Newsletter, October 2009 - IDRBT

Fast Forward
October 2009
Customer Relationship Management
The CRM processes should fully support the basic
customer lifecycle steps, viz., (i) Attracting present and
new customers (ii) Acquiring new customers (iii)
Serving the extant customers (iv) and finally, retaining
the customers.
Selection of right CRM Technology is critical to the
success of any CRM initiative. Most CRM packages
provide excellent sales force automation, but they are
not equally good at integration with computer/web
telephony. According to Gartner's magic quadrant for
CRM, Customer Service Contact Centers in 2008,
Oracle (Siebel Systems) is the market leader with
other players lagging way behind.
USTOMER Relationship Management
(CRM) is a new buzzword in marketing,
Cthanks to the advent and proliferation of
'customer-centric' philosophy that replaced the age-
old 'product-centric' philosophy. This paradigmatic
shift dramatically changed the way business is
conducted across all services industries, viz., banks,
retail, insurance, telecom, etc.
In 1980s, a concept called Customer Information
System (CIS) was introduced. The initial applications
had limited functionality and they were designed to
support a specific set of employees. Later, it changed
into contact management, sales force automation, call
center and customer contact center.
CRM methodology enables an organisation to
understand the customers' needs and behaviour in a
better way by introducing reliable processes and
procedures for interacting with customers and
developing stronger relationships with them. It
provides the whole information about customer,
which yields insight into behaviour of customers and
value of retaining those customers.
The following benefits normally accrue from a CRM
initiative:
A mix of different software to link the
databases, data warehousing software,
contact management software, and a CRM
package will go a long way in helping to
upgrade the small companies
Develop better communication channels
Collect customer related data
Create detailed profiles of individual
customers by resorting to analytics.
Increased customer satisfaction and
enhanced customer loyalty
Access to customer account history, order
information, and customer information at all
touch points
Identify new selling opportunities
Increased market share and profit margin
Increased revenues
More effective reach and marketing
Improved customer service and support
Improved response time to customer requests
for information
Improved ability to meet customer
requirements
Improved quality communication and
networking
12