The Following steps help to put the organization on the right path to CRM success

1. Remember that culture is supreme:

A CRM encompasses a mindset, a way of doing business and a way of interacting with others in the firm. The success of CRM implementation rests on the shoulders of a workforce that is willing to share information about clients and contacts. However, this “collaborative” mentality flies in the face of the culture within some professional services firms. For better or worse, many professional services practitioners are skeptical of sharing “contacts” information for the fear of losing opportunities to generate work that can produce themselves. However, if a CRM implementation is introduced to the workforce as an opportunity to create new opportunities for all, success rates will improve significantly.

2. Set Realistic Goals:

One of the greatest mistakes a management team can make is to force –feed technology across the organization. This is particularly true with the CRM implementation. As the firm management prepares for a CRM rollout, planning and patients are critical. Working with the implementation team from the software developer, management should agree upon a plan of phasing software use across the firm. Some organizations orchestrate a CRM rollout by location, others by practice group or department. A phased approach gives both the firm and the implementation team an opportunity to make adjustments, manage expectations, achieve milestones and promote successes.

3. Obtain and Maintain Senior Management support:

Successful CRM implementation start and end at the top. As a rule, successful CRM implementations are characterized as those in which management leads by example. Management should not sugarcoat the process or minimize the effort involved. Similarly, when milestones are achieved, the same managers should be the first to strongly promote the benefits being realized by the firm.

4. Analyze working Processes:

The process of fitting a CRM solution into a professional service organization provides a wonderful opportunity to evaluate processes and procedures across the firm. Working with the implementation team from the software provider firm, management should review, analyze and evaluate the firm’s procedure as well as all the data sources that are used in finding a CRM solution. This is the perfect time to discuss and develop new procedures that will increase the firm’s success.

Data gathered needs to be integrated:

Integrating data gathered from multiple points:

Today, firms gather customer data via multiple points spread over diverse delivery channels .Let us take illustration of a bank. The customer may carry out his debit and credit transactions with the bank at different branches/ATMs of the bank, located in different cities. Data is card of the bank; it would allow the bank to know at a click of a button, the complete history of the customer and his worth to the bank.

Integrating data scattered over multiple departments:

Normally in most business, customer points spread over diverse delivery channels. Let us take a bank for illustration. The customer may carry out his debit and while others may not have access to it .Often the data lie scattered over desperate sources each team/applications/purchase maintain its own database. A system that enables every executive easy access to the customer transaction/purchase behaviour is often absent.

Providing a single, cohesive, view of the customer:

CRM counters the above scenario and enable all the customer interacting executives to have a single, cohesive view of the customer. The tools aggregate the business and maintain the customer information in such a manner that ensures easy access for all. The tools also tie together the multiple channels of communication with the customers such as live chat through phone or e-mail. Hence, CRM is often described as the tool that leverages technology for delivering superior value to customers.

Data gathering becomes increasingly sophisticated and hi-tech:

CRM involves an integrated and automated approach to customer data gathering and technology is the pivotal in this process. In fact, the term “customer database” is now getting out dated it is now referred to by the term “Customer focused technology”. Hi-tech data warehousing is a part of this technology.

Marketing people must be involved in the running of the database:

One basic requirement in running the CRM set up is quality-manpower. People well versed with the relevant technology must be working on the database. But the job of developing and maintaining it cannot be left entirely to the software/data entry people to ensure that marketing could readily and meaningfully use the output from the system.

Customer Database:

Customer Database is the foundation of any CRM programme.

Today’s businesses are better placed for creating versatile customer database:

Today in most businesses, customer data flows in routinely. Customers feed in a good amount of data about them into the records of the company at the first contact itself that all transaction details automatically form part of the records. For example, a mobile phone customer provides to the phone company, right at the start certain basic information about him. Once the transaction commence, more and more details about him become available to the company. In fact, the company details of his incoming and outgoing calls are available to it. It also knows which value added services, promotional schemes and cross selling deals were of interest to the customer. Similarly, a customer of a credit card company provides the company a good amount of basic data about him \ and once the transaction start, the company knows how much the customer spend through the whole year, it will become an excellent database that is rich in content and capable of being used to great advantage, not only by the companies concerned but also by others in the marketplace setting out to acquire customers.

Customer database has to be comprehensive, up-to date and functional: The three most vital requisites of a good customer database are-

• Comprehensiveness
• Up-to-datedness
• Functionality

Comprehensiveness:

The customer database has to be comprehensive. In fact, it has to be so in two senses. It must cover all the customers and it must have all essential information about them. In practice, many data base do not meet these requirements in some others, essential details about the customers such as income, size of the family, and the products (durables) he already owns are not available. The reason is easy to discern. Though a lot of information on customers and data flows are routine in the today’s business, many firms fail to capture them.

Up-to-datedness:

Once the company puts a customer database together, it needs to keep updating it. After all the customer is a very dynamic entity and when the marketing environment is also highly competitive and fast changing. Updating customer data naturally that is up-to date and relevant, minimizing the wastage arising out of obsolescence and data irrelevance is a necessity for the firm.

Functionality:

The customer database should be functional as well. Though most companies appreciate that customer database is crucial to CRM, many of them do not appreciate that database must be functional. For instance, grouped by age, life style, employment, attitude and loyalty the database must be capable of being sliced and diced at will. Once then it can be described as functional.

GROUNDWORK FOR EFFECTIVE USE OF CRM:

Customer Relationship Survey Design:

The amount of work it takes to design and develop an effective survey is often an inhibiting factor that prevents many organizations from more aggressively finding out what exactly their customers are thinking.

Graphical design tools:

Sophisticated surveys are used by dragging and dropping elements in place. Questions include multiple choice, numerical scale and unstructured text.

Branching logic:

Surveys designed and executed can incorporate branching logic to dynamically present customers with different questions in real-time, based on their answers to previous questions.

Customer satisfaction Survey Design:

A customized CRM Customer Satisfaction Survey is designed for the organization or taking an existing survey and altering it to be administered via the Internet, telephone, fax or newspaper. All customer satisfaction survey instruments reviewed to assure validity, reliability and bias reduction. Relevant survey instruments should be composed that will yield sound and valid conclusions while achieving the maximum survey response rate possible.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys should cover nearly every facet of customer satisfaction including:

• Overall satisfaction
• Product –level satisfaction
• Importance Vs Satisfaction
• Timeliness of delivery
• Customer service process satisfaction
• Returns and Exchange process satisfaction
• Interest in new potential products and services.

For online CRM customer satisfaction surveys, send a personalized email invitation to each customer with simple directions explaining how to access and complete the survey

The organization should offer a number of unique services designed to help the clients achieve maximum survey response rate possible including personalizes email reminders to incomplete respondents.

Customer Loyalty Survey:

A Customer loyalty survey is ultimately a reflection of the company’s desire for customer feedback, as well as an expression of the organization to potential respondents. As such, whether one is starting from scratch or modifying an existing survey instrument, there are some key areas of consideration that should be taken into account. First, start with the overview of the content areas of the typical loyalty survey:

• Overall perception of quality ,cost and value
• Measurement of how customers perceive our corporate image
• Detailed questions about the areas where customers interact with you on day-to-day basis.

Gaining Higher Customer Survey Co-operation:

The following are the steps for higher customer survey participations-

1. Communicating the purpose by explaining what the survey means to maintain business relationship

2. Asking personal permission to participate in the survey

3. Reminding the customers tactfully

4. Sharing the findings-In some cases, consider an immediate gift of small value, and/or the chance to win a larger prize by entry to a draw. Online services are increasingly being used in the distribution of such incentives such as coupons.

Tools Required Supporting Your CRM Program:

• Technology.
• Using technology to maximize the benefits derived from customer relationships.
• Hardware and software.
• Technologies in use today.
• The technologies of tomorrow.
• People.
• Executing a CRM plan.
• Assuring a positive customer experience.
• How employees can maximize the customer's positive experience.
• How to support employees operating in a CRM work environment.
• Structure.
• The foundations of CRM.
• Orderliness.
• Processes.
• Metrics.
• Ensuring that the business functions smoothly for both employees and customers.
• Understanding the business.
• Customers.
• Products.
• Process segmentation.
• How to communicate within the organization to ensure that people function as a cohesive team.
• Metrics for monitoring and assessing the business and customer relationships

Types of Customer Relationship Programmes:

There are four types of Customer Relationship Programmes that enables the company to Win back customers who have defected or planning to create loyalty among existing customers. They are

1. Win Back or Save:

This is the process of convincing a customer to stay with the organization while they are discontinuing service or convincing them to rejoin once they have left. Of the four categories of campaigns, win back campaigns is four times more likely to succeed, if contact is made within the first week following a defection that if it is made in the fourth week.

Selectivity is another aspect of a successful win back campaign. Leading organizations often filter prospects for contacting to exclude customers who have frequently switched , who have bad credit ratings or whose usage is low.

To preserve the revenue stream and prevent the customer from becoming a “traditional” win back candidate, a few organizations are now including partial disconnects and reduced usage customers in their win-back campaign.

2. Prospecting:

Prospecting is the effort to win new, first time customers. Apart from the offer itself, the three most critical elements of prospecting campaign are segmenting, selectivity and sources. It is essential to develop an effective-need based segmentation model that allows the organization to effectively target the offer. Without this focused approach, the organization fails to achieve an adequate acceptance on the offer or spends too much on promotions, advertising and concessionary pricing.

Selectivity is important to prospecting as it is to win back. Need-based segmentation defines what the customer wants from the organization and profit-based segmentation defines how valuable the customer is and helps the organization decide how much it is willing to spend to get the customer. Pre-scoring a consumer credit rating is one of the techniques that organization can use to determine the latter.

3. Loyalty:

Loyalty is the third category in which it is most difficult to gain accurate measures. The organizations trying to prevent customers from leaving, uses three essential elements: Value based and Need based segmentation and predictive churn models. Value-based segmentation allows the organization to determine how much it is willing to invest.

Once the customer is determined to belong to the value based segmentation screening, the organization can use need-base segmentation to offer customized loyalty program. Affinity programs such as airline miles and hotel points are some of the most popular methods. However, the organization focus more on needs of individual customers, they find that they are able to achieve the same loyalty with less investment.

4. Cross Sell / Up-sell :

The Cross –sell/ Up sell is also known as increasing the wallet share or the amount the customer spends. The purpose is to identify complementary offerings that a customer would like. For instance, a basic long-distance customer could be a candidate to buy internet access. Up selling is similar but, instead of offering a complementary product, the organization offers an enhanced one. For example, If the customer has used his credit card a few times in apparel shop. CRM tool will enable the credit card company to send his customized mailers on apparel offers including special incentive schemes.

Cross- Sell and Up-sell campaigns are important because the customers targeted already have relationship with the organization. In financial terms, when a customer accepts a cross –sell or up-sell offer, that organization begins to reap more profits.