E-CRMCRM PROCESSES AND THEIR INTEGRATION

CRM • CRM involves all the aspects of interaction (including sales, marketing and customer service) of an organization with its customers.

• Factors such as high cost of acquiring new customers, cut – throat competition, globalization and high customer churn rate have led to e-CRM.

• The e – CRM or electronic customer relationship management encompasses all the CRM functions with the use of the net environment i.e., intranet, extranet and internet. Electronic CRM concerns all forms of managing relationships with customers making use of information technology (IT).

CRM vs e – CRM

Objectives• Strengthening Relationship with Existing Customers – This means preparing a comprehensive view of the customer to maximize his/her relationship with the company through up – selling and cross – selling and at the same time, enhancing profitability by identifying, attracting and retaining best customers.

• Using Customer Information to Provide Better Services – By using a customer’s information to better serve his or her needs, customer time and frustration is saved.

• Creating Customer Value and Loyalty – Organizations can build customer loyalty by personalizing and customizing their products and services to meet customer requirements. The software keeps track of the products/services that an online visitor has browsed for which would enable organization to offer customized products/services to the visitors.

• Implementing Integrated CRM Solution Strategy – A reliable and convenient customer interaction requires an integrated e – CRM application development strategy. This involves integration of software related to sales, marketing and servicing functions.

Functions of CRM• Attracting New Customers –Involves the processes of identifying and obtaining new customers. Lead generation, sales promotions, marketing campaigns, and customer registration are some of the services associated with customer acquisition.

• Generating more Business from Existing Customers – Involves the processes of enhancing the value of customers to the business. New product launches, account management, loyalty marketing, affinity programs, and up-sells and cross-sells are services associated with customer growth and development.

• Retaining Profitable Customers – About 80% of the organization’s business is derived from 20% of customers. Hence, priority must be given to these customers and effort must be put to retain these customers. Involves the processes of caring for customers and maintaining long-term relationships. Technical support, loyalty marketing, customer satisfaction assurance, and collections and billing are some of the services associated with customer retention.

E – CRM Components• Cross selling and Up-Selling Software – It should be able to identify prospective customers and track their details and forward them to sales persons.

• Direct – Marketing and fulfilment – Automating direct marketing is essential when there is multiple marketing program across multiple channels. Fulfilment is to handle customer’s request for information quickly and effectively. A good fulfilment package provides timely reply to customer’s enquiry.

• Customer Support and Service – It consists of several activities like service request management, customer surveys, account management. Customer service essentially handles customer problems related to products and services. The software helps in verification of customer status, tracking tasks, maintaining history etc.

• Field Service Operations – The field service software supports activities like scheduling and sending service agent personnel, managing logistics and inventory.

• Retention Management - An effective CRM application helps in distinguishing customer based on years of association with the company and business given by each customer. A DSS software helps in gathering customer data and helps in understanding them.

E – CRM ArchitectureThe architecture refers to the broad outline of the system design including its hardware and software components. The effectiveness of e – CRM architecture can be analysed by giving answers to the following questions:

• Does the present e – CRM merely automate the organization’s customer facing processes ?

• Does the e – CRM architecture enable identification and targeting of most valuable customers ?

• Does the architecture support real time customization and personalization, based on customer demands ?

• Is the e-CRM architecture consistent across all access locations ?

E – CRM Application Categories• Customer Facing Applications

• Customer Touching Applications

• Customer Centric Intelligence Applications

• Online Network Applications

CRM Applications Categories

Customer Facing Applications• Customer Interaction Centers (CIC) – It allows customers to communicate and interact with a company in whatever way they choose—voice, fax, e-mail, and Web interactivity(e.g., Web chat). Providing well-trained customer service representatives who have access to data such as customer history, purchases, and previous contacts is one way to improve customer service.

• Automated Response to E – Mail (Autoresponder) – Several organizations offers autoresponders, which provides answers to some frequently asked questions. Many companies do not provide actual answers in their automatic responses butonly acknowledgment that a query has been received. Working of Autoresponder

• Sales Force Automation - Sales force automation (SFA) applications support the selling efforts of a company’s sales force, helping sales people manage leads, prospects, and customers through the sales process.

• Field Service Automation – Field service automation applicationssupport the customer service efforts of field service reps and service managers. These applications manage customer service requests, service orders, service contracts, service schedules, and service calls. They provide planning, scheduling, dispatching, and reporting features to field service representatives.

Customer Touching Applications• Personalized Web Pages – Many companies provide customers with tools to create their own individual Webpages (e.g., MyYahoo!). Companies can efficiently deliver customized information, such as product information and warranty information, when the customer logs on to the personalized page. Not only can a customer pull information from the vendor’s site, but the vendor can also push information to the consumer. In addition, these Web pages can record customer purchases and preferences. Typical personalized Web pages include those for bank accounts, stock portfolio accounts, credit card accounts, and so on. On such sites, users can see their balances, records of all current and historical transactions, and more.

• Web Self – Service – The Web environment provides an opportunity for customers to serve themselves. Known as Web self-service, this strategy provides tools for users to execute activities previously done by corporate customer service personnel. The best known and most frequently used Web self-service systems are the package tracking systems provided by FedEx and UPS. Self service tools generally used are:• Self – Tracking• Customer self – service through FAQs• Self – Configuration and customization

Customer Centric Applications

Analytical Tools– to improve customer service.• Reporting - Reports can be simple lists or charts of data and information or more complex

analyses of CRM performance metrics. Reports can be in one of two forms—standardized (predefined) or query-based (ad hoc). Standardized reports, also called canned reports, are generated from predefined templates and provide little in the way of customization outside of reformatting. A query-based report provides the end user (in this case a manager or analyst) with a set of tools for constructing a query against which the report is run.• OLAP – A data warehouse is a specialized (star schema or hierarchical) structure that

makes it easy to view and analyse measures from a variety of dimensional perspectives. The technologies used to view and analyze the data in a data warehouse are called online analytical processing (OLAP). OLAP tools enable the end user to “slice and dice”the measures by various dimensions (e.g., products, locations, customers, and time) and to “drill down” to more detailed information and “drill up” into aggregated or summary information.• Data Mining – Data mining is analytic activity that involves sifting through

an immense amount of data to discover hidden patterns. The process of discoverycan involve: classification—assigning cases into predetermined categories based on apredictable attribute ;clustering—identifying natural groupings buyers based on demographic characteristics); association—searching for relationships between variables ; regression—determining a statistical function that models the data

Online Networking Applications• Forums

• Chat rooms

• Usenet groups

• Blogs and Wikis

• E – mail newsletters

• Discussion Lists

Barriers to customers adopting e – CRM

Implementation strategies for e – CRM • Developing Customer focus business Strategy – Focus on customer demands and providing various communication channels for them.

•Business functions evaluations– Identifying non productive departments and processes and therefore helps in cutting down costs.

• Reconfiguring Work process flow– Departmental roles and responsibility changes from restructuring business functions will need new work processes.

• Technology choices – Criteria for technology selections includes scalability of software, compatibility of e – CRM application with internet and legacy systems, level of technical support, upgradable support and security.

• Training and Implementation – Training of employee should occur before new eCRM system has been implemented.

Challenges during Implementation • Mismatch between a company and vendor’s software

• Poor understanding of company’s business processes

• Implementation time duration

• Rejection by the end users

• ROI can’t be directly measured

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