INTRODUCTION TO CRM

Evolution of CRM Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of those magnificent concepts that swept the business world in the 1990s with the promise of forever changing the way businesses small and large interacted with their customer bases. In the short term, however, it proved to be an unwieldy process that was better in theory than in practice for a variety of reasons. First among these was that it was simply so difficult and expensive to track and keep the high volume of records needed accurately and constantly update them. In the last several years, however, newer software systems and advanced tracking features have vastly improved CRM capabilities and the real promise of CRM is becoming a reality. As the price of newer, more customizable Internet solutions have hit the marketplace; competition has driven the prices down so that even relatively small businesses are reaping the benefits of some custom CRM programs.

In the beginning The 1980s saw the emergence of database marketing, which was simply a catch phrase to define the practice of setting up customer service groups to speak individually to all of a companys customers. In the case of larger, key clients it was a valuable tool for keeping the lines of communication open and tailoring service to the clients needs. In the case of smaller clients, however, it tended to provide repetitive, survey-like information that cluttered databases and didnt provide much insight. As companies began tracking database information, they realized that the bare bones were all that was needed in most cases: what they buy regularly, what they spend, what they do. 1|Page

Advances in the 1990s In the 1990s companies began to improve on Customer Relationship Management by making it more of a two-way street. Instead of simply gathering data for their own use, they began giving back to their customers not only in terms of the obvious goal of improved customer service, but in incentives, gifts and other perks for customer loyalty. This was the beginning of the now familiar frequent flyer programs, bonus points on credit cards and a host of other resources that are based on CRM tracking of customer activity and spending patterns. CRM was now being used as a way to increase sales passively as well as through active improvement of customer service.

Customer Relationship Management - CRM

The generally accepted purpose of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is to enable organizations to better serve its customers through the introduction of reliable processes and procedures for interacting with those customers. In today's competitive business environment, a successful CRM strategy cannot be implemented by only installing and integrating a software package designed to support CRM processes. A holistic approach to CRM is vital for an effective and efficient CRM policy. This approach includes training of employees, a modification of business processes based on customers' needs and an adoption of relevant IT-systems (including soft- and maybe hardware) and/or usage of IT-Services that enable the organization or company to follow its CRM strategy. CRM-Services can even redundantize the acquisition of additional hardware or CRM software-licences.

2|Page

The term CRM is used to describe either the software or the whole business strategy oriented on customer needs. The second one is the description which is correct. The main misconception of CRM is that it is only software, instead of whole business strategy. Major areas of CRM focus on service automated processes, personal information gathering and processing, and self-service. It attempts to integrate and automate the various customer serving processes within a company. In recent years however, several factors have contributed to the rapid development and evolution of CRM. These include: 1. The growing de-intermediation process in many industries due to the advent of sophisticated computer and telecommunication technologies that allow producers to directly interact with end-customers. For example, in many industries such as airlines, banks insurance, software or household appliances and even consumables, the de-intermediation process is fast changing the nature of marketing and consequently making relationship marketing more popular. Databases and direct marketing tools give them the means to individualize their marketing efforts.

2. Advances in information technology, networking and manufacturing technology have helped companies to quickly match competition. As a result product quality and cost are no longer significant competitive advantages.

3. The growth in service economy. Since services are typically produced and delivered at the same institution, it minimizes the role of the middlemen.

3|Page

4. Another force driving the adoption of CRM has been the total quality movement. When companies embraced TQM it became necessary to involve customers and suppliers in implementing the program at all levels of the value chain. This needed close working relationships with the customers. Thus several companies such as Motorola, IBM, General Motors, Xerox, Ford, Toyota, etc formed partnering relations with suppliers and customers to practice TQM. Other programs such as JIT and MRP also made use of interdependent relationships between suppliers and customers.

5. Customer expectations are changing almost on a daily basis. Newly empowered customers, who choose, how to communicate with the companies various available channels? Also nowadays consumers expect a high degree of personalization.

6. Emerging real time, interactive channels including e-mail, ATMs and call centre that must be synchronized with customers non-electronic activities.

7. In the current era of hyper competition, marketers are forced to be more concerned with customer retention and customer loyalty.

8. As several researchers have found out retaining customers is less expensive and more sustainable competitive advantage than acquiring new ones.

9. On the supply side it pays more to develop closer relationships with a few suppliers than to develop more vendors. 10. The globalization of world marketplace makes it necessary to have global account management for the customers.

4|Page

OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY OF CRM

CRM, in its broadest sense, means managing all interactions and business with customers. This includes, but is not limited to, improving customer service. A good CRM program will allow a business to acquire customers, service the customer, increase the value of the customer to the company, retain good customers, and determine which customers can be retained or given a higher level of service. A good CRM program can improve customer service by facilitating communication in several ways: Provide product information, product use information, and technical assistance on web sites that are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week Identify how each individual customer defines quality, and then design a service strategy for each customer based on these individual requirements and expectations. Provide a fast mechanism for managing and scheduling follow-up sales calls to assess post-purchase cognitive dissonance, repurchase probabilities, repurchase times, and repurchase frequencies. Provide a mechanism to track all points of contact between a customer and the company, and do it in an integrated way so that all sources and types of contact are included, and all users of the system see the same view of the customer (reduces confusion). Help to identify potential problems quickly, before customer occur Provide a user-friendly mechanism for registering customer complaints (complaints that are not registered with the company cannot be resolved, and are a major source of customer dissatisfaction). Provide a fast mechanism for handling problems and complaints (complaints that are resolved quickly can increase customer satisfaction).

5|Page

 Provide a fast mechanism for correcting service deficiencies (correct the problem before other customers experience the same dissatisfaction). Use internet cookies to track customer interests and personalize product offerings accordingly Use the Internet to engage in collaborative customization or real-time customization Provide a fast mechanism for managing and scheduling maintenance, repair, and ongoing support (improve efficiency and effectiveness)

The CRM program can be integrated into other cross-functional systems and thereby provide accounting and production information to customers when they want it. Keeping Existing Customers Grading customers from very satisfied to very disappointed should help the organization in improving its customer satisfaction levels and scores. As the satisfaction level for each customer improves, so shall the customer retention with the organization. Maximizing Life time value Exploit up-selling and cross-selling potential. By identifying life stage and life event trigger points by customer, marketers can maximize share of purchase potential. Thus the single adults shall require a new car stereo and as he grows into a married couple his needs grow into appliances. Increase Loyalty Loyal customers are more profitable. Any company will like its mindshare status to improve from being a suspect to being an advocate. Company has to invest in terms of its product and service offerings to its customers. It has to innovate and meet the very needs of its customers so that they remain as advocates on the loyalty curve. Referral sales invariably are low cost high margin sales.

6|Page

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Meeting and satisfying each customers need uniquely and individually. In the mass markets individualized information on customers is now possible at low costs due to the rapid development in the information technology and due to availability of scalable data warehouses and data mining products. By using online information and databases on individual customer interactions, marketers aim to fulfill the unique needs of each massmarket customer. Information on individual customers is utilized to develop frequency marketing, interactive marketing, and after marketing programs in order to develop relationship with high-yielding customers. In the context of business-to-business markets, individual marketing has been in place of quite sometime. Known as Key Account Management Program, here marketers appoint customer teams to husband the company resources according to individual customer needs. Continuity Marketing Programs Take the shape of membership and loyalty card programs where customers are often rewarded for their member and loyalty relationships with the marketers. The basic premise of continuity marketing programs is to retain customers and increase loyalty through long-term special services that has a potential to increase mutual value through learning about each other. Partnering Programs The third type of CRM programs is partnering relationships between customer and marketers to serve end user needs. In the mass markets, two types of partnering programs are most common: Co-branding and affinity partnering. Missing process of CRM Traditionally customer relationship management (CRM) revolves around the three functions of selling, marketing and support. Various process models have been built around how these functions

7|Page

are integrated and operated in a customer oriented enterprise. There is however a fourth critical function that is lacking in most CRM models.

The fourth function that often is the source of a competitive edge is that of innovation. Companies must continually reinvent themselves to deliver an improved and often a totally new value offering to their customer base. CRM must provide the customer intelligence that feeds information back into the enterprises knowledge management processes where it can trigger new innovation processes. When CRM is integrated into the innovation process, significant value can be derived from faster time to market cycle times and with new processes and services. Marketing automation must ensure that the innovation processes are actually market driven. A market driven innovation process must include both strategies that are focused on satisfying customer requirements as well as strategies focused at redefining customer requirements. Sales automation should be integrated with the innovation process by ensuring that all sales channels are prepared and ready to take new processes and services to market before competitive forces can react. Customer service automation must be designed to empower the customer with the option of assisting with the design of the value offering. Redefining CRM around innovation, sales, marketing and service can identify new competitive opportunities for an enterprise. The remaining question is whether companies are prepared to take the initiative and expand the definition of customer relationship management to include the process of innovation. The pressure to deliver results within the traditional definition of CRM already overwhelms companies. The dialog must start rather earlier than later because the competitive window of traditional CRM is decreasing and customer demands for a more innovative and responsive enterprise will increase

8|Page

ARCHITECTURE OF CRM

There are three parts of application architecture of CRM: 1. Operational - automation to the basic business processes (marketing, sales, service) 2. Analytical - support to analyze customer behavior, implements business intelligence alike technology 3. Collaborative - ensures the contact with customers (phone, email, fax, web, SMS, post, in person)

1. Operational CRM Operational CRM means supporting the "front office" business processes, which include customer contact (sales, marketing and service). Tasks resulting from these processes are forwarded to resources responsible for them, as well as the information necessary for carrying out the tasks and interfaces to back-end applications are being provided and activities with customers are being documented for further reference. Operational CRM provides the following benefits: Delivers personalized and efficient marketing, sales, and service through multichannel collaboration Enables a 360-degree view of your customer while you are interacting with them Sales people and service engineers can access complete history of all customer interaction with your company, regardless of the touch point. 2. Analytical CRM

9|Page

In analytical CRM, data gathered within operational CRM and/or other sources are analyzed to segment customers or to identify potential to enhance client relationship. Customer analysis typically can lead to targeted campaigns to increase share of customer's wallet. Examples of Campaigns directed towards customers are:

Acquisition: Cross-sell, up-sell Retention: Retaining customers who leave due to maturity or attrition. Information: Providing timely and regular information to customers. Modification: Altering details of the transactional nature of the customers' relationship. Analysis typically covers but is not limited to: Decision support: Dashboards, reporting, metrics, performance etc. Predictive modeling of customer attributes Strategy and Research Analysis of Customer data may relate to one or more of the following analyses: Contact channel optimization Contact Optimization Customer Acquisition / Reactivation / Retention Customer Segmentation Customer Satisfaction Measurement / Increase Sales Coverage Optimization Fraud Detection and analysis Financial Forecasts Pricing Optimization Product Development

10 | P a g e

 Program Evaluation Risk Assessment and Management Data collection and analysis is viewed as a continuing and iterative process. Ideally, business decisions are refined over time, based on feedback from earlier analysis and decisions. Therefore, most successful analytical CRM projects take advantage of a data warehouse to provide suitable data. Business Intelligence is a related discipline offering some more functionality as separate application software.

3. Collaborative CRM Collaborative CRM facilitates interactions with customers through all channels (personal, letter, fax, phone, web, e-mail) and supports co-ordination of employee teams and channels. It is a solution that brings people, processes and data together so companies can better serve and retain their customers. The data/activities can be structured, unstructured, conversational and/or transactional in nature. Collaborative CRM provides the following benefits: Enable efficient productive customer interactions across all communications channels Enables web collaboration to reduce customer service costs Integrates call centers enabling multi-channel personal customer interaction Integrates view of the customer while interaction at the transaction level

11 | P a g e

BENEFITS OF CRM
1. Better service to customers: With CRM the company can provide better service to its regular and valuable customers. It is said that 20% of the customer account for 80% of the sales. Therefore it is worth targeting the important customer and then to provide them sophisticated service as compared to other customers.

2. Customize market offering : Companies can customize a product or service depending upon the data available with the firm. The firm can facilitate customer company interaction through the company contact centre and web site. Such interaction helps to develop customized products.

3. Customer retention : CRM emphasizes on training and development of employees to become more customer oriented. Due to CRM training and development employees show care and concern towards the valuable customers. Therefore the customer defection rate may be very less.

4. Increase long term relationships: Some firms treat their customers as partners specially in the case of B2B markets. Firms solicit the help of customers to design new products or to improve their service. If the customer gets involved with the firm he is more likely to remain with the firm.

12 | P a g e

5. Increase customer equity: The main aim of CRM is to produce high customer equity. Customer equity is the sum of lifetime values of all cutomers. Firms focus the marketing efforts more on the most valuable customers (MVCs). More focus on MVCs enable a firm to increase customer equity.

6. Competitive advantage: Firms that adopt CRM get competitive advantage in the market. They can face the competition with much ease. Competitive advantage helps to generate higher returns on investment.

7. Corporate image : The image of the firm also gets enhanced. Loyal customers become evangelists. The evangelists spread a good word about the company and its products. This enables a firm to get additional customers to its fold.

8. Higher return on investment: Due to CRM the company is in position to generate higher return on investment. This is because of repeat purchase on the part of loyal customers. Also the company makes money through cross selling(selling many products rather than single product )and up selling (selling higher value products). The higher return on investment increases shareholders value.

13 | P a g e

CRM PLANNING
CRM Planning: Keys for Project Success Whether you're updating, upgrading, jump-starting, or restarting your CRM efforts, some basic steps will help keep you on the path to a positive ROI. Thinking about the potential ROI of your customer relationship management (CRM) project should start during the selection process. Before you write an RFP or start talking to vendors, you need to do some homework to ensure that you're on the right track to maximize ROI. Identify the Problem and the Solution Before you start thinking about vendors, you should define your problem in clear business terms. Do you need to improve management visibility into the sales pipeline? Reduce customer support costs or improve customer support? Reduce customer-related

administrative overhead? Making your CRM challenges specific will help you determine which technologies or components are most likely to deliver ROI and how you can prioritize your development and deployment plans. Most companies' CRM goals fall into a couple of main categories: Improved sales performance Improved management visibility Improved customer support Improved marketing Reduced costs

If your CRM goals fall into more than two of these categories, you'll likely want to prioritize one over the other and plan a phased deployment. It's also a good idea to know at this point what your likely budget is, how flexible it is, and what your procurement officer or CFO will be looking for in terms of business justification. If you know walking into the project that you'll need to show a six-month payback period, for example, you can plan accordingly. 14 | P a g e

Make the Short List Regardless of your relationship with existing vendors, previous experience, and technology environment, you should make a short list of potential vendors and give them a fair evaluation before you make a decision. Your short list should be easy to define based on these factors: Your CRM goals. The vendors whose functionality meets your needs will depend on

whether you're looking for improved sales, improved reporting and forecasting, improved support, improved marketing, or a combination of different customer-related technology. Your existing environment and IT philosophy. Do you have existing databases, order

systems, or contact lists that will need to be integrated or migrated into your CRM solution? Do you expect to do your own development or use consultants or systems integrators? Are you comfortable outsourcing your sales and marketing data in its entirety - or in part? Answering these questions will help you determine whether a large-scale CRM infrastructure, a hosted solution, a point solution, or a broad solution is likely to deliver maximized ROI. Your user dynamics. Are the employees you expect to use the solution technology

savvy and open to change, or are they the ones still using pencils and paper to track leads? The greater the magnitude of the change you expect them to make, the greater the risk that adoption will slow the ROI of your project. Your budget. CRM solutions such as Siebel and SAP can cost millions of dollars to

deploy and require a team for ongoing support and maintenance. On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft CRM and Front Range (for example) can cost considerably less. You can expect a hosted solution to have a minimal upfront investment and from $500 to $1,500 per user per year.

15 | P a g e

Clearly defining your requirements and characteristics in each of these key areas will prepare you for the next step - evaluating each individual solution's ability to deliver returns based on the costs and benefits associated with a deployment. Check Resumes Once you've identified the likely vendors to deliver the best solution for you, you'll want to check their references - and this doesn't mean just reading case studies on their Web sites. Look to independently developed case studies and your own interviews with references to learn about their decision process, project successes and challenges, and whether or not their spending - and benefits - met expectations. Find a Partner (Check Resumes, 2) In the CRM world, few companies will deploy a solution without some help from external consultants or systems integrators. Selecting and planning how you work with consultants is just as important to your project's success as the technology you choose. Justify Your Investment Once you've identified your goals and selected a short list of vendors, you can use a structured evaluation of costs and benefits to determine the best solution in terms of ROI and build the business case for moving forward. On the costs side, you'll want to consider the initial and ongoing software, hardware, consulting, internal personnel, and training costs associated with the project. Key Decision Factors By and large, there's no such thing as a bad CRM solution. Most solutions deliver value when they're chosen based on clear business needs and deployed correctly. Once you've identified your CRM needs and your short list, there are a number of factors to consider to help you make the right solution decision.

16 | P a g e

CRM SUCCESS
Seeing CRM initiatives take hold and begin to pay off is often a waiting game. Its not a flip-the- switch product that automatically spits out results or something that will take affect overnight and cause profits to skyrocket while you sleep. The puzzle must be completed and time must play its part before true success will be seen. However, through dedicated and smart planning, businesses should see markedly increased profits, as satisfied customers will continually re-visit them. Gradually, as businesses get to know their customers, their customers get to know them, and a closely aligned partnership is formed. This one-to-one relationship is the catalyst that sparks both lifetime customer loyalty and revenue increase.

17 | P a g e

In the true spirit of thinking outside of the box, experts at the Gartner Group believe the most successful organizations will be those who, through innovation and focus on business effectiveness rather than merely efficiency, manage to break the mold of traditional business thinking. Being effective is paramount. The end goal of better serving customers and enabling a high percentage of customer retention cannot be met with out creative thinking and effective planning and actions. The task of perfecting the relationship between business and customer is always on going and requires special dedication and innovation as the commerce markets continually change and fluctuate. And over time, customers change, as does their behavior and needs, and business must be able to respond to that. Being on the cusp of the industry and always having a hand on the pulse of the customer is key for success. As the CRM initiative begins to take hold, key players will soon see patterns emerge among customers, will discover what a productive strategy is and what is not. This is the essence of a successful CRM project: being able to really know what will work for your customers, what satisfies them, and what keeps them loyal. The ability to get an accurate gut feeling about the marketing campaigns, new products, and the type of policies customers will respond to is invaluable. This kind of customer knowledge only comes from really digging in and being savvy about how you go about understanding the people that you hope will continually call on the services and products of your business. The ROI in this case would be compelling indeed.

Advice for Breeding CRM Success:

1. Buy the best package you can afford. Choosing a high-end system that allows for growth is key, Monster.com's Liddell says. Monster.com has rolled out Siebel Systems' sales force automation software to 800 users since implementing the software in November 1998.

18 | P a g e

Where low-end packages break down is in their ability to handle complex definitions of customers, he says. Monster.com established formal guidelines for defining customers across divisions and applications so salespeople can access clean, consistent data.

2. Choose wisely. Figure out who you need to reach and then find the software that will help you accomplish that. Before settling on RightNow, USF scrapped a previous CRM project a month into the implementation after concluding the software didn't work the way the university wanted. Too often companies choose software before they have defined the problem, Akin says. "I've seen it lots of times - 'Hey, this is a neat application. Let's buy it and then figure out how we can use it here.'" USF tapped Right Now Technologies' e-mail management software to help the IT department, financial aid office and other administrative groups that were bogged down with customer service inquiries from 40,000 students and staff.

3. Build and maintain a relationship with quality consultants. Consultants are important not only in an initial deployment, but also as project parameters change - which they will, Liddell says. Monster.com works with CRM consultant Akibia, which lets the company quickly expand its CRM resources when necessary. Each time Monster.com acquires a new company, Liddell's priority is to quickly get those new team members up and running with Siebel sales tools - a process that sometimes requires extra hands.

19 | P a g e

4. Rely on internal resources. Consultants are helpful, but it's important to maintain ownership of a CRM project. "Nobody's more interested in our success than the team at Monster.com," Liddell says. Plus, somebody has to run the software once the consultants are gone.

5. Make sure everyone is onboard. It's important to have buy-in throughout the organization, Akin says. Financial support is necessary, he says, "but more important is an agreement to use the product universally." It's frustrating for end users if they expect to find a single source of customer service information online and it turns out a key department is missing from the site.

6. Align your project goals and implementation schedule. Berkson and his team at Thomson Financial try to stick to eight- to 12-week projects, rather than rolling out everything to everyone at once. Plus, no department is going to need every function in every application; users would be overwhelmed, Berkson says. Thomson Financial is in the process of upgrading its Vantive applications to PeopleSoft 8 CRM - the new Internet-based suite from PeopleSoft, which acquired Vantive in 1999. "We tend to implement in small, manageable phases," he says. Companies should identify their biggest pain points and greatest opportunities for return on investment, and make those an implementation priority.

7. Start with a low-risk pilot. One project up and running quickly can validate your CRM concepts, Berkson says. Choosing a relatively simple, straightforward project - such as outfitting a department that doesn't require integration with other back-end systems - is important. If you start with a complex trial, it can really drain momentum, he says.

20 | P a g e

8. Aim for configuration, not customization. Take advantage of today's CRM tool sets, Berkson says. Vendors have built more robust configuration flexibility into CRM applications and recommend that users minimize customizations. So if you can break the habit of writing custom code to accommodate unique business processes, it will be well worth the effort when it comes time to upgrade, Berkson says.

9. Don't underestimate data requirements. The time and resources needed for data conversion and cleanup will always be more than you think, Berkson says.

10. Provide adequate training. "If you have the time and the resources, train in advance of rollout," Akin says. The university departments that are least enthusiastic about the RightNow products are the ones that weren't ready for it, he says.

11. Set communications standards. In hindsight, Akin wishes his group had set content standards among departments before going live with the project instead of trying to do it later. At USF, e-mail inquiries are routed to as many as 30 different departments. Setting standards for formatting responses can help maintain consistency of service.

12. Watch the details. CRM requires a team that is willing to take ownership of even the most minute details. Monster.com has team members who maintain the software, team members who constantly handle requests for changes and team members who police data quality.

21 | P a g e

CRM PRODUCTS

What Are Some CRM Products and What Can They Do For You? CRM products are automated applications that support the accomplishment of corporate goals related to customers, such as increased revenue and/or increased sales efficiency (i.e., better results with lower expenditures from sales, customer service, and marketing.) These technologies capture customer data from across the enterprise, then analyze, consolidate and/or distribute it for use across the multiple customer facing departments (or processes) within the company.

CRM products can be grouped into 5 general categories:

Customer/Partner Self-Service Systems: enable your customers, suppliers, and/or partners to use the internet to gain information that is directly relevant to them. This may include customized product elections, order status update, on-line order entry, or self-guided query and response. Examples of these systems include email response management systems, web personalization systems, web-based order-entry, and web self-help.

22 | P a g e

Sales Force Automation Systems: provide tools for your sales people to maintain their contacts, track sales prospects, provide sales forecasts, enter and track orders, and provide customized quotes for clients. Examples of these systems include, and on-line sales forecasting and order-tracking.

Call Center Customer Service Systems: provide support for staff that answer client questions or respond to requests for dispatch services. Examples of these systems include web-based customer service, customer service call tracking, improved customer service representative (CSR) access to client information, and automated dispatch and tracking.

Operational Billing/Order System Integration Systems: provide integration (as well as migration) between customer-facing (front-end) applications and the production (back-end) order-status and financial systems that contain the data that clients and partners may seek. These systems are not only CRM systems, but rather the components of larger software suites that may include CRM. Examples of these systems are packaged accounting and manufacturing systems that have CRM front-ends.

Technology-Enabled Lead Generation Systems: enable targeted marketing based on client needs and/or past business trends. This lead generation could be dynamic (emailing offers or customizing web content) or static (providing targeted databases of clients by type). These systems include customer data mining, automated marketing campaigns, and customer personalization tools.

23 | P a g e

REASONS FOR CRM FAILURE

The Top 10 Reasons CRM Projects Fail Depending on which survey you read, you will see comments and statistics such as over 50% of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) projects fail. On the other hand, you will also see published results that show double-digit percentage growth in revenue, improved productivity, and increased customer satisfaction from new CRM projects. What drives companies to have such different results from the same initiatives? Before we look at reasons, lets define the scope of CRM. CRM has been one of the most confusing terms established in eBusiness. In many cases, it has been defined, as what the user of the term is promoting. In the context of this article, we want to look at CRM as the following.

CRM is a strategic approach that combines the business processes, technology, employees, and information across an enterprise to attract and retain profitable customers. CRM projects are launched to realize the plans and achieve the objectives defined in the CRM strategic plan. Lets look at why many CRM projects fail and many others achieve great success. Here is CGIs top-ten list of reasons CRM projects fail.

1. CRM initiatives launched without a strategy. Simply stating Were going to do CRM this year is not a strategy. A CRM strategy needs to clearly define how you will be viewed by and manage all touch points with your customers. It should also define how you plan achieve this result.

2. The CRM strategy is not integral to the business strategy.

24 | P a g e

CRM cannot be viewed as a project or solution separate from your overall business plan. How you develop and grow customer relationships is the lifeblood of your company. Customers must be a core part of your overall business strategy.

3. The CRM toolset is based on someone elses success. There are many CRM tool offerings in the market place. Typically, these started around a particular process and product offering that was very effective. This offering has since been expanded to offer broader functions through acquisition or system development. Be sure to evaluate tools against your business requirements to get the best product for your highest priority needs. Not everyone serves customers the same way, has the same business processes, or has the same priorities as your business.

4. CRM is launched with no regard for enterprise or customer interfaces. Can you afford to invest in making one part of the customer experience excellent only to destroy it at another step in the lifecycle? Make sure every touch point you have with the customer provides consistent, knowledgeable, and high-quality service.

5. CRM is launched without customer input. It is so easy to get caught up in the rush to implement CRM solutions that you forget those people on the outside of your business. Talk with your customers. Find out how they want to be serviced. How can you better meet their needs? How can you collaborate for a true win/win initiative? What are other suppliers doing for them that they like?

6. CRM is considered an IT project not business initiatives leveraging technology.

25 | P a g e

Customers interact with your company through people, processes, electronic media, transactions and indirect relationships. They typically will not know what language your tools are written in or what platform they run on. The capability, quality, function and reliability of the systems are critical. But design them to support the best customer processes you can provide. The greatest success will come from the coordinated efforts of business users and technologists in the company.

7. CRM is launched without defined metrics and objectives. An important part of any rollout of new processes is the expectation of improvement. If you dont expect performance to improve, dont measure it, or manage it. Consequently, you wont see improvement. Even if you achieve it. Set expectations. Measure performance improvement. Provide feedback. Reinforce successes. Look for ways to continue the improving trends.

8. CRM is considered a one-time event. Once your initiative is launched, youre just getting started. Look at it as an evolutionary development of your organization that will require multiple iterations to implement. You will have some employees who resist the change. There will be bumps in the road. Solicit feedback. Learn from the new data at your disposal. Refine your strategy. Set new goals. Develop plans to achieve these new goals.

26 | P a g e

9. Assume you have a customer-centric culture because you have customers. The global economy has broken down consumer barriers, reducing geographic constraints and revealing little difference between the products and prices of one competitor to the next. As a result, quality and service have become driving forces behind brand preference, loyalty and bottom line results. Be sure to look at your company as your customers do. Consider how they want to do business with you. Develop your strategy, design processes, and make decisions looking from the outside in. Measure, analyze and track customer service performance. Solicit input and feedback from your customers. Benchmark with other organizations. Drive this customer first culture throughout the organization. Reinforce it with every employee.

10. No top down leadership and employee buy-in for CRM. Every employee will be affected by fundamental changes in CRM. Appoint an executive sponsor. Communicate vertically and horizontally through the organization. Get employees on board. Get them excited about doing a better job for your customers and making your company more successful. Create momentum toward a competitive customer focus. Provide training so employees know their role and the rationale for change.

11. Altering the CRM solution to accommodate current business process and behavior. Benefits will accrue from the adoption of new processes that leverage the information, speed, integration, lower operating costs and improved service resulting from new CRM tools. Be sure to take advantage of these revenue, service and productivity enhancements.

27 | P a g e

12. CRM is regarded without urgency. Your customers expectations are increasing. Maybe not from your direct competitors but from other service providers. Will your competitors announce a quantum leap tomorrow? If they do, what will it take to get customers back after you have lost them? How much is it worth to pre-empt your competitors and lock in new customers?

13. Try to implement everything CRM at one time. What about the sense of urgency you ask? It is difficult to change the entire organization overnight and keep it running. Organizations have personalities and need to learn new and adaptive behaviors. Go after your highest leverage, or highest priority areas first. Show successes to bring the rest of the organization along. Move forward in manageable steps.

28 | P a g e

CONCLUSION

In the past, CRM was mostly about the technology, not about the customer. There is a change in the way the organizations do business. At a technology level, CRM is increasingly about conjoined best-of-breed applications delivered via portal technologies. At a business level, it is beginning to invade traditional territories occupied by brand management or customer support.

CRM is a strategic approach that combines the business processes technology employees and information across an enterprise to attract and retain profitable customers, as a result I think that it will be a good indicator of confidence in business in general and technology in particular.

29 | P a g e

Bibliography Newspapers o Times Of India o Financial Express o Economic Times Websites o www.salesforce.com o www.customerservicemanager.com o www.crmassist.com o www.google.co.in o www.yahoo.com Reference Books o MARKETING STRATEGIES &PLANS: Michael vaz, Madhu nair. o Why CRM Doesnt Work?

30 | P a g e