Customer relationship management ( CRM ) are methods that companies use to interact with customers. The methods include employee training and special purpose CRM software. There is an emphasis on handling incoming customer phone calls and email, although the information collected by CRM software may also be used for promotion, and surveys such as those polling customer satisfaction.
Initiatives often fail because implementation was limited to software installation, without providing the context, support and understanding for employees to learn. Tools for customer relationship management should be implemented "only after a well-devised strategy and operational plan are put in place".
Other problems occur when failing to think of sales as the output of a process that itself needs to be studied and taken into account when planning automation.
Overview
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.
CRM includes many aspects which relate directly to one another:
- 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).
Proponents of CRM software claim that it not only allow customer relationships to be managed more efficiently, but also encourages a more customer-centric approach to conducting business. Executives often cite the lack of proper tools as a barrier to delivering the experience their customers expect. A 2009 study of over 860 corporate executives revealed only 39% believe that their employees have the tools and authority to solve customer problems.
Types/variations of CRM
There are several different approaches to CRM, with different software packages focusing on different aspects. In general, Customer Service, Campaign Management and Sales Force Automation (SFA) form the core of the system.
Operational CRM
Operational CRM provides support to "front office" business processes, e.g. to sales, marketing and service staff. Interactions with customers are generally 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. Reaching to the customer at right time at right place is preferable.
Operational CRM processes customer data for a variety of purposes:
- Managing campaigns
- Enterprise Marketing Automation
- Sales Force Automation
- Sales Management System
Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM analyzes customer data for a variety of purposes:
- Designing and executing targeted marketing campaigns
- Designing and executing campaigns, e.g. customer acquisition, cross-selling, up-selling, addon-selling
- Analyzing customer behavior in order to make decisions relating to products and services (e.g. pricing, product development)
- Management information system (e.g. financial forecasting and customer profitability analysis)
Analytical CRM generally makes heavy use of data mining and other techniques to produce useful results for decision-making. It is at the analytical stage that the importance of fully integrated CRM software becomes most apparent - the more information available to analytical software, the better its predictions and recommendations will be.
Sales Intelligence CRM
Sales Intelligence CRM is similar to Analytical CRM, but is intended as a more direct sales tool. Features include alerts sent to sales staff regarding:
- Cross-selling/Up-selling/Switch-selling opportunities
- Customer drift
- Sales performance
- Customer trends
- Customer margins
- Customer alignment
Campaign Management
Campaign management combines elements of Operational and Analytical CRM. Campaign management functions include:
- Target groups formed from the client base according to selected criteria
- Sending campaign-related material (e.g. on special offers) to selected recipients using various channels (e.g. e-mail, telephone, SMS, post)
- Tracking, storing, and analyzing campaign statistics, including tracking responses and analyzing trends
Collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM covers aspects of a 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 share information collected when interacting with customers. For example, feedback received by customer support agents can provide other staff members with information on the services and features requested by customers. Collaborative CRM's ultimate goal is to use information collected by all departments to improve the quality of services provided by the company. Producers can use CRM information to develop products or find new market. CRM facilitates communication between customers, suppliers and partner.
Consumer Relationship CRM
Consumer Relationship System (CRS) covers aspects of a company's dealing with customers handled by the Consumer Affairs and Customer Relations contact centers within a company. Representatives handle in-bound contact from anonymous consumers and customers. Early warnings can be issued regarding product issues (e.g. item recalls) and current consumer sentiment can be tracked (voice of the customer).
Simple CRM
A relatively new spinoff of the traditional CRM model first appearing in 2006. At their core, CRM tools are designed to manage customer relationships. As described above there are countless supplemental features and capabilities. Simple CRM systems breakdown the traditional CRM system to focus on the core values—managing contacts and activities with customers and prospects. These systems are designed to create the most value for the immediate end user rather than the organization as a whole. They often focus on satisfying the needs of a particular marketplace niche, organizational unit, or type of user rather than an entire organization.
Social CRM
Beginning in 2007, the rapid growth in social media and social networking forced CRM product companies to integrate "social" features into their traditional CRM systems. Some of the first features added were social network monitoring feeds (e.g. Twitter timeline). Other emerging features include messaging, sentiment analysis, and other analytics. CRM experts agree that online social communities and conversations have significant consequences for companies, and must be monitored for real-time marketplace feedback and trends.
Strategy
Several CRM software packages are available, and they vary in their approach to CRM. However, as mentioned above, CRM is not just a technology but rather a comprehensive, customer-centric approach to an organization's philosophy of dealing with its customers. This includes policies and processes, front-of-house customer service, employee training, marketing, systems and information management. Hence, it is important that any CRM implementation considerations stretch beyond technology toward the broader organizational requirements.
The objectives of a CRM strategy must consider a company’s specific situation and its customers' needs and expectations. Information gained through CRM initiatives can support the development of marketing strategy by developing the organization's knowledge in areas such as identifying customer segments, improving customer retention, improving product offerings (by better understanding customer needs), and by identifying the organization's most profitable customers.
CRM strategies can vary in size, complexity, and scope. Some companies consider a CRM strategy only to focus on the management of a team of salespeople. However, other CRM strategies can cover customer interaction across the entire organization. Many commercial CRM software packages provide features that serve the sales, marketing, event management, project management, and finance industries.
From this perspective, CRM has for some time been seen to play an important role in many sales process engineering efforts.
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