Customer Relationship Management (CRM) helps a company to

develop and nurture relationships with its customers. In the 2000s, the
adoption of IT-based CRM systems has increased. Describe some of the
ways in which IT can be used to support CRM initiatives, giving specific
examples. Also, explain what could go wrong in such IT-based
initiatives, giving examples of failed initiatives.

In this dynamic and ever growing world, organizations are posted with different types of
challenges from different angles. One of the fundamental problem on which the
organizations are researching is on the Customer satisfaction. The studies have shown
that there is a direct co-relation between customer satisfaction and organization
profitability. All these challenges led to the emergence of Customer Relationship
Management (CRM), a concept that focuses on the nurturing of customer relationships.
Organizations have turned to CRM mainly to build long lasting, profitable relationship
with customers, which can be attainable with a proper management of “Customer-related
knowledge” which deals from different perspectives.
There are four main principal ways through which CRM can be viewed:

• Firstly, it is a contemporary response to the emerging climate of unprecedented

customer churn, waning brand loyalty and lower profitability
• Secondly, CRM is central to the task of making an organization customer-centric
• Thirdly, CRM is the surest symbol embracing information technology in business
• Fourth and finally, CRM is the most certain way to increase value to the
customers and profitability to the practicing organizations

The last few years CRM witnessed an increasingly important role in different industry
verticals like, Financial services, Automobile industry etc... . With this ever increasing
role of CRM, this has also embraced IT with it. There are several IT companies which are
providing web based CRM’s.

So here I am to talk to u about IT initiative in CRM.

Before going on with any topic, there are some essentials; those should be kept in mind
always. Every topic under the sun has 5 W’s and 1 H with it. These are: what, when,
why, which and whom and H stands for how.

First of all, WHAT?

What CRM actually is?

CRM an interactive approach that achieves an optimum balance between corporate

investments and the satisfaction of customer needs in order to generate maximum profits.
‘CRM is the information technology face of the business processes that aim to
establish enduring and mutually beneficial relationships with customers in order to
drive customer retention, value, and profitability up.’
The definition underlines the fact that CRM is meant for a common and equal good of the
two stakeholders- business and their customers. It calls for capturing pertinent data about
the prospective and current customers in respect of their buying pattern, shopping
behavior and usage habits of the products and services and to use the information to
commence a two-way dialogue with them.

Then comes WHY?

Why is CRM appropriate?

While there are a number of environmental factors and business advancements that
enable CRM, the real impetus for CRM in this environment is competitive
differentiation. CRM promises competitive differentiation in a parity environment.

Organizations find it difficult, if not impossible, to compete on the basis of product.

Technological advancements have enabled the near-immediate replication of product
features and functions. It is just a matter of weeks between a new product launch an
d market saturation. Just think about it, how many truly unique products are out
there?

Price, which has traditionally been the most important basis of competitive
differentiation, is no longer a basis for competition. Complex channel networks have
caused parity pricing. Promotion strategies have lessened as a means of
differentiation. Special offers are the norm and sales are continual. Place of
distribution has also become less vital for the success of a business. While all these
factors are still important, none of them can by itself support the success of most
businesses.

Customer Relationship Management - the ability to provide more meaningful sales

and service experience - promises to be a means of differentiating to provide
customers with a reason to frequent a particular business.

Ownership of customer relationships provide exponentially greater rewards than

differences in product, price, promotion, or place of distribution could ever offer. All
of these factors can even be mitigated if you can serve as the one-stop provider that
can identify, quantify, and then service a customer's needs.

The third thing which comes into question is which?

Which way web is used with CRM?

Summation Technologies provide a Customer relation management (CRM) solution for

all the web sites the client owned. The CRM solution helped the client handle service call
and employees through the web. With the help of extensive business consulting we
understood the client business process in minute details. Using this information gathered
by the consultants, an application was prototyped and developed.
The solution was developed as 3 separate application modules that work together for
customer support.

The first application caters to online tech support. An HTTP chat server is created where
the technicians log into the application and answer the service call as per their
availability. The application checks on the availability of each technician and accordingly
allocates the service calls. The duration of service call of each technician is recorded and
a billing statement is created. Also an entry is made in the technician time sheet. Each
technician has an access to knowledge base where he can check for the answers to
frequently asked questions. The application allows multiple logins and uses java chat
applets. The client can login as an administrator and see all technician records and service
records. He can generate billing invoices and view employee time sheets. Employee pay
checks are also automatically generated. Three kinds of logins are available in the
application namely administrators, supervisors and technicians.
The next application caters to on call technicians who provided computer forensic data
recovery. A ticket generation system is used to keep a track of all service calls and allot
technicians to them. Whenever a service call is made a ticket is generated, a technician is
allocated to the service call. Once the service call is attended to, the ticket is closed and
all billing information is generated. The technician salary statement is also generated
through the service time recorded in the service ticket.
The third application was similar to the forensic data recovery service. Here too tickets
are generated to track the technicians. This site handled on call technicians for
networking and data backup service calls.
All these CRM web applications were developed in Cold Fusion

Then the question arises: - when?

When the online/ web/ IT initiatives started with CRM?

In the 2000’s, the involvement of IT based CRM has increased in a dramatic way. The
world is becoming more and more technology lover. So it’s very important for each
sector to involve IT with it in order to be in sink with the world and its techniques.
Corporate sector is no more left untouched by IT. So it has also embraced information
technology with it.

There are many ways in which IT can be used to support CRM.

CRM solutions help you continually gather information about prospects and customers,
leverage that information to develop customized campaigns, products and services,
personalize service to customers, and support the marketing, sales, delivery and service
processes with integrated services. You can call our experts in to help you plan,
implement or manage a CRM technology investment across areas like lead generation,
customer retention, campaign management and account management. The CRM Practice
offers the complete range of value-added services in the CRM space.
 • Contact management
Contact management software stores, tracks and manages contacts, leads of an
enterprise.
• Lead management
Enterprise Lead management software enables an organization to manage, track
and forecast sales leads. Also helps understand and improve conversion rates.

Web based CRM

• Self Service CRM

Self service CRM (web based CRM)software Enables web based customer
interaction, automation of email, call logs, web site analytics, campaign
management.
• Survey Management Software
Survey Software automates an enterprise's Electronic Surveys, Polls,
Questionnaires and enables understand customer preferences.

Customer Service

• Call Center Software

• Help Desk Software

Partner Relationship Management

• Contract Management Software

Contract Management Software enables an enterprise to create, track and manage
partnerships, contracts, agreements.
Example: Upside Software, Accruent Software, diCarta, I-Many.
• Distribution management Software

What is Online CRM Software? Online CRM software is nothing but a web based
Customer Relationship Management software that can easily be accessed by any internet
browser by all the users to facilitate and simplify the various business processes. Online
CRM software is basically a thin client application, that does not require a full fledged
Server with high speed processors but rather can easily be installed and deployed on
secured remote web server, that run the safe 128 bit encryption.

Online CRM Software is gaining lot of popularity these days. This is because it is very
cost effective solution that brings all the advantages of a typical high power CRM
application to a business firm. Like conventional CRM, Online CRM also streamlines
sales process, collects and analyses customer data, and provides advanced reports that
help to design and formulate strategies to retain customers and increase return on
investment.

Online CRM software can be accessed via internet browsers like Fire fox, Mozilla, and
internet explorer. So in order to access the CRM applications users just need to be
connected to internet through a broadband or dial up .There is absolutely no need to
install any other middle-tier application or software to work on CRM application.