Analyst firm the Aberdeen Group this week released research that
identifies the top 12 customer relationship management (CRM)
success stories in Europe - and five of them are UK-based.
The group, which estimates that European businesses will be
investing £6.1bn a year in CRM by 2005, looked at suppliers, system
integrators, customers and implementation strategies.
Ute Appelenzer, a research analyst at Aberdeen Group and the
report's author, said despite the slowdown in IT spending, CRM
projects are still viable.
"Far from defocusing on these types of customer-driven technology
projects, companies in Europe are finding real value in CRM
software," she said. "At a time like this, when a customer may be
thinking twice about buying, good service is even more
essential."
The key lesson companies can learn from these successes is to focus
on their business processes, Appelenzer said.
"Buying software is one thing, but you have to identify where
exactly it is going to fit into your business processes," she
said.
Many early CRM implementations proved unsuccessful because of a
lack of measurable return on investment. Appelenzer said both
suppliers and users now have a more realistic view of what CRM can
offer.
"Suppliers are now a lot more focused and they are more able to
show how a company can achieve ROI with the software," she said.
"This means that companies are more realistic about what they can
achieve."
Five UK companies that featured in the European CRM top
12
- Sytner Group operates 45 full-service car dealerships. Sytner
demonstrated that the interplay of multiple channels is crucial to
increase market share. The investment has paid off with 10% of all
sales inquiries at the contact centre being converted into
business
- Since car rental company Avis implemented eWare's CRM
application Avis' productivity has risen by about 10% as it was
able to shift eight customer service representatives to other
tasks
- Healthcare provider Western Provident Association pushed
customer inquiries to its Web site by implementing a "virtual
representative" which answers about 350 queries a day, most of
which would otherwise have gone to the contact centre at a cost of
between £17 and £25 per call
- When launching Internet banking, HSBC Bank's priorities were to
ensure support to customers and to manage increased e-mail traffic.
Using an e-mail-based customer service application, it reduced
customer support agent time from 15 minutes to three minutes per
inquiry
- Healthcare company Bupa implemented an end-to-end sales
software package. The lead conversion rate increased from 10 % to
50%.