ACURA

1) ACURA model is a framework for revision in profitable opportunities. Cyclic successive stages
of ACURA including Acquire, Cross-sell, Upsell, Retain, and Advocacy presented in Fig. 3.
Companies have to consider the customer's desires in their planning period that may they be
looking to buy other products (CrossSelling) or more units of a product (Upselling), or even
tend to buy from a range of suppliers. As seems the basic steps for ACURA implementation
framework are:  Determining the main market segments with their specifications (2 to 4
segments with the potential of long-term profitability).  Selecting ACURA specific strategies.
 Determining the Kpi 4 for each segment and their potential in overall profitability. 
Determining the CSF5 for required investment to implement CRM strategy [20].
2) In seeking to build future profitability, companies need to develop an integrated programme
that addresses customer acquisition, customer retention and other related activities that
can improve CLV. One framework for reviewing such profit opportunities is the ACURA
model, shown in Figure 3.16. The acronym ACURA stands for: acquisition, cross-sell, upsell,
retention and advocacy. Only rarely do companies systematically build CRM strategies that
focus on all the elements within this ACURA framework. While companies may seek to
improve customer acquisition and customer retention, they also need to exploit cross-
selling, upselling and advocacy opportunities. When organizations model their potential
future profit they need to take into account the fact that individual consumers may be
persuaded to buy other products – cross-selling, or more of an existing product over time –
upselling. Also, corporate customers tend to buy from a range of suppliers. By improving its
service the supplier may be able to increase ‘share of wallet’ as well as market share,
especially through exploiting alternative channel structures such as the Internet. Companies
such as McDonalds and American Express are excellent at cross-selling and upselling and
Virgin and First Direct excel at creating advocacy within their customer bases. Earlier in this
chapter we emphasized how companies should manage customer acquisition and retention
to improve their profitability. To become even more profitable, they need to develop
integrated programmes that also address related activities, such as cross-selling and
upselling, that can improve customer lifetime value. For each element of ACURA companies
can usefully review potential strategies to improve profitability by market segment and then
identify their potential profit impact. The main steps involved in applying the ACURA
framework are as follows: 1. Identify key segments and their characteristics. Select two to
four segments with the greatest long-term profit potential 2. Determine generic ACURA
strategies 3. Decide which ACURA strategies relate to which segments and make rough
estimate of profit potential 4. Identify key metrics for each segment and overall profit
potential 5. Determine critical factors for success in CRM implementation, investment
required and strategy for selling internally. An overview of an exercise for strategies to
improve cross-selling in a supermarket is shown in Figure 3.17. The supermarket first
identifies generic strategies to improve each element in the ACURA model. In the example in
Figure 3.17, the generic cross-sell strategies that may be relevant to a number of segments
include developing a wider product range, making linked or special offers, introducing
loyalty cards, etc. The profit potential of applying each of these strategies for each customer
segments is then considered. An estimate of this is represented by the number of $ signs for
each segment strategy. Appropriate metrics which measure the impact of cross-sell
strategies are then identified. Finally, each relevant strategy is considered in more detail
including the investment required to implement each strategy and the likely return in each
segment. The potential of the ACURA framework is highlighted when McDonalds is
 considered. McDonalds have a systematic approach to upselling and cross-selling that
typically results in a customer having a ‘Big Mac’ rather than a standard hamburger; being
asked if they want fries to go with the hamburger; then ‘will that be a large fries?’ and
‘would you like a drink to go with that?’ and ‘will that be a large coke?’. The combination of
successful upselling and cross-selling, if carried out where it is relevant to customer needs
and on a consistent basis by all employees, has the potential to make a huge improvement
in profitability when compared with an organization that does not emphasize these key
elements of enterprise customer value.

Summary
The value creation process is crucial to transforming the outputs of the strategy development
process in CRM into programmes that Figure 3.17 ACURA model cross-selling template for a
supermarket Cross-sell Segment 1 2 34 Wider product range $$$ Linked offers Special offers $$ $
Loyalty cards $ Train staff to link products $ Shelf design $ $$ In store promotions $ $ Buy in bulk $$$
$ Oven ready convenience foods $ HCRM-Ch03.qxd 9/16/05 10:48 Page 155 156 Handbook of CRM:
Achieving Excellence in Customer Management both extract and deliver value. An insufficient focus
on the value provided for key customers, as opposed to the income derived from them, can seriously
diminish the impact of the offer in terms of its perceived value. Only a balanced value exchange will
ensure that both parties enjoy a good return on investment, leading to a good (long-term and
profitable) relationship. Achieving the ideal equilibrium between giving value to customers and
getting value from customers is a critical component of CRM and requires competence in managing
the perception and projection of value within the reality of acquisition and retention economics. To
anticipate and satisfy the needs of current and potential customers, the supplier organization must
be able to target specific customers and to demonstrate added value through differentiated value
propositions and service delivery. This means adopting an analytical approach to value creation,
supported by a dynamic, detailed knowledge of customers, competitors, opportunities and the
company’s own performance capabilities. In mature markets and as competition intensifies it
becomes imperative for organizations to recognize that existing customers are easier to sell to and
are frequently more profitable. But although managers may agree intellectually with this view, the
practices within their organizations often tell a different story. They can take existing customers for
granted, while focusing too much of their attention and resources on attracting new customers.
There are many examples of organizations that have invested too heavily in unselective customer
acquisition only to find they have attracted a significant proportion of their customer base that is
marginal or unprofitable. Increasingly sophisticated approaches to customer segmentation, value
propositions development and lifetime value calculation will help companies better to understand
how value should be created for the customer and the enterprise. However, this will only be realized
by ensuring a superior customer experience within and across all the channels in which the company
interacts with its customers – the topic of the next chapter.

Types of CRM
Analyst firms, including Meta Group, classify CRM into several types:
_ Operational CRM – This is the area that is concerned with the automation
of business processes involving front-office customer contact points.
These areas include sales automation, marketing automation and customer
service automation. Historically, operational CRM has been a
major area of enterprise expenditure as companies develop call centres
or adopt sales force automation systems. CRM vendors focus on offering
an increasingly wide range of operational CRM solutions.
_ Analytical CRM – This involves the capture, storage, organization, analysis,
interpretation and use of data created from the operational side of the
business. Integration of analytical CRM solutions with operational CRM
solutions is an important consideration.
_ Collaborative CRM – This involves the use of collaborative services and
infrastructure to make interaction between a company and its multiple
channels possible. This enables interaction between customers, the
enterprise and its employees.
Together, these three components of CRM support and feed into
each other. Successful CRM, which results in a superior customer
experience, requires integration of all three of these component
parts. Collaborative CRM enables customers to contact the enterprise
A strategic framework for CRM 23
through a range of different channels and undergo a common experience
across these channels. Operational CRM facilitates the customer
contacts with the organization and subsequent processing and
fulfilment of their requirements. Analytical CRM enables the right
customers to be targeted with appropriate offers and permits personalization
and one-to one-marketing to be undertaken through
superior customer knowledge. While historically operational and
collaborative CRM had the greatest emphasis, enterprises are now
more cognisant of the need for analytical CRM to enable better optimization
of their customer-facing activities and creation of value for
the customer and the enterprise.
Other terminology used in the CRM market includes:
_ Strategic CRM – This involves the development of an approach to CRM
that starts with the business strategy of the enterprise and is concerned
with development of customer relationships that result in long-term
shareholder value creation.This is the approach emphasized throughout
the book. It should be noted some authors use the term strategic CRM
in a more restrictive sense to refer to analytical CRM.
_ e-CRM – The term e-CRM refers to the use of e-commerce tools or
electronic channels in CRM. As noted in the introduction to this book,
we do not make a distinction between CRM and e-CRM. (Confusingly, e-
CRM is sometimes used to refer to ‘enterprise CRM’ – that is having an
enterprise-wide view of the customer across different channels.)
_ Partner relationship marketing or PRM – This term is used to refer to CRM
activities that involve the enterprise’s activities with its alliance partners
or value added resellers (VARs). The majority of IT business is done
through indirect channels, so PRM activities with intermediaries are an
essential element of a vendor’s CRM programme. For example, Siebel
has five types of partner: consulting partners, platform partners, technical
partners, content partners and software partners. Within each of
these are three levels of programme: technical, marketing and sales.23

Types of CRM:
1. Operational CRM
 Operational CRM streamlines the business process that includes Sales automation,
Marketing automation and Service automation. Main purpose of this type of CRM is
to generate leads, convert them into contacts, capture all required details and
provide service throughout customer lifecycle.
Sales Automation:
Sales automation helps an organization to automate sales process. Main purpose of
sales automation is to set standard within organization to acquire new customers
and deal with existing customers. It organizes information in such a way that the
business can meet customers’ needs and increase sales more efficiently and
effectively. It includes various CRM sales modules like lead management, contact
management, Quote-to-Order management, sales forecasting.
Marketing Automation:
Main purpose of marketing automation is to find out the best way to offer products
and approach potential customers. Major module in marketing automation is
campaign management. It enables business to decide effective channel/s (like
emails, phone calls, face to face meeting, ads on social media) to reach up to
potentials customers.
Service Automation:
Service automation enables business to retain customers by providing best quality of
service and building strong relationship. It includes issue management to fix
customers’ problems, customer call management to handle incoming/outgoing calls,
service label management to monitor quality of service based on key performance
indicators.
2. Analytical CRM
Analytical CRM helps top management, marketing, sales and support personnel to
determine the better way to serve customers. Data analysis is the main function of
this type of CRM application. It analyzes customer data, coming from various touch
points, to get better insights about current status of an organization. It helps top
management to take better decision, marketing executives to understand the
campaign effectiveness, sales executives to increase sales and support personnel to
improve quality of support and build strong customer relationship.
Features of Analytical CRM:
 Gather customer’s information, coming from different channels and analyze data in a
structured way
 Help organization to set business methodology in Sales, Marketing and Support to
improve customer relationship and loyalty
 Improve the CRM system effectiveness and analyze key performance indicators, set
by business
3. Collaborative CRM
Collaborative CRM, sometimes called as Strategic CRM, enables an organization to
share customers’ information among various business units like sales team,
marketing team, technical and support team. For example, feedback from a support
team could be useful for marketing team to approach targeted customers with
specific products or services. In real world, each business unit works as an
independent group and rarely shares customers’ data with other teams that often
causes business losses. Collaborative CRM helps to unite all groups to aim only one
goal – use all information to improve the quality of customer service to gain loyalty
and acquire new customers to increase sales.
Different types of CRM applications have different features and advantages. So
before implementing CRM system, it is very much important for a business to decide
future goal and strategy. If you want to choose the best CRM for your business, read
our article on ‘How to choose the best CRM software for your business‘.