Most companies considerthemselves customer-focused and believe that in being
so they are servicing the customer. But essentially, being customer-focused
means to have a consistent, dependable and convenient interaction with customers
in every encounter. Some facts to chew before we get started:
-
It costs six
times more to sell to a new customer than to sell to an existing one -
A company can
boost profits by 85% by increasing annual customer retention by just 5% -
70% of customers
will do business with the company again if it quickly takes care of a
service snafu.
Out of this comes electronic customer relationship management
(e-CRM). CRM is typically defined as an integrated sales, marketing and service
strategy that precludes lone existence and depends on coordinated actions among
the customers, the suppliers, partners and vendors. E-CRM goes a step ahead and
adopts a Web-centric approach that synchronizes customer relationships across
communication channels (like the Web, e-mail, fax and phone), business functions
(sales, marketing and customer support) and audiences.
CRM is an integrated framework, or a business strategy, and
putting it into place will require a set of integrated applications that will
address every aspect of business functions and the customer. CRM tools help
companies understand their customers from a multifaceted perspective: who they
are, what they like, and what they do...
CRM everywhere
By investing in CRM or e-CRM applications, companies are
looking at retaining existing customers and converting potential customers into
lifetime customers. In certain industries, customer retention is a key driver
for profitability. Also, with the advent of new technologies, it is critical for
any business to meet the expectations of the customers (that is changing ever so
fast…).
For long, only large enterprises thought of such applications
as part of their business processes. But today, with competition being the ‘key’
word in every industry, even the small and medium businesses have realized the
importance of customer-related activities and are adopting these technologies at
a fast rate. Also not to ignore, advancement and choice of technology have
permitted the cost of these technologies to fall to an affordable rate.
Companies that have fewer than 100 employees can now adopt and implement these
applications.
Various studies have reflected that the CRM industry is
poised to grow at an exponential rate. According to a recent study by McKinsey,
solutions based on e-CRM already account for a third of the $100-billion global
market for customer care.
Through this column, we plan to touch upon the various
issues, concerns and apprehensions that customers and companies have towards
adopting e-CRM products as part of their value offering to their customers. We
will also touch upon the future trends and technology breakthroughs that the e-CRM
sector will face over the next couple of months.
Arun Maheshwari is CEO,
TriVium India Software
First published at www.ciol.com