A Portrait of Today's CRM Landscape
By Anonymous
Newsfactor.com
September 15, 2008 8:20AM
Companies need their CRM to expand their understanding of the customer issues and fix it. This transition from focusing on resolution to an issue focus will be key to a company's future competitive edge. Necessary changes will result in less time-consuming purchasing as well as empowering customers in the purchasing process.
Customer relationship management (CRM) in name has been around for about 10-12 years. Yet the concept -- knowing your customers and delivering the level of service to them that is appropriate for their existing and future importance -- has long been at the heart of commerce.
CRM has become more valuable and efficient thanks to improving technologies and practices. Advanced software has given larger enterprises that personalized small business feel of customers, which boosted service and sales. These tools, which have become more affordable thanks to software as a service (SaaS) solutions, have enabled small/midsized businesses (SMBs) to gain big-firm insight into their buyers' behavior to help them stay competitive.
CRM has also become more challenging. The numbers of channels has been expanding, such as SMS and mobile web a.k.a. unified communications (UC). Customers are gaining more control of their interactions through online research. Many products and services have become commoditized, most notably travel.
And when the economy turns soft, as it appears to be doing in the US especially, lower prices and greater convenience necessitated by rising gas costs that are limiting travel often trump service and relationships in buying decisions.
To get the 360-degree picture of CRM we asked leading executives for their insights on key issues, which we would like to share with you.
Aperio CI
William J. "Duffy" Mich, Jr., Chairman and CEO
Traditionally, smaller companies would always say they could compete with larger firms by offering more responsive and personalized customer service. But as technology has improved, larger companies have been able to leverage advanced CRM tools that enable them to become faster and more efficient when dealing with customers.
While many CRM providers still focus on addressing enterprise needs, technology is just as important to SMBs; they just have fewer financial and human resources to commit to technology compared to their larger cousins. We expect that savvy CRM providers will see the need amongst SMBs, and will be able to offer solutions that are robust, yet tailored for small business needs, and priced accordingly. Certainly, providing capabilities to SMBs via delivery models such as SaaS allows CRM providers further reach into this segment via an affordable offering.
UC is already gaining a foothold in tech-oriented industries, particularly those where users are comfortable with using a variety of tools to obtain information. The mobile communications space is a great example of this.
Customers in these spaces look to solve issues and retrieve information using tools like chat, messaging, web, and other data-oriented channels. As a result, it is to be expected that we'll see less of a reliance on the contact center as the most dominant channel for customer service, although we do not ever see the contact center going way completely. It will still have its place as an important link to customers, but clearly, the emphasis is heading to UC and self-service types of solutions.
CRM, like all technologies, will need to become much more accountable and less ethereal in nature. Customers we speak with have stated that they will only invest in technology if there is a tangible return on investment. For CRM providers, this translates into demonstrating a direct correlation between providing more efficient customer service and a company's bottom line.
The second area of change will be in reaching the market more effectively through the use of UC or alternative channels. Today there is a new generation of users unaccustomed to communicating with companies, or even each other, via voice or other traditional channels. Instead they opt for self-service via the web and interactive chat. Providing the full customer experience in a personalized way will be a necessity for CRM providers.
Aperio CI works very hard to develop tools that measurably impact our customers' challenges, such as reducing churn, capturing up- and cross-sell opportunities, and increasing average revenue per user a.k.a. ARPU. We deliver regular reports, which detail the penetration and net effect of our solutions. As a result, customers have a good understanding and appreciation for how our tools address their needs.
The companies that use CRM implementations correctly probably have a deeper understanding of their customers' propensities and behaviors. They are able to use this intelligence to make adjustments regarding marketing campaigns, retention plans, and customer service protocols by providing information that is targeted, compelling and timely. Unfortunately, companies that don't leverage CRM solutions well, or still see CRM as a means to collect vast amounts of data without conducting any meaningful and applicable analysis, probably feel they don't derive any benefit at all from their CRM implementations.
The contact center is still often the first point of contact, so in that manner it retains its importance. But that is shifting as more and more customers want information through other channels such as web portals. Clearly, we operate in a 24/7 society that wants information through a multitude of means. At a high level, that reduces the contact center's overall importance within a CRM environment. The challenge for businesses is to provide reliable and consistent information, whether through a contact center, web portal, text, or even direct mail. Customer information should be consistent regardless of the channel of delivery. But, unfortunately, that often is not the case.
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For more information, contact:
Lynn McAuley
Aperio CI
+1 (631) 468-4014
lynn.mcauley@aperioci.com
Glen Zimmerman
Netezza
+1 (508) 382-8267
gzimmerman@netezza.com