
bring this project to a quick success. And
they did.”
CRT’s development team
combined with CRT’s DBA consultants set up a
Virtual Private Database (VPD) which assured
Luck Stone that their customers would only
see the data relevant to their own account.
The data was linked together by CRT
consultants utilizing the power of Oracle’s
views over database links. Oracle 9iAS
Portal development tools were used to build
data entry forms for user maintenance,
reports, and menus. CRT’s consultants
developed PL/SQL packages to customize the
user administration functions and to allow
multiple reports to be run in the same
portlet. This was done by establishing a
dynamic list of the reports available on
each tab page. Finally, portal content areas
were developed to provide users on-line
help. The wonderful thing about the on-line
help system: it’s fully customizable by the
Marketing Department, without any assistance
from IT.
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Luck Stone customers now
have access to their account information
over the web in a secure fashion, utilizing
Virtual Private Databases. Additionally,
Luck Stone associates can view the same
information as the customer while attempting
to answer questions regarding their account.
And what about the question on who will
maintain the system? The user administration
features of Portal were enhanced to allow
customers to maintain their own users, and
to allow Luck Stone administrators to manage
users in a streamlined and efficient
fashion.
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