How to maximise the benefits from customer relationship management
If you think customer relationship management is what you have been doing long before you heard about the acronym ‘CRM’, you’re probably right. CRM is a new name for the ways in which businesses interact with their customers. CRM’s focus is the customer, aligning business processes with strategies to build loyalties and increase profits from existing relationships. Here’s how to get the most from CRM...
1. Be clear about CRM.
CRM can be difficult, expensive, and complex. It is a software-supportable philosophy that involves:
- identifying customers
- differentiating them in terms of both their needs and value to your company
- interacting with them in ways that improve cost efficiency and the effectiveness of your interaction
- customising some aspect of the products or services you offer that customer.
A successful CRM strategy relies on three critical components - a CRM vision, a strategy to tailor its operations to suit its customers, and the technology to support that strategy.
2. Get key people involved in the vision.
Consider the introduction of CRM as you would any top-down, change-management project, including the demonstrated support of key people, and the development of a skilled and motivated workforce that:
- is aware of changing customer needs
- understands the need to retain existing customers and acquire new ones
- develops attractive and appropriate value propositions
- follows best practices in all of their dealings with customers.
Demonstrated leadership support will include a preparedness to work with CRM support teams, show them how to achieve their goals by applying new processes, organise and support training, and reaffirm the importance of staying in contact with customers.
3. Initiate a clear strategy.
CRM’s business strategy must have a clear customer orientation to create competitive advantage and superior performance. The strategy will help to align business processes before implementing any technology. Customers must experience the benefits of any renewed or extended focus on service provision and employees must understand clearly the focus on customers. Five main questions will help to define any strategy:
- How can we (our organisation) earn greater customer loyalty?
- What changes will be required to the ways that we do things?
- How much customisation can we provide, profitably?
- What is the potential value we can expect from increasing customer loyalty?
- How much time and money can we afford to allocate to CRM right now?
