The Customer is Always Right
 Innovative products &
 It is essential for
companies today to be
aware of their customers
and treat them like
royalty.
services and superb
customer service are
becoming a necessity
for many organizations.
For example:
 Customer Profiles and
Preference Analysis
 Prospective Customer
Lists & Marketing
Databases
 Mass Customization
 Personalization
What is CRM?
 CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management
 It is a strategy used to learn more about customers'
needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger
relationships with them
 There are many technological components to CRM,
but thinking about CRM in primarily technological
terms is a mistake
 The more useful way to think about CRM is as a
process that will help bring together lots of pieces of
information about customers (Market research,
historical data), sales (Historical data), marketing
effectiveness (Sales/Advertising, Sales/Sales Rep),
responsiveness (Response to price, promotion,
distribution), and market trends (Market research….)
Customer Relationship
Management
 CRM is an approach that recognizes that
customers are the core of the business and
that the company’s success depends on
effectively managing relationships with them
 Customer service is a series of activities
designed to enhance the level of customer
satisfaction
CRM, cont’d.
 Relationship marketing: the “overt attempt
of exchange partners to build a long-term
association, characterized by purposeful
cooperation and mutual dependence on the
development of social, as well as structural,
bonds” (Mowen & Minor, 1998).
 E-Service: customer service that is performed
on the Web, sometimes automatically.
Introduction to CRM
 Contact Points:
 Advertisements, Retail counters, Website visits,
Purchase, Direct sales, Catalogs, direct mail,
Telemarketing, Call centers, Internet email, Sales
promotions, Banner advertisements, Market
research……
 What do we get: Data, Data, Data
 What do we want? Information and knowledge
of customers
 Why do we want this? Retain customers,
Target customers, Change strategies, Make it
easy for customers to access information,
product, services. Identify profitable customers
Goal of CRM
 To use technology and human resources to gain
insight into the behavior of customers and the value
of those customers
 Provide better customer service
 Make call centers more efficient
 Cross sell products more effectively
 Help sales staff close deals faster
 Simplify marketing and sales processes
 Discover new customers
 Increase customer revenues
CRM in Action
 According to Seybold and Marshak (1998)
there are five steps in building IT-supported
CRM. These are:
 Make it easy for customers to do business with
you.
 Focus on the end customer for your products and
services.
 Redesign your customer-facing business processes
from the end customer’s point of view.
 Wire your company for profit: design a
comprehensive, evolving electronic business
architecture.
 Foster customer loyalty. In e-Commerce,
especially, this is the key to profitability.
IT in CRM
Customer Service
 Providing Search and Comparison
Capabilities
 Providing Free Products and Services
 Providing Technical and Other
Information and Service
 Allowing Customers to Order
Customized Products and Services
Online
 Letting Customers Track Accounts or
Order Status
Tools for Customer Service
 Personalized Web Pages
 FAQs
 Tracking Tools
 Chat Rooms
 E-mail and Automated Response
 Help Desks and Call Centers
 Troubleshooting Tools
CRM is Cool But How Does It
Happen?
 Buy software, install it, and you are all set (Wrong!)
 Identify what information you need and what to do
with it!
 What are the sources of information, where, when,
how data come? Where to store this data? How data
is used currently?
 CRM systems link these points.
 Data flow between operational system (Sales,
Inventories, etc.) to Analytical systems (Logical
system/software to identify trends, patterns,
behavior…by sorting through this records)
 Analysts can analyze these patterns to make
conclusion about customer needs, profile,
profitability to make crucial business decisions
Examples of Data That CRM
Needs to Collect
 Responses to campaigns
 Shipping and fulfillment dates
 Sales and purchase data
 Account information
 Web registration data
 Service and support records
 Demographic data
 Web sales data
Managerial Issues
 Integration of functional information systems.
Integration of existing stand-alone functional
information systems is a major problem for
many organizations.
 Priority of transaction processing. Transaction
processing may not be an exotic application,
but it deals with the core processes of
organizations.
 The customer is king/queen. In implementing
IT applications, management must remember
the importance of the customer, whether
external or internal.
Managerial Issues, cont’d.
 Finding innovative applications
 Tools such as Lotus Notes, intranets, and the Internet enable
the construction of many applications that can increase
productivity and quality.
 System integration
 Although functional systems are necessary, they may not be
sufficient if they work independently.
 Using the Web
 Web-based systems should be considered in all functional
areas. They are effective, inexpensive & user friendly.
 Ethical Issues
 Many ethical issues are related to the code of ethics followed
in CRM and privacy policies.