CUSTOMER RELATION SHIP MANAGEMENT UNIT ..II JNTU KAKINADA
CUSTOMER
RELATION SHIP MANAGEMENT UNIT ..II
WHAT IS CRM INTEGRATION?
CRM integration is building your website and CRM to
function together seamlessly. Instead of using your CRM to just be a system
that retains customer information based on manual entries, integrating your
website/marketing automation software brings in valuable customer information
directly into your CRM.
For example, let’s say a prospect downloads your
recent whitepaper from your website. This “prospect” is graded with a solid “B”
(based on the grading structure you’ve put in place in your marketing
automation software). If your marketing automation software is integrated with
your CRM, a new record will be created and assigned to a sales person for
follow-up.
In addition, your sales person will be able to
pinpoint when that lead last visited your site, what they looked at, and what
other information they requested.
CRM integration is building your
website and CRM to function together seamlessly. Instead of
using your CRM to just be a system that retains customer
information based on manual entries, integrating your
website/marketing automation software brings in valuable customer information
directly into yourCRM.
BUSINESS STRATEGY
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is
all about the finding, acquiring, and retaining the best, most profitable
customers. CRM systems offer an easy to use and automated means of
managing the loads of valuable information about your company accounts and the
various dealings with the people. With successful CRM in good working
order you can use this knowledge database to make faster, smarter decisions.
You can work more productively by focusing on the best customers and new
prospects, making sure you are top of mind when your company's
offering is needed.
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CRM BUSINESS STRATEGY A
SUCCESS
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Today’s digital world is
progressively changing the way that clients interact with professional services
firms. Client expectations are shaped by day-to-day consumer experiences where immediate
responses and on-demand self-service access to information is the norm. Now
more than ever, building trusted relationships and maintaining a solid
reputation depends on delivery of outstanding and increasingly distinctive
experiences.
Due to the increased competition among professional
services firms, many organizations have invested in CRM with the goal of having
a 360-degree view of the customer to drive a superior customer experience and
maximize the profitability of client relationships; but with a faulty business
strategy, few are satisfied with their results.
A successful solution requires a clear and concise
understanding of the strategy and objectives of your marketing and sales
programs, including:
1.
Defining your
business objectives – Your CRM
strategy must be designed with your business objectives and customer
requirements in mind.
2.
Identifying who
your customer is – Is there agreement on
definition of “customer”? Have consensus on this and other key definitions.
3.
Identifying your
customer segments – Who are
your high-value and high potential customers? Know who you want to serve.
Understand what that customer wants. Prioritize. What is the customer worth and
what is their potential?
4.
Agreeing on
desired customer behaviors – Build
consensus on how you want customers to behave differently and what the customer
experience will be, from the customer’s perspective. Design a different
customer experience for each customer segment.
5.
Defining customer
experience goals – Articulate the
customer experience. How should your experience feel? Identify interactions
that are important to the customer.
6.
Standardizing data – Various departments in your organization
may see your customer quite differently from another. Using one integrated set
of analytical data throughout the company can help executives to make key
decisions about how much to invest in a particular customer.
7.
Developing success
metrics – How will you know if your CRM program has
been a success?
Today, the process
of engaging customers can’t be one-size-fits-all. It needs to be adaptive
across all touch points and within the context of your customer. Intelligent
customer engagement with the right tools and the right business strategy
enables your company to build customer trust, loyalty and insight.
NATURE AND SCOPE
The Customer is
King! This credo is more powerful, relevant and
true today than ever before. In a truly customer driven economy, success
depends on a company’s ability to be with the customer on a round the clock
basis… satisfying all their product and service specific needs. Simply stated,
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is about finding,
getting, and retaining customers.
Customer Relationship Management is one of the
hottest and most talked about topics in the industry today and for good
reason. CRM (customer relationship management)is an
information industry term for methodologies, software, and usually Internet
capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an
organized way. Simply stated, Customer Relationship
Management(CRM) is about finding, getting, and retaining
customers. CRM is at the core of any customer- focused
business strategy and includes the people, processes, and technology questions
associated with marketing, sales, and service. In today’s hyper-competitive
world, organizations looking to implement successful CRM strategies
need to focus on a common view of the customer using integrated information
systems and contact center implementations that allow the customer to
communicate via any desired communication channel.
CRM is all about building long term business
relationships with your customers. It is best described as the blending of
internal business processes: Sales, Marketing and Customer support with
technology. CRM is to meet and exceed customer
expectations, create a positive customer experience and build customer loyalty.
Solutions empower businesses to more efficiently and effectively manage the
activities that affect their relationship with their customers. The ultimate goal
of
CRM changes all of this and represents a
continuing evolution in managing front office operations. With CRM,
traditional departmental applications for sales, marketing and customer service
are consolidated into a single unified system capable of managing the entire
customer life cycle. This approach allows employees throughout an
organization to have immediate access to a complete profile of important
customer information. Organizations who are implementing CRM solutions
feel confident that providing access to this level of information will assist
their sales and support staff in better understanding the needs and buying
patterns of their customers.
GOOD CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT STRATEGY
In a report for Forrester, analyst
William Band surveyed approximately 150 different companies in an effort to
identify problems with their CRM initiatives. He discovered that 18% of
his respondents reported issues directly relating to inadequate strategies.
Without an effective CRM strategy, businesses run the risk of missing the mark
on delivering superior customer value. Here are some tips to help your business
develop a winning CRM strategy.
More than anything
else, your CRM should help your company achieve its goals. As such, your first
step in implementing a CRM strategy is to identify those goals. Once you know
what you are trying to accomplish, your next step is to determine how you plan
on reaching your objectives. Break your goals down into smaller, achievable
objectives, and then map out how and when you plan to complete these steps.
This map should be flexible, allowing for revision along the way.
2.Prioritize your Customers.
It is common for
businesses to want to treat all of their customers equally. The problem is that
the business world is not a democracy; for a company to be successful, it must
be willing to prioritize customers based upon how profitable (or how likely to
become profitable) they are. For example, returning customers are often much
more valuable, spending on average nearly double what new customers spend . Your organization may have its own
definition of what makes a customer valuable, so it is up to you to identify
the traits that you most look for in a buyer, so that can segment your accounts
to increase metric-effectiveness.
3.Communicate with your employees.
Your CRM may be
designed to handle large amounts of data, and to facilitate communication between
various groups, but it is your staff that will determine whether or not your
goals are met. Involve your employee in every step of the strategic process.
This will help them not only internalize the objectives, but will also give
them personal ownership over the direction that the company takes. Invested
employees will be better able to integrate new policies and technologies in a
way that will benefit everyone involved.
4.Stagger your changes.
If some aspect of
your business isn’t working the way it should, you might feel pressured to
implement new policies and technologies as quickly as possible in an effort to
minimize any damage. The problem with this mentality is that too many changes
all at once can have a negative impact on your employee’s productivity. Keep
your workforce in mind, and whenever possible, introduce your new CRM policies
gradually.
The CRM framework
makes it possible for businesses to capture data at every stage of the customer
journey. Despite this, many businesses fail to put their CRM to work until
after the first few steps have been made. Instead, prepare for initial contact
with your lead by using your CRM to catalogue what kind of information your
prospective customer shares across social media channels. This will give you an
edge in understanding what your customer wants, how they expect you to deliver
on those wants, and what they are likely to want in the future.
6.Sync everything to your CRM.
Many CRMs have
their own built-in programs that mimic the functionality of other, often-used
applications. When this is the case, then it is a simple matter for your system
to sync together, so that any notes or appointments made throughout the system
are automatically tracked through the rest of the CRM. However, for times when
outside applications are necessary, be sure sync your CRM with whatever other
programs are being utilized. The best CRMs will do this automatically,
importing client-related appointments from your calendar, updating
cancellations and other changes, and sending reminders when appropriate.
Syncing everything together will help guarantee that you’re utilizing your CRM
to its full ability.
7.Evaluate and improve.
Every business has
its own unique challenges, and no CRM strategy — no matter how in-depth — will
be able to accurately account for every possible contingency. Accept this fact,
and be willing to reevaluate your approach should it become apparent that
something isn’t working as well as it could be. Remember: Knowing what is
ineffective can often be nearly as valuable as knowing what is effective, so be
grateful for every chance you have to identify weaknesses in your system.
When all is said and done, CRM is nothing more than
a highly-advanced tool. By itself, it is incapable of helping your business
reach its goals. But when combined with a detailed-yet-flexible business
strategy, CRM can help you place your customer in the forefront of your
business focus. It may take time, effort, and a few trips back to the drawing
board, but if you make it a point to develop the right strategy, you’ll find
that CRM has the potential to perfect your relationships with those who keep
you in business.
CUSTOMER
What is a 'Customer'
A customer is an individual
or business that purchases the goods or services produced by a
business. Attracting customers is the primary goal of most public-facing
businesses, because it is the customer who creates demand for goods
and services. Businesses often compete through advertisements or lowered prices
to attract an ever-larger customer base.
A consumer profile is a way of describing a consumer categorically so
that they can be grouped for marketing and advertising purposes. By target
advertising to a specific market segment, companies and marketers can find more success in selling a particular
product and increase profits. As a short-hand way of talking about
consumers, market segments are often represented by consumer profiles.
Definition
A person, company, or other entity which buys goods and services produced by another person, company, or other entity.
A description of a customer or set of customersthat includes demographic, geographic, and psychographic characteristics, as well as buying patterns, creditworthiness, and purchase history.
CONSUMER PROFILE: DEFINING THE IDEAL CUSTOMER
A consumer profile is a way of describing a
consumer categorically so that they can be grouped for marketing and
advertising purposes. By target advertising to a specific market
segment, companies and marketers can find more success in selling a
particular product and increase profits. As a short-hand way of talking
about consumers, market segments are often represented by consumer profiles.
CREATING THE IDEAL CONSUMER PROFILE: CATEGORY
BASICS
Before
even starting to market a product to potential customers, it's important to
take the time to carve out the ideal consumer profile for your products. By
defining your ideal customer, you can begin to notice patterns that may prove
useful in target advertising.
To start, consumers can be identified by many different categories, such
as:
- preference
- lifestyle
- stage
of life
- attribute
- trait
Thinking about consumers in terms of the way they are represented by
categorical tiers can be useful. The first tier includes the most common
categories for describing consumers, such as demographics, socioeconomic
status, and product usage. The second tier extends the concepts of the first
tier and includes psychographics, generation, geography, geodemographics, and
benefits sought. Basic definitions of these concepts are provided below:
Demographic: Attributes related to
age, city or region of residence, gender, race and ethnicity, and composition
of the household.
Socioeconomic: Attributes related to
household income, educational attainment, occupation, neighborhood, and
association memberships.
Brand affinity / Product usage: Attributes associated
with product engagement on the basis of their behavior.
Psychographics: Attributes related to
lifestyles, life stage, personality, attitudes, opinion, and even voting
behavior.
Generation: Attributes related to
a specific identifiable generation cohort group.
Geography: Attributes related to
the geographical area in which consumers reside and work.
Geodemographics: Attributes that
combine geography and demographics which may cluster into identifiable groups.
Benefits Sought: Attributes related to
the benefits that consumers seek when they shop for products and services.
Market researchers may develop
proprietary consumer profiles or they may use panels of consumers who have been
classified according to their common attributes. Market research provider firms
often make their consumer profiles available for discrete market research
projects that are conducted for their market research clients at large
companies.
WHAT IS A CUSTOMER
PROFILE?
A Customer Profile is also known as Customer Persona or Avatars.
Basically, a Customer Profile is
a description of a customer or set of customers that
includes demographic, geographic, and psychographic characteristics, as well as
buying patterns, creditworthiness, and purchase history.
It helps
businesses to make important decisions by tracking customer information, such
as trends, demographics, and psychological graphics. It is much easier
to attract more customers when you actually know
about your current customers. With competition for customers increasing every
day, it is one of the simple ways to have a competitive advantage.
Your customers should be the driver behind every marketing decision in
your business.
The process of creating either a customer profile or
customer persona will help clearly define your customers' needs by
understanding their buying patterns, such as what, how and where they buy – and
more importantly – their motivations for buying.
What's
the difference between a customer profile and a customer persona?
·
A
customer profile is a basic high-level description of your ideal customers.
·
A
customer persona is a fictional customer with a photo, name and personality
that represents the common traits of your ideal customers.
Write your
profile or persona by downloading our interactive marketing plan template:
Developing
a persona
Develop a picture of your ideal customer:
·
Who are
you already appealing to?
·
Who are
your favourite customers?
·
Who is
using your services the most?
When you've
answered these questions, describe your ideal customer in detail to help shape
a voice for your persona that you'll use for your marketing activities, such
as:
·
what
they wear
·
what
their hobbies are
·
what
concerns them.
Flesh
out and refine
To flesh out and refine your initial assessment, examine
the market research information you've gathered and answer the following
questions:
·
Who are
your target customers, and how do they behave?
·
What
are the specific demographics of your ideal customer, such as age, social
status, education and gender?
·
What
are your customers' lifestyles, activities, values, needs, interests or
opinions?
·
Where
are they located?
·
What
type of environment do they live in?
·
What
are the key phrases or quotes they would use to describe their problems?
·
How
will your product or service remedy these problems?
.
How customer segmentation can help
Market segments are groups of customers who share similar
attributes and attitudes and can be defined by:
·
location
·
gender
·
industry
·
ethnic
identity
·
attitudes,
such as adventure seekers
·
attributes,
such as luxury car owners.
When you target a well-defined segment of your customers,
it's easier to refine your marketing message and your brand so you're speaking
directly to them resulting in more targeted promotion and efficient marketing.
The way you segment your market depends on the type of
business you run.
How can you
improve your offering?
Having refined your customer persona, you can now tailor
your marketing messages so they speak in a voice your customer can relate to
and reflects their desires or concerns.
Having a
persona also makes it easier to market your business around your customer and
what they really want – not what you think they
want – with the ability to make decisions relating to:
·
how and
where to advertise
·
what
channels or mediums you should be using
·
what
vocabulary to use.
CONTENTS OF
CRM STRATAGY
Customer
relationship management (CRM) is an approach to manage a
company's interaction with current and potential customers. It
uses data analysis about customers' history with a company to improve
business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on customer
retention and ultimately driving sales growth.
One important aspect of the CRM approach is
the systems of CRM that compile data from a range of different
communication channels, including a company's website, telephone, email, live
chat, marketing materials, and more recently, social media ]Through
the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate it, businesses learn more
about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.
CONTENTS
·
1SOFTWARE HISTORY
·
2TYPES
o
2.1STRATEGIC
o
2.2OPERATIONAL
o
2.3ANALYTICAL
o
2.4COLLABORATIVE
o
2.5CUSTOMER DATA PLATFORM
·
3COMPONENTS
·
4EFFECT ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
o
4.1CUSTOMER BENEFITS
o
4.2EXAMPLES
·
6IMPROVING CRM WITHIN A FIRM
o
6.1ANALYZING THE INFORMATION
o
6.2EMPLOYEE TRAINING
o
6.3APPLICATION
·
7IN PRACTICE
o
7.1CALL CENTERS
o
7.2CONTACT CENTER AUTOMATION
o
7.3SOCIAL MEDIA
o
7.4LOCATION-BASED SERVICES
o
7.5BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS
·
8CRM MARKET
·
9MARKET TRENDS
·
10CRITICISM
SOFTWARE
HISTORY
The
concept of customer relationship management started in the early 1970s, when
customer satisfaction was evaluated using annual surveys or by front-line
asking. At that time, businesses had to rely on standalone mainframe
systems to automate sales, but the extent of technology allowed them to
categorize customers in spreadsheets and lists. In 1982, Kate and
Robert Kestnbaum introduced the concept of Database marketing, namely
applying statistical methods to analyze and gather customer data.. By 1986, Pat
Sullivan and Mike Muhney released a customer
evaluation system called ACT! based on the principle of
digital rolodex, which offered a contact management service for the first time.
The trend
was followed by numerous developers trying to maximize leads' potential,
including Tom Siebel, who designed the first CRM product Siebel Systems in
1993. Nevertheless, customer relationship management popularized in 1997,
due to the work of Siebel, Gartner, and IBM. Between 1997 and 2000,
leading CRM products were enriched with enterprise resource
planningfunctions, and shipping and marketing capabilities.Siebel introduced
the first mobile CRM app called Siebel Sales Handheld in 1999. The idea of a
cloud-hosted and moveable customer bases was soon adopted by other leading
providers at the time, including PeopleSoft, Oracle, and SAP.
Types
STRATEGIC
Strategic
CRM is focused upon the development of a customer-centric business culture.
OPERATIONAL
The
primary goal of customer relationship management systems is to integrate
and automate sales, marketing, and customer support. Therefore, these
systems typically have a dashboard that gives an overall view of the three
functions on a single customer view, a single page for each customer that
a company may have. The dashboard may provide client information, past sales,
previous marketing efforts, and more, summarizing all of the relationships
between the customer and the firm. Operational CRM is made up of 3 main
components: sales force automation, marketing automation, and service
automation.
ANALYTICAL
The role
of analytical CRM systems is to analyze customer data collected through
multiple sources, and present it so that business managers can make more
informed decisions.Analytical CRM systems use techniques such as data mining,
correlation, and pattern recognition to analyze the customer data. These
analytics help improve customer service by finding small problems which can be
solved, perhaps, by marketing to different parts of a consumer audience
differently.[11] For example, through the
analysis of a customer base's buying behavior, a company might see that this
customer base has not been buying a lot of products recently. After scanning
through this data, the company might think to market to this subset of
consumers differently, in order to best communicate how this company's products
might benefit this group specifically
COLLABORATIVE
The third
primary aim of CRM systems is to incorporate external stakeholders such as
suppliers, vendors, and distributors, and share customer information across
organizations. For example, feedback can be collected from technical support
calls, which could help provide direction for marketing products and services
to that particular customer in the future
CUSTOMER DATA PLATFORM
A customer
data platform (CDP) is a computer system used by marketing departments
that assembles data about individual people from various sources into one
database, with which other software systems can interact. As of February
2017 there were about twenty companies selling such systems and revenue for
them was around US$300 million.
COMPONENTS
COMPONENTS IN THE DIFFERENT TYPES
OF CRM
The main components of CRM are building and
managing customer relationships through marketing, observing relationships as
they mature through distinct phases, managing these relationships at each stage
and recognizing that the distribution of value of a relationship to the firm is
not homogenous. When building and managing customer relationships through
marketing, firms might benefit from using a variety of tools to help
organizational design, incentive schemes, customer structures, and more to
optimize the reach of its marketing campaigns. Through the acknowledgement of
the distinct phases of CRM, businesses will be able to benefit from seeing the
interaction of multiple relationships as connected transactions. The final
factor of CRM highlights the importance of CRM through accounting for the
profitability of customer relationships. Through studying the particular
spending habits of customers, a firm may be able to dedicate different
resources and amounts of attention to different types of consumers.
CRM SYSTEMS
INCLUDE:
·
Data warehouse technology, used to aggregate
transaction information, to merge the information with CRM products, and to
provide key performance indicators.
·
Opportunity management which helps the company
to manage unpredictable growth and demand, and implement a good forecasting
model to integrate sales history with sales projections.
·
CRM systems that track and measure marketing
campaigns over multiple networks, tracking customer analysis by customer clicks
and sales.
·
Some CRM software is available as a software
as a service (SaaS), delivered via the internet and accessed via a web
browser instead of being installed on a local computer. Businesses using the
software do not purchase it, but typically pay a recurring subscription fee to
the software vendor.
·
For small businesses a CRM system may consist of a
contact manager system that integrates emails, documents, jobs, faxes, and
scheduling for individual accounts. CRM systems available for specific markets
(legal, finance) frequently focus on event management and relationship tracking
as opposed to financial return on investment (ROI).
·
CRM systems for eCommerce,
focused on marketing automation tasks, like: cart rescue, re-engage users with
email, personalization.
·
Customer-centric relationship management (CCRM) is
a nascent sub-discipline that focuses on customer preferences instead of
customer leverage. CCRM aims to add value by engaging customers in individual,
interactive relationships.
·
Systems for non-profit and membership-based
organizations help track constituents, fundraising, sponsors' demographics,
membership levels, membership directories, volunteering and communication with
individuals.
EFFECT ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION
Customer
satisfaction has important implications for the economic performance of
firms because it has the ability to increase customer loyalty and usage
behavior and reduce customer complaints and the likelihood of customer
defection. The implementation of a CRM approach is likely to have an effect on
customer satisfaction and customer knowledge for a variety of different
reasons.
Firstly,
firms are able to customize their offerings for each customer. By
accumulating information across customer interactions and processing this
information to discover hidden patterns, CRM applications help firms customize
their offerings to suit the individual tastes of their customers. This
customization enhances the perceived quality of products and services from a customer's
viewpoint, and because perceived quality is a determinant of customer
satisfaction, it follows that CRM applications indirectly affect customer
satisfaction. CRM applications also enable firms to provide timely, accurate
processing of customer orders and requests and the ongoing management of
customer accounts.[24] For example, Piccoli and
Applegate discuss how Wyndham uses IT tools to deliver a consistent
service experience across
its various properties to a customer. Both an improved ability to customize and
a reduced variability of the consumption experience enhance perceived quality,
which in turn positively affects customer satisfaction Furthermore, CRM
applications also help firms manage customer relationships more effectively
across the stages of relationship initiation, maintenance, and termination.
CUSTOMER BENEFITS
With Customer
relationship management systems customers are served better on day to day
process and with more reliable information their demand of self
service from companies will decrease. If there is less need to interact with
the company for different problems, customer satisfaction level
increases.[27] These central benefits of
CRM will be connected hypothetically to the three kinds of equity that are
relationship, value and brand, and in the end to customer equity. Eight
benefits were recognized to provide value drivers.
2.
Integrated assistance across channels
3.
Enhanced sales force efficiency and
effectiveness
5.
Customized products and services
6.
Improved customer service efficiency and
effectiveness
7.
Individualized marketing messages also called
campaigns
8.
Connect customers and all channels on a single
platform.
EXAMPLES
Research has
found a 5% increase in customer retention boosts lifetime customer profits by
50% on average across multiple industries, as well as a boost of up to 90%
within specific industries such as insurance. Companies that have mastered
customer relationship strategies have the most successful CRM programs. For
example, MBNA Europe has had a 75% annual profit growth
since 1995. The firm heavily invests in screening potential cardholders. Once
proper clients are identified, the firm retains 97% of its profitable
customers. They implement CRM by marketing the right products to the right
customers. The firm's customers' card usage is 52% above industry norm, and the
average expenditure is 30% more per transaction. Also 10% of their account
holders ask for more information on cross-sale products.
Amazon has
also seen great success through its customer proposition. The firm implemented
personal greetings, collaborative filtering, and more for the customer. They
also used CRM training for the employees to see up to 80% of customers repeat.
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Customer
or consumer profiles are the essence of the data that is collected alongside
core data (name, address, company) and processed through customer analytics methods,
essentially a type of profiling. A customer is abstracted to information that sums
up consumption habits
so far and projects them into the future so
that they can be grouped for marketing and advertisingpurposes.
IMPROVING CRM WITHIN A FIRM
Consultants, such as Bain & Company, argue
that it is important for companies establishing strong CRM systems to improve
their relational intelligence. According to this argument, a company must
recognize that people have many different types of relationships with different
brands. One research study analyzed relationships between consumers in China,
Germany, Spain, and the United States, with over 200 brands in 11 industries
including airlines, cars and media. This information is valuable as it provides
demographic, behavioral, and value-based customer segmentation. These types of
relationships can be both positive and negative. Some customers view themselves
as friends of the brands, while others as enemies, and some are mixed with a
love-hate relationship with the brand. Some relationships are distant, intimate
or anything in between.
ANALYZING THE INFORMATION
Managers
must understand the different reasons for the types of relationships, and
provide the customer with what they are looking for. Companies can collect this
information by using surveys,
interviews, and more, with current customers. For example, Frito-Lay conducted many ethnographic interviews
with customers to try and understand the relationships they wanted with the
companies and the brands. They found that most customers were adults who used
the product to feel more playful. They may have enjoyed the company's bright
orange color, messiness and shape
EMPLOYEE
TRAINING
Many
firms have also implemented training programs to teach employees how to
recognize and effectively create strong customer-brand relationships. For
example, Harley Davidson sent its employees on the
road with customers, who were motorcycle enthusiasts, to help solidify
relationships. Other employees have also been trained in social psychology and
the social sciences to help bolster strong
customer relationships. Customer service representatives must be
educated to value customer relationships, and trained to understand existing
customer profiles. Even the finance and legal departments should understand how
to manage and build relationships with customers.
APPLICATION
Applying
new technologies while using CRM systems requires changes in infrastructure of
the organization as well as deployment of new technologies such as business
rules, databases and information technology
IN PRACTICE
CALL CENTERS
Contact center CRM providers are popular
for small and mid-market businesses. These systems codify the interactions
between company and customers by using analytics and key
performance indicators to give the users information on where to
focus their marketing and customer service. This allows agents to have access
to a caller's history to provide personalized customer communication. The
intention is to maximize average
revenue per user, decrease churn rate and decrease idle and
unproductive contact with the customers.
CONTACT CENTER AUTOMATION
Contact
center automation, the practice of having an
integrated system that coordinates contacts between an organization and the
public, is designed to reduce the repetitive and tedious parts of a contact
center agent's job. Automation prevents this by having pre-recorded audio
messages that help customers solve their problems. For example, an automated
contact center may be able to re-route a customer through a series of commands
asking him or her to select a certain number in order to speak with a
particular contact center agent who specializes in the field in which the
customer has a question.Software tools can also integrate with the agent's
desktop tools to handle customer questions and requests. This also saves time
on behalf of the employees
SOCIAL MEDIA
Social CRM involves the use of social
media and technology to engage and learn from consumers. Because the
public, especially young people, are increasingly using social networking
sites, companies use. these sites to draw attention to their products,
services and brands, with the aim of building up customer relationships to
increase demand.
LOCATION-BASED SERVICES
CRM
systems can also include technologies that create geographic marketing
campaigns. The systems take in information based on a customer's physical
location and sometimes integrates it with popular location-based GPS
applications. It can be used for networking or contact management as well to
help increase sales based on location.
BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS
Despite
the general notion that CRM systems were created for the customer-centric
businesses, they can also be applied to B2B environments to streamline and
improve customer management conditions. For the best level of CRM operation in
a B2B environment, the software must be personalized and delivered at
individual levels
The main
differences between business-to-consumer (B2C)
and business-to-business CRM systems concern aspects like sizing of
contact databases and length of relationships. Business-to-business
companies tend to have smaller contact databases than business-to-consumer, the
volume of sales in business-to-business is relatively small. There are fewer
figure propositions in business-to-business, but in some cases, they cost a lot
more than business-to-consumer items and relationships in business-to-business
environment are built over a longer period of time. Furthermore,
business-to-business CRM must be easily integrated with products from other
companies. Such integration enables the creation of forecasts about customer
behavior based on their buying history, bills, business success, etc.
CRM MARKET
The four
largest vendors with CRM system offerings are Salesforce, SAP, Oracle,
and Microsoft, which represented 42 percent of the market in
2015. Other providers also are popular for small and mid market
businesses. Splitting CRM providers into nine different categories (Enterprise
CRM Suite, Midmarket CRM Suite, Small-Business CRM Suite, sales
force automation, incentive management, marketing solutions, business intelligence, data
quality, consultancies), each category has a different
market leader. Additionally, applications often focus on professional fields
such as healthcare, manufacturing, and other areas with
branch-specific requirements.
MARKET TRENDS
In the Gartner CRM Summit
2010 challenges like "system tries to capture data from social networking
traffic like Twitter, handles Facebook page addresses or other online social
networking sites" were discussed and solutions were provided that would
help in bringing more clientele. Many CRM vendors offer subscription-based web
tools (cloud computing) and SaaS. Some CRM systems are
equipped with mobile capabilities, making information accessible to remote
sales staff.Salesforce.com was the first company to provide enterprise
applications through a web browser, and has maintained its leadership position.
CRITICIS
Companies
face large challenges when trying to implement CRM systems. Consumer companies
frequently manage their customer relationships haphazardly and
unprofitably. They may not effectively or adequately use their connections
with their customers, due to misunderstandings or misinterpretations of a CRM
system's analysis. Clients who want to be treated more like a friend may be
treated like just a party for exchange, rather than a unique individual, due to,
occasionally, a lack of a bridge between the CRM data and the CRM analysis
output
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP WITH SUPPLIER
For a positive growth of
business all customers have to depend, directly or indirectly, on good and
reliable suppliers. Apart from their expectations from the supplier the
customers also need to be loyal to them so as to strengthen their relationship.
Therefore customers should work on building a strong and long-lasting supplier
relationship as they do with their own customers. And it is not a complicated
process.
The
positive customer-supplier relationship begins with the initiative of the
supplier to demonstrate his sensitivity to the customer’s needs. A customer
always vouches for the conditions of his business deal with the supplier and
likes to be honest with them to have a smooth flow of business. But many
non-serious suppliers sabotage the deal in the beginning only by making the
customer struggle to even getting a relationship started.
The
lapses and diversions on the part of the suppliers can affect their
relationship in many ways as given below:
- Satisfaction: The customer expects
overall attention and convenience in all departments to ensure smooth
fulfillment of his needs. This includes quality, timeliness, ease of
access and commitment of conditions. He wants to believe that the supplier
cares for him.
- Competitiveness: Customers assess the
supplier through competition based on the pricing and quality of their
products, its reliability, its technological background and industry
trends. These factors affect the deal.
- Innovation: It is difficult for
the supplier to divert the customer from their quality assessment.
Customer knows and lives the products more than the supplier does, as he
is working on them and is in a position to suggest innovation and
development for the products.
- Finance: Suppliers have to be
ready for providing financial advantages as loan, extended terms on
purchases and postponement of debt when demanded by their loyal customers
particularly at their growth stage or when they are into a financial
crisis.
On the other hand
suppliers also have a right to get their needs met as they are ultimately
motivated by profit. They want to be known as the best in their deals so they
count on customer loyalty and satisfaction at all levels which translate into
direct benefit of both of them. Therefore it is only win-win relationships
between them in all stages of the customer-supplier chain to produce total
satisfaction. It should be remembered that a customer assumes his name only in
relation to his supplier. As such in order to be a valued customer to
suppliers, here are a few things he should do:
- Payments always on time. The
customer should always negotiate for favorable payment terms before the
deal is initiated. But once the order is placed, the commitment should be
honored. Any problems arising in this regard should be properly dealt with
to maintain the goodwill and benefits to earn.
- Provide adequate flexibility. The
customer should try to give suppliers as much flexibility as possible for
them unless there is a compelling, competitive reason not to do it.
Unreasonable demands should be avoided. This tendency also connects to
quality production.
- Personalize the relationship. The
customer should always be in contact with the supplier and visit him
frequently, not necessarily only when it is needed. He may also be invited
to attend and give suggestions in some of their strategy meetings. Methods
of improving business may also be discussed. Sharing of knowledge,
opportunities, service benefits, software compatibility etc. would be
beneficial for both.
- Share information. The customer should be
communicative by keeping the suppliers aware of what is going on in their
organization. He may share some of the key strategic information with
them. Frequent and open communications are important in understanding each
other’s expectations. All relationships begin with self.
- Be a demanding but a valued customer. Being
a demanding customer can just be fair. The customer should state his
demands clearly and tell his supplier to hold his agreements. At the same
time as a valued customer he must always cooperate with him to keep up his
commitments without embarrassment. Sharing knowledge, service benefits,
media exposure opportunities, software compatibility, efficiencies etc.
would add to enhance relationship.
These
essential factors are important for the customers to create and maintain a
healthy relationship with the suppliers.
DYNAMICS OF RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships can be very confusing. When problems emerge,
people often get so caught up and focus on the specifics at hand that they fail
to realize the larger issues at play.
Basic Relationship
Dynamics. ... Power – all relationships involve issues of
power and control. Typically, people like to influence their partner's behavior
while at the same time they do not like being unduly controlled or influenced
by a partner.
THE FOURTEEN CORE RELATIONSHIP PRINCIPLES
1. UNIQUENESS: Relationship outcomes depend
not only on the specific qualities of each partner but also on the unique
patterns that emerge when the partners’ qualities intersect. Relationships
take on a life of their own, arising from but partially independent of the
people involved, which influence relationship satisfaction. For example,
high levels of mutual commitment lead to better wellness outcomes. In
relationships where one person has an anxious attachment style and the other
person has an avoidant style, the anxious person is likely to have difficulty
talking with the avoidant person about positive things, and thus feel
dissatisfied.
2. INTEGRATION: Opportunities and motivations
for interdependence tend to facilitate cognitive, affective, motivational,
or behavioral merging between partners. People in close relationships,
especially over time, tend to become blended together, losing some sense of
individuality as their union evolves. Individual factors such
as self-regulation and self-concept may shift, being
replaced by mutual regulation and a sense of shared identity springing
from the uniqueness of every relationship.
3. TRAJECTORY: The long-term trajectories of
relationship dynamics are affected by each partner’s continually updated
perceptions of the couple’s relationship-relevant interactions and
experiences. Over time relationships change, and hopefully grow rather
than petering out or crashing and burning.
4. EVALUATION: People
evaluate their relationships and partners according to a set of positive and
negative constructs, which tend to be moderately negatively correlated. We
routinely evaluate the world around us, other people, and ourselves.
Typically positives and negatives are inversely correlated - when there
are more positives, there are less negatives, and visa versa. Relationships can
be more difficult if there are high levels of both positive and negative,
creating ambivalence.
5. RESPONSIVENESS: Responsive behaviors promote
relationship quality for both the self and the partner. Mutual
responsiveness is a key aspect of relationships. Partners in a successful
relationship support one another's "core needs and values". The
ways that partners are responsive is important as well. For some relationships,
responding right away can feel too much like a transaction if on partner
is into sharing without expecting something in return, and the other more
tit-for-tat.
6. RESOLUTION: The manner in which partners
communicate about and cope with relationship events affects long-term
relationship quality and stability. How couples address negative
events is crucial to building healthy relationships over time. Negative events
have a greater impact than positive events, similar to how people give
criticism more weight than praise. How couples deal with conflict is especially
important. How couples address conflict can be thought of along two interacting
lines: constructive/destructive, and active/passive. Active, constructive
conflict management tends to contribute to long-term relationship
satisfaction and a lower chance of breaking up.
7. MAINTENANCE: Partners in committed
relationships exhibit cognitions and behaviors that promote the relationship’s
persistence over time, even if doing so involves self-deceptive biases. Relationships
take work to maintain, particularly over longer periods of time. A little bit
tricking oneself can go a long way, according to research, though
obviously self-deception can go too far.
8. PREDISPOSITION: People bring certain basic
qualities of personality and temperament to their relationships, some of which
influence their own and their partners’ relationship wellbeing. Even
as relationships become integrated over time, the raw materials of the
relationship are the strengths and liabilities which the individuals bring to
the table.
9. INSTRUMENTALITY: People bring certain goals
and needs to their relationships, and the dynamics between the two partners
affect the extent to which they succeed in achieving these goals and meeting
these needs. Under good circumstances, relationships further the goals
and needs of the individuals involved. Part of the motivation to
be in relationships in the first place, therefore, connects with efforts people
make to meet those goals and needs.
10. STANDARDS: People bring certain standards
to their relationships and tend to experience greater relationship wellbeing
when their relationships exceed these standards. There are several
relationship models which look at the role of standards in relationship
satisfaction and dysfunction. People commonly recognize that shared values,
expectations, desires and ideals are important in relationships
11. DIAGNOSTICITY: Situations vary in the
extent to which they afford opportunities to evaluate a partner’s true goals
and motives regarding the relationship. Since people tend to assess
oneself and others, and the environment they are in, individuals in a
relationship are involved in a process of assessing how the relationship is
doing and what might be going right - and wrong. Stressful situations really
bring out the need to think about the quality of the relationship, and identify
problem areas
12. ALTERNATIVES: The presence of attractive
alternatives to a current relationship—including the option of not being in a
relationship at all—threatens relationship quality and persistence. Especially
when relationships are strained, people consider their alternatives. What could
be different in the relationship? Should we stay together? Would I be happier
with someone else, someone like _____ who is a friend/co-worker/ex? Would I be
better off alone? How we weigh alternatives varies with relationship quality.
Highly committed people in satisfying relationships rate alternate mates
as less attractive than their peers in troubled relationships.
13. STRESS: High demands external to the
relationship predict worse relationship outcomes, especially if the demands
exceed the two partners’ (individual or combined) resources for coping. Stressful
situations test relationships, and use personal and material resources which
otherwise might contribute to a higher quality relationship. Major stressors
including unemployment, money issues, going to jail, a serious illness,
fertility difficulties, and tragedies like disasters can lead to relationship
breakdown and failure.
14. CULTURE: Relationships are embedded in social
networks and a cultural milieu—including norms, practices, and traditions—that
shape the nature and trajectory of those relationships. Times
change, and societal views shape how people approach relationships and what
they are looking for from them.
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