Interview of a Relationship Manager

REAL-LIFE APPLICATION OF CRM

Submitted by: Dhruv Mulchandani

A - 20 | 19020441153
Below is a report and interpretations of an interview given by Mr. Hemal Mehta, Branch
Manager and Customer Relationship Lead, Infocom Network for CRM Evaluation 2 at SIMS,
Pune.

Q1: According to you, what has been your role and key responsibilities as Customer
Service Assistant in the past and after promotion as Customer Relationship lead in
perspective of company and its customers?

Mr. Hemal has been associated with Infocom Network for more than 7 years now. He started his
journey as customer service executive and had responsibilities of building relationships with key
customers. He mentions that as part of his job role, he was required to create plans to address
customers’ business needs and resolve any issue faced by the clients. He believes that from the
perspective of customer, a relation built should be so strong that they start feeling that the
executive is working for their company rather than the service provider. This is indeed the real
essence of customer relationship manager, the connect and the feeling of empathy make the
customer believe in brand and thus helps in up sell and cross sales too. Adding to his current job
roles, he reviews customer care practices on a continual basis, devises separate strategies and
specific plans for each and every customer and reviewing the effectiveness of the same strategy.
He is also responsible for breach of contracts if any and make changes in strategy if any junior in
team fails.

Q2: How does trust between an employee and a customer add to the upper line of a
company?

“I have cases where customer had reviewed the premium services offered by the company but
opted to upgrade only because they had trust on me.” Says Hemal which reflects enough of
customers getting satisfied by his meetings and he reaping benefits for Infocom Network through
the relationship that is grown. But creating a trust in itself is challenge according to him. He adds
that he had to continuously find new ways to retain customers and that included constant study of
competitors. He studies the competition and customer’s growth by collaborating with internal
teams like the tele callers, the software and service upgrader and technical team. I can interpret
that collaboration was indeed a reflection of customer-oriented company!

Q3: What makes your success as Customer Relationship Manager?

Hemal advices to stick to basics and create "mutually beneficial customer relationships," which
should be focused more on consumers than technology (CRM Software) to consider what the
customer values from a partnership, what are the customer expectations as they connect with
customer relation managers and how managers can help the customer do sales better than the
competition. The overall success of Hemal is based on distinguishable customer experience
which he provides and which I personally believe is more important in Customer Relationship
Management.

Q4: What are some of your points that you ask your team to act upon as customer
relationship executive and you also follow?

According to Hemal, there are 4 points he makes his team act upon and also keeps a check for
himself. They are:
 Gel with your customer. Updating customers about new technology and new updates about
market. The frequent call can help a relationship manager keep the string attached.
 Be customer-centric. The best way of doing this is by mapping a customer journey. Hemal
suggests to fit oneself in the shoes of customer and feel what they are trying to do and create
the moments of truth they face in their journeys.
 Take actions that are futuristic than just momentary. This principle of Hemal says that one can
surrender to customer at the very moment to win him for lifetime.
 Promise what you can deliver but always over deliver and deliver what customer never
expected.

Q5: Do you believe CRM strategy and corporate business strategy go hand in hand?

Hemal believes that if the corporate objective is to contend for a distinct service experience in
the sector, so CRM should be about facilitating this and the business case should be specifically
related to those corporate targets in turn. The objective of every corporate is moreover on the
same lines because at the end, what client asks is company’s USP.

Q6: How and when does the CRM software at Infocom Network help you?

Hemal told me that CRM software is backbone of any strategy devised or planned by him. He
says it would be very messy if not for the software to store the interactions and provide every
employee with a complete picture and track of the past. The software also enables him to build a
seamless experience as the point of contact narrows down from human to software.

Q7: Due to lockdown, I have heard about the “Social CRM” strategy adopted by you. Can
you give a brief about it?

Hemal reckons that social networking usage has been something of a private before now which
has changed with Social CRM. Hemal integrates everything he currently knows about client,
prospect and lead with fresh details about client’s social media activities by incorporating the
vital social media platform to the current CRM strategy. He used to monitor and handle the
conversation in as much depth as he could with a telephone or email enquiry anytime a client
decides to reach him on social media platform. This enabled him to act more effectively, adapt
faster and predict the needs of clients. He saw the shift during lockdown due to work from home
trend and he thought that if customer is appreciating or complaining about his services on social
media, he and his team needs to listen to them on same media.

Q8: What are the most common reasons for your failures at times and what are remedies?

Hemal says that there is no grey area for relationship managers. It is either the bright side of trust
and relationship or the dark side of customer detachment. He has encountered various customer
that place themselves in dark area. There is nothing that can be done but to cut loose such
customers. They are very few, 1 in 15. Cost of maintaining such customer may sometimes cost
fortune. Their demand and expectations are always above the 7th sky. He cannot over promise
and onboard such customer just to end up with a bad customer experience.
Second reason according to Hemal is assumptions. He never assumes. CRM works on emotions
and facts; emotions are due to the act and numbers are result of the performance. Assumption in
any case is dangerous. Facts to support the decision are always beneficial in creating trust.

Finally, same approach to same client as well as same approach to different client is never
helpful. Every client is different hence different strategy for different client fetches best results.