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“Successful CRM is about competing in the relationship dimension. Not as an alternative to having a competitive product or reasonable price, but as a differentiator. If your competitors are doing the same thing as you are (as they generally are), product and price won't give you a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. But if you can get an edge based on how customers feel about your company, it's a much stickier–sustainable–relationship over the long haul.” − Bob Thompson, CustomerThink Corporation
“Successful CRM is about competing in the relationship dimension. Not as an alternative to having a competitive product or reasonable price, but as a differentiator. If your competitors are doing the same thing as you are (as they generally are), product and price won't give you a long-term, sustainable competitive advantage. But if you can get an edge based on how customers feel about your company, it's a much stickier–sustainable–relationship over the long haul.”
− Bob Thompson, CustomerThink Corporation
Business people started using the term Customer Relationship Management (CRM) since the early 1990s when the concept of business started to change from being transactional to relational. CRM directly contributes towards customer benefits and the growth of businesses.
Information Technology plays a very critical role in identifying, acquiring, and retaining the customers, and thereby managing a healthy relationship with them.
Here in this chapter, we will discuss the very basics of CRM.
There can be multiple definitions of CRM from different perspectives −
The primary goal of CRM is to increase customer loyalty and in turn improve business profitability.
Take a look at the following illustration. It shows the ingredients that work together to form a successful CRM system.
Here are some of the important ingredients of CRM −
The most prominent objectives of using the methods of Customer Relationship Management are as follows −
“A business absolutely devoted to Customer Service Excellence will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.” − Sir Henry Ford
“A business absolutely devoted to Customer Service Excellence will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.”
− Sir Henry Ford
In the past twenty years, the focus of global markets has shifted from sellers to customers. Today, customers are more powerful than sellers, if we consider the driving factors of market. We have different types of CRM according to the changes in customer portfolios, speed of business operations, requirement of handling large data, and the need of sharing information, resources, and efforts jointly.
CRM systems are divided based on their prominent characteristics. There are four basic types of CRM systems −
The following table lists the types of CRM and their characteristic features −
Strategic CRM is a type of CRM in which the business puts the customers first. It collects, segregates, and applies information about customers and market trends to come up with better value proposition for the customer.
The business considers the customers' voice important for its survival. In contrast to Product-Centric CRM (where the business assumes customer requirements and focuses on developing the product that may sometimes lead to over-engineering), here the business constantly keeps learning about the customer requirements and adapting to them.
These businesses know the buying behavior of the customer that happy customers buy more frequently than rest of the customers. If any business is not considering this type of CRM, then it risks losing the market share to those businesses, which excel at strategic CRM.
Operational CRM is oriented towards customer-centric business processes such as marketing, selling, and services. It includes the following automations: Sales Force Automation, Marketing Automation, and Service Automation.
Salesforce is the best suitable CRM for large established businesses and Zoho is the best CRM for growing or small-scale businesses.
SFA is the application of technology to manage selling activities. It standardizes a sales cycle and common terminology for sales issues among all the sales employees of a business. It includes the following modules −
Marketing automation involves market segmentation, campaigns management, event-based marketing, and promotions. The campaign modules of Marketing Automation enable the marketing force to access customer-related data for designing, executing and evaluating targeted offers, and communications.
Event-based (trigger) marketing is all about messaging and presenting offers at a particular time. For example, a customer calls the customer care number and asks about the rate of interest for credit card payment. This event is read by CRM as the customer is comparing interest rates and can be diverted to another business for a better deal. In such cases, a customized offer is triggered to retain the customer.
Service automation involves service level management, resolving issues or cases, and addressing inbound communication. It involves diagnosing and solving the issues about product.
With the help of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, a customer can interact with business computers by entering appropriate menu options. Automatic call routing to the most capable employee can be done.
Consumer products are serviced at retail outlets at the first contact. In case of equipment placed on field, the service expert may require product servicing manual, spare parts manual, or any other related support on laptop. That can be availed in service automation.
Analytical CRM is based on capturing, interpreting, segregating, storing, modifying, processing, and reporting customer-related data. It also contains internal business-wide data such as Sales Data (products, volume, purchasing history), Finance Data (purchase history, credit score) and Marketing Data (response to campaign figures, customer loyalty schemes data). Base CRM is an example of analytical CRM. It provides detailed analytics and customized reports.
Business intelligence organizations that provide customers' demographics and lifestyle data over a large area pay a lot of attention to internal data to get more detail information such as, “Who are most valuable customers?”, “Which consumers responded positively to the last campaign and converted?”, etc.
Analytical CRM can set different selling approaches to different customer segments. In addition, different content and styling can be offered to different customer segments. For the customers, analytical CRM gives customized and timely solutions to the problems. For the business, it gives more prospects for sales, and customer acquisition and retention.
Collaborative CRM is an alignment of resources and strategies between separate businesses for identifying, acquiring, developing, retaining, and maintaining valuable customers. It is employed in B2B scenario, where multiple businesses can conduct product development, market research, and marketing jointly.
Collaborative CRM enables smooth communication and transactions among businesses. Though traditional ways such as air mail, telephone, and fax are used in communication, collaborative CRM employs new communication systems such as chat rooms, web forums, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
There are collaborative CRMs with in-built Partner Relationship Management (PRM) software application which helps in managing partner promotions. SugarCRM is a popular collaborative CRM. It enables expert collaboration and provides state-of-the-art social capabilities.
A business needs to consider the following points while selecting a CRM software −
“Your customer doesn't care how much you know until they know how much you care.” − Damon Richards, Director of Programs, Freewheelin' Bikes
“Your customer doesn't care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
− Damon Richards, Director of Programs, Freewheelin' Bikes
Being social animals, we are naturally inclined towards interaction. The bonding that takes place when we communicate in a healthy manner paves smooth ways for many difficult challenges. In the role of customers, we interact with salespersons, dealers, wholesalers, and suppliers.
In the term CRM, 'R' stands for relationship, but can a relationship between a customer and a business exist? Let us discuss more about the term relationship and its role in businesses.
The Oxford Dictionary defines relationship as, “the way in which two or more people or things are connected”.
Investment of time, trust, transparency, care, and communication are vital for any relationship to build and survive. This is applicable to human relationships. As far as a formal business domain is concerned, the definition goes as follows −
“Relationship is a series of repeated interactions between dyadic parties over a time.”
If a person on his journey stops at a roadside eating joint and buys a burger, it is a transaction; not a relationship. But when a person goes to a particular shop repeatedly, because he likes the store's ambience, quality of products, or the way he receives service at the shop, then it can be quoted as a relationship.
Some experts say, only repeated interaction over time does not make complete sense of the term relationship. It also needs some emotional element of affection and care.
F. Robert Dwyer, a marketing professor at Lindner College of Business states five phases through which a customer-supplier relationship evolves −
Dissolution can be avoided by reducing cost-to-serve.
Every business regards its customers as a lifetime stream of revenue; losing a single customer can cost the business very high. Lifetime Value (LTV) for a customer is considered to analyze the effectiveness of a particular marketing channel.
For example, if the Churn Rate of a business X is 5% and that of business Y is 10%, then in the long-term, business X would have a larger customer base than business Y, which places business X at the position of competitive advantage and directly influences profit of both the businesses.
A business can generate greater sales volume and in turn greater revenue if it knows its customers well and have good relationship with them. Thus, solely for the economic purpose, every business wants to have healthy relationships with their customers.
There are various schools of thoughts with different theories of relationship management. Let us discuss some of them briefly −
This Europe-based research initiative in Industrial Marketing focuses on B2B relationships and states the following characteristics −
A Scandinavian services marketing group, named The Nordic School, emphasizes on supplier-customer relationship. It identifies the triplet of relationship marketing as −
It states that relationships are important not only from the viewpoint of customers but also from the angle of stakeholders of the business such as employees, suppliers, and government. It also found out that customer's satisfaction and customer retention are value drivers of any business.
According to this theory, good relationships reduce costs significantly. Trust and commitment are vital attributes of a successful relationships. By connecting the trust to the commitment, this theory states that trust created on the basis of minimal functional conflicts, communication, non-opportunistic behavior, and cooperation. Commitment is linked to high relationship termination cost and relationship benefits.
This theory is based upon the teachings of Lord Buddha regarding social conducts and acts of reciprocation. This theory states that people from a family, friendship, same-clan fellowship are connected to each other due to informal social relationships which impose them to follow reciprocal obligations to acquire the resources by exchanging favors and cooperation.
“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” …Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com
“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It's our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”
…Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com
Customers in the last decade only used to be concerned about quantity, quality, and price. In today's information-driven world, the customers have not remained merely as people buying goods or services from a business. Along from being concerned about the questions such as “how many”, “how much”, and “what”, they are groomed smart enough to ask, “why?”. Today's customers are hard to convince and are difficult to please too.
Today's customers are empowered. Empowered customers are those having the control to buy goods or services from a business when and where they want it, by selecting from a vast range of available choice. Empowered customers access the Internet and collect information about products, dealers, and prices. They take advice from friends or at times from strangers too, before making a buying decision.
By using various digital devices, they can find out the specifications of a product or service before arriving at buying decision. They are smart and alert buyers who also keep high expectations. When a business fulfills most of the expectations, the empowered customers can be loyal to them.
Let us analyze the phases a customer goes through when a business offers products/services to the customers.
Customer Life Cycle is used to describe the phases through a customer goes. Here are the important stages of a customer life cycle −
Let us now try to figure out what differentiates a customer from a consumer.
A consumer is a user of a product or a service, whereas a customer is a buyer of a product or service. A customer decides what to buy and executes the deal of purchasing by paying and availing the product or service. A consumer uses the product or service for oneself.
For example, the customer of a pet food is not the consumer of that product. Similarly, if a mother in a supermarket is buying Nestlé Milo for her baby, then she is a customer and her baby is a consumer.
There can be various types of customers a business have to deal with. Here are some prominent types of customers −
There are three types of customer orientations −
There are seven core customer management strategies −
Customer acquisition is the art of persuading the customers to buy products or to avail services offered by a business. Each time a business invents new strategies for acquiring new customers, the strategy gets saturated over some time.
The strategy that worked in the past may not remain effective in the future. Hence the businesses need to keep tuned with the market situations, government policies and plan the new strategies.
It requires diligent planning, forming acquisition strategy, communicating with customers, advertising the products aggressively on various media, conducting flash sales, etc., to acquire new customers.
“Your relationship with the customers, not the customer's relationship with your product, is the conduit through which the value flows.” − Bill Quiseng, Customer Service Speaker and Blogger
“Your relationship with the customers, not the customer's relationship with your product, is the conduit through which the value flows.”
− Bill Quiseng, Customer Service Speaker and Blogger
The terms cost and value are often misunderstood as same, though these two terms are poles apart in their meaning. The cost of a product is nothing but the amount a customer pays to the seller to avail the product. When the customer says a product is “value for money”, it means the product delivers what it is supposed to in the exchange of a reasonable cost.
The value of a product or a service is nothing but the customer's perception of the ratio of benefits received to the sacrifices made while purchasing a product or service from a business.
Value = Benefits / Sacrifices
Value is directly affected by customer's perception, which can be altered positively by increasing benefits and decreasing sacrifices.
The customers make the following sacrifices when it comes to buying from a business −
This is the time taken to physically arrive at the business outlet or to search for the required product online, and to compare various similar products with respect to specifications and costs. It also includes waiting time to avail the required product and extended time when a business delivers a product with incorrect specification.
It is the primary concern. Apart from the cost of product or services the business offers, it may be the cost of Value Addition Tax (VAT), surcharge, interest on the late payments, etc. Similarly, there can be discounts for first few customers or under any other schemes.
The customers invest energy to get ready, step out for shopping, to drive or to travel from home to the business outlet. The energy also includes fuel consumption for transport.
Purchasing a product can be a very hectic, frustrating, and at times annoying experience for the customers. Right from planning what and when to purchase, budgeting, getting ready and stepping out of the house for shopping, being through the crowd on the road, arriving at the store, dealing with the business staff who don't possess adequate knowledge of the product or schemes, paying exaggerated prices, carrying heavy packages, exchanging faulty or outdated products, etc. At times the customers need to travel in bad weather only to find out that the last piece of the required product was just picked by some other customer.
While buying the product, the customer has to deal with various risks such as financial (regarding product price), physical (possibility of the product turning harmful to customer's body), and performance (possibility of the product failure).
There are various sources of creating value for the products the customer purchases −
It involves the following −
It involves the engagement of the business in continuous product innovation for improvement, large share of investment in product research and development along with the risk. The business creates value by providing the best quality product or service solution in adequate time.
Customer intimacy is generated and developed by understanding customer requirements, offering customized products, creating best outlet ambience, the warmth and interest of business staff while communicating with customers, and putting the customer first.
The marketing force of a business combines various components of marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) together to create the best value for the customer. In case of services, as they are intangible unlike products, three more components are considered namely process, physical evidence, and people.
The marketing mix is planned such that is strikes a good balance among customer and business entities, to satisfy the both.
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” − Maya Angelou
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
− Maya Angelou
The purpose of businesses is to serve the customers. The prime goal of today's businesses is to keep their customers satisfied because without customers the businesses won't exist and without satisfied customers, they won't prosper.
The businesses need to manage their customers at different times such as acquisition, development, and retention.
The customers can be new from two perspectives −
The customers also goes for another product of the same product category. For example, on increasing family's strength, the customers prefers to go for bigger car.
The new customers contribute to business growth and future profitability. Two types of customers can be acquired by a business −
New customers can be acquired by the following means −
Acquiring diverted customers is mainly winning back the customers who diverted to competitors for some reasons. The businesses form the strategies of offering better price deals, free maintenance service, or by offering some additional benefits to the customers.
The following tools are used in acquiring new customers −
Customer development is an important process in any product development with which a business uses customer feedback to define and develop its product. The four core phases of Customer Development (Four Steps to Epiphany) are as given −
In this phase, a business evaluates how it can address the customer needs or problems. The business knows about the target customer. The business gathers customer feedback about their requirements.
This is a phase when the customers understand the idea of the product and validates the product by realizing that the product will be able to solve their problems. In this phase, a business knows about the problem and the solution.
The business then evaluates customer feedback, and plans a strategy for product launch and product positioning in the market based on the feedback.
It includes transforming ideas and concepts to execution and scaling the business venture.
As the existing customers drive current business profitability, retaining them is vital for any business. Customer retention is the process of maintaining continuous trading relationship in long term. It can be achieved by the following strategies −
The clauses of penalty, switching costs, and high exit costs make the customers feel trapped with the business. If the business enforces such strategies, it risks the reputation by customers' negative word-of-mouth.
They help increasing customer delight by understanding customer requirements, meeting them, and providing little more beyond their expectation. Customers are delighted to do business with you when their perception is more than their expectation.
D = P > E Where, P = Perception, E = Expectation
The cost of retaining highly committed customers is lesser than one required for retaining non-committed significant customers. The recently acquired customers are likely to deflect when a business fails to provide good service or product.
A business should retain the following customers −
There are numerous tools for customer retention in CRM systems −
Not all customer relationships are worth carrying forward. The relationships are terminated either from customer side or from business side. Businesses terminate customer relationships with unprofitable customers.
The business should not hesitate to terminate the relationship with the following −
This is a feasible option where the business offers customized price. The customer can choose to pay for high price or leave from the customer base. It works as a filter for separating unprofitable customers.
This includes changing the product design or appearance to different grade so that it remains no more appealing for the customers to whom a business wants to sack.
A business can unbundle the components under an offer, redesign the offer, and re-bundle different components with new price. The non-interested customers get filtered by this strategy.
“Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” − Guy Kawasaki
“Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.”
− Guy Kawasaki
Implementing a CRM project in an organization takes more than purchasing and installing the CRM form a vendor. It needs setting up the features of CRM system according to the business requirement, training the staff, and overall shifting from conventional work culture to a new method of handling work and customer relationships.
There are various phases a business needs to go through while implementing CRM projects. Here in this chapter, we will discuss in brief how to implement a CRM project.
This is the first stage. CRM strategy is a top management level plan of aligning employees, CRM process, and technology to achieve business goals.
The business conducts situation analysis by considering internal and external factors. This is nothing but SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis to find out how the business is doing with the objective of examining readiness for CRM implementation.
The managers analyze and appraise existing customer strategy, served market segments, market position of business, marketing channels, etc. They try to find out the answers for the questions such as −
Thus, situation analysis serves as a foundation to know what the managers want to achieve by implementing CRM.
Before implementing CRM projects, there are various changes required to bring in the business environment such as −
The processes are the ways by which the business gets the things done. The processes can be of the following types −
The business needs to anticipate which existing processes may get affected and to what extent.
During this step, the business identifies the stakeholders (staff, sales team, marketing team, channel partners, IT specialists, etc.), processes, data requirements, and technology.
The business needs to create the inventory for the available data for the CRM purposes. There are different data requirements for different CRM types as shown −
The business develops a customer related database to store the customer information, such as contact data, contact history, transaction history, communication preferences, opportunities with customer, and so on.
It includes selection the required CRM technology from a wide choice.
The business forms a well-structured Request for Proposal (RFP) in which it lists down the idea and vision of CRM, the type of CRM required, process, technology, costs, time frames, contracts, and staff issues.
The proposal is descriptive enough to give idea to the vendor about the business structure and requirements. The business then invites at least three and at the most six technology vendors by sending the proposal.
When a business receives response from various vendors, it need to select a right vendor. The business management assesses the proposal responses on the scale of importance of issues included in the RFP. It the shortlists the technology vendors and invites them for demonstrating their CRM products.
The business takes the following steps to −
As a final and continual stage for large span of time, the business evaluates how well does the CRM perform. When a business implements new technology, the users take a large span of time to get acquainted and comfortable with the technology.
There are two variables the business considers −
If the business objective was to improve the rate of customer retention, the rate was 70% before CRM coming to aid, and it went up to 78% after CRM implementation then the business has achieved its objective.
“How you gather, manage, and use information to serve your clients will determine whether you win or lose in the business.” − Bill Gates
“How you gather, manage, and use information to serve your clients will determine whether you win or lose in the business.”
− Bill Gates
The customer related database gives a business an insight on the customer behavior. It is the foundation on which the CRM software strategies work. For any business using the CRM, the customer-related database is highly important to impart the customer-based strategies and tactics.
The database supports all the forms of CRM − Strategic, Operational, Analytical, and Collaborative.
It is the collection of customer-related information focusing on historic sales, current opportunities, and future opportunities. These databases are maintained by a number of different functions such as sales managers, channel managers, product managers, etc. It can store information such as −
Based on the respective purposes, there are two types of databases − Operational and Analytical. The operational data resides in Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) database and analytical data resides in Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) database.
The database is a repository of collection of files (or tables). The files contain a number of records (or rows of the table), which in turn contain various fields (or columns of the table). Each file contains information about a topic such as customer, sales, products, etc.
The steps given below are followed to create and maintain a customer-related database −
The database always needs to be very accurate and up-to-date.
There are mainly two types of CRM data − Primary and Secondary. The primary data is the one which is collected for the first time. The secondary data is the one which has been collected earlier.
The primary data is collected by conventional means such as conducting surveys, holding a skill competition, inviting the customers to subscribe for the newsletter or to register their purchase, etc.
The CRM software use Relational Database architecture. It is composed of tables with rows and columns. The tables are connected to other tables by a unique identification number stored in the ID field, named primary key.
There are many database management systems available in the market today. Some popular ones are Microsoft's SQL server, Oracle, DB2 from IBM, etc. These systems help to update and administer the database.
The hardware platform on which the database will reside is selected based on the following factors −
The CRM data must have the following attributes −
Data warehouses are huge repositories of customer related data accepted from various databases. These repositories can be as much as a few terabytes (240 bytes).
Numerous global businesses operating from various countries and continents generate huge volume of data. This data needs to be converted into useful information for further operations and analysis. Data warehouse does this task by −
It is the smaller version of a data warehouse which caters to a particular business or a function. Data mart projects are inexpensive than data warehouse projects as the volume of the data is smaller and the functions for which it is used are specific. The costs, time, and efforts required to handle such data are less.
CRM applications allow users to interact with the database. For example, a salesperson adds customer data at the time of billing or after the customer service call is attended. Also, the users need to interrogate the data for analytical purpose.
Thus, data access and interrogation is essential and is carried out by the following three ways −
Data mining is the process of sifting through the huge volume of data to get most relevant information in the shortest possible time. CRM takes the help of Artificial Intelligence to find out the solutions for the most important questions of the business.
In the context of CRM, data mining is the application of predictive analytics to support marketing, sales, and services. In CRM, data mining finds associations among data, classifies the customers according to business value, and helps to find answers of the following questions −
For example, an analyst of Walmart noticed that the sale of beer and diapers is high on Fridays. Having this fact brought to the notice of Walmart, the business kept the two products close to each other on the shelves. This resulted in the sale rise of both the products.
Thus, data mining helps in generating sales volumes by providing most relevant data for marketers' analysis.
The queries are the tools to access and modify the database. Structured Query Language (SQL) is used for management of Rational Databases. The queries come in the form of statements such as SELECT, ADD, DELETE, UPDATE, DROP, etc.
For example, look at the following query statements −
CREATE DATABASE Db_Name DELETE * FROM EMPLOYES SELECT Emp_Name, Emp_Salary FROM Employees WHERE Emp_Salary >= 25000
CRM Applications generate reports on periodic basis for analyzing the traits of sale, performance, and many other allied activities. Reports are generally accessed by management people of the business for performance assessment.
OLAP technology is capable of showing data at a level as lowest as a salesperson's and as highest as a region, which can be helpful to assess the performance and question the underperformance.
After having known various types of CRM in earlier chapter, let us see which CRM stands where with respect to the customer database −
Analytical CRM works most closely with the customer database and strategic CRM works farthest from the database.
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that, the automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify inefficiency.” − Bill Gates
“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that, the automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify inefficiency.”
Automation is essential in CRM considering the requirement of handling a huge size of customer base and the level of complexity in each sales force related or marketing related tasks. CRM makes use of three types of automation: Sales Force Automation (SFA), Marketing Automation (MA), and Services Automation (SA). In this chapter, we will learn about Sales Force Automation.
CRM needs to be accessed by various people in the business. It is most frequently accessed and used by salespersons and managers of the sales activities at various ranks of seniority. SalesForce is a software that works as a supporting system for the salespersons and managers to achieve their work related objectives. SFA technology helps a business to collect, store, modify, analyze, and transport the sales related data. SFA is the strategy used to drive efficiencies in your sales processes.
SFA software is used by various salespersons such as salespersons in B2B and B2C contexts, door-to-door salesmen, direct sellers, online sellers, etc. It is used by managers to track customers, manage sales pipelines, customize the offers, and generate reports, to name a few.
Some SFA providers are specialists focus on a particular functionality of SFA. They compete against enterprise solution providers (who provide a complete range of business solutions such as Supply Chain Management (SCM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and CRMs) and also some providers of CRM suites that include SFA modules. Some renowned SFA specialists are as given below −
The CRM solution providers also come up with configurators, the software engines that allows the customers to customize their products. Since the configurators help to build customized products, the stress on the salespersons of handling complex data without errors is reduced. In turn, their training cost is also reduced.
For example, Dell computers allows its customers to interact with the configurator. The customers can select devices of their own choice and specifications, and build their own computers.
In the era of growing businesses, the SFA hardware and infrastructure must be able to cope up with large number of customers for long time.
In house salespersons are comfortable using desktop or laptop computers but the outdoor salespersons of a business prefer palmtops, tablets, phablets, or simply, the smartphones. In such wide range of devices, the SFA technology should be capable of executing on each type of device.
In case of global business, the salespersons and managers across all the outlets need to access the CRM database a large number of times. In such situation, the SFA technology should be equipped with handling distant communication or data transfer over wireless and speedy media.
The services generally take 50 to 60% portion of the total automation project costs. For example, data services such as data security.
The SFA project managers sometimes buy services from the service providers. The service providers contribute in business profits and the cost of the entire CRM projects. These services need re-engineering or tuning few selling processes according to the business requirements.
An SFA software can provide the following functionalities −
Vendors, salespersons, and managers claim myriad benefits of implementing and using SFA. Some important benefits are as listed −
Some Popular Salesforce Automation Software Systems are: Salesforce.com, Infusionsoft, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Prophet CRM, PlanPlus online, Sugar CRM, etc.
“I can't imagine my life without marketing automation. It's a no brainer. To me, the fact that so many companies don't have it is amazing.” − Holly Condon, VP Business Development, Papersave
“I can't imagine my life without marketing automation. It's a no brainer. To me, the fact that so many companies don't have it is amazing.”
− Holly Condon, VP Business Development, Papersave
Marketing professionals more often than not tend to be a little unorganized when it comes to planning, designing, and implementing their marketing strategies. It may be due to approaching deadlines or near-to-impossible targets. With the help of marketing automation software, they can become more organized.
Marketing automation is the process that works as a supporting system for the marketers and marketing managers to achieve their work related objectives.
There are two components of marketing automation −
There are large number of marketing automation software applications available to date. Some of them are as follows −
The other examples of marketing automation software are product lifecycle management, partner marketing, and telemarketing.
The benefits of implementing marketing automation are −
“To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” − Douglas Adams
“To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.”
− Douglas Adams
Service automation is the process that works as a supporting system for the service staff and managers to achieve their work related objectives. Infrastructure, Data, Devices, and Software are the key components of service automation.
There are five major domains of service automation −
They need to access and update the data from their computing devices. Technology businesses such as Aesta, Corrigo, Oracle, Ventyx, etc. provide powerful software applications to cater the need of service force.
The benefits of implementing service automation are −
There are large number of service automation software applications available in the market. Some important ones are as follows −
“Novel CRM trends will give marketing and sales professionals all the required data inside their inbox.” − Mary Wardley, Vice President, IDC
“Novel CRM trends will give marketing and sales professionals all the required data inside their inbox.”
− Mary Wardley, Vice President, IDC
Till now, we have have learnt that the CRM software helps businesses to manage customer relationship and enhance customer experience proficiently. It also helps businesses to optimize the marketing programs and use marketing analytics for contemplating future strategies. CRM in services improves customer satisfaction thereby increasing the business ROI. Let us now discuss what new trends are emerging in the field of CRM.
This is a new trend in CRM which exploits the power of internet. Electronic Customer Relationship Management (ECRM) aims at developing and establishing all CRM functions with the use of digital communication tools such as EMail, chatrooms, instant messaging, forums, etc.
ECRM is motivated by the ease of internet access from various computing devices such as desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
The following table highlights the differences between CRM and ECRM.
Here are some upcoming trends the CRM solution vendors are following −
The CRM solution providers are working on moving social media data to more secure communication channel. They are also exploring how they can integrate unstructured data coming from multiple channels such as Email and mobile smartphones.
As the data is penetrating from multiple channels with high volume, velocity, and variety, the CRM solution providers are exploring how this big data can be managed well to be able to use effectively.
The businesses are preferring cloud-based CRM software to overcome the problems with on premise CRM software (in which every new feature development requires an expensive upgrade). The cloud-based CRM also lessens the burden of business for investing in infrastructure.
The customers are into the practice of reading reviews, recommendations, and judging the product or service before deciding to purchase. The businesses are keen to employ social CRM tools in their CRM software as the social media can bring an insight of customer preferences and behavior.
Today's CRM solution providers are investing a handsome amount to bring more rigor in the mobile platforms of CRM applications.
The historical and current data of the customers is so huge that the CRM users spend more time in entering the same in the system than using it effectively for beneficial purpose. CRM solution providers are also working on providing simpler and easier ways of handling customer data using mobile devices.
It is the next big revolution in the development of CRM software systems. Wearable are the devices worn by the consumers to track their health and fitness information.
If CRM applications are integrated with wearable computing devices, then the businesses can get benefited by having real time information of customers and access to their account data. The businesses can then engage with their customers effectively and discover opportunities of selling and enhancing customer relationships.
Though life is not all segregated between black and white moments; for the customers and businesses it is. The customers remember business products and services by associating with best and worst experiences. The businesses using CRM are placing the activities related to making their customers feel good in their list of top priorities.
xRM is evolved CRM. There is little limitation in the word CRM which depicts Customer Relationship Management. XRM is eXtreme Relationship Management, or Any (replace X with any value) Relationship Management. The scope of XRM is different and larger than the scope of CRM.
For example, a business is managing contracts, grievances, policies, building assets, parking violations, property taxes, etc. The list is near to endless. This all management is catered by XRM, a business can manage the relationship of anything within itself.