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An Introduction to Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Customer relationship management ( CRM ) can be defined as a strategy for maintaining the company's interactions with its customers sales and clients. Customer relationship management is a software that is used by many functional units of the organization such as customer service, marketing, technical support and management. The goals of customer relationship management are to attract new customers, maintain, manage, and to persuade its old customers to return to business and reduce overall marketing and customer service costs.
Benefits of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
A CRM system may be chosen to allow for Canadian businesses to sustain a competitive advantage over its competitors. A few of the benefits are:
• Decrease in costs
• Increased knowledge of customer
• Increases customer satisfaction
• Shared data
• Targeted communications
When a successful implementation of a CRM has occurred, the benefits can allow for a business to implement a new and successful strategy and allow a the business to have a sustained competitive advantage. However, there are many issues facing a successful implementation of a customer relationship management software.
Challenges facing a CRM
The following issues are what the typical business could face that has to take into account while implementing a customer relationship management software.
Complexity of installation: Customer Relationship Management software can vary in size depending on the organization's needs. When the software includes multiple packages, server permissions, databases and security considerations an install all the CRM package can become a nightmare for a business.
Poor planning: Installing any software needs to require proper project management. Without an accompanying project schedule, risk management plan, context of install and redundancy plan. The CRM Software must be championed by the entire organization otherwise it is bound to fail. Such examples of poor planning are not allowing time for a phased adoption or a parallel adoption of an old CRM or previous customer software. Having the option of parallel or phased adoption will allow for staff to use the new CRM System while having the option of going back to the old just in case they cannot find what they're looking for in the new system.
Poor selection of CRM Software: A CRM Software must be catered to the business it is being installed on. A commercial off the shelf package is simply not sufficient due to unique business processes, unique functional units, organizational culture and information systems that vary from business to business. A custom solution is a more appropriate that will allow the business to take advantage of certain aspects of the customer relationship management software. Even though commercial off the shelf software may be appropriate for certain businesses it may not be appropriate for others. Therefore, is important during the initial phases of selection to select a software that will fit the needs of your business.
Poor usability: Many CRM software's are installed without the input of customer Service &Marketing representatives. One of the main issues facing the customer relationship management software is the poor usability and clunky interface. Another issue facing CRM Software is use a rejection upon implementation. Many customer service representatives will get used to an old system; when the new system is installed the immediately reject what is new. Proper change management must be in place in order to allow customer service and marketing staff time to get used to the new system.
Types of CRM
There are many types of CRM Software. They vary from streamlining phases of the sale process, marketing CRM's, social media CRM's, customer service and support CRM's, analytical CRM's and number based CRM's. Below are examples of each type of software.
Sales force automation: SFA is a type of CRM that streamlines the sales process which therefore minimizes the time needed that a customer service representative needs to spend on each sale. Another benefit of SFA is the contact management system which records and tracts the various sales process for each customer. The starts off at the point of contact to final sale.
Marketing: The marketing CRM System allows the marketing functional units to identify leads and potential clients. The CRM System includes various metrics such as click through rates, revenue and leads. It also allows for multichannel campaign such as e-mail, telephone, mailing and social media.
Social media: Social media is one of the most popular ways of advertising currently. It allows for business to keep in touch with its customers and lets the business know what customers are thinking.
Top CRM Vendors:
Video:Vocomo's mobile CRM
Interested in CRM? Then follow this and related topics in our Free Information Architecture newsletter. Click on Send me Information Architecture News for a trial.
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