CONTENTS

• Customer Relation Management- Introduction

• Meaning of CRM
• Area of CRM
• Purpose of CRM
• Key Elements of CRM
• Evolution of CRM
• CRM Building Blocks
• Implementation of CRM
• Advantages and Disadvantages of CRM
• Introduction on E-CRM
• Different levels of CRM
• Implementing and integrating CRM solutions
 Customer Relationship
Management
CRM stands for “Customer
Relationship Management” and
refers to all strategies, techniques,
tools, and technologies used by
enterprises for developing, retaining
and acquiring customers. This
software ensures that every step of
the interaction with consumers goes
smoothly and efficiently in order to
increase the overall profits.
CRM means a combination of business strategies,
software and processes that help build long-lasting
relationships between companies and their customers.
CRM software records customer contact
information such as email, telephone, website social
media profile, and more. It can also automatically pull in
other information, such as recent news about the
company's activity, and it can store details such as a
system organizes this information to give you a complete
record of individuals and client's personal preferences on
communications.
The CRM companies, so you can better understand your
relationship over time.
CRM software improves customer relationship
management by creating a 360° view of the customer,
capturing their interactions with the business, and by
surfacing the information needed to have better
conversations with customers.
A customer is the Relationship
recipient of a has been
To get the
goods, services, job done
product, or idea,
subject
obtained from a matter of through
seller, vendor, or individual’s others.
supplier for a personal
monetary or other feeling.
valuable
consideration.
Meaning of CRM
Customer Relationship Management refers to
the methodologies and tools that help businesses
manage customer relationships in an organized way.

Customer relationship management is a broadly

recognized, widely-implemented strategy for managing
a company’s interactions with customers, clients and
sales prospects. It involves using technology to
organize, automate, and synchronize business
processes— principally sales activities, but also those
for marketing, customer service, and technical support.
Ares of CRM
There are three areas which in general company
interacts with its customers.

1) Front Office Contacts :

These involve the direct contact your employees
have with your customers which can include phone
calls, e-mail, instant messages and face to face
communication.
2) Back Office Operations :
These are processes that are used to facilitate the
front office, such as finance communications,
marketing, customer billing and advertising.
3) Business Contacts :
Your employees will interact with customers and
suppliers through networking, industry events and trade
associations.
Purpose of CRM

The idea of CRM is that it helps businesses use

technology and human resources to gain insight into the
behavior of customers and the value of those customers.
With an effective CRM strategy, a business can increase
revenues by:
1) Providing services and products that are exactly what
your customers want
2) Guiding any kind of interplay and/or cooperation with
clients
3) Offering better customer service
4) Cross selling products more effectively
5) Helping sales staff close deals faster
6) Retaining existing customers and discovering new
ones
7) Make call centers more efficient
8) Simplify marketing and sales processes.
For small businesses, customer relationship management
includes:
1) CRM processes that help identify and target their best
customers, generate quality sales leads, and plan and
implement marketing campaigns with clear goals and
objectives.
2) CRM processes that help form individualized
relationships with customers (to improve customer
satisfaction) and provide the highest level of customer
service to the most profitable customers.

3) CRM processes that provide employees with the

information they need to know their customers' wants and
needs, and build relationships between the company and
its customers.
Customer relationship management tools include software
and browser-based applications that collect and organize
information about customers. For instance, as part of their
CRM strategy, a business might use a database of customer
information to help construct a customer satisfaction
survey, or decide which new product their customers might
be interested in.
Key Elements of CRM
CRM can be broken down into a number of different
components which many software vendors have developed
packages for. For the most part, there are three areas which
are core to successful customer relationship management :
1) Customer Service
2) Sales Force Automation
3) Campaign Management
1) Customer Service:
The customer service function in your company
represents the front office functions that interact with
your customers. These are the business processes that
allow your company to sell products and services to
your customers, communicate with your customers with
regards marketing and dealing with the after sales
service requirements of your customers. Each
interaction with the customer is recorded and stored
within the CRM software where it can be retrieved by
other employees if needed.
2) Sales Force Automation :
Your company’s sales department is constantly looking for
sales opportunities with existing and new customers. The sales force
automation functionality of CRM software allows the sales teams to
record each contact with customers, the details of the contact and if
follow up is required. This can provide a sales force with greater
efficiencies as there is little chance for duplication of effort. The
ability for employees outside of the sales team to have access to this
data ensures that they have the most recent contact information with
customers. This is important when customers contact employees
outside of the sales team so that customers are given the best level of
customer service.
3) Campaign Management :
The sales team approach prospective customers in the
hope of winning new business. The approach taken by
the sales team is often focused in a campaign, where a
group of specific customers are targeted based on a set
of criteria. These customers will receive targeted
marketing materials and often special pricing or terms
are offered as an inducement. CRM software is used to
record the campaign details, customer responses and
analysis performed as part of the campaign.
 In today's fast-paced, competitive business
environment it's more important than ever to create and
maintain long-lasting business relationships.

Today, CRM manages business processes spanning sales,

support, and marketing creating effective customer
interactions. Given the purpose of CRM, the functionality
is straight forward, and the benefits of successful
deployments clearly generate value and profitability for
any company. Great CRM solutions need to encourage
users to interact with the application as well as be in-tune
with the business and IT cost-saving needs.
 For the up to date CRM to be world class it needs to be
revolutionary in market incursion and evolutionary in
technological up gradation.
Today the major business focus is towards endowing
value addition to the sales cycle, and customer retention
rather than constructing a new customer base which is
costlier and also an uncertain chase from business
perspective. The basic philosophy behind CRM is that a
company's relationship with the customer would be the
biggest asset in the long run.
Before implementing any Customer Relationship
Management solution in the organization there are many
Question's which need a comprehensive explanation from
the users' point of view:

• What is the added value preposition of the CRM to the

organization?

• What would be the environment under which the

implementation would be done?

• How would the synergies be reflecting in the processes of

the company?
These are mere stencils of the holistic scenario prevalent
right now, and are to a great extent a factor which harms
the opportunities of long term survival for any CRM
vendor.
CRM Building Blocks

Below are listed the following building blocks for

successful CRM projects:
1) Vision:
The board must take leadership in creating a CRM
vision for the enterprise. The CRM vision should be
used as the guide to the creation of a CRM strategy.

2) Strategy:
The CRM strategy is all about how to build and
develop a valuable asset: the customer base. It must set
objectives and metrics for attaining that goal. It directs
the objectives of other operational strategies and the
CRM implementation strategy.
3) Customer experience :
The customer experience must be designed in line
with the CRM vision and must be constantly refined, based
on actively sought customer feedback.
4) Organizational collaboration :
Changes to organizational structures, processes,
metrics, incentives, skills, and even the enterprise culture
must be made to deliver the required external customer
experience. Ongoing change management will be key.

5) Process:
Successful customer process reengineering should
create processes that not only meet customers'
expectations and support the customer value proposal, but
also provide competitive differentiation and contribute to
a designed customer experience.
6) Information :
Successful CRM demands the creation of a
customer-information blood supply that flows around the
organization, as well as tight integration between
operational and analytical systems.
7) Technology :
CRM technologies form a fundamental part of any
enterprise's application portfolio and architecture. CRM
application needs should be considered as the provision
of integrated functionality that supports seamless
customer-centric processes across all areas of the
enterprise and its partners.
8) Metrics:
Enterprises must set measurable CRM objectives
and monitor all levels of CRM indicators to turn
customers into assets. Without performance management
,a CRM implementation will fail.

The above building blocks are part of the strategy

framework to help organizations go through the important
CRM journey. However, successful implementation and
using the CRM solution to benefit the business depends
largely on the people (from senior management down)
within the organization to truly adopt and embrace it.
Implementation of a CRM System
The keys to successful CRM implantation are the
followings:
1. Develop your customer-focused strategy first before
considering what kind of technology you need.

2. Break your CRM project down into manageable

pieces by setting up pilot programs and short-term
milestones. Start with a pilot project that incorporates
all the necessary departments but is small enough and
flexible enough to allow tinkering along the way.

3. Don't underestimate how much data you might

collect (there will be LOTS) and make sure that if
you need to expand systems you'll be able to.
4. Make sure your CRM plans include a scalable
architecture framework. Think carefully about what is
best for your enterprise: a solution that ties together
“best of breed” software from several vendors via
Web Services or an integrated package of software
from one vendor.

5. Be thoughtful about what data is collected and stored.

The impulse will be to grab and then store EVERY
piece of data you can, but there is often no reason to
store data. Storing useless data wastes time and
money.
Advantages of CRM
By using CRM methodology, an enterprise can:
1.Provide better customer service
2.Increase customer revenues
3.Discover new customers
4.Cross sell/Up Sell products more effectively
5.Help sales staff close deals faster
6.Make call centers more efficient
7.Simplify marketing and sales processes.
The Types of data, CRM software collects
CRM software collects the following types of data:

1. Responses to campaigns
2. Sales and purchase data
3. Account information
4. Web registration data
5. Service and support records
6. Demographic data
7. Shipping and fulfillment dates
8. Web sales data.
Disadvantages of CRM Systems
While advantages usually outweigh disadvantages
for most organizations implementing an CRM system, here
are some of the most common obstacles experienced:

1. Record Loss
2. Training
3. Require additional work inputting data
4. Require continuous maintenance, information
updating, and system upgrading costly
5. Difficult to integrate with other management
information systems.
E-CRM
As the internet is becoming more and more
important in business life, many companies consider it as
an opportunity to reduce customer-service costs, tighten
customer relationships and most important, further
personalize marketing messages and enable mass
customization. Together with the creation of Sales Force
Automation (SFA), where electronic methods were used to
gather data and analyze customer information, the trend of
the upcoming Internet can be seen as the foundation of
what we know as e-CRM today.
We can define e-CRM as activities to manage customer
relationships by using the Internet, web browsers or other
electronic touch points. The challenge hereby is to offer
communication and information on the right topic, in the
right amount, and at the right time that fits the customer’s
specific needs.
Today's customers are a fast-moving, demanding
crowd. They are looking for products and services that are
proven yet innovative. They want information at their
fingertips. With the right CRM solutions in place, we can
help organizations to build and nurture lasting one-on-one
relationships with customers. Thus, it enhances the
business efficiencies and profitability.
Different levels of e-CRM
In defining the scope of e-CRM, three different levels can
be distinguished:
1. Foundational services: This includes the minimum
necessary services such as web site effectiveness and
responsiveness as well as order fulfillment.

2. Customer-centered services
These services include order tracking, product
configuration and customization as well as
security/trust.

3. Value-added services
These are extra services such as online auctions and
online training and education.
Self-services are becoming increasingly important in
CRM activities. The rise of the Internet and eCRM has
boosted the options for self-service activities. A critical
success factor is the integration of such activities into
traditional channels. CRM activities are mainly of two
different types:
1. Reactive service is where the customer has a
problem and contacts the company.
2. Proactive service is where the manager has decided
not to wait for the customer to contact the firm, but
to be aggressive and contact the customer himself
in order to establish a dialogue and solve problems.
Implementing and integrating CRM solutions
Several CRM software packages exist that can help
companies in deploying CRM activities. Besides choosing
one of these packages, companies can also choose to
design and build their own solutions. In order to
implement CRM in an effective way, one needs to consider
the following factors:
1. Create a customer-based culture in the organization.
2. Adopt customer-based managers to assess satisfaction.
3. Develop an end-to-end process to serve customers.
4. Recommend questions to be asked to help a customer
solve a problem.
5. Track all aspects of selling to customers, as well as
prospects.
 Furthermore, CRM solutions are more effective
once they are being implemented in other information
systems used by the company.
Examples are Transaction Processing System
(TPS) to process data real-time, which can then be sent to
the sales and finance departments in order to recalculate
inventory and financial position quick and accurately.
Once this information is transferred back to the CRM
software and services it could prevent customers from
placing an order in the belief that an item is in stock while
it is not.