The promise of crm

CRM should not be confused with technology. Emma Warrilow, from Peppers and Rogers states “… the definition of CRM is expanding day by day. It is just a matter of typing CRM into any search engine and you will see a very long list of developers and software companies, offering all kinds of solutions… ”.

1. Introduction

The birth of the Internet and the development of telecommunications has reduced time and distance to almost zero; The expectations of Clients and consumers have been raised to their highest expression. The balance of power has shifted from the provider to the Client / consumer and who we will refer to hereinafter as the Client. In this way, it is now the Client who decides from whom, where, when, and what to buy and with more information and in a more prepared way, at what price.

In this way, it has become of undeniable clarity that the only way to survive in the market and maintain a competitive advantage is by establishing and maintaining high-quality relationships with Clients. Therefore, the consideration to launch a CRM strategy to improve customer relationships has become an integral and mandatory part of any corporate strategy.

Many studies have unquestionably proven that maintaining existing customer loyalty provides two to three times more repeat business. If this information is complemented with the statistics that prove that the cost of acquiring new Clients is up to six times higher than maintaining a current Client, a policy aimed at cultivating our Client's loyalty will strengthen and even improve the position of your company in the market, because simply your Clients will be out of the reach of your competitors, and thus your products and / or services will be less sensitive to price variations.

In this new millennium, the goal of the game is to be competitive and not make mistakes; This premise can also be determined as the way to capture the largest possible slice of the market, in the shortest period of time, using the least amount of resources, thus optimizing and generating a greater amount of profits. In this way, the greater amount of income received by the organization can mean a larger slice of the market, which in turn will mean an improvement in its competitiveness. That is why an integral part of the corporate business strategy of the new millennium is to strengthen the loyalty of its Clients to substantially increase revenues.

In order to facilitate the processes of creating and strengthening customer loyalty and based on the need to budget for a substantial increase in revenues and profits, companies must implement consistent processes for managing customer relationships. This is why a technological - administrative trend is born that is among the most popular in recent years, the CRM. But what exactly is CRM? CRM It is a business strategy to select and manage Clients individually, in order to optimize their value for the company in the long term.

2. CRM in Companies

The application of the CRM concept requires a company with a philosophy and a customer-focused business culture.

This in order that it can effectively support new marketing and sales efforts and new practices in service processes. CRM technological applications can enable effective management of customer relationships, as long as the company possesses the correct leadership, lives the culture and philosophy of focusing on the Customer, maintains the strategy and has a consistent technology platform. with what you want to do.

In this strategy all the functional dependencies of an organization have as main objective; Customer care, given that the relationship with the Customer occurs through different points of contact, the organization must ensure that it has the means that allow it, at each point, to satisfy the needs of that increasingly demanding Customer. CRM is more than a discrete process that can be added to the organization without affecting the rest, it is a chain reaction. Therefore, the application of the concept forces a redesign of the functional activities, and this generally implies a reengineering of processes and the acquisition and implementation of a technology oriented towards CRM.

That is why it must be understood that the implementation of the CRM philosophy produces an extension of the concept of sale from a discreet act executed by a seller, to turning it into a continuous process that involves each person in the company. It is the art / science of gathering and using all available information about your Customer, as an individual, to build, strengthen and maintain that Customer's loyalty and thus increase its value to the company. With the current state of information technology and the high expectations of customer service, it is practically impossible to consider these processes without thinking about technology, but it is important to remember that customer relationships - human relationships - are the most sophisticated attack force.

The CRM philosophy is a management model that puts the Client at the center of the company's processes and practices. The CRM concept is based on the use of the most advanced information technology tools, because it integrates strategic planning, the most advanced marketing techniques and tools, in order to build internal and external relationships that increase profitability margins. of each Client and in this way, assess the relationship established with that Client in the long term, to increase the profitability of a company.

The implementation of the CRM concept in an organization implies a very serious technological and organizational commitment. A company focused on the Client with the information generated by the technology, can arrive at the application of predictive models that allow to determine what that Client is going to demand in the future, this premise is terrifying but it is well worth the effort. Customers are the dominant force in today's globalized economic network. The constant battle for profitable market leadership can be won by those who have a deep and dynamic understanding of the Client's needs and behavior patterns and who can develop long-term relationships based on loyalty.

Developments in the field of information technology provide strategic advantages and opportunities to companies of all kinds. To achieve success in establishing a CRM strategy, senior management must implement a corporate strategy that combines a realignment of corporate initiatives in the different areas: the sales force, Internet businesses, new service processes and customer service. Client, the planning of the relations with the Clients (CPR) 1, the Planning of the corporate resources (ERP) 2 and the management of the Supply chain (SCM) 3, with the creation of a corporate culture that privileges and rewards the good employee behavior, at all points of contact with the Client, all of them centered around the creation of value for the Client.

3. What the CRM Philosophy includes

There is general agreement among industry analysts that the main pillars on which a CRM Project is managed are Sales, Marketing and Service. These are the primary areas of contact with Clients, whether pre-sale, during sale or post-sale, and they are the way in which relationships with Clients are maintained.

The service area is probably the most crucial when it comes to customer relations. The skill with which a company's Customer service is provided is the main key to managing that Customer's loyalty. This service must go beyond a call center, therefore, these must evolve towards contact and interaction centers, with a strategy focused on managing the communication channel with the Client. Telephone interaction must be coordinated with direct mail, email, fax, internet and any other means of communication that the Client prefers to use. Self-service is a growing requirement and more and more Customers want to be able to search and look at the information themselves in their browser.

In this way, customer service has evolved beyond the telephone and the office. The term "Customer Care" which literally translated means Customer Care, begins to be heard to expand and increase the responsibility that is gestated towards the Customer. Proactive customer relationships are now an important part of what service means. Therefore, Customer service begins to handle all kinds of customer concerns about the products, the doubts about them, the other information needs that the Customer requests, order taking, complaints without forgetting the service. field.

In the sales area, technological innovations for the automation of the sales force are the fastest growing. The interaction of the sales force with prospects, turning that prospect into a Customer and then maintaining a loyal relationship with him is the secret to business success (… easier to write than to do…).

The sales process must be managed with the interaction of other business units. Sales force automation is expanding to include forecasting, number of contacts and sales quota management, proposal generation, and profit and loss analysis. Sales personnel have always been an exceptional source of information for the company and must have access to tools that allow them to access company information remotely and immediately and provide feedback from the field in the same way.

In the Marketing field, automation seeks to capture and manage changes and trends, manage campaigns and improve telemarketing coordination. Even today, mass marketing is carried out to generate first contacts, based on these, carry out a primary segmentation that allows contact to continue in a more specific way towards the chosen target. Personalization is becoming a norm of interaction, based mainly on known consumer habits and preferences. Knowledge Management and 1 to 1 Marketing have emerged as real trends to direct better communication towards the Client. Marketing activities continue to evolve and have included the internet and the use of email.Internet-based Marketing activities seek to provide prospects with a better experience to stimulate their conversion to loyal customers. To obtain the maximum possible value, the follow-up of the campaigns must be done with the collaboration of the sales force to identify trends and evaluate the success or failure of the same. Managing the costs of campaigns and marketing events, provide a very significant value to evaluate the return on investment made (ROI).They provide a very significant value to evaluate the return on investment made (ROI).They provide a very significant value to evaluate the return on investment made (ROI).

Without the interaction of these three major areas and a joint approach to combine them and integrate them into a solution that eliminates the current information silos in each of the departments, the results that could be expected would be less than satisfactory. The integration of the different interactions of the Clients through the entire company system, in an environment where they are found in a single Client repository, shared by all and which manages them in a coordinated and consistent manner is defined by the Group Gartner as TERM4, Integrated Relationship Technology Management.

Under this new paradigm, the company adapts to the needs of the Clients and ensures the integration of information from these three areas, avoiding operating with independent sources of information that duplicate work, produce conflicts and generate outdated information.

4. CRM, Success in the Internet age

Now it is possible for every company to have a presence on the Internet. Garage businesses, home-based companies, small businesses, have created pages on the Internet to offer and sell their services, also large corporations are beginning to guide their business on the Internet. However, it is one thing to create a presence on the web and another totally different, to ensure that these Customers who frequent that page keep coming back, that is the true test of consumer loyalty on the Internet.

There are some potential risks that involve jumping into a CRM process on the web without having a clearly oriented business strategy. Specific problems are observed with sites that do not have customer support mechanisms to answer questions and resolve concerns. In developing countries, where logistics is not widely developed, companies can sell through the network but are unable to deliver the products, creating a negative atmosphere in the market. Obviously, created the problem, the solution presents itself. But as consumers increase their access to the network and are more demanding in meeting their needs, companies must increase their ability to anticipate them,identify them and satisfy them or risk losing them to a competitor who has acquired that skill.

conclusion

Therefore, it must be remembered that CRM is after all a business strategy never a software program, and it must involve some basic principles:

Align corporate strategy around Clients (instead of products and distribution channels) Dynamic exchange of Clients' information at all levels of the company, centralized in an environment that manages it consistently and up-to-date Analyze the information obtained to understand, anticipate and satisfy the needs of the Client, even beyond their own initiative in order to generate loyalty

Thus, the implementation of a CRM strategy must be supported by a multidisciplinary group made up of people from all levels and areas of the organization, with the support of senior management, in order to redirect processes, adjust needs and implement a solution successful and consistent with the needs of the company, corporate strategies and its unique vision of business.

Customer Resource Planning

Enterprise Resource Planning

Supply Chain Management

Technology Enabled Relationship Management