Information is broken up across the departments in your business. That's part of how everyone achieves their core responsibilities. Instead of looking at a customer base (or even a single customer) as both a general picture and in minute detail, customer service handles the day to day operational interactions while finance manages their late payments and incorrect billing. But the whole of a customer's profile should drive action, too, especially when it comes to potential penalties and SLA violations.

Build automated triggers that flag SLA violations. 

Depending on the niche your company operates in, your standard Service Level Agreements may contain anything from a baseline of access to caveats for data leaks or different paths of solvency for poor service. It's the responsibility of the provider, not just the customer, to keep track of violations. So build reports that can automatically detect warning signs, even across different programs and departments, by sending individual reports to a central program and compiling them.

You can create flags that act as tick marks so you're alerted if any customer is in a 'red zone' of X number of problems. Or you can create automatic reports that know to notify you if (a) your company's product is down, (b) the customer is locked out due to an internal error on your company's side, and (c) the total percentage of downtime the customer has experienced. Automated systems are getting smarter and smarter, so make the data let you know if you have at-risk customers instead of waiting for manual edits and complaints.

Filter out customer emails with keywords.

When customers email a generic help or support address, those queries can go weeks without being answered. But that delay can be bad for business, especially if it's related to 'SLA,' 'service levels,' or term 'violations.' So don't just let humans comb through the inbox; create an automated first glance that pulls potentially vital messages to the top of a dedicated employee's to do list. While this automation doesn't save time on the face of things, it reallocates focus so you can stop growing problems before they turn into long-term disasters.

Go to folio1 for more trends and automation suggestions, as well as the software to make it happen.