Customers Value Good Business Relations
Learning Customer Buying Patterns Enhances Relationships
Jan 17, 2009
Examining customer experiences, transactions and demographics, and every form of interaction -- web site visits, phone calls to a contact center, and direct mail campaign responses -- provides value to the customer realtionship. Technologies that enable customer data to be used in business decision-making are also part of the process that will attract, retain or motivate customers.
Customer-centric Approach
Building the data and information technology architecture around customers – a customer-centricapproach -- ensures that they enjoy a seamless and rewarding experience when doing business with your company. This new marketing paradigm places the customer at the focal point of your organization’s marketing programs.
The following two key elements of a CRM strategy will ensure the success of the process and meet the objectives of the organization to develop long-term customer relationships:
- Build a system that allows you to track, capture, and analyze the millions of customer activities, both interactions and transactions, over a long period of time.
- Create promotions, develop new products and services,and design communication programs that attract, reward and retain customers.
CRM has also been compared to viewing the customer through a single, global lens, and reflects an organization’s capability to manage all interactions with its customers and to use customer information to maintain a single, long-term view of each customer across multiple points of interaction.
Customer Touch Points
These points of interaction are often referred to as customer touch points and may involve many types of transactions. CRM must involve customer billing, marketing and other support functions that directly or indirectly interact with the customer. In fact, every department, division and employee in an organization has a role to play in CRM.
Managing customer relations using proven processes and technologies can maximize the revenue opportunity for each customer and create a foundation for satisfaction that will ultimately drive loyalty independent of the channel. CRM can enable companies to maximize profitability with their customers using “measurements” which quantify and qualify customers, differentiating between high and low value customers. CRM has the power to facilitate managing the lifetime value of a customer.
CRM Provides Answers
A successful CRM strategy can provide answers to many typical questions that every organization has about its customers:
- Who are my best customers?
- How do I attract them?
- How do I ensure that I’m selling them the products and services that meet their specific needs and still make a profit?
- How do I keep them coming back?
- How do I manage relationships with unhappy customers?
CRM involves centering your customers at the core of your organization with every function and department involved in serving the customer. Sales, service and support functions, as well as relationships with business partners, form a continuum, because this is the way these corporate functions are viewed by customers.
When customers have a purchasing relationship with a supplier, they believe that they are relating to the complete organization, from sales to shipping and even to the president.
Many companies that believed technology would solve customer relationship problems learned the hard way that technology is only an enabler. CRM implementations based on this premise failed because they did not change the corporate culture to permit the technology to perform its primary function: developing and retaining loyal and profitable customers Technology’s role is to support the strategies, tactics and processes that result from a defined, enterprise-wide CRM solution.
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