Customer relationship management, CRM for short, is a great idea.
No one can argue against the idea of a company identifying and
getting to know its best customers and then striving to keep them
happy and loyal to its products or services.
The advent of CRM is also perfectly timed, coming at a time when
firms have dropped the "grab market share or die" dotcom mentality
and recognised that the key to their long-term prosperity lies in
nurturing their existing customer base.
In its original guise, CRM used a fusion of marketing theory,
databases and analytical tools to segment customers and come up
with strategies to serve them more efficiently and profitably AND
KEEP THEM HAPPY. But the advent of multi-channel commerce, whether
via email, call centre, the Web, digital TV or wireless device,
seems to have confused management. As a whole host of recent
surveys have suggested, most companies now struggle to provide even
an adequate level of customer service.
Poor customer service is nothing to do with technology and
everything to do with management. You can spend thousands of pounds
on a simple Web-based CRM solution, or millions on a multi-channel
offering, but it is management culture that gets results out of
that technology spend. For too many companies at the moment, CRM
means marketing and selling over multiple channels and keeping
track of who buys what, when, where and how, but when it comes to
customer complaints or queries - whack them through to a call
centre with the press-button menu from hell and a
computer-generated voice that tells them sarcastically how much you
value their custom.
It is easy to prove ROI on a CRM investment if it boosts sales, but
a lot more difficult to prove that it boosts profits through
customer retention. It is far easier for management to use it to
cut customer service costs.
If any of this hit a nerve, take a look at our special report on
CRM this month. It may put-off many of the faint-hearted, but for
managers that are really committed to improving customer relations
it may hopefully be a little inspiring.
Toby Poston
Editor