Any product-centred organisation that wish to now make customers the deciding factor of its activities must communicate its new business focus to its customer.
As we all know that the main reason why businesses are established is to make a profit, it is not so in a customer-centric enterprise.
This is because, when you are embarking on a customer-centric enterprise, profit will not come early because you have to divert your resources to customer satisfaction.
I can assure you that when you have a loyal customer, your profits will be in leaps and bounds.
#2 Organizational Structure
This is another thing you have to address if you wish to embark on a customer-centric enterprise.
There is a need for you to have a flexible organizational structure so that decision-making will not be delayed.
You must not have an organizational structure that makes access to information about customers difficult. You don’t need an organizational structure where the C.E.O. will have to approve a change of address of customers.
Under the new organizational structure, staff and partners relating to customers must be able to resolve customers’ issues without having to leave their tables.
When we talk of this, we are talking about means of knowing whether we are succeeding or not.
A customer-centric enterprise must be able to decide at every point in time where they are as well as what they need to do in order to move forward.
#4 Marketing Focus In a business environment, most especially in a product-centric enterprise, organisations tend to judge their performance based on how many of their products are purchased.
They will say Dangote cement can dictate the price of cement because it has the largest market share in the cement industry in Nigeria.
In a customer-centric enterprise, it is a different ball game: a customer-centric enterprise will never compete for market share but their primary objective will be how to meet the need of their customers and how to meet customers at the right place with the right products and services.
#5 Technology
A serious-minded customer-centric enterprise must-have technology at its beck and call.
We have said that, in rolling out a customer-centric enterprise, technology must be present.
Various applications must be deployed in order to ensure that customers are left with a variety of choices.
Note that, any technology that will be deployed must be scalable, flexible and must not contradict what the organisation already has on the ground.
#2 Change Management
It has been said that one of the reasons why many l.T projects failed, was because the employees were not properly integrated into the new system.
Many times, top management just come up with the suggestion of deploying an l.T technology without the proper education of the employees who are likely to revolt against the innovation.
An organisation that wants to migrate to a customer-centric enterprise must properly sensitize its employees.
They must be made to see the reason(s) why the business philosophy has to change. Tell them that “Employees loyalty is customer’s loyalty”.
#3 Project Management
In any l.T. project, you need a Project Manager who is very conversant with what you are about to do.
Although it has been said that no two I.T projects are the same, it should be stated here that before migration to a customer-centric enterprise can be successful, there must be a Project Manager that knows what it takes for an organization to be customer-centric.
He is the one that will oversee the project from the beginning to the end.
SUMMARY In this chapter, we have looked at what E-CRM is and we said, it is a web-based CRM that allows customers to relate with the organisation across multiple channels. We also looked at some of the differences between traditional CRM and E-CRM which includes the fact that:
E-CRM is web integrated CRM;
F-CRM technology and architecture differ from conventional CRM;
E-CRM has heightened interactivity;
E-CRM renders an enterprise ‘web experience’; and
E-CRM is the CRM concept that tries to integrate multiple channels through a web access point.
We also looked at some concepts under ECRM implementation which includes Business focus, organizational structure, business metrics, marketing focus and technology.
Above all, we said that, in implementing E-CRM, an organization must be involved in technology infrastructure management, change management, and CRM project management.
Brainstorming Session
Examine the difference between CRM and E-CRM?
Why do you think many organisations are establishing call centres for their customers?
Which is the most important? CRM or E-CRM.
Examine the differences between CRM and E-CRM.
What sonic of the implementation challenges of CRM.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
Electronic CRM: How To Deploy The Internet For Customer Conversion.
What is E-CRM? Electronic CRM can simply be defined as the introduction of technologies and the internet in order to ensure that customers enjoy the maximum experience from the organisation irrespective of the channel that they have chosen to interact with the organisation.
It helps a customer-centric enterprise to formulate rules that will cover business processes across the organisation which ensures that the organisation is able to retain its customers, and not lose them to competitors.
OBJECTIVE OF THIS ARTICLE At the end of this chapter, readers should be able to understand · The role of technology in a customer-centric enterprise. · They will also understand that it not possible to have a customer-centric enterprise without the deployment of the internet or other technology as enables.
What is E-CRM? Electronic CRM can simply be defined as the introduction of technologies and the internet in order to ensure that customers enjoy the maximum experience from the organisation irrespective of the channel that they have chosen to interact with the organisation.
It helps a customer-centric enterprise to formulate rules that will cover business processes across the organisation which ensures that the organisation is able to retain its customers, and not lose them to competitors.
E-CRM covers many aspects of the organisation. It involves the deployment of applications that captures contacts, accounts, opportunities, activities, marketing, customer support, sales and service-related process in the organisation.
Differences between CRM and Electronic CRM
#1 E-CRM is web integrated CRM
Under conventional CRM, we have an organisation that tries to meet customers’ needs and do business from their perspective without giving customers the upper hand or leaving them with a choice.
In E-CRM, we have a web-integrated service point which allows customers to dictate the pace of things. It is meant to improve efficiency and the rate of customer satisfaction.
It is also meant to ensure that the organisation have direct contact with customers as much as possible.
#2 Technology and Architecture
Under CRM, customers’ information is completed and integrated into one single database which is made available to the various departments in the organisation.
This allows the staff to be able to have access to the customer database anytime they want to resolve issues that have to do with them.
Through the use of the Internet also, E-GRM allows Internet customers to relate with their organisation through their preferred means of communication.
This makes the personalization of services easier.
#3 Enterprise-Wide Web Experience
E.CRM gives room for the deployment of the Internet across the various part of the organisation.
Through the deployment of E-CRM, various departments in an organisation are no longer constrained by walls.
They can now share customers’ information and resolve customers’ issues using the Internet as an enabler.
#4 Customer Facing Web Front
E-GRM provides direct access to interfaces and performs other functions which are not directly available to traditional CRM users.
It integrates different functions that can be performed in order to retain the customer. These functions are all web-based.
#5 Integration of Multiple Channels
One other thing that gives E-CRM the upper hand over and above traditional CRM is that it integrates various channels.
Customers that like to go to the branches can also transact business with the organization online.
Lack of integration in the traditional CRM which is the order of the day in Nigeria frustrates customers who might not be at liberty to relate with the organization across multiple channels.
In most banks in Nigeria for example, customers that withdraw from the counter are charged one hundred naira, this is because they are expected to use the Automated Teller Machine.
This is not one of the qualities of a customer-centred enterprise. You should note that E-CRM encompasses the whole of CRM and CRM is gradually evolving into E-CRM.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
In the marketing department’s plans to shift to CRM, they needed applications that can identify prospective customers.
They must be able to identify prospective customers. They must be able to identify the calibre of customers that they want and how they can meet their needs.
OBJECTIVE OF THIS ARTICLE In this article, we want to look at the various application that can be deployed in running a successful CRM program. Attention will be focused on those departments in an organisation that has direct contact with customers. In any organization, we have two sets of departments. These include those that have direct· Relationships with customers and those that do not relate directly to customers.· We have seen in the previous chapters that customer-facing departments include: marketing, sales and customer services department.
#1 Marketing
In the marketing department’s plans to shift to CRM, they needed applications that can identify prospective customers.
They must be able to identify prospective customers. They must be able to identify the calibre of customers that they want and how they can meet their needs.
Also, there is a need for segmentation of customers. Under this, organizations that deal with different age groups must be able to come up with products and services that will meet the needs of the various age groups.
The organisation also needs accurate targeting. Under this, they must be able to predict correctly who their prospects are and how they can meet them at the right place with the right products(s) and services.
The marketing department in this organisation must also be able to come up with correct customer acquisition strategies.
They must be able to pinpoint how various prospects want to be approached. Some like to relate with the customers online while some others want to do business from the convenience of their homes.
There is also a need for campaign management.
When we talk of campaign management, we are talking about creating awareness about the products and services that the organization has to offer.
Take for example a customer that likes to do business from the convenience of his home; such a customer/prospect will easily jump at products and services that will afford him the opportunity to do so.
Scenario Benson is a 9mobile customer while his father who happens to be a carpenter also uses the same network. Benson who likes socializing and free things decided to migrate from easy starter to easy cliq because it gives him the opportunity to enjoy low call rates, get megabytes for browsing and free access to Facebook and 2go among others.
His father on the other hand migrated from front easy cliq to easy starter simply because he does not need some of those things that his son wanted in a sim.
He was attracted to easy starter because of the “you and me” which allowed him to talk to his wife free of charge and home zone which allowed him to enjoy low call rates from his workshop.
#2 Sales
The sales department in a customer-centric enterprise also needs some application that will allow the staff of the department to satisfy the needs of customers.
One of such is the application that will allow effective sales processes so that closure of deals can be faster.
This will allow the department to know those that really need the product and the best way to sell it to them.
The sales departments also need proposal generation took. This tool automatically notifies prospects and customers about products and services that might be of interest to them.
These are programmed based on information at the disposal of the organization about the prospects or customers.
The sales department. might also need a knowledge management tool.
As we all know. information is power. The organisation could only succeed if they have valuable information that could help in the faster closure of deals.
We also have contact management tools. Under this, the organisation tries to manage their contacts and database in order to see how it could help in the closure of deals.
If you suddenly discovered that you have Aliko Dangote’s son as one of those that have used your product or you have a link to the Nigerian President, this might help you to sell your products to them.
As was said earlier the problem remains that. many organisations in Nigeria cannot say precisely the total number of customers that they have.
Finally, there are applications that can help in forecasting. When you are forecasting, you are predicting things that are not in demand now but customers are likely to request for in the future.
This can be done using information that is available in the customer database.
#4 E-commerce
The benefit of the e-commerce platform is to ensure that the organisation is able to use the World Wide Web to increase its sales effortlessly.
The organizations have to deploy applications that will ensure that both the online customers and those that walk into the various branch offices enjoy the same benefits.
#5 Services
This is the medium through which the organization support customers that have purchased their products and services.
This might include the deployment of call centre applications, portals or customized interfaces which arc meant to meet the need of the customers.
A good example of this is the MTN online service centres which are meant to provide support to customers who might be having challenges with their MTN services.
Summary
So far. we have looked at the various applications that are needed for a CRM program.
We said that these various applications are mostly needed in various departments that have to deal with the customers directly such as Marketing, Sales, Customer service and B-Commerce departments.
Brainstorming Session
Do you think marketing is relevant to CRM? Give reasons for your answers.
Discuss the various branches of CRM in relation to any beverage firm that you know.
Examine marketing and sales in a product-centric enterprise. Why are they
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
Customer Relationship Management Strategy: Designing Effective Blueprint For Customers Success
Introduction In defining CRM strategy in chapter one, we said that any organisation that desires to be customer-centred must have a laid down plan on how they want to achieve their objectives.
In this article, we will be talking about those things that needs to be present in any CRM strategy before we can say that it is worthwhile. Let’s look at this together.
At the end of this article, readers should be able to understand
The qualities of a good customer strategy.
What are those things that should be present before a customer-centric strategy can be successful?
Scenario
Mr Winfred is an entrepreneur. His products were well-known in his country and beyond.
Introduction In defining CRM strategy in chapter one, we said that any organisation that desires to be customer-centered must have a laid down plan on how they want to achieve their objectives.
In this article, we will be talking about those things that needs to be present in any CRM strategy before we can say that it is worthwhile. Let’s look at this together.
Scenario
Mr. Winfred is an entrepreneur. His products were well-known in his country and beyond.
Until the recent time, he held sway as he controlled a large percentage of the market share.
There was also another entrepreneur, Mr. Hanold, a business man that had decided to do business from customer perspective with technologies to back it up.
At the onset, Mr. Hanold decided that profit will not be of priority. He decided to meet the needs of his customers first, by meeting every of the prospects and the customers at the right place, right time with the right products.
When Mr. Winfred could not hold it any longer, he contacted a consultant to help him out of the situation.
The consultant advised him to formulate policies that will allow them to meet the customers/prospects with the right product at the right place.
He also advised him to treat his loyal customers especially in order to retain them for life.
He told him that before he could formulate a good strategy, there are some factors that must be considered. These are in the diagram below
#1 Integration
A good CRM initiative should be integrated to the business processes throughout the enterprise.
What we are saying here is that there must be a conscious process to change the orientation of the various departments in the organisation, most especially those that deal directly with the customers, that is, marketing, sales and customer service departments of the organization.
They must be taught how to deal with the customers and make them the center-piece of the entire organisation.
#2 Accessibility
A good CRM initiative must be accessible to every personnel involved in customer’s interaction with the organisation to provide a consistent approach and enhance customer’s experience.
The levels of success that will be recorded have much to do with the amount of information that the organisation have about their customers.
This information must be available to all the departments in the organisation so that they can take decisions without much delay.
Although there is the need for the organization to protect customer’s information but this should not be done in a way that it will slow down business processes or it will be difficult for those that need it to access it.
#3 Measurability
The problem we have in most part of the world, most especially countries is that, there is no maintenance culture. In formulating a customer-centric enterprise, there must be a way of analyzing and measuring the results.
When the process is being monitored, it will be very easy for the organisation to measure the progress and make necessary changes as the situation demands.
#4 Unified Data
At times in many banks in Nigeria, you would have observed that it’s always difficult for some calibres of staff to attend to you.
This is because some of them do not have the required information concerning the customers.
Each department in the organisation must have the same information as regards their customers.
This information must be made available to every department in the organisation that might need it in order to take decisions.
#5 Coordination
A good CRM strategy must have a coordinated process and strategy.
There must be a project manager who is well vast in customer relations to manage the project.
As soon as the initiator have the support of top management, a team must be set up to manage the whole process in order to ensure that, it is well coordinated.
#6 Web-Based And Real Time
A good CRM strategy must be web-based and it must be available twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week.
There is the need for it to be web-based because some of your customers also have their own business that they are doing, therefore they must be able to do business with your organization from the convenience of their homes.
It must also have reporting metrics which notify you when things are going wrong.
There are also applications that will suggest to you some important information about their customers. Just feed in your customer information; the application will provide the results.
SUMMARY
In this lesson, we have learned that a good customer-centric strategy must be:
Integrated into the business processes throughout the enterprise;
Accessible to every personnel involved in customer care; and
Web-based and process real-time analytics with closed-loop reporting features.
Brainstorming Session
As the consultant employed by Mr Winston, how will you go about the job of turning his firm from a product-centric enterprise to a customer-centric Enterprise?
In your own view and using a well-known organization in Nigeria as a case study, explain what CRM strategy is.
Differentiate between Customer strategy and CRM strategy.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
Customer Care In CRM: How To Make Customers Stick To You For Life
In my previous article, I looked at all that you need to know about customer strategy in CRM. In this article, I want to look at all that you need to know about customer care in CRM. Follow me as we are going to look at this together in this article.
When we talk about customers in either product-centric or customer-centric organisations, we are talking about a specialised centre that is saddled with the responsibility of resolving customer issues.
Many Organisations are now realizing the need to put customer issues on the front burner with dedicated staff to handle customer issues. The grave mistake that many organisations are making today is that the majority of them equate customer service with CRM. Some even assume that every dick and Harry can be a Customer Service Representative, this is wrong.
CRM is broader than customer service. In CRM, you are not only concerned about the CSR that is asked to attend to customer issues or complaints, but you are looking holistically at the whole organisational structure. You want to know why the business is on. What is their perception of their customers? Do they treat customers as one of those things? Are they doing business with customers’ perspectives? All these come into play when we are considering CRM but they are not important for customer service.
In a customer-centric enterprise, the entire members of the organisation are trained to place customers first and do business from their perspective. In this kind of organisation, profit is not the man motive of establishing business.
A CRM-savvy organisation believes that profit will come, but not immediately. Their immediate concern is to exceed customers’ expectations and gain their confidence. Once this is done, profit will start coming in torrents.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include the staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
6 Components Of Customer Relationship Management: What Make CRM The Favourite
In my previous article, I looked at some of the drivers of customer relationship management. In this article, I want to look at some of the components of a customer relationship management strategy. Follow me as we look at that together in this article.
In defining Customer Relationship Management Strategy, we said that any organisation that desires to be customer-centred must have a laid down how they want to achieve their objectives. In this article, I will be talking about those elements that need to be present in any CRM strategy before we can say that it is worthwhile. Let’s look at this together.
Case Study
Mr Winfred is an entrepreneur. His products are well-known in his country and beyond. Until recent times, he held away as he controlled a large percentage of the market share in his own area of interest. There was also another entrepreneur. Mr Hanold is a businessman that has decided to do business from a customer perspective with technologies to back it up.
At the onset, Mr Hanold decided that profit will not be his priority. He decided to meet the needs of his customers first, by meeting every one of his prospects and customers at the right place, at the right time with the right products and services.
When Mr Winfred could not hold it any longer, he contacted a consultant to help him out of the situation. The consultant advised him to formulate policies that will allow them to meet the customers/prospects with the right product at the right place.
He also advised him to treat his loyal customers, especially in order to retain them for life. He told him that before he could formulate a good CRM strategy, there are some basic things that he has to do.
Now the components…
#1 Integration
A good CRM initiative should be integrated into business processes throughout the enterprise. What we are saying here is that there must be a conscious effort to change the orientation of the various departments of the organisation, most especially those that deal directly with the customers, that is, the marketing, sales and customer service departments of the organisation.
They must be taught how to deal with the customers and make them the centrepiece of the entire organisation.
#2 Accessibility
A good CRM initiative must be accessible to every person involved in the customer’s approach and enhance a customer’s experience. Much of the customer-centric ideology must revolve around customers.
The level of success that will be recorded has to do with the amount of information that the organisation have about their customers.
This information must be available to all departments in the organisation so that they can take the business decision without much delay.
Although there is a need for the organisation to protect customers’ information, this should not be done in a way that it will slow down business processes or it will be difficult for those that need it to access it.
#3 Measurability
The problem we have in most parts of the world, most especially in third world countries is that there is no maintenance culture. In formulating a customer-centric enterprise, there must be a way of analysing and measuring the results. When the process is being monitored, it will be very easy for the organisation to measure its progress and make necessary changes as the situation demands.
#4 Unified data
At times, in some banks in Nigeria, you would have observed that it’s always difficult for some calibres of staff to attend to you. This is because some of them do not have the required information about customers.
Each department in the organisation must have the same information as regards their customers. This information must be made available to every department in the organisation that might need it in order to make decisions or resolve issues.
#5 Coordination
A good CRM strategy must have a coordinated process and procedure. There must be a Project Manager who is well vast in customer relations to manage the project. As soon as the initiators have the support of top management, a team must be set up to manage the process in order to ensure that it is well coordinated.
#6 Web-based and real-time
A good CRM strategy must be Web-based and it must be available twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week There is a need for it to be Web-based because some of your customers also have their own business that they are doing, therefore they must be able to do business with your organisation from the convenience of their homes.
It must also have reporting metrics that notify you when things are going wrong. There are also applications that will suggest to you some important information about your customers. Just feed in your customer information, and the application will provide the results.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
In my previous article, I talked about all that you need to know about customer relationship management. In this article, I want to talk about some of the major drivers of CRM. Follow me as we are going to look at that together in this article.
The word “driver” is not strange to some of us, even to a layman. He is the one saddled with the responsibility of taking you to your desired destination.
CRM as a concept to has its own drivers. There are some components that must be present before you can achieve a desired customer-centric enterprise. Let’s journey together as we look at the four drivers employed by CRM.
#1 Location
The first reason why organisations have to evolve into a customer-centric enterprises is that in today’s business world, businesses are no longer limited by geographical location. Many people for example buy from Amazon.com, eBay and other online markets without knowing their exact business locations.
Distance between you and your market is now a mouse click away. That is why distance is no longer a barrier in business.
#2 Size
In today’s world, the size of an organisation is no longer a barrier. Contemporary organisations now have a level playing ground with the advent of the internet.
Some smaller organisations today can now have an edge of they are able to provide the appropriate logistics and solutions, The world wide web has made organisations stand out on the internet if they are able to provide appropriate technology to back it up.
#3 Internet
The coming of the internet has brought about the introduction of business models. We now have the internet being part and parcel of many organisations.
There is also the proliferation of e-marketplaces which has brought about stiff competition among many organisations. Some organisations have also been able to automate their business processes.
This has allowed customers to be able to do many of what they would have had to go to the branch office to do.
Case Study
In the past, Mr Adio could not do anything from his current account domiciled with an old-generation bank without reaching the Bank’s office at Victoria Island in Lagos.
When the bank launched itself on the internet, it was a relief to him. he can now transfer money from one account to another, check his balance, pay his staff and withdraw from the ATM. he can now shop online while his bank settled the bills on his behalf.
You should know that there are different types of automation that a customer-centric enterprise can adopt such as Enterprise Resource Planning, Sale Force Automation and Customer Information Factory among others.
#4 Technology
One could safely say that with the advent of technology, a palace coup has occurred between the customer and the organisation. With the advent of technology, customers now dictate the pace of things in the business environment.
Customers of today are aware of their choices. They also know how to navigate the internet in order to find what they want. This has placed a serious expectation on service providers who now have to meet up the demands of the ever-demanding customers.
You should know that it is difficult for organisations to control the pace of technology, but they can definitely control the pace of technology, but they can definitely control the pace of interaction with their customers. This can be done with the use of technology as an enabler.
I want you all to know that what can make organisations stand out today has to do with how well they treat customers. Organisations must ensure that customers achieve their desired results irrespective of the communication channel that they have chosen to relate with the organisation.
CRMNuggetsis committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent, and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
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3 Major Achievements From CRM Initiatives: Why Should Consider Starting Now.
I know that CRM or CRM Initiatives is a buzzword. Almost every organisation wants people to know them as being customer centred. In this article, I want to look at three main focuses of any CRM initiative. Follow me as we are going to look at that exclusively in this article.
The sweet fruit of customer relationship management is ample and ripe. Organisations view customer relationship management as the opportunity to achieve the following :
Hold on to the existing market share.
G ab more market share.
Exploit existing market share more fully.
If you look at it critically, you will see that they are right. The key to being able to do all of these things and more is understanding the customer.
Once you understand who your customers are, what their habits are, and what they represent, you are positioned to do a thousand positive things.
In a word, the world of CRM is attractive – compellingly competitive. Corporations simply can’t wait to start exploiting the newfound knowledge of the customer.
In the rush to reap the rewards of CRM, businesses often forget that supporting CRM requires an infrastructure.
Without the infrastructure, CRM just doesn’t play. Yet the infrastructure needed to support CRM receives scant attention because it is, well, not as glamorous as CRM.
Building the infrastructure requires work, investment, and understanding of architecture, dealing with complexity and time.
Whatever the difficulties in the building of the infrastructure, it is nevertheless absolute essential for successful CRM.
The elements of this CRM infrastructure are:
Integration
History
Quality, detailed data.
Without integration, one customer looks pretty much the same way as another customer.
But once data is integrated, the business analyst can start to distinguish customers from each other and, in doing so, the business analyst is able to start to personalise the relationship with the customer.
Please note that integration adds colour to a black-and-white picture.
History is vital because it is with history that the future can be predicted. History is a great predictor because customers are people, and people are creatures of habit.
The habit we form early in our adulthood sticks with us throughout our lives. Knowing what habits an individual has today enables us to predict what patterns of consumption and other activities the customer will engage in tomorrow.
When it comes to customers, the secret to predicting the future is carefully understanding the past.
Another important aspect of the infrastructure is quality, detailed data. Detailed data is important because once an organisation has a handle on its detail, it can reshape the data into any pattern desired. And to look at the customer in many different ways, flexible data is crucial.
These three elements- integration, history and detailed data – are not automatically aligned upon entering the organisation.
Some data come in one way, whereas other data come in other ways. Some data is time-constrained and other data comes in other ways.
Some data are structured and other data are unstructured. Some data are current while some are time-sensitive. Some data are o good quality whereas some data are questionable.
To align this data, the infrastructure needs its own architecture. This architecture is called the Corporate Information Factory.
The Corporate Information Factory is the ideal structure for the needs of the business that is serious about CRM. The CIF enables multiple touchpoints where the information needed does the best.
If your organisation is one of the growing numbers is organisations making their transaction from a product orientation to a customer focus, there is probably disagreement, or at the very least confusion, about how to get there. It’s not uncommon to find confessions and questions about the meaning of customer relationship management, its value to organisations, and the technologies needed to support it.
However, there is one issue upon which most business and technology executives agree. Accomplishing the transition to CRM requires a fundamental shift in business strategies and in organisational thought processes.
It also requires a comprehensive infrastructure of integrated customer information technology to support these changes.
CRMNuggetsis committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent, and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
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Discussing Customers As The Centre The Of Universe
Many CRM definitions focus on the importance of knowing your customer and acting on that knowledge. Putting this principle into practice is where the complexity lies. In this article, I want to introduce you to Samson, a sophisticated but demanding customer, and his bank, a CRM-savvy organization that has embraced the principles of CRM wholeheartedly. In this article, I want to discuss the roles of customers in a business.
As you will see, Samson has not always been a customer of his current bank.
As it is very common today , he brought his business from a competitor when his initial bank would not, or could not, adapt its treatment of him to reflect his increasing value and changing banking requirements.
The following true story chronicles Samson’s experiences with his first bank, a bank that should have been his bank for life. Instead, the bank lost a truly valuable customer, one who would have willingly assisted them in the transition to CRM.
As you read about Samson’s experience, I will encourage you to reflect on the stories of lost customers within your own organization.
If you find similarities to the story below – and most of you will – read on to learn what your organisation must do to correct these problems.
When Samson was in secondary school, he opened a savings account with a local bank. In college, he opened another account as well. During his NYSC, the bank offered him his first credit card which he accepted- thrilled that any company would offer an unproven customer such a wonderful thing, credit. Although he has a credit limit of $500 because the bank is not ready to take such risks.
Through the years, Samson maintained loyalty to that bank, slowly increasing his credit limit and monthly expenditures as his financial picture improved. He began using the card to charge all his travel expenses, racking up significant bills each month.
All this while, he believed that his bank knew him and valued his continued loyalty. Ignoring the bombardment of their banks offering lower interest rates, no annual fee, and other enticements, he continued to use his original credit card.
Even after the bank merged, acquired and other banks and change its name, and eventually lost all of that local bank flavour that attracted Samson to begin with, he still maintained his credit card account- until the following incident.
During a particularly hectic travel month, he was several days late in making his monthly payment. Certainly, he fully expected to get ‘dinged’ with the interest charges stated in the applications filled out so many years ago. What he did not expect was the impersonal and insulting treatment that he received from the bank.
His next bill contained not only the expected finance charge, a hefty $321 but also a number of other unexpected and disturbing charges.
He had a $29 “late payment fee”, a $29 over-the-limit” fee and an annual fee of $30!
Predictably, Samson’s reaction was “Excuse me!” He was certainly willing to finance the charge but not the other charges.
He called the number on the back of the credit card to speak to his “personal” care representative. The first annoyance was typing his credit card number into the system (so we can serve you better) and then having the customer service representative ask for the number again after she answered the call. Ok, he let that one pass.
He first requested that she remove the two $29 fees and was told that she was not authorised to do that, he would have to speak to her ,m who was out at the moment.
Next, he requested that she remove the $50 annual fee charge because she must know that he was a loyal and profitable customer, which should count for something -particularly since he could certainly get another credit card for free.
He was told that there was nothing she could do and that the annual fee was the same for all credit cardholders.
Finally, he requested that she increase the credit limit so that he would be less likely to go over the limit, should this happen again. He was told that she could not do that because it was not part of her job.
He must call another 800 number if he wanted to do that. Samson hung up the phone, immediately paid his bill, cut up the credit card, and nailed the entire package to package to the president of the bank. He never heard a word back from them.
CRMNuggetsis committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent, and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
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In my previous article, I talked about Samson and some of the mistakes that the bank made that made them lose Samson as a customer. In this article, I want to expose five main reasons why organisations keep losing customers. I will also do this using the Samson example as I did in my previous article.
First and foremost, increasingly sophisticated customers like Samson are demanding that companies demonstrate that they understand their value as customers; this is, in turn, driving companies as CRM.
Samson’s first bank made many mistakes – the worst of which was not learning from poor dealings with him, anticipating his needs and tailoring future interactions accordingly.
Other mistakes include:
#1 Not empowering customer service representative
The first issue is that customer service representatives are not empowered. They are not empowered to resolve Samson’s issue. You should know that effective CRM requires a holistic approach to managing interactions with customers.
Service representatives must understand the objectives of the organisation with respect to its customers.
They must be educated about the importance of CRM to the organisation. They must be judged and compensated on customer-oriented measures such as customer satisfaction.
And they must understand the vital role they play in retaining good customers imparting valuable information and product offers to these customers and gaining permission to engage in a dialogue that allows a continuous two-way flow of information between the customer and the organisation.
#2 Non-implementation of a customer service organisation
Also, not implementing a customer service organisation that facilitate the seamless personalised service that sophisticated customers like Samson demand.
While some organisational structures facilitate CRM, others impede it.
In Samson’s eyes, the credit limit, the late fee, the finance charges and the inability to talk to a single customer service representative are all features associated with his credit card.
In the bank’s organisation, the credit department handles credit limits, the collections area handles late fees and finance charges, and the cacentertre interacts with customers.
A problem like this is compounded when organization has multiple cacentersres for different products, district channels such as the internet and brick-and-mortar stores that are not fully integrated, or service, sales, and marketiorganizationsons that operate independently.
The dramatreorganizationion may be out of the question; however, your company can take steps to ensure that someone is responsible for the cross-functional coordination required in CRM.
#3 Not Developing Integrated Technology
Also, not developing the integrated technology environment required understanding Samson’s true value as a customer and not distributing this information to customer contact points.
As the example indicates, CRM requires integrated customer information at the enterprise level.
Without comprehensive customer information, the bank can’t determine who its best customers are or what products these customers own, and business strategies such as customer service activities cannot be tailored to acknowledge the importance of the customer.
In a company actively moving toward CRM, there will be n increasing demand to share customer information across business units.
Satisfying this demand will require a technical architecture such as Corporate Information Factory to facilitate the integration and distribution of customer information to all points of customer contact.
#4 Lack of executive sponsorship
Another one happens when you do not get executive sponsorship for CRM. In the case of Samson’s original bank, several factors point to a lack of executive support for CRM. First, a strong complaint directed at the office of the president received no response.
Second, the service representative had no interest in preserving customer satisfaction.
Third, the serviorganizationion was not set up to provide seamless customer service to customers.
#5 Executive mandate
The executive mandate is one of the most important factors in CRM success. Executive support facilitates the sweeping changes needed to achieve effective CRM.
Without executive backing, it will be almost impossible to implement cross-functional business strategies, adopt a CRM-friendly structure and culture, and fund the integrated customer systems that support CRM.
The technology exists today to facilitate truly seamless global communications among customers, suppliers, geographically dispersed business units, and even competitors.
Today’s healthy economy and recent deregulations are combining to provide an increasingly level playing field in many industries with competition in some instances coming from non-traditional sources.
With so. many options to choose from, consumers can afford to be demanding, and aorganizationsons must be in a position to profitably satisfy these demands.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on an individual and corporate level, I will be very glad to do that because I have trained several individuals and groups and they are doing well in their various fields endeavor. Some of those that I have trained include the staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNIGERIA is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent, ent, and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
In my past articles, I have always been using the story of Samson and the bank. I have explained how he was treated harshly and the steps that he took after that. In this article, I want to look at how to excite informal Customers effectively.
What do I mean by informal customers ….
Informal customers are elderly customers who have not passed through the four walls of a university. They are elderly citizens who would like to be served in the convenience of their homes. Let me show you in this article how you can retain this kind of customer for life.
The second customer is Samson’s parents- a busy, older retired couple who love to travel and who also have standard banking requirements. A point of interest here is that although Samson’s parents are individual people, each with specific relationships to bank products, they function as an economic decision-making unit.
This unit is recognised by the bank as a type of customer and is treated as such.
Samson’s parents do not own a debit card and rarely if ever, use the ATM service. They use the monthly account statements to balance their chequebook, and they open and read all the literature that comes to their house from the bank.
Samson’s parents frequently visit their local branch to perform banking transactions. If they have banking operations while they are on a trip, they call the bank’s service centre and speak to a phone service representative.
Their package of products and services provides free cheques, free credit protection on their credit cards, and branch and service centre transactions support at no charge.
They have minimum balance requirements on their savings accounts and pay a fee for each non-bank ATM use.
A well-managed banking interaction that satisfies them and profits the bank would go like this:
Samson’s parents receive the monthly statement for their savings account. Included with the statement is a circular announcing an open house to introduce the new travel service associated with the bank’s credit card.
The statement also includes a letter from the branch manager personally inviting his parents to attend the open house. The letter also details a discounted travel promotion for a Caribbean cruise that will be featured at the event.
The letter from the branch manager is no accident. The bank understands that Samson’s parents have a high level of interest in luxury travel because of the consistent usage patterns on their credit cards.
The branches hosting the open house have also been selected with care; they are typically located in communities containing large concentrations of wealthy retired people.
His parents and others like them, have been identified as likely candidates to utilise the new travel service and have received personalised invitations to the open house.
CRMNuggetsis committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent, and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
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Many at times organisations have put mechanisms and technologies in place that allow the customers to relate with organisations; ask questions and make suggestions. If this is well utilized.
Many at times organisations have put mechanisms and technologies in place that allow the customers to relate with organisations; ask questions and make suggestions. If this is well utilized.
It will help the organisation to satisfy its customers and retain them for life. Now let’s go through the stages of the Customer Interaction Cycle as presented in the diagram below.
#1 Be Ready
In relation to your customers, you have to be ready. You must be ready to prevent attrition.
You must be ready to guide your customers. You must be ready to see to it that you do not lose customers that are still learning about your competitors.
This involves welcoming new customers to your Life Cycle and assuring them of superior products and services as they enter your Life Cycle.
#2 Receiving
The next thing is to receive new customers into your fold. When you are receiving them, you have to give them a feel of what they should expect from your organisation.
You should also take into consideration the fact that they have not made their final decision, as to whether they should stay with your organisation or not.
#3 Understanding
As you and I know that if two people want to have a long-lasting relationship with each other, they have to take time to learn their like and dislikes of each other, which will help them to have a long-lasting mutual relationship.
This principle is also applicable to you and your customer; you have to learn the best ways that they want to be served.
Give them what they want and they will be with you for life. In doing this, you have to listen to them, and allow them to do the talking.
Apart from that, you have to ask them questions concerning areas that are not clear to you about what they want.
On a final note in this section, you have to confirm their facts and feelings. All these will help you in serving them better.
#4 Helping
if you want your customers to remain with you for life, you and your entire workforce should learn how to treat them like royalty.
You have to help them; they came to your life cycle so that they can be served.
You should see that as an opportunity to gain them for life. Not only that, they will drag their friends and families to your Life Cycle.
#6 Keeping
This has much to do with guiding our customers so that you don’t lose them to your competitor’s life cycle.
In order to keep your customers, you must be able to produce quality goods and services that are better than what they can get from your competitors.
You should understand one thing about customers, one better opportunity avail itself, they are bound to leave.
#7 Follow-up
This is just telling you that you have to continue to learn about your customers.
You must find out how they live their life, the kind of relationship they keep; their marital status; their mother’s maiden name and all other details about your customers.
You can also use their birth date to your own advantage. Take, for example, I have been trying to reduce the number of saving accounts that I have but I will never close down n my GTB account.
They always wish me a “happy birthday” on my birthday. The same thing applies to those that moved to GT Bank because of their zero account policy.
Customer Interaction and CRM
In a contemporary time when the next organisation that produces similar products and services are just a mouse click away, organisations have to devise ways of maintaining a consistent customer interaction in order to stay afloat.
In a customer-centric organisation, they devise ways of learning from the customers in order to use the knowledge in devising ways of delighting the customers, we have said earlier that the beauty of a customer-centric enterprise is the ability of the organisation to predict the customer’s next move and meet them at that destination with goods and services that meet their specification. Through interactions with your customers, you should be able to group your customers based on the nature of their needs.
You can do this by segmenting and profiling your customers in order to come up with models that can meet up with their needs.
This will help customers to come up with goods and services that will meet the need for a very large number of your customers, thereby reducing costs.
Changing Role of CRM In the past, in advanced countries of the world, CRM was all about attending to some customers’ complaints and setting up chairs and tables in order for customers to ask some questions and get some inconclusive answers.
In such settings, the Customer Service Representative (CSR) is not fully empowered to resolve customers’ complaints completely. In that archaic setting, as it is still applicable to many organisations in Nigeria today, customers’ files move from one table to another unattended to. It is very bad for a forward-looking organisation.
What we are saying, in essence, is that CRM is ever-dynamic. It is no longer what it used to be. In modern times, the multifaceted job of customer relations is no longer left in the hand of the Customer Care Agent.
Almost all the departments having direct contact with customers are involved in customer relationships.
In this era, you can’t say that because you are a salesperson, and not in Public Relations, there is nothing that concerns you about projecting the good image of the organisation to customers when you are trying to sell some products or services to.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
He is interested in the products and services that you have to offer and would likely move to another organisation that produces similar products and services if you are no longer satisfying his or her needs.
Therefore the following point must be well noted.
Customer is king Have you ever been to a palace? If your answer is no, you need to visit one. It’s also very imperative for you to study Royalty.
A king is treated with respect. He commands, in Yoruba land, for example, it is not proper for kings to make suggestions, they give orders.
When we say that a customer is a king, all we are saying is that you have to treat them with respect and honour.
You don’t need to argue with them about whatever they are doing. That is why it is often said that “A King does no wrong”
It always amazes and baffles me the way some organisations and small businesses treat their customers.
They treat them as if they are doing them a favour.
This is with the wind of privatization that is blowing in the government sector, customers will dictate the way they want to be served.
Organisations that are not ready to abide by the rules of the game should prepare to go out of the market. It is as simple as that.
On the other hand, every organisation; most especially the customer-centric enterprise, treat customers as an asset.
You should know that the first thing that drives vent customers to vent life Cycle is because you have goods and services that can satisfy their needs.
You should also know that you are in a competitive environment. If another organisation is able to produce superior goods and render services at a cheaper rate.
There is a high tendency that your customers will move to their Life Cycle.
That is why customer-centric enterprise always finds every opportunity to delight their customers.
They treat their customers with dignity and respect. They treat them like Royalty and retain them for life. This xviii force the customer to introduce the product to another customer.
A Scenario
There was a time when I was so much delighted in using Dudu-Osun as my bathing soap. I will buy twelve at once as if I am going to use them all at once.
I started using the soap because of the scent and name. It got to a stage where I forced my wife to be using the soap, even though it is not really good for her.
The company producing the soap has increased the price many times over but still continues to use the soap, along with my wife.
That means I am one of their assets and if they failed to meet up with my expectation, it can force me to start using another soap.
Know your Customer
I want you to take the time to ask this question from many organisations in Nigeria.
It will surprise you the kind of result that you will get from them. Ask giants like MTN, and GLO. First Bank of Nigeria Plc. Zenith Bank Plc, Oando or any other organizations in Nigeria to tell you the exact number of customers that they have or who their customers are: many of them cannot answer those questions correctly. They don’t know their customers.
Many organizations in Nigeria today just open shops and start selling, they don’t take into consideration who their customers are, who are the end-users.
How many of their products does a particular customer need?
As a customer-centric enterprise, you must endeavour to know the person that is actually responsible for the settling of the bills.
Don’t just assume that the person using the line is also the person making the recharge.
As a boss, I will compel my staff to open a salary account with GT Bank Plc. If the bank is no longer meeting my expectations as the boss, I might be forced to move them to another organisation.
It is very sad that organizations in Nigeria do not really understand the potential of CRM. If you ask an average business person, they thought it is all about opening a call centre with multiple touchpoints.
But CRM involves almost every department in an organisation. Part of it is what we called Partner Relationship Management where you let your partners and distributors understand the position of your organisation as far as the relationship with your customers is concerned
This will ensure that you are not misrepresented by them.
Knowing your customers goes beyond giving out a form to fill out. It goes beyond KYG in banks.
It involves looking in-depth into those forms and deducing some facts which you can use in retaining those customers for life.
Some scholars have argued that it is more profitable to do business from a customer perspective than a product perspective but many organisations in Nigeria still prefer to do business from a product perspective. Discuss the factors that are responsible for this.
Many Customer Care units in many organisations in Nigeria attend to customers’ issues as if they are doing them great favour and this is affecting the perspective of the organisation from the aspect of the customers and management seem to be helpless. As a CRM Consultant, how do you think Management can address this issue on the ground?
SUMMARY
In this chapter, we have learned that:
A customer is someone who is interested in any goods or services that you have for sale.
A customer should be treated as a King. That is, you should allow them to determine what you produce and how you produce them. Never argue with them.
Knowing your customer should go beyond getting data about your customer. You should be able to ascertain the kind of relationship that they keep and how you can use such a relationship to your own advantage.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
We are going to take a closer look at these dimensions in order to have a good grasp of it.
#1 Procedural Dimension
This is die established systems and procedures to deliver products or services.
If for example, an organisation has problems as related to the quality of their products, inadequate equipment or supply issues or your procedures as an organization are not customer-friendly, you have faded as an organization from the perspective of the customers.
In the view of the customers, you have succeeded as an organisation when you operate from their own perspective.
At the end of this article, you should be able to:
Talk about the two dimensions of customer relationship. I-low organizations can acquire customers.
Why do they need to retain customers?
The reasons why top management must be involved in the customer-centric endeavour.
#2 Personal Dimension
This has to do with how service providers interact with customers (attitudes, behaviours arid verbal skills).
The personal dimension is the key to success. When a customer begins to do business with an organisation, they are already in some type of emotional state.
The impression an organisation gives in the first time may be the deciding factor in retaining an existing customer, obtaining a new customer or gaining referral business.
You should know that using the following strategies makes a tough job just a bit easier Take the initiative, anticipate the customer’s needs, be helpful, be positive; listen and understand, deal with the uniqueness of the situation, and always make the customer feel special.
The reason for this is very simple, in acquiring new customers; you are trying to steal people from other people’s Life Cycle into your own Life Cycle;
This is somehow very difficult where every organization is trying their possible best to retain their customers.
Every serious-minded organization must endeavour to retain their hard-earned customer.
A simple positive decision can make prospects to Hood your Life Cycle while a simple negative decision by the management can also lead to attrition.
That is why it is advisable that when carrying out customer-centric strategies, the top management must be carried along.
There are two main reasons why the top management must be carried along when embarking on a customer-centric enterprise.
The first reason is that you will need them when you need to take some crucial decisions.
You will also need them to approve your spending. Without their approval, you might be cash-strapped along the way.
Another reason is that the organizational structure employed in a customer-centric enterprise is much different from the one used in organizations that are not customer-centric in nature.
An organisation that is customer-centred must empower its customer-facing agents so that they can resolve customers’ issues completely.
In order to retain customers, you must not ask customers to wait when you can answer them now. Staff dealing with customers must be able to resolve their issues. This will help in retaining customers for life.
You should know that you cannot retain customers if you fail to meet their needs. Know that the first point that is dragging customers to you is that, they have a need to satisfy. If you are able to satisfy those needs and go beyond their expectation.
There is nothing stopping the customers from sticking to you for life.
SUMMARY In this article, we have learned that:
There are two types of CRM dimensions which were the Procedural dimension and the Personal dimension.
It is more expensive to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones.
In order for organizations to acquire new customers, they must be ready to do more than what the organization that is currently satisfying their needs is doing.
You have to continually increase customers’ experience if you really want to retain them for life.
Brainstorming Session
Discuss the two dimensions of a customer relationship.
Discuss acquiring and retaining customers and CRM.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
When we talk of touchpoints, we are talking about different ways through which customers can have access to an organization.
In many forward-looking organizations, today gone are those days when customers cannot have access to their accounts or transact business with an organization unless they physically enter the branch offices or relate with the distributors.
When we talk of touchpoints, we are talking about different ways through which customers can have access to an organization.
In many forward-looking organizations, today gone are those days when customers cannot have access to their accounts or transact business with an organization unless they physically enter the branch offices or relate with the distributors.
In a customer-centric enterprise or organisation that plans to retain customers for life, they must devise ways of making transactions with the organisation as easy as possible.
As I said earlier one thing that people do enjoy most is the ability to have their freedom. No customer will like to be restricted to branch offices.
A Scenario
Mr Alfred is a very busy businessman. He has businesses with many people and he has transferred money into many accounts and relationships with many people.
Mr Alfred had to monitor his business so he does not have the time to see his Relationship Manager or go and line up in banks.
This made dealing with banks to become a sort of headache to him. Because Mr Alfred is dealing with a forward-looking bank, they are able to come up with a mobile device that allows him to do anything that he wanted to do.
He can now transfer money and load his phone through the mobile application.
Mr Alfred also prayed earnestly that the bank will come up with an application that xviii make savings easy for him.
When we talk about creating touchpoints, there are some touchpoints that an organization can provide for its customer One of such is contact centres where customers can call in and get their issues resolved.
Organisations can also adopt emailing or they can appoint an Officer that relates to customers from the convenience of their office.
One thing to know about creating a touchpoint is that the creation of touchpoints will allow your customers to dictate how they want to be served.
You should allow your customers to determine this. Your own is to make sure that their needs are met.
When creating touchpoints also, you should empower those that will use the technology in such a way that they are able to resolve customer’s issues completely.
It should not be in a way that customers will have to wait endlessly before they can find a solution to their array of challenges.
Never forget the fact that the next organisation that produces the same products and services as you are is just a “mouse click away”.
On a final note, as a customer-centric enterprise using touchpoints, you should never joke with your customers’ privacy.
You need to have a lot of information about your customers in order to serve them better. Once they are giving you this information, you must never disclose it to those that will use it, or those that are not authorized to have it against them.
There must be access levels as far as customers’ information is concerned but that does translate to the fact that customers will have to call up to ten numbers before they can change their contact address.
Customer Regaining Strategies
As I said earlier, customers move over and over around your cycle as they purchase new products and services; that is why you have to make sure that you continually meet up with your customers’ expectations.
If you lost a customer to your competitor’s Life Cycle, there are some practical ways that you can use in order to regain your lost customers back to your customer lifecycle.
One of the basic ways of regaining a lost customer is to have adequate information about the lost customer Suffice to say that before you can know that you have lost your customer, you must be able to say with precision, the total number of customers that you have.
If you don’t know the total number of your customers, how will you know if you have lost a customer? There is one reason why you need to seek help concerning knowing the total number of your customers.
It is simply because it takes less to retain existing customers than to gain a new one.
As I said earlier, you must have adequate information concerning the lost customer; this might give you a hint as how the customer can be regained.
One other way of regaining a lost customer is to know what your competitors are doing that is making your customers rush to their Life Cycle.
If you want to succeed in business, you cannot be oblivious of what your competitors are doing. You must take time to study their marketing strategies and sales tactics, including their promotional offers.
In recent times, you would have noticed that among the communication giants, once one of them gives particular promotional offers others will follow suit.
This at times includes promotional offers and midnight calls, including a bonus on recharge.
This is due to the fact that consumers are free to make choices. A reduction in tariff can force a consumer to move to another network. It is as simple as that.
If you want to regain your customers, you must learn how to increase your customer’s experience.
Look for every opportunity to delight your customers. If you do that, those that have gone will come back and those that are with you will remain with you for life.
Total Customer Experience When we talk of customer experience, we are talking about how the customer felt after they used your product or service.
A good customer-centric enterprise must find every avenue to delight its customers.
One thing organisations need to know is that customers have something at the back of their minds before they purchased an organization’s product or service, if after purchasing those products or services, it does not meet up with their expectations, they are bound to look for another organisation that can satisfy the pre-purchase need.
It is on this premise that organisation have to work earnestly in order to ensure that they do not fall short of their brand promise.
The brand promise is what you offer your customers that they would derive after they might have used your product or services.
If you fail to meet up with the expectation of the customers, that means you have betrayed the trust that they have in you, they will have no option but to look for another organisation that can satisfy their needs.
Key Account Management
With key account management, you can map business relationships to particularly important customers and support the expansion of these business relationships.
Institutions can be identified and classified as key accounts using the data available to the organization; this allows goal-oriented addressing and support.
In product and institutions plans, you can record customized strategies and analyze then for key accounts and identify key people and product(s).
Using the actual and target values in the goal definition and tactics, the development of key accounts can be monitored.
Benefits
Identification and classification of key accounts using objective criteria.
Structured management of key accounts in CRM systems.
Concrete goal definition for the development of key accounts, including monitoring possibilities.
Key account management drives the profitability of business marketing.
Building quality key account strategies are the heart of successful business marketing programs. The role of the sales force in establishing and nurturing this relationship is vital.
The sales environment is rapidly changing. This includes selling cycles, complex prepositions, and high-value sales make new methods necessary.
SUMMARY
At the end of this lesson, we have been able to discover that:
Customer touchpoints are channels through which an organization relates to its customers.
Creating touchpoints will allow customers to dictate how they want to be served.
You have to continue to meet up with customers’ expectations in order to retain customers
If you want to regain your lost customers, you must first know the reasons why they have left your lifecycle.
Total customer experience has to do with how customers felt after they have used your product(s).
Brainstorming Session
Critical examine Mr Alfred’s case and profer solutions to some of his problems.
How relevant are customer regaining strategies discussed in this article?
Discuss Total Customer Experience.
What do you understand by Key Account Management? What are some of its relevance?
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
In this kind of organisation, profit is not their main motive of establishing a business, they first resolve to satisfy customers’ needs which will, in turn, generate profits more than they expected.
At the end of this article, you should be able to: · explain what a customer-centric enterprise is; · explain the stages that an organisation has to pass through before they can become a customer-centric enterprise; · know the reasons why an organisation has to be customer-centric; · functions and roles of customer-centricity in a customer-centric enterprise; and · Know the reasons why customer-centricity is the best solution for organisations experiencing customer attrition.
In this kind of organisation, profit is not their main motive of establishing a business, they first resolve to satisfy customers’ needs which will, in turn, generate profits more than they expected.
That is why CRM scholars have agreed that it is ten times better to do business from the customers’ perspective than from a product perspective.
In the word of the Gartner Group, they define CRM is an enterprise-wide business strategy designed to optimize profitability revenue and customer satisfaction by organizing the enterprise around customer segments, fostering customer-satisfying behaviours and linking processes from customers through suppliers.
In evolving into a customer-centric enterprise, an organisation tries to foster customer behaviours and they also develop business processes that will allow the organisation to do business from a customer perspective.
Apart from that, they have to come up with technologies that will allow customers to have a total experience irrespective of the channel that they are using to communicate with the organization.
Evolution of Customer-Centric Enterprise
#1 Product-Focused Enterprise
This is the default for many organizations. This is so because the primary purpose of the arty organization is to make a profit.
At this level, all that the organization is concerned with is, how they can increase productivity.
The organization here honour their staff based on the volume of sales they were able to make in a given year.
You should know that product-focused enterprise has much information about their customers but the information is not structured in a way that it can be used to satisfy customers needs.
#2 Customer Focused Enterprise
When an organisation begins with a product centric-vision, situation at times will force them to begin to reckon with their customers. they will now realize that they have to deal with arrays of customer issues which have much to do with the use of their products.
The organization will now realize that if nothing is done about the complaints, it may force them out of business.
This at times has forced many organizations to set up call centres in order to attend to customer issues and complaints.
The main purpose of doing this was to maximize customer and employees satisfaction.
#3 Customer Value-Focused Enterprise
Under this, the organisation tries to minimize the amount being spent on customers that are not really adding value to the organisation. The organisation tries to concentrate on customers that have a larger wallet share with them.
Take for example; MTN tries to come up with a programme that rewarded customers that load up to ten thousand naira airtime monthly.
The company knew that it would be tough for a poor man that could not afford to feed three square meals.
The main onus of this is to gather as much information as possible about the customers and to use this information in formulating strategies that will allow the organization to serve its customers in a dynamic way.
They see their customers as one of the stakeholders in the organization. In this kind of setting, all policies and actions of the organization are geared towards customer satisfaction and making sure that the brand lives up to expectations.
It should be noted that the CRM initiatives of these enterprises can help reduce costs by encouraging customers to render service to each other in communities of interest, promote the enterprise to like-minded people known to them at low cost, seek redress willingly in the event of a shortcoming, be enterprising in taking up new products, and remain loyal for life.
Need For Customer Centricity
There is a need for organizations to operate from customers’ perspective as this will help them to retain their customers for life.
The only reason why profit is coming in the first place is that customers decided to remain with the organization.
Once they decide to spend their money somewhere else, profit will cease.
One thing is that customers love to enjoy their liberty, if an organization gives them that, and surpasses their expectation in terms of services, there is nothing that will make a customer in his right sense to lock somewhere else.
The mother thing is that if you are satisfying your customers in the right way, you will spend less on promotional offers and adverts as your satisfied customers will do the talking for you.
There will be an opportunity to cross-sell as they will gladly accept your new products and offerings and introduce your products to others.
It has also been said that the best way for an organisation to go, is to operate from a customer’s perspective.
Although this may not be profitable in the first place as you have to spend much in order to gain their trust. Once this is achieved, you can rest assured that you have had those customers for life.
Functions of Customer Centricity
We have all agreed that customer-centricity is the act of doing business from the customers’ perspective. There are some basic functions that customer-centricity is meant to perform.
It is the function of customer-centricity to increase the profitability of the organization. If customer-centricity is well managed, it will help the organisation to reduce its cost of production; once you are able to manage your customers.
it will reduce the cost that you to spend on acquiring new customers. This will ultimately reduce overhead cost and will also increase the volume/number of your products that your customer uses.
Customer centricity will also increase the bond between you and your customers. It will help you to know the exact number of customers that you have.
What are those things your customer needs and you can provide those needs? You must be able to know what your customer wants and how to meet those needs.
At times, you may need to know the network of people that your customer or prospect has before you can even think of the best way to serve them.
Once you are meeting and exceeding their needs, you will be able to sustain the bond between you and your customers.
Customer centricity will also increase customer and employee satisfaction. If customers are not satisfied, they will spend their money elsewhere, this will ultimately lead to loss of jobs and once the money is being spent elsewhere.
It will create tension in the mind of staff of your organisation. That is why you have to satisfy your customer so that your employees too will be happy.
That is why it is often said that employees satisfaction is customer satisfaction.
Customer Centricity: A Systematic Solution
Have you ever wondered why a computer system is called a system? It is a system because there are many components that come together before you can have what is called a system.
It is a combination of many subsystems that form what is called a system. In a computer system, you have application software like MS Word, Microsoft Excel, and Corel Draw, among others.
We also have the keyboard, mouse, and UPS among others. You would have been wondering, how then can we relate a computer system to a customer-centric enterprise?
Many organizations today in Nigeria have closed down because customers are no longer patronizing their organisations.
They have spent a lot of their hard-earned money on promotional offers such as: Be a Millionaire promo, 180 cars in 180 days among others.
This is not really necessary when you have a customer-centric enterprise in place. It is a policy that will allow you to do business from the customers’ perspective.
You will have to consciously examine and discover some facts about your customers and you will use that knowledge to decide on what to produce, how to produce and for whom to produce.
We called customer-centric enterprise a system because it is a combination of many parts that come together to become one.
You can leave one step aside and move to the other, and you are still expecting the same result.
You should know that in evolving into a customer-centric enterprise, you have to make up your mind that you want to operate from the customers’ perspective.
This will be backed-up with technology that is meant to ensure that your dream is realized. You need to practically learn how you can consciously satisfy your customers’ needs.
This will help your business.
When organisations are established, they provide access and ways by which their customers can reach them.
These include coming to branch offices, and meeting over the web and through the telephone.
Each of these subsets has its own method and components which were used for handling customer contacts,
A customer-centric enterprise always offers its services through the combination of these three channels.
In doing these, the organisation needs processes, technologies and services that are conditioned to take customers first and think about them in everything that they are doing.
Customer–centricity has much to do with rethinking the entire customer experience from the customer point of view.
NOTE:
Collaboration is a matter of degree, and the quantity of the software and services used for collaboration only defines how comprehensive the collaboration will be.
Collaboration you should know has its own price – the cost to the number increases as the number of application increases.
While collaboration CRM should be implemented in a “build–to–fit” manner, the more collaboration an enterprise wished to enable, the more critical the vendor’s support for both system–to–system interaction and heterogeneity.
In a customer-centric enterprise, the organisation tries to put machinery in place in order to meet up with the needs of their customer.
Even the workforce is trained to think about customers first before anything else.
They try to gather customer data from multiple channels in real time, analyse the data in order to find a correlation in the data.
The said data at times can reload some hidden customer behaviour and some basic characteristics that customers have in common, the organisation can now use this in making life decisions about their customers.
At its most basic, customer-centric enterprise requires that an organisation provides access to a wide range of functionality – which spans the enterprise and its IT environment – according to its specific role or job function.
They tried to educate their product users on new ways of using their products and some things that their products can do that are not, available for other products or services.
A customer-centric enterprise achieves its true value by adding value to their customer. These are achieved through integration and collaboration in a fashionable way.
You should know that data is the main thing in a CCE. The more data you have about your customers, the more you are able to serve your customers better.
The users must be able to access data that are outside their department, they should be able to use this data to solve customer issues.
This will now enhance the value of internal and external business processes and technology.
People-centric collaboration also requires that applications and services interact automatically with one another., without human intervention, in order to facilitate people–to–people collaboration.
This requirement for a system to–system interaction is a key behind–the–scene element in any people-centric collaborative environment.
The bottom lines are that CCE will lead to greater efficiency, a better return on human and technological assets, new business opportunities, and a closer and more fruitful working relationship between supply chain or value chain partners be they buyers, sellers, administrators or other service providers.
Collaborative customer-centric enterprise allows users from either inside or outside the organisation to access customer data as long as those actions will improve job performance in the bottom line.
The different users and the applications both within and outside the organisation must be able to interact and collaborate with one another.
An external client having a problem with accessibility can communicate a CSR who might be able to help him or her out.
The Benefit of Collaborative CCE
It brings about streamlined operations that offer lower transaction costs, error rates, and other operational efficiencies.
It also improves customer and partner relations that come from building tight links between technology and business processes. When done right, collaborative environments greatly enhance customer and partner satisfaction and help leverage all partners’ investments in technology and business process.
A people-centric environment provides a platform for changing products, partnerships, and business processes in support of dynamic businesses and industries that require “first–to–market” rapid response.
Above all, if a collaborative CCE is well planned and implemented, it will significantly impact the bottom line of the enterprise involved.
SUMMARY
In this article, we have discovered that:
A customer-centric enterprise is an organization that is doing business from the customers’ perspective.
There are four evolutions of a customer-centric enterprise, which are: Product-Focused Enterprise, Customer Focused Enterprise, Customer Value Focused Enterprise and Customer-Centric Enterprise which has much to do with 36O0 view of customers.
We have also observed that a customer-centric enterprise will help you to retain your customers for life. It will also ensure that both your customers and your staff derive maximum satisfaction.
Customer-centricity has to do with the act of putting customers at the centre of business
In collaborative CCE, users from within and outside the organisation must be able to access data that will improve business performance and help the organisation to improve on customers experience.
Collaborative CCE will lead to greater efficiency, new business opportunities and closer relationship among stakeholders in the business.
Some of the benefits attached to collaborative CCE includes:
The streamlined operation enhanced stakeholders satisfaction and leveraging of partners investment in business and processes.
Brainstorming Session
Use the diagram in Fig. 11 to discuss what CCE evolution is.
Do you agree that organisations should treat different customers differently?
Do you think that organizations should waste their time on non-profitable customers?
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
At the end of this article, readers should be able to:
· Know what customer-centric enterprises are.;
· The characteristics of CCEs.;
· Customers’ perspective of CCEs;
· Functions that CCEs are meant to play; and
· Differences between Customer-Centric and Product-Centric Enterprises.
OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE
Before we begin, you should know that organisations must focus on something once they are in business.
Traditionally, organizations do focus on their products.
They weigh their achievements based on how their products are doing and their percentage of the market share.
In this article, we intend to look at both product-centric and customer-centric enterprises and see what their focus are. We will be discussing this under the following headings.
#1 Product-centric Enterprise
The main focus of a product-centric enterprise is to gain increased product offering and increase its market volume.
Organisations in product-centred enterprises are ranged based on the volume of their products that they are able to release into the market.
Even employees are rewarded based on the volume of sales they are able to make in a year.
#2 Reduced Cycle Times
In a product-centric enterprise, the focus of the enterprise is to reduce the time required before their goods got to the final consumers.
At times, they may be forced to reduce prices so that they can have some form of upper hand over their competitors.
#3 Quality
Organizations that are customer-centric are more concerned with coming up with quality products that will stand the test of time.
They believe that if they can do that, they will be able to attract more customers through quality products that they offer.
Characteristics of CCEs
One important point to know about CCEs is that they always resolve issues completely. A good CCE will not go to sleep while customer issues are not resolved.
I once had an issue with an old generation bank, I went to the bank to deposit some money only for me to get there and be told that my account had been dormant for over three weeks so it has taken some time now.
As I am writing this to you, the issue has not been resolved.
That is not a good example of a CCE. Is shows the bank is not serious about its customers.
A CCE should be able to resolve customer’s issues completely no matter the number of customers that are involved.
CCEs employees must completely focus on the customers. They must have full autonomy to resolve customer issues.
They must be able to decide on the right way to treat their customers. They must not be under any undue influence whatsoever as far as customer issues are concerned. Customers must be more paramount than the company’s policies,
CCEs allow customers to interact across multiple channels. The organization only needs to meet the customers at the right place with the right products and services.
As a customer-centric enterprise, you can’t force customers to come and meet you at your branch offices. You must be able to allow customers to choose the way they want to be served.
The true mark of a customer-centric enterprise is that they choose to be loyal to their customers even when there is no immediate reason to do so.
Everything about the customers may be pointing to the fact that they are not profitable at the moment, but a truly customer-centric enterprise will continue to revolve its life around the customers.
Customers’ Perspective of CCES’
Customers dealing with an organisation desire them to be honest and fair to them. They expect the management to be men of their words.
They must be able to add value to them. Like I have said in the previous chapters, there are some things that the organization promised to offer their customers for using their products.
They must be able to meet or exceed some of their customers’ expectations.
Also, the organisations that claim to be customer-centric must be able to provide emotional support to their customers.
They must be able to develop long-lasting relationship with their customers.
Customers expect that a CCE must not place short term gains before the ultimate satisfaction of their hard-earned customers.
The customer also expects the organisation to train their employees to place customers’ interest above any other Employees relating with customers must be held responsible for all customers that they are dealing with.
The fact that you are a marketing or sales agent does not mean that you will not know anything about customer relations. They must be able to project a good image of the organisation.
One thing you should know as an organisation is that you have to know much about your customers. This includes a deliberate study of their behaviours and wants.
You should also know that when you are dealing with various levels of customers, you cannot be 100 percent customer-centric to them all. This is because one customer may be more profitable than the other
#1 Customer Acquisition
While Product-centric enterprise focus on how they can increase their market share, the customer-centric enterprise is more concerned with how they can acquire new customers.
They also shift their attention away from their products and focus on their customers by asking questions on what they want and how their needs can be met.
#2 Customer Profitability
While Product-centric enterprise is focusing on how they can produce a quality product at a cheaper price so as to increase their profit margin, customer-centric enterprises are more concerned with how they can increase the profitability of their customers.
They continue to strategize on new means of penetrating their competitors’ customer base and evolve an effective customer strategy that will ensure that customers derive satisfaction from their interaction with the organisation.
#3 Support and Service
While Product-centric enterprises continue to think of ways of coming up with quality products to increase their market share.
Customer-centric enterprises are more concerned with how they can evolve better ways of serving their customers.
They try to ensure that customers derive maximum satisfaction from their interaction with the organization.
They always ensure that customers have a total experience irrespective of the channel that they have chosen to interact with the organisation.
SUMMARY
From this chapter, we have been able to discover that:
Customer Centric Enterprises are organisations that revolved around the customer
We also discussed some of the characteristics of CCEs which includes the fact that their employees are empowered to solve customer issues completely. They also allow customers to interact across multiple channels.
We also look at sonic of the differences between Product-centric enterprise and CCEs. We observed that CCEs focus on customers white Product-centric enterprise focus on their products and hew they can increase their market share.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
As an organisation moves from a product-centric enterprise to a customer-centric one, there are some basic things that will begin to change about the organisation, we want to look at this under four main headings, which are:
Pricing capabilities
Product quality capabilities
iii. Marketing and sales capabilities
Customer service capabilities
Pricing Capabilities
Customer-centric enterprise tries as much as possible to come up with a price system that guarantees customer satisfaction.
They always come up with products and services of higher value at reasonable prices.
They ensure that they are excellent in whatever they are producing for their customers.
In this article, we want to look at the attitudes of CCEs in terms of:
Pricing capabilities
Product quality capabilities
Marketing and sales capabilities
Customer service capabilities
Product Quality Capabilities
In terms of what they produce, CCES’ have higher quality product ranking. They believe that producing quality goods and services at customer-friendly prices will make their customers stick to them forever.
They also make sure that all departments in the organization are quality 1)0th in goods and services to their customers.
Marketing and Sales Capabilities
Customer-Centric Enterprise tries as much as possible to build strong awareness by providing quality service so as to attract more prospects to their Life Cycle.
They can also create opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling. This is a way by which both marketing and sales departments are actively involved in sales. Customers can also help in increasing sales and introducing products to others.
The organisations also develop sales forces with superior technical skills in order to boost sales.
Customer Service Capabilities
Customer-Centric Enterprise has superior pre-sales services capabilities. They are able to educate their prospects on the benefit of using their products. CCES’. They also have well responsive after-sales services which are able to assist customers with any challenges they might be faced with while they use the product.
CCES are also able to rapidly handle customer orders in a way that it boosts customers’ confidence in the organization. SUMMARY
In this article, we have been able to discover:
In terms of price, CGES do not compete with Product-centric enterprise. They give customers a “wow” experience with a relatively low price.
CCES have higher quality ranking than product-centric enterprise.
Marketing, Sales and Customer services departments walk together in relating with customers. It also goes with the ability of the customers to introduce the organization’s product and buy more of the products and services.
Customer-centric enterprises have pieces of machinery in place to educate their prospects on the immeasurable benefits of using their products and services.
Brainstorming Session
Discuss the differences between CCEs and PCEs using the following parameters: · Pricing capabilities. · Product quality capabilities. · Marketing and sales capabilities. · Customer service capabilities.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
The Concept This is the simplest way of explaining the way by which an organisation whether product or customer-centred interacts with its customers and prospects. It explains the process that a customer or prospect passes through before deciding to purchase or use a particular product or service. Understanding the customer Life Cycle will help organizations to guide against losing customers to competitors.
The Concept This is the simplest way of explaining the way by which an organisation whether product or customer-centred interacts with its customers and prospects.
It explains the process that a customer or prospect passes through before deciding to purchase or use a particular product or service.
Understanding the customer Life Cycle will help organizations to guide against losing customers to competitors.
At the end of this article, readers should be able to:
Define customer Life Cycle
Understand how customer Life Cycle can be managed
Understand how the customer Life Cycle can be managed (1 in a Customer-Centric Enterprise
It will also help them to attract new prospects to their own life cycle.
The Customer Life Cycle you should know begins with reaching the target market and progresses towards an established loyal customer base.
Along the way, it is necessary to acquire, convert and retain customers.
The Customer Life Cycle (CLC) is a circle that any organization will want its best customer to move around over and over again.
This is because as customers purchase your products, they are learning about your organization over and over again.
I can even say that they are learning some new things. You should know that these processes may change from company to company the processes that lead to it are different from company to company The noticeable differences at times may be attributed to product consideration.
When a customer is considering using a particular product from your organisation, he or she is termed as a prospect.
In doing this, lie has to go through a lot of thought processes in order to decide whether or not to use your product. His conclusion will determine whether or not he will enter your Life Cycle.
When a customer enters the Life Cycle of any organisation, there are six basic things that they do.
#1 Identify needs
They try to identify needs that may be filled by a product or service available for purchase from the enterprise.
Let’s take for example an organisation is offering Tomato paste for sale. You have to think of needs that can be satisfied with that.
#2 Identify products
After you have identified those products and the needs that they can satisfy at times you have to tell others about it.
You can help the organisation to create awareness about the existence of those products or services.
#3 Determine satisfaction
The next thing is to find time to learn more about the organisation and the products and services they have to offer.
You may also want to know about other products and services that WON’ nave in stock.
#4 Consider the product
Now you have to consider how the products and services offered by the organization satisfy or do not satisfy your needs.
#5 Evaluate the suitability
You evaluate the suitability of the products and services against the competition to fulfil the identified needs.
#6 Purchase product
The decision to purchase the product or service or go to another competition.
The last phase in the customer Life Cycle is often regarded as the “Customer moment”. This is the time when the customers decide whether or not to purchase the product.
As soon as he decides to purchase the product, he becomes a customer. This decision will also change the focus of the organization.
They are now concerned with how they will not lose hard-earned customers to their competitors. They can now influence the customer either positively or negatively.
You should know that if the organisation fails to live up to expectation through poor services or falling short of the brand promise, this can make the customer to join another organization’s Life Cycle.
But if they are able to satisfy his needs, he becomes a customer for life. At this stage, the customer continues to acquire products from the organisation and utilize it.
This may continue through the entire lifetime of the customer. Once the customer is satisfied, he will re-enter the organization’s Life Cycle and start the process over and over again.
You should know that while the customer goes through the Life Cycle, he might be lost at any stage in the Life Cycle but it is also agreed upon that, it is better for you to lose a prospect than to lose a hard-earned customer.
If the loss of hard-earned customers continues uncontrolled, it is often referred to as “Customer attrition”,
There are two ways by which a prospect or a customer can drop out of the Life Cycle.
The first one is known as “loss”; this is when you lost a prospect to your competitor just before they enter your Life Cycle.
While nobody prays that this kind of loss should occur but at least it is desirable.
This is due to the fact that you have not invested your hard-earned money on the prospects before they enter your competitor’s Life Cycle.
The second form of loss that can happen to an organization is called attrition which is more than an ordinary loss. It happens when your hard-earned customers decide to join your competitors’ Life Cycle.
Attrition has been defined as the erosion of customer loyalty after the customer moment leading to their capture by a competitor.
This kind of loss is painful as you have already invested in them. Such loss, should not occur when you can provide acceptable service to your customers.
You should know that competition is one of the factors that influence movements in the CLC. One thing that determines the level at which an organisation need to be customer-centric has much to do with the level of competition that an organisation is facing from its competitors.
The final goal of a customer-centric enterprise is to raise the exit harrier so that prospects are not easily lost to competitors and attrition of hard-earned customers is totally prevented.
Customer Life Cycle Management The business processes conducted by the organisation fall into the following general categories.
#1 Intrude And Engage
Under this, the organization intends to catch the prospect’s attention, and increase the prospect’s awareness of the organisation.
Tell him about what the organization has to offer and engage him in a discussion that is targeted at drawing him into the organization’s Life Cycle.
#2 Transact and Fulfill
That the prospects are aware of the organization and what it has to offer, does not guarantee that the prospect is going to purchase the organization’s product or service.
That is why the organization has to continually engage the prospects so as to ensure that they finally become the organization’s customers.
#3 Retain/Service and Expand
Once the customer purchases your product or service, you have to begin real work of ensuring that you do not lose him to your competitor.
This involves coming up with innovations that will ensure that you continually satisfy your customers and live up to the expectation of your customers.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can be seen as the expected financial benefit from customer retention investment to build customer loyalty, Simply, it is the total amount that you expect your customers to spend on your product throughout their lifetime.
Definition
Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can be seen as the expected financial benefit from customer retention investment to build customer loyalty, Simply, it is the total amount that you expect your customers to spend on your product throughout their lifetime.
Lifetime Value of a Customer
By calculating CLV, you as a 0kM manager can measure the expected financial benefits from customer retention investment to build customer loyalty You will be able to know which of your customers you should invest in and the one that you don’t need to bother yourself about.
The calculation of the lifetime value of your customer will reveal the lifetime cost of the customer which includes acquisition cost, operation expenses and customer services that you offer to your customer. It will also show the expected lifetime revenue of a customer.
At the end of this article, readers should be able to:
Define Customer Lifetime Value
Appreciate the Importance of CLV
Appreciate how to maximize the lifetime value of a customer
Appreciate the purpose of CLV in an enterprise
Importance of CLV
From what we have said, CLV will allow customer-centric organizations to know what they should expect from their customers. There are many benefits that accrue to CCEs.
One of the benefits that can be attributed to CCE is the fact that it allows organizations to minimize wastage and maximize cost.
It will help you to know the number of resources that you could spend on a particular customer
Another benefit of lifetime value is that it will allow organizations to come up with strategies and programs that will enable them to give their customers a “wow” experience.
If you have a profitable customer base, you will not want to lose them. You will want to put pieces of machinery in place in order to ensure that the customers are satisfied so that they can remain with you for life.
That is why you have to carry out a comprehensive CLV analysis of your customers in order to know the proper way of serving them better.
Maximizing Lifetime Value of a Customer
This requires that you maximize the rate of new customer acquisition, the conversion rate of prospects to buyers and the repeat frequency of existing customers.
When you want to get the best from your customers, you have to improve the rate at which you convert prospects to buyers. You must also guide against losing your hard-earned customers to your competitors.
You should know that it is very expensive to acquire new customers. Besides, the new customers are not contributing to your profit base now, they will be contributing in the future.
It is from your existing customers that the bulk of your profit is coming. That is why U is not logical for you to build your business on your first-time buyers alone.
In a product-centric enterprise, profits are determined by calculating the cost of the product and other associated costs and subtracting it from the total cost but in a CCE, you have to consider the customer service cost and weigh it against the lifetime value of a customer.
You have to increase what you spend on customer value. Therefore CLV is a projection of what a customer will be worth in the future.
The purpose of CLV is to encourage the organisation to spend a large percentage of its resources on adding value to its customers.
The application of CLV is to encourage organizations to embark on programs that will improve customer lifetime value.
SUMMARY OF THIS ARTICLE In this article, we have discovered that:
CLV is the expected value that a customer is expected to contribute to your organisation over their lifetime.
CLV is also the calculation of the acquisition cost, operating expenses and customer services.
CLV wilt help organizations minimize wastage and maximize cost.
With the knowledge of CL~ you should be able to raise the exit barrier and draw more people to your lifecycle.
CIV can help organizations spend their resources effectively on adding value to their profitable customers.
Brainstorming Session
What is Customer Lifetime Value? How can you maximize the lifetime value of a customer?
Discuss the reasons why top management in various organisations in Nigeria are afraid of CRM.
Action Point PS: If you would like to have an online course on any of the courses that you found on this blog, I will be glad to do that on individual and corporate levels, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups. They are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained include staff of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, and New Horizons Nigeria among others. Please come on Whatsapp and let’s talk about your training. You can reach me on Whatsapp HERE. Please note that I will be using Microsoft Team to facilitate the training.
I know you might agree with some of the points that I have raised in this article. You might not agree with some of the issues raised. Let me know your views about the topic discussed. We will appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
Fact Check Policy
CRMNuggets is committed to fact-checking in a fair, transparent and non-partisan manner. Therefore, if you’ve found an error in any of our reports, be it factual, editorial, or an outdated post, please contact us to tell us about it.
