CHANGING FACETS OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP

MANAGEMENT (CRM)

Customer Relationship Management (or CRM) is changing very rapidly with time. Not too
long ago, surveys were reporting that 70-75% of all CRM initiatives failed. While CRM
implementation results leave a lot to be desired, it is amazing what can happen when
institutions go from treating CRM as an ad hoc "skunkwork" operation to treating it as a
formally constructed corporate initiative.

There is a subject that has been truly troubling corporate for some time - that is CRM
marketers' seemingly singular focus on data analytics to the detriment of imagination.

Instead of developing real relationships with customers, they often reduced to mere ones and
zeroes... Today, the balance between art and science has teetered inexorably toward science
as the true artistry we develop dwindles.

Science is burying the art of customer relationships. As such corporate are stalling as
marketers fail to innovate. Industry has historically been the most innovative in the marketing
realm. In this increasingly competitive environment, let us not forget innovative heritage.
After all, "scientists can explain the world, but only artists can give it meaning."

Top 5 CRM Trends for 2010

 While 2009 can probably be best summed up by Charles Dickens, who once wrote:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of
Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair;
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven,
we were all going the other way."

2010 is looking a little less schizophrenic. The good news is that US economists are
cautiously predicting an uptick in consumer spending next year; the challenge remains how to
engage the post-recession consumer. Our 5 new trends for 2010 translate into this new
reality:

1) Branding is more important than ever. Brands have always been and are increasingly
becoming a surrogate for value - making brand differentiation all the more critical as generic
features continue to propagate in the brand landscape.

 2) Value is the new black: Consumer spending, even on sale items, will continue to be
replaced by a reason-to-buy at all. The era of "Because I said so" is over. This will more than
likely challenge most companies.

 3) Increased focus on data analysis. Companies are investing in measuring social media,
understanding customer value and modelling customer behaviour. Investments in Life stage
Marketing will begin to have more prominence as the affects of our changing demographic
become more pronounced.
 4) Customer Experience: Customers have more choices than ever, and are more frugal. This
affords them the luxury of demanding more. This is the year that the CRM Marketer will be
charged with offering a consistent experience across all company touch points and
developing the infrastructure that allows for knowledge sharing and smart communication.
Smart marketers will identify and capitalize on unmet expectations. Those companies that
understand where the strongest expectations exist will be the companies that survive and
prosper. The customer's online experience will begin to evolve and rival the customer's
offline experience - attentive assistants and all.

 5) Personalization and customization: In order to be effective in this new year, companies
will seek to know more about its customers and use that insight to talk, engage and interact
with their customers more often and more meaningfully in new and innovative ways
(including dynamic content, blogs to other social networking). 2010 is going to be up close
and personal, like it or not.

CRM Best Practices

CRM basically is putting your customer at the heart of your business. With the support of
technology, the goal is to have a 360-degree view of the customer which will enable you to
improve the quality and satisfaction of each customer interaction and maximize the
profitability of your customer relationships... a win/win for both company and
customers.CRM can be practiced in companies at different levels. It can be practiced at the
organizational level (ideally). It can be practiced at a customer facing level - anything that has
to do with interactions with customers, marketing, sales and service. Or it can be practiced at
the very functional level, like in a call centre within a sales force, etc. While we can look at
CRM on many different levels, our definition of CRM is at a strategic level i.e. an
organizational level.

CRM is similar to customer loyalty and relationship marketing in that the goal is to move
your customer from a transactional interaction to an emotional relationship. The two
components most often missing from loyalty and relationship marketing being: a) technology
and b) the management of relationships with other members of the business network:
affiliates, branches, employees etc. - i.e. recognizing your customer as a customer through
any channel.

Without a doubt, customer loyalty is a key driver of profitability. Creating customer loyalty
must be an integral part of your organization's strategy - particularly in a time of industry
consolidation. Understanding customers' requirements is fundamental to business success.

"It's incredibly arrogant for a company to believe it can deliver the same sort of product that
its rivals do and actually do better for very long. That's especially true today, when the flow
of information and capital is incredibly fast."

-- Michael Porter
 MODERN APPROACH

New age strategies used for long-term CRM success.

 1: Get sponsorship Implementing CRM requires working across organizational boundaries
and breaking down long-term soloed behaviours and attitude.

 2: Build a team.Form a CRM team with representatives from each department to make sure
colleagues' needs and concerns are addressed.

 3: Defining business objectives? CRM strategy must be designed with your business
objectives and customer requirements in mind.

4: Identifying customer .

5: Differentiate. Identify your customer segments - 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 worth?

 6: Understand your Customers - what they want, and how they want it from you.

 7: Agree on desired customer behaviours - build consensus on how you want customers to
behave differently and what the customer experience will be... from the customer's
perspective.

 8: Define customer experience goals. Articulate the customer experience. How should your
experience feel? Identify important business interactions e.g. high volume or high cost.
Identify interactions that are important to the customer. Identify the areas that require greatest
focus and will provide the greatest potential return.

9: Have an integrated customer strategy. Recognize that disparate databases of customer

information prevent companies from gaining a holistic view of the customer throughout the
organization. 

10: Define and map data requirements -The need is to know what customer data is necessary
and from what system it will originate. A firm understanding of the level of customer data -
account or household level - is critical.

11: Standardize data. Various departments in organization may see 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.

 12: Dialogue with your customers. Have a clear (and realistic) picture of who you are in the
matter of serving your customer. What do you value? What are you really selling them (are
you reliable? Are you the most creative?)? 

13: Get personal. Customers hate to feel like the sales agent is reading to them from a script.
Learn your customers' personal needs and profiles and target service to each individual. It
will make them feel important and that you value the relationship.
14: Developing success metrics - How will you know if your CRM program has been a
success?

 15: Creating customer engagement programs (acquisition, growth and retention).

Customer engagement is a process, not an event. Too often retention is treated as a project,
rather than a guiding principle.

16: Collect Data - collect and use information from each customer interaction to make
chosen customers more valuable to your enterprise. Identify behaviours, attitudes, needs,
propensities or intentions? Plan to clean your data regularly.

 17: Test, test, test. Troubleshoot with test customers before making your services generally
available. Focus on ROI. Experimenting with Marketing.

  18: Monitoring the customer experience. Don’t rely on complaints from customers about
how horrific it is to do business with you. Putting you in their shoes by going through the
typical customer experience. It is amazing how many companies institute processes and half
heartedly mystery shops themselves.

  19: Automate processes. Having customers enter their personal information on a Web site
versus providing it to an agent over the phone reduces the potential for human error. 

20: Empower staff. Giving front line staff the ability to please the customer. Too often they
can't make timely decisions nor can they present relevant offers - effectively facilitating
customer dissatisfaction and defection.

21: Communicating successes to the rest of the organization. Identifying quick wins. Tackle
the smallest, easiest task straight away and save the hard stuff for later. Success early on gets
the ball rolling and motivates employees. Success can be contagious.