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All About People Power

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DQI Bureau
New Update

EXACTLY right–that was Gayatri Bajaj’s clear objective

for customer relationships. When the spanking-new vice-president at

CustomerAsset.com was given the mantle of devising a strategy to ensure that the

processes offered were aligned just right with customers and their businesses,

she decided that a "holistic view of the business relationship with the

customer was the only means to achieving the required focus". Today, Bajaj

claims to have stumbled on the perfect recipe for the perfect CRM endeavor.

"To me, CRM represents an outside in customer perspective, rather than the

inside out thinking that businesses tend to follow".

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There are others who have since walked the same route. Ever

since the concept of business has been in existence, the consumer has been the

pivotal focus of savvy sellers and businessmen alike. In essence, the concept of

customer relations is not a new one... it has been present in one form or the

other for years. But only in recent times has CRM been touted as the new

buzzword. In the last year alone, it has been given special impetus.

This is not without reason. Those who have been throguh the

grind estimate that the cost of getting a new customer is ten times’ that of

retaining an existing one. "With the ubiquity of the Internet, and with

e-emerging as the new buzzword, CRM has assumed a large proportion. In the

absence of a face-to-face contacts, it becomes imperative that businesses keep

track of their varied customers and the attached preferences," says one

voluble supporter or CRM.

Globally, according to a study conducted by META Group, the

CRM industry is expected to show 50% annual growth. Correspondingly, revenues

will increase from $13 billion in 2000 to $67 billion in 2004. A parallel study

by the Yankee Group predicts that the Web-based customer relationship market

will exceed $530 million in 2001-02.

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Though many see the concept of e-CRM as an extension of call

centers, which form the basic tool of any CRM plans, opinions differ on the

strategies to be adopted. While call centers are traditionally voice enabled, e-CRM

embraces many of the other technologies available today–email, chat, video

conferencing, VoIP–giving customers a wide horizon of technologies to choose

from.

Vaibhav Tiwari, CEO of iSeva, says the choice of the

technology adopted can be the make-or-break differentiator. "The people,

processes and technology of an e-CRM contact center are built around the

philosophy of identifying the most valuable customers and building relationships

with them–this has the eventual impact of increasing sales. Then again, the

various forms of customer contact–phone, e-mail, chat and self-service–are

integrated tightly around the customer. A typical call center is built to handle

customer problems on the phone, often treated as a cost center."

Some others define CRM as "a well-articulated business

strategy"–comprising of a series of functionalities and technologies,

which allow companies to profitably manage customers requirements, provide a

personalized and well-differentiated customer attention as well as maintain a

life-long customer relationship.

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Implementation of eCRM strategies requires addressing of

several issues, such as customer acquisition and retention, marketing and sales

aspects, all of which could turn out to be a veritable nightmare for the

e-manager to integrate and manage such disparate data.

"But the challenge does not end here. In fact, this is

only the beginning. As enterprises move from a product-centric to a

customer-centric logic, eCRM implementations become all the more strategic. The

challenge begins with the task of providing the right information at the right

time to the right people," says Prakash Gurbaxani, CEO of 24/7customer.com.

The other challenges lie in better understanding of the customer and his needs.

If you reach this understanding level, you can select the right technology, one

which is scalable and manageable."

According to studies conducted by leading market research

agencies, CRM is pretty high on the enterprise priorities list. Also, experts

say stumbling blocks begin with the lack of sufficient information, inadequate

customer inputs and inappropriate categorization. Ineffective marketing strategy

and poor management practices make up the whole jingbang.

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So how do organizations put together such customer-related

data, especially when it means reams and reams of paper, most of it scattered

around? Enter the concept of marketing data intelligence (MDI). Through MDI,

data acquired during the customer engagement is mined to extract patterns,

behavioral traits and demography, among other things–which can be critical in

the developing appropriate marketing strategies. It combines data-driven

marketing with technology and information about customers, products and

transactional data, all aimed at improving decision-making and tactical

marketing.

Although there’s no standard approach or one-fits-all

mantra, companies usually organize their data on the basis of their business

model and the needs of the particular sector they cater to. Many companies are

segmented according to various regions, departments, channels and process, and

hence the need lies in effectively coordination and re-organization.

"Implementation of an e-CRM strategy in any organization

extends way beyond putting in the hottest CRM package," says iSeva’s

Tiwari. "A CRM strategy is incomplete unless it is reorganized around the

customer, for the customer is King."

Sandhya SM in Bangalore CIOL Bureau

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