CRM is the science of evolving a customer-centered organisation. It is aimed at making sure that customers’ needs are met irrespective of the channel that they have chosen to relate with the organization. This will ensure that both customers and other stakeholders involved in their satisfaction are fulfilled at the end of the day.
Many organizations today have failed in their bid to evolve into a customer-centric enterprise. This is because they are putting the cat before the horse. Some of these organisations have put CRM tools on ground before evolving a clear customer strategy. A good example of this is an organization that wished to be customer-centric but has not given proper orientation to their staff on how to relate with customers in a customer-centric enterprise.
As would be seen later, many organisations in this Nigeria treat their customers like very poorly They attend to customers as if they were doing them a big favour, All they are interested in is how to increase their sales and not customer satisfaction. This is very bad. An organisation must have a clear principle and blueprint that states how they will relate with their customers before bringing in technology to back it up.
One of the CRNI strategies that an organisation on this line must do, is to segment their customer base and evolve means of doing business from customer perspective. Like was said in the previous chapter, an organisation, for example, a bank. must be
Able to analyse its customer base. They can be divided into various segments such as youths, adults, illiterates, learned, corporate bodies, and government customers among others. They must be able to decide on ways by which each of the customer segments wants to be served. The Bank also has to meet them at the right place with the right products and services.
We should state it here that before an organisation can clearly segment its customer base; they must be able to know the benefits that prospects and customers will derive from using their product. They must also be able to say without mincing word the exact number of customers that they have.
Above all, the starting point of a new CRM initiative is for an organisation to develop a customer strategy. They must be able to know the calibre of customers that they want. They should also have a well laid down means of attracting the right calibre of customers/prospects that they want into their Life Cycle. The only means of attaining this is for the organisation to embark on “Customer Segmentation and Profiling”. We talk about Customer Segmentation now while we lets customer profiling comes next.
