From the outside, customers interacting with a company perceive the business as a single entity, despite often interacting with a number of employees in different roles and departments. CRM is a combination of policies, processes, and strategies implemented by an organization to unify its customer interactions and provide a means to track customer information. It involves the use of technology in attracting new and profitable customers, while forming tighter bonds with existing ones.
Customer Relationship Management entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer, whether it is sales or service related; it starts with the foundation of relationship marketing. CRM is a systematic approach towards using information and on going built
CRM includes many aspects which relate directly to one another:
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Front office operations — Direct interaction with customers, e.g. face to face meetings, phone calls, e-mail, online services etc.
Back office operations — Operations that ultimately affect the activities of the front office (e.g., billing, maintenance, planning, marketing, advertising, finance, manufacturing, etc.)
Business relationships — Interaction with other companies and partners, such as suppliers/vendors and retail outlets/distributors, industry networks (lobbying groups, trade associations). This external network supports front and back office activities.
Analysis — Key CRM data can be analyzed in order to plan target-marketing campaigns, conceive business strategies, and judge the success of CRM activities (e.g., market share, number and types of customers, revenue, profitability).
Types of CRM
There are several different approaches to CRM, with different software packages
Operational CRM
Operational CRM provides support to "front office" business processes.
Interactions with customers are stored in customers' contact histories, and staff can retrieve customer information as necessary. The contact history provides staff members with immediate access to important information on the customer (products owned, prior support calls etc. ), eliminating the need to individually obtain this information directly from the customer.
Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM generally makes use of large volumes of data and other techniques to produce useful results for decision-making. The more information that the analytical software has available for analysis, the better its predictions and recommendations will be.
Designing and executing targeted marketing campaigns
Analyzing behavior of the customer in making decisions relating to products and services (e.g. pricing , product development)
Collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM information of company's dealings with customers that are handled by various departments within a company, such as sales, technical support and marketing. Staff members from different departments can use information collected when interacting with customers.
Consumer Relationship CRM
Consumer Relationship System (CRS) covers aspects of a company's dealing with customers handled by the Consumer Affairs and Customer Relations department within a company. Departments handle in-bound contact from anonymous consumers and customers. Early warnings can be issued regarding product issues (e.g. item recalls) and consumer feedback.
Social CRM
The rapid growth in social media and social networking forced CRM product companies to integrate "social" features into their traditional CRM systems. Other emerging capabilities include messaging, sentiment analysis, and other analytics. Many industry experts contend that Social CRM is the way of the future, but there are certain disadvantages. Top CRM minds agree that online social communities and conversations can be dangerous for companies. They must be monitored frequently.
Strategies for Building Relationship:
Organizations develop and maintain relationship depending on certain factors. These include nature of business, its size its market share, nature of product , volume of sales, geographical concentration, socio – economic status and customers concerned, competitors and so on
1. People : People within the organization have the basic role in developing and maintaining relationship with customers. Everyone in the organization must know that satisfying the customer is their utmost goal. Everyone from the lowest to the highest level irrespective of their functional specialization must work towards one of the main objectives of the organization – customer satisfaction.
2. Process : Process involves series of activities from the identification of needs to need fulfillment. Need fulfillment requires manufacture of products with desired attributes . The process has to be derived from the customer’s viewpoint which leads to total customer satisfaction.
3. Product : The product must constantly provide value addition . The customers expectations increases due to various reasons. A customer satisfied with a given product may soon become a dissatisfied customer in view of the changes that take place in his expectations.
4. Organization : To build customer relationship, an organization should be aware of the technology advancements and provide quality services in tune with the customer’s expectations. It should concentrate on total customer satisfaction and respond to the requirements of the customers faster than its competitors.
5. Setting Satisfactory Service Standard : A customer not only expects quality products but also quality services. Organization should provide service in all phases viz. pre sales, during sale and after sales. During presales when the customer develops expectations, the organization must ensure quality and availability of the products in time. During sales, when the customer experiences the sales process, the organization must provide the customer an opportunity to inspect, and treat them with courteous attentiveness, prompt reply etc. During after sales, when the sales are finalized, the organization must provide supporting services such as speedy replacements, simplified complaint procedures, efficient maintenance .
6. Concentration on Competitors: An organization must be aware of the competitors performance, their strategy and style of operations and compare same with its own performance. Customers do such comparison and make purchase decisions. Such analysis done by organization would help in increasing its strengths and reducing its weaknesses.
7. Customer Analysis : Customers referred include the present customers consuming the products of an organization and customers who are presently using products of competitors. so on. This analysis is to be performed not only on the existing customers but also on the former customers, so that corrective actions may taken to retain current customers.
8. Cost Analysis : An organization must focus attention on the cost of the product or service. Always, there must cost reduction without compromising on quality. The organization must reduce costs and retain the same good quality or improve quality.
9. Concentration on the Paying ability of Customers: Pricing decision are to be governed not merely by cost related factors. Before fixing price, the paying ability of the potential customers must also be viewed. To some extent prices are to be adjusted in tune with the fluctuations in the paying ability of potential customers.
10. Knowledge on Purchase Behavior Pattern: Organizations should have a knowledge of the purchase behavior pattern of their customers. The influencing factors of the purchases decisions process and the ultimate outcome are to be analyzed in depth.
11. Differentiation in Prices and Quality Standards : An organizations may come forward to offer services or brands of different varieties with price variations.
12.Attention on Changing Requirements of Customers : The requirements of the customers are bound to change in time with the changes in their lives, demographic and psychographic profiles and the related aspects. Customers up to a given point of time would concentrate on life maintenance needs and then to life changing needs,.
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