When we talk of touch points, we are taking about different ways through which customers can have access to an organization. In many forward looking organizations today gone are those days that 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.

 

 

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE  At the end of this chapter, readers should be able to: · Define Touch points. · Know strategies of gaining customers. · Know what is meant by Total Customer Experience. · Define Key Account Management and its benefits.

 

 

 

When we talk of touch points, we are taking about different ways through which customers can have access to an organization. In many forward looking organizations today gone are those days that 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 Scenerio

Mr. Alfred is a very busy business man.  He has businesses with many people and he has transferred money into many accounts and relate 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 for 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 touch points, there are some touch points 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 relate with customers from the convenience of their office.

 

One thing to know about creating touch point is that, the creation of touch points 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 touch points 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 solutions to their array of challenges.

 

Never forget the fact that the next organization 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 touch points, 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 are 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

Like I said earlier, customers move over and over round 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 9ou 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 which is making your customers rush to their Life Cycle. If you want to succeed in business, you cannot be oblivious to what your competitors are doing. You must take time to study their marketing strategies and sales tactics, including their promotional offers.

 

In the recent time, you would have noticed that among the communication giants, once one of them gives a particular promotional offer others will follow suit. This at times includes promotional offers and midnight calls,   including 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 customer felt after they used your product or service. Good customer-centric enterprise must find every avenue to delight their customers.

 

One thing organisations need to know is that, customers have something at the back of their mind before they purchased an organization’s product or service, if after purchasing those products or services, it does not meet up with their expectation, 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 relationship 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 is the heart of a 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 making new methods necessary.

 

SUMMARY

At the end of this lesson, we have been able to discover that:

 

• Customer touch points are channels through which an organization relates with its customers.
• Creating touch points 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

1. Critical examine Mr. Alfred case and profer solutions to some of his problems.
2. How relevant are customer regaining strategies discussed in this chapter
3. Discuss Total Customer Experience.
4. What do you understand by Key Account Management? What are some of its relevance?

 

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When we talk about dimensions of customer service, it is a concept that helps us to understand that customers rate the level of services provided by any organisation in two dimensions. We are going to take a closer look at these dimensions in order to have a good grasp of it.

 

Procedural Dimension: This is die established systems and procedures to deliver products or services. If for example, an organisation has problems 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.

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE  At the end of this lesson, you should be able to: ·  Talk about the two dimensions to customer relationship. I-low organizations can acquire customers. ·         Why they need to retain customers. ·         The reasons why top management must he involved in customer-centric endeavour.

 

 

 

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, therefore 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 xviii make 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 or the situation, and always make the customer feel special.

 

 

Acquiring and Retaining Customers

Studies have shown that it is more costly to acquire new customers than to retain existing ones. The reason for this is very simple, in acquiring new customers; you arc trying to steal people from other people’s Life Cycle into your own Life Cycle; which is somehow very difficult when 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 the customer-centric enterprise is much different from the one used in organizations that are not customer-centric in nature. An organisation that is customer-centered must empower its customer-facing agents so that they can resolve customer’s 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 expectations, there is nothing stopping the customers from sticking to you for life.

 

SUMMARY

In this chapter, 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

1. Discuss the two dimensions of the customer relationship.
2. Discuss acquiring and retaining customers and CRM.

 

 

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Understanding The Customer In CRM

 

 

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE    At the end of this lesson, readers should be able to understand: ·         who a customer is, ·         what is means to treat customers as a king ·         the act of knowing your customers and the relationship that they keep, which can help an organisation to retain their customers for life.

 

Let us first clarify some points about a customer.  It is widely agreed that a customer is a person who has come to experience the product or services that you have to offer.  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 you 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 suggestion, 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 in 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 market.  It is as simple as that.

 

Let us first clarify some points about a customer.  It is widely agreed that a customer is a person who has come to experience the product or services that you have to offer.  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 you 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 suggestion, 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 in 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 market.  It is as simple as that.

 

On the other hand, in every organisation; most especially in customer-centric enterprise, they treat customers as an asset. When we say something is an asset, we mean that such things are capable of generating more wealth.

 

You should know that the first thing that drives vent customer 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 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  Scenerio

There was a time that 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 that 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 continue 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 forced me to start using another soap.

 

Know your Customer

I want you to take 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, 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 that 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 with 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 potentials of CRM. If you ask an average business person, they thought it is all about opening a call centre with multiple touch points.

 

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 relationship with your customers is concerned, so that you are not misrepresented by them.

 

Knowing your customers goes beyond giving out a form to fill. 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.

 

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 relationship to your own advantage.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. Some scholars have argued that it is more profitable to do business from customer perspective than product perspective than many organisations in Nigeria still prefer to do business from product perspective. Discuss the factors that are responsible for this.

 

1. 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 about. As a CRM Consultant, how do you think Management can address this issue on ground?

 

 

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It has much to do with talking to your customers and customers talking to you and among one another about your products and services.  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 their customers and retain them for life.  Now let’s go through the stages of Customer Interaction Cycle as presented in the diagram below.

 

1. Be Ready: In relating with 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 the new customer to your Life Cycle and assuring them of superior products and services as they enter your Life Cycle.

 

1. Receiving: The next thing is to receive the 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. 

 

1. 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 the like and dislike 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, 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.

 

1. 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.

 

1. Keeping: This has much to do with guiding our customer 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 opportunities avail itself, they are bound to leave.

 

1. 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; 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 account that I have but I will never close down n my GTB account. They always wish me “happy birthday” on my birthday. Same thing applies to those that moved to GT Bank because of their zero account policy.

 

Customer Interaction and CRM

In the contemporary time when the next organisation that produces similar products and services are just mouse click away, organisations have to device ways of maintaining a consistent customer interaction in order to stay afloat.

 

In a customer –centric organisation, they device 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 of 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 customer’s complaints and setting up some 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 customer’s complaints completely.  In that archaic setting, as it is still applicable to many organisations in Nigeria today, customer’s files move form 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 the modern time, 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 relationship. 

 

In this era, you can’t say that because you are sales person, and not in Public Relations there is nothing that  concerns you about projecting the good image of the organisation to customers that you are trying to sell some products or services to.  That is why CRM is no longer what it used to be.

 

 

Brainstorming Session

1. Discuss the Customer Interaction Cycle.
2. Using the diagram in Fig 10.  As a case study, explain the customer Interactive

 

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According to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the internet is a computer system that allows millions of computer users around the world to exchange information.  When talking about the internet, it is a process that allows someone sitting in the corner of his room or office to send out messages or transact business with millions of users who were connected around the world.

 

In our own part of the world, it has been observed that many of the business that we have in the country have not embraced the use of information communication Technology in the running of their business, that is why large percentage of them remain stagnant.

 

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE At the end of this lesson, you should be able to: ·         Discuss the relationship between CRM and Internet. ·         The Internet and Globalization ·         The major CRM packages that we have in the e-business environment.

 

 

The use of the internet in the conduct of your business will help your business to grow.  It will remove the boarder that you have built against your business.  One thing that could prevent customers from transacting business with you is your location.  Most at times, it also determines the kind of customers that you attract to your business.  But with the advent of the internet, it is possible for you to transact business with individuals outside your country or continent without having your physical presence there.

 

 

Worthy of mention is what some IT  organisations are doing now which many of us have been partakers of, without knowing that it is CRM in action.  You can actually pick some items on line and pay online or you pay on delivery.  It is one of the ways that internet add value to CRM.

 

Another way is that, CRM allows customers to be served across multiple channels.  If you are a true customer-centric enterprise, you will not force all your customers and prospects to come to your offices before they can enjoy the wide range of products and service that you have to offer. 

 

In serving the customers through the internet, communicate with the organisation enjoy the same quality of service.  This will make them to stick to your organisation for life.

 

In human nature as we know, we always like to enjoy our freedom.  Nobody likes to be controlled by others.  That is why people like to move to organisations that give them freedom to do whatever they want to do. 

 

Take for example, a manager in the convenience of his office, with internet banking, could send and receive money from anywhere around the world.  He could also by items form organisations that have their presence online.  This is one of the arrays of ways that the internet has contributed to the growth of CRM.

 

CRM AND GLOBALIZATION

Without mincing words, we will say that globalization is the process of turning the whole world into a global village.  This astronomical change was made possible through the use of the internet.  In a global village, there is nothing like boarders or sovereignty.  Without going through the process of obtaining visa or other travel documents, you can now sell and receive goods from across the globe.

 

Looking at what has been discussed so far about customer relationship which has much to do with serving your customers across multiple channels, meeting their needs and putting technologies in place in order to ensure that wherever your customer are, they are able to enjoy the same quality products and services that they used to enjoy when they walk-in into any of your branch offices. 

 

CRM in collaboration with its associated technologies, most especially with the use of the internet will place your organisation at the centre of the global village; you will be able to meet with different prospects and customers from across the world.  The main thing in CRM is that, you should be able to predict your customers’ next move and meet them at the right place with the right products and services.

 

When you are doing business in globalize village, the customers are less concerned about where you are operating form as far as you are meeting their needs. 

 

If your failed to meet their needs, the next organisation is just a mouse click away.  That is why they don’t bother about your business location. 

 

That is also the main reason why if you want to establish your presence in the globalize environment using the internet, you must be ready to constantly meet the need of your customers so that you don’t lose them as they are moving round your Life Cycle.  As far as you continue to meet their needs, they will continue to be loyal to your organisation.

 

Major CRM packages

Team Support: This is a user friendly help desk that helps businesses deliver the best possible experience to their customers by building teamwork, solving in-house communicating breakdowns and answering customer inquiries.

Plan Plus Online: Plan Plus Online provides collaboration and CRM for business. This web-based package helps increase productivity with features including sale automation, email marketing and project management.

 

Mhelp Desk: This is a web based CRM solution that is we-based solution that more than 6,000 companies uses in improving look order visibility.  Their user friendly interface help businesses management support tickets, computer services and invoice and billing.  

 

Act-on: This is an intuitive marketing automation solution, ideal for companies with minimal IT involvement.  Deployed as a web based system, the solution will automatically update so that you can focus on your business, not your software. 

 

Saleforce.com: This is the innovator behind cloud-based CRM systems.  They played a hug part in popularizing the model by offering a contact management system that is assessable anywhere with the aid of an internet connection.

 

Oracle Eloqua: Oracle Eloqua is a leader in Business to Business marketing automation.  It is a web-based system. It offers strong capabilities in demand generalization, lead management and revenue performance management.

 

Tracker RMS CRM: It offers a cloud based relationship management systems for sales, support, project management and recruiting.  The tool easily integrates with Microsoft outlook and it is easily assessable from any internet – capable mobile device.

 

Leadmaster Lead Management: This is an online CRM solution that offers a full set of features including online tracking, sales force automation and real time data mining.  It can be customized for specific industries, including insurance and real estate firms.

Markerto Lead Management: It was founded in 2006.  The software was developed for the Business to Business (B2B) marketer and is the most rapidly growing solution on the market for lead management.

 

Nextiva Hosted Call Centre: Nextiva provides telephony packages for small business that can be easily managed from an online dashboard.  Their hosted call centre solution are also tools for managing queues, routing and automatic call distribution online.

 

SUMMARY

At the end of this lesson, we have been able to discover that:

• The internet helps to put business on the world map.
• It helps you to serve your customers across multiple centre.
• It allows you to give your customers freedom that they crave for.
• We have some CRM packages that organisations can use such as: team support, plan Plus online, Mhelp desk, Act-on, Salecom. Oracle Eloqua among others.

 

BRAINSTORMING SESSION

 

1. If you are the new CRM Manager for sterling Bank Plc, you have been asked to prepare a blueprint for the migration of the Bank to a “one customer bank” how will you go about this?

 

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We will also talk about what you need to know about your profitable customers.

 

When we talk about CCS, we are talking of ways by which an organization tries to do business from customers’ perspective. Whatever form an organization adopts in order to be customer-centric, it is always aimed at acquiring new customers, customer retention and increasing customer profitability.

 

Acquiring New Customers

If an entrepreneur wants to start a new business, he first has to think up the fight idea. You have to make sure that you are producing what is needed by prospects rd customers in your vicinity. One thing you should know is that a portion of your resources should be committed to acquiring new customers for your products and services.

 

 

OBJECTIVE OF THIS ARTILE    In this article,  we are going to look at Customer-Centric Strategy (CCS).  We will also be looking at what an organisation needs to do in order to evolve into a Customer – Centric Enterprise.  We will be looking at this under two main headings.  ·         acquiring new customers ·         Retaining customers.

 

 

 

In customer-centric enterprise, acquiring new customers is one of their top priorities. You sho2d understand that organizations operate a competitive environments where they have to compete for existing prospects and customers the market square. They always achieve this through superior customer in service and increase in customer experience. They take even’ opportunity to delight their customers.

 

In acquiring new customers, communication is very important. You must be able to get the right information to the right target in the right manner. The organization must be able to project the right image about the organization. They would achieve this by projecting the profiles of the companies’ best customers.

 

Retaining Customers

Once an organization acquires a new customer, they have a more serious task at hand, which has to do with retaining the customer and preventing loss of customers to competitors. In retaining your customers, you have to understand the relationship between the company the brand, the channel of distribution and the customer Competitors always try to draw away customers through innovation and incentives which are meant to draw customers from another life cycle.

 

In a survey conducted by Deloitte and Thuche, it was discovered that it cost five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Another research conducted by Fredrick Reicheld reported that five percent retention in customers over their lifetime results in an 85 to 125 percent increase in company margin over that same time period.

 

In retaining customers, the organization must be able to communicate information about new products and innovations to the customers in real time. They must do this throughout the entire tenure of the customer with the organization. This must also be passed through the appropriate channels that the customer prefers.

 

The firm in retaining with their customers, must be able to know their customers very well. They have to study customer interaction and use the knowledge to their own advantage. They must be able to know when their customer is changing and utilize the knowledge in formulating a better CRIVI for them. they must set up an appropriate messaging process aimed at getting repeated purchase from their customers.

 

A customer-centric enterprise must keep track of the satisfaction level of their customers through appropriate feedback mechanism aimed at knowing the response of their customers to their products and services. They should be able to suggest to customers more ways of deriving more benefits from the product. When an organization can increase the utilitarian benefits of their product, it will make customers to come for more of such product/services.

 

In order to retain customers, organizations must come up with loyalty programs aimed at increasing the frequency and involvement level of the customer One of the ways of measuring this involvement is Life Time Value (LTV) which aims at assessing the profitability of customer over his life time with the organization.

 

Lifetime value is measured in terms of historical and projected lifetime value. It allows the organization to begin to allocate marketing resources by segmented group and individual levels.

 

In CRM, through the aid of technology you can calculate what you can invest in a particular segment over a particular period of time. For example Etisalat Nigeria can decide to invest more money on the youth segment than the working class or elite segment.

 

Note:   Reactivation or retention is critical to the success of customers-centric enterprises.

 

If a customer is perceived to be profitable, the enterprise will require five kinds of information to be gathered. These include:

 

• Customers’ want and needs
• Customer purchase cycle
• Customer interaction opportunities
• Customer profile
• Customer life cycle

 

DIAGRAM

 

 

Fig. 9: Diagram showing the basic information

 

1. Customer Purchase Cycle: This is the period between the customer’s first purchase and the next purchase. The organization must also take note of the likelihood of additional purchase and the nature of purchases made by the customer

 

1. Customer Interaction Opportunities: Tm water to enhance customer loyalty, customer-centric organisation must maximize interaction with the customer organisation. This is where touch points became necessary.

 

1. Customer Profile: Any organizations that wish to relate and retain its customers must have a robust customer support services in order to have a formidable customer service. The organization must have enough information about their customers. It is might include the it relationship they have, the size.

 

1. Customer Life Cycle: The customer life cycle of an organisation traces the lifetime of customer as it relates to his product use.  It starts from the use of the product to the time that the customer disengage or die as the case may be.  The organisation must be able to predict the behaviour of its customers and predict his next move in order to prolong his stay in the organization’s life Cycle.

 

The purpose of evolving into a customer-centric is not for profit motive but it can help in saving costs through increased effectiveness of the organisations’ internal processes.  If the internal process is well developed, it will increase the return on investment of a CRM initiative.

 

SUMMARY

 

In this chapter, we have looked at customer –centric strategy.  We focused our attention on how to gain new customers and how to retain your customers.  We also said that it is better to focus on how the organisation will not lose customers to competitors, because it will cost more to acquire new customers then to retain them.

 

We talked about what you need to know about your profitable customers.  These include:

• Customers needs and want
• Customers purchase cycle
• Customers interaction opportunities
• Customers profile
• Customers Life Cycle

 

BRAINSTORMING SESSION

 

1. Discuss the relationship between Internet and CRM.
2. Discuss CRM and Globalization
3. Do you think CRM can work without technology or software?

 

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Customer Centricity has much to do with the desire of an organization to put customers first in whatever thing they are doing. The organisation in evolving a customer-centric enterprise will try to anticipate what customers want and try to meet customers at the right place with the right products and services.

 

A customer-centric enterprise will try to forget about immediate gain. They will be more concerned with building a loyal customer base which in turn generates unimaginable profit on the long run.

Objectives of this Article In this article, we want to look at Customer Centric Enterprise, which are organizations that do business from customers’ perceptive. We want to look at: ·        What is Customer Centricity? ·        Importance of customer centricity ·         Customer’s perspective of CCES’

 

 

 

Before we move on, I would like to give another definition of CRM. CRM has been defining by the Gartner group as an enterprise-wide business strategy designed to optimize Profitability revenue and customer satisfaction by organizing the enterprise around customer segments, fostering customer-satisfying behaviors, and linking processes from customers through suppliers.

 

What is Customer Centricity?

Customer Centricity can be seen as a set of disciplines and practices that allows companies to different customers differently, thereby gaining strategic advantages leading to the expansion of revenues and increased profitability.

 

Customer Centricity has much to do with the desire of an organization to put customers first in whatever thing they are doing. The organisation in evolving a customer-centric enterprise will try to anticipate what customers want and try to meet customers at the right place with the right products and services.

 

A customer-centric enterprise will try to forget about immediate gain. They will be more concerned with building a loyal customer base which in turn generates unimaginable profit in the long run.

 

Before we move on, I would like to give another definition of CRM. CRM has been defined by the Gartner group as an enterprise-wide business strategy designed to optimize Profitability revenue and customer satisfaction by organizing the enterprise around customer segments, fostering customer-satisfying behaviors, and linking processes from customers through suppliers.

 

What is Customer Centricity?

Customer Centricity can be seen as a set of disciplines and practices that allows companies at different customers differently, thereby gaining strategic advantage leading of expansion of revenues and increase profitability.

 

In Customer Centricity you try and analyse your customers and see how you can personalize their service. This will enable you to satisfy them and gain their loyalty. This will enable the organization to have more of their customer’s wallet share.

 

Importance of Customer Centricity

If you ask many entrepreneurs the reason why they are not doing business from customers’ perspective, they would tell you that it is not profitable to do business from customers’ perspective. This is absolutely wrong.

 

A recent study by Delloite Consulting shows that companies that do business from customers’ perspective are sixty percent more profitable than those that are not doing business from customers’ perspective. It has been said earlier that customers will gladly move to any organization that can give them better offers at a cheaper rate. The more you satisfy your customers; the more you are raising the exit barrier

 

Characteristics of Customer-centric Organisation

One of the unique features of Customer-Centric Enterprise (CCE) is that they address all customer issues fully and resolve them completely What we are saying here is that, a CCE will never treat customer(s) complaints with kids gloves. They will always ensure that their customers are happy. This is to prevent their customers from joining the competitor’s Life Cycle.

 

Also, CCE employees are empowered with authority and tools to resolve customer issues completely in a customer-centric organization; customer-facing employees do nor have to wait for their bosses before they can attend to customers’ complaints. The customers database are made available to all the employees so that they can attend to any challenges being faced by their customer

 

Above all, a customer-centric enterprise allows, its customers to interact with the organization across multiple channels. Customers have the independence of deciding the wag in which they wish to relate with the organization. Some might decide to walk-in into any of the branch offices while some conduct their transaction online.

 

The hallmark of a CCE is that they stay with their customers all through. Their main driving force is not profit as it may not be forthcoming at the onset but the organization maintains its relationship with the customers through thick and thin. We can say that a CCE is a company that focuses on customer satisfaction and places the customer at the center of the company’s existence.

 

Customer’s Perspective of CCEs

When we were discussing brand promise, we said there are some things that your customers expect from your organization. If you are able to meet or exceed these expectations, then you can be truly called a customer-centric enterprise. The customers expect the organization to be honest, open, and respect the interest of their customers. They also want an organization that places a high premium on integrity The customers also want fair value at a fair price.

 

The organization is also expected to provide the emotional support necessary to sustain and grow a relationship which could imply putting customers’ needs and long tern relationships before personal short-term gain.

 

The customer also wants a consistent experience from the organization that they are dealing with. In order to provide a consistent experience, you must have a well-trained and knowledgeable workforce that believes that the customer is their priority, not those that treat customers like animals or beggars. This involves making your employees accountable for every customer that is put in their care.

 

The organisation on the other hand needs to understand customers and their nature. They should understand their present value and their future state. They also have to understand that customers deserve prefencial treatment more than the other

 

A CCE has a customer strategy that projects worthy brand promise, supported by superior products and services. The organization tries to promote these quality products and services through designed marketing plans. These are aimed at targeted customers through well-planned customer profiling and segmentation.

 

There is also the need for the organization to have a closed-loop feedback reporting system. This is to make sure that the enterprise constantly meets their customers expectations in terms of service quality and customer experiences.

 

Customer Centricity Vs Product Centricity

In the business world, a business can focus on any of the three areas available in the business world. These are customers, products, or channels. In the developed world, more organizations are now focusing on customers because businesses are now becoming more customer-focused because businesses are now becoming more customers driven. This has been making organizations become more focused on customers as they can not afford to be left behind.

 

Here, we want to juxtapose customer-centric enterprises and product-centric enterprises in order to see their focus and their mode of operation.

 

In a product-centric enterprise, the focus is to increase its market share and control a large percentage of the market. Employees in such organizations are not rewarded based on the number of new customers that they introduced but based on the volume of sales they are able to make. This organization views failure or progress in terms of their volume of sales in a particular year under review.

 

In a customer-centric enterprise on the other hand, less emphasis is placed on product as the organization is more concerned about acquiring new customers and raising the exit barrier for their existing customers. They always try to find avenues of increasing their customers’ experience so as to prevent losing customers to their competitors.

 

In a product-centric enterprise, focus is placed on products. The organization is more concerned about ways of producing at a cheaper rate and increasing the profit margin. They wan: to find better ways of convincing customers to buy their products so as to close deals at the shortest rime possible.

 

On the other hand, customer-centric enterprise is more concerned about increasing the profitability of their customers. They wan: to ensure that they add value to their customers and increase their value. They are always looking for better ways of increasing their customer values and putting them at the center of the organization’s existence.

 

In a product-centric enterprise, the organization is more concerned with churning out quality products so as to increase its market share. They want to come up with quality products so as to force their competitors out of the market.

 

In a customer-centric enterprise, the organization is more concerned about ensuring that its customers get the best out of their transactions with the organization. In order to achieve this, the organization tries to put in place a support and services platform which are aimed at resolving customer issues. They ensure that customers’ issues and challenges are resolved completely.

 

SUMMARY

So far in this article, we have looked at customer-centric enterprise and we came to the conclusion that it is aimed at making sure that organizational businesses are done from customers’ perspective.

 

We also said that in a customer-centric enterprise, profit is not the immediate concern.  The organization ties to delight its customer by coining us with products and services coupled with strategies that will make customers be more loyal to the organization.  This in turn will lead to more profits on the long run.

 

Above all, we said that a CCE always comes~ ~ with a superior brand promise, which is always supported by superior proc acts and services. They also have to come up with marketing plans which are targ’t’2d at specific customers. In a CCE, customers have to be treated differently. Profitable customers are given more preferential treatment than nominal ones.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. What does it mean for an organisation to be customer-centered?
2. Why is it that organizations mostly in third world countries are afraid of doing business from customers’ perception?
3. “Customers’ satisfaction is employees’ satisfaction” Discuss.

4   Discuss Customers’ perspective of CCEs.

 

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Introduction

In the previous chapter, we talk about the brand promise which has much to do with what consumers should expect from your organization. Before you can study your customers, you must have clear insight into the calibre of customers that you want in your organization. Having a clear insight of this will help your organization to evolve into a truly customer-centric enterprise. In order for you to succeed with this, you need to engage in customer profiling and customer modeling.

 

The elements that identify the best customer profiles should be those that reflect the corporate business model, unique selling proposition, and customer value statements(s).

 

An organization must be clear about which strategic objectives they want to optimize and for what products, to arrive at a sound basis for customer profiling and modeling. In customer profiling, we are talking about having enough information about our customers and using that information to come up with products and packages that will satisfy the need of our customers. An organization must know what they want to achieve with each of its products and how they intend to achieve it.

 

 

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE    In this chapter we will be looking at the following:   ·    Definition of customer profiling and modeling.   ·    Customer scoring and scoring methods.   ·    The role of technology in customer profiling and modeling.

 

 

Customer modeling on the other hand is the process of coming up with products that will meet the needs of different categories of customers that you have in the organisation For example, Etisalat came up with easy cliq in order to suit the need b segment of their subscribers.

 

 

The difference between a profile and a model is the element of time, making a model more a powerful predictor of behavior. Modeling involves profiling in order to elicit action. In modeling, we are talking about acting upon information that you have about your customer. You might access the information that you have about your customers in order to see what they have in common. This will help you to come up with products and packages that will suit a large percentage of them. You should know that models are not static in nature. You try and consider your customer behavior and discover what they have in common.

 

A model can help the organization in constructing campaigns, designing marketing plans, and offering better products and services to the target customers.

 

Customer Scoring and Scoring Methods

 

Customer scoring is one of the means of developing a customer model. It aims at scoring the customers based on certain parameters on a regular basis instead of developing a specific model for each requirement.

 

Developing this kind of scoring method will enable the organisation to assign multiple product/service score plus lifetime value, making it useful across multiple requirement areas such as campaign management, marketing departmental plans among others.

 

One of the widely acceptable methods of scoring is the RFM method. It captures the Recency, Frequency and Monetary behavior of customers. Customers that have bought recently, frequently and have spent the most money will be ranked as the most economically viable customer with regards to products/service offering.

 

Note:  REM is closely related to another scoring method called lifetime value.

 

 

 

SUMMARY

So far in this chapter, we have talked about customer profiling and modeling, which has much to do with compiling customer data and having as much information as possible about customers, including relationships that they keep, in order to come up with models, that are products and packages that will meet the need of a large percentage of the customer base.

 

We also talked about the scoring method to be used which includes the Recency, Frequency, and Monetary behavior of he customers.  The role of technology is also discussed which we believe will help us in understanding the customer and the type of relationship that they keep. 

 

There is a need for market research and knowledge management which will help the organizations to know more about their customer base and come up with products and services that will meet their needs.

 

Brainstorming Session

 

1. Who is a satisfier customer?
2. How can you satisfy your customers?
3. How do customers satisfaction relate to customer loyalty in a CCE
4. You are the Business Developments Manager at Etisalat Nigeria. How can you measure the satisfaction level of your customers?

 

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OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE                 In this article, we want to look at:   ·    The meaning of customer satisfaction.   ·  Relationship and differences between customer satisfaction and customer     loyalty.   ·  Relationship between customer satisfaction and brand value.   ·  How to measure customer satisfaction   ·  Importance of customer satisfaction.

 

 

 

Relationship Between Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty

There is a very wide difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty .Satisfaction you measures attitudes. Satisfaction in customer relations measures the attitudes of the customers towards the product. What  is satisfactory to one person might not be satisfactory to others.   That why we say that it is based on attitude.

 

A successful customer strategy will try to link these beliefs, inherent in performance, and actio

Customer satisfaction results from a process 0! internal evaluation that actively compares expectations before purchase with perceived performance during and at the conclusion of the purchase experience. We have said earlier that, before customers purchase your product(s), they have some expectations in mind. If these needs are met, then customers will be satisfied.

 

In analyzing customer satisfaction and expectation of prospects or customers before they purchased or after they purchased your product, the smaller the discrepancy between the customers’ expectation and the perception of the purchase experience, the higher the resulting satisfaction level.

 

 

ns and behaviours associated with likely future purchase and recommendation. To formulate an effective loyalty program. what we are saying here is that, a customer-centric enterprise can capitalize on the satisfaction that customers derive from their product to build a reliable loyalty program.

 

Correlation between Customer Satisfaction and Brand Value

There is a very wide link between customer satisfactory and organizational success. Customer satisfaction results from the creation of value for the customer. If customers’ needs are met and the organization is able to add value to there customers, they will be able to remain loyal to the organisation. This will also to employees’ satisfaction and loyalty.

 

Customer satisfaction has much to do with the kind of value organisation
adds to their customers. These values can be functional or emotion      in nature. An organization can add functional values to their customer’s life through product
improvements, added features, access, and convenience among others.

 

An organisation can also add emotion value through provision of superior customer service. The emotion value you should know is more paramount  than functional  values as it leaves a lasting impression in the mind of consumers. It will enable them to recommend the product to others, and   it will give the firm a higher share of their business. Functional value customer are more or less not likely to remain customer for life. They will likely leave if any other organisation is able to provide exactly what they want, may be at cheaper rate.

 

Customer satisfaction can therefore be said to be a “composite mix” of different value components in the total value proposition. This is one of the reasons why customer satisfaction surveys can be misleading or be misinterpreted.

 

Measuring of Customer Satisfaction

Here, we want to look at the reasons why we need to have a well planned loyalty program and customer satisfaction measurement. You should know that there must be a way of measuring customer loyalty’. You need survey for example to capture customer satisfaction but this must be supported with proper analysis so that we can interpret the results.

 

One of the methods of analysis that can be used in analyzing satisfaction is regression of attribute ratings, framed in order to reveal which characteristics have test impact on overall customer satisfaction.

 

We can also talk of multiple classification analysis which reveals the benefit of risk specific   associated with specific level of customer satisfaction. In order to achieve this, a customer

Strategy should also consider means and methods to improve response rates and generate more meaningful feedback.

 

Importance of Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction represents an important feedback mechanism for brands to determine how they have been received and where weaknesses exist among competitors that might be used to hire customers. Customer satisfaction will allow you how your product is faring in the market and what you need to do in order to outsmart your competitors.

 

As an organisation, the main reason why you should be building a customer satisfaction mechanism, should be based on how you can improve your customers experience. You should know that you have to devise several ways of improving tour customers’ experience but you should beware of your actions because a single mistake can destroy what you have built for many years.

 

SUMMARY

So far, we have talked about customer satisfaction. We said customer satisfaction is based on two components which are functional or emotional in nature. We also discussed that it is good for you if your customers have emotional attachment towards your products. Those that have functional attachment will always join your competitors’ Life Cycle if they can meet their needs or performs better than you.

 

Above all, we said you should be mindful of your actions while carrying out any Loyalty program as a single mistake can spell doom for the entire enterprise.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. In your own view, what are the benefits of having a loyal customer base?

 

2. Discuss the components of customer loyalty in relation to a laundry firm.

 

3. You hate lust started a boutique. to you: what use the strategies that you can to create `customer loyalty?
4. What is a Brand Promise? How can an organisation create one?

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Definition

A customer is loyal if he continues to buy a particular product, or service after the first purchase. It can also be seen as the desire of an organisation person to resist offers from competitors and stick to a particular product(s) or service(s).

 

Importance of Customer Loyalt

Customer loyalty helps businesses to retain lower costs, higher margin and greater profits than businesses that fails to satisfy and retain their customers. What we are saying here is that, if an organization has loyal customers, they will spend less on adverts or other drives that are aimed at attracting new prospects into the organization. That is why it is said that loyal customers are the principal drivers of profit.

 

In any organization that is customer-centered, the main reason why they have decided to tow that line is to retain their customer Research shows that the cost of acquiring a customer is almost five times of that of retaining them. Heavy advertisers confirm this too. Loyal customers continue to purchase your products and services. As they grow with your organization, their value increases as they also introduce new businesses to your organization.

 

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE  In this chapter, we want to take a look at what customer loyalty is.   ·      What are those things that make customers to be more loyal to an organisation?   ·      What is a brand promise?   ·      How caii you use brand promise to your organization’s advantage. All these will be examined in this chapter

 

 

Components of Customer Loyalty

We have two basic components of customer loyalty, Perceptual and transactional components. Perceptual component are loyalty that is based on perception. This happens when customers become          based on their attitudes, opinions and emotions. It happens when customers feel fined after they have used a particular product. It has to do with how much the organization is able to meet the customers’ pre-purchase expectation. For an example, a customer that bought Mercury soap or cream because he wanted to tone his body.

 

Transactional measurement of loyalty has much to do with customers intentional or tangible purchase behaviour, such as inclination towards making repeat purchase. Some just like to make repeat purchase, not necessarily because the product satisfied their needs.

 

Customer might decide to stick to an organisation because of the stress involved in searching for another product that will do just the same thing. This might be attributed to search costs, transaction cost, learning cost and other forms of risk associated with switching to a competitor.

 

Wallet Share

This is one of the ways of measuring customer loyalty. It has much to do with the amount of money a customer is willing to share w¼th the an organisation over a particular period of time. You can determine this by dividing total purchase of the corporate brand in a particular category, say toothpaste by their total purchase in a specified category

 

Note:  It is reasonable to assume that loyalty is re-purchase behaviour

 

Loyalty is also a process, it is not something that happens overnight but an organisations can evolve means of bringing it alive by fostering behaviours and implementing processes and technology that will make customers to stick to the organisations minding mouth watering offers from competitors.

 

How to Create Customer loyalty

When an organisations wishes to build a loyal customer base, they must be intentional, consistent and different. They must be ready to add values to their customers. The must be able to serve their customers in such a way that serving customers in a unique way becomes an engine for growth in the organisations.

 

An organisations that wishes to build a loyal customer base must be able to identify their profitable customers. They must be able to do things differently. Not only that, they must be able to offer services in such a way that they leave a lasting impression in the mind of their customers.

 

If customer loyalty is based on customer behaviour, it will more be effective in making customers  to be more loyal and satisfying their needs.  It will also turn loyal customers to advocates who advertise your products and services without your paying a dime!

 

Brand Promise

This heading is self explanatory enough. Brand promise is just what customers should expect from your product. It is what customers expect your product to do for them. It should be stated from the onset that, what you expect your product to do will determine how you invest in your employees, your business, your product, technology and delivery channels. Therefore, brand promise lies at the core of the customer strategy

 

Loyalty depends on how the customers view your brand and other organisations that produce the same goods and services that you are producing. Customers are loyal to you because they believe that, that is the best decision to make at any given time. They might likely consider what it will cost them to switch over to a competitor such as time, effort, money or all the three.

 

This is telling us that if you want your customers to remain loyal to your organisation, you must go the extra mile. Do more than your competitors will do for them. It has been observed that when an organization does more than their competitors will do, their customers will remain loyal until one of the competitors raise the bar. That is why a customer-centric enterprise must have a consistent customer relationship strategy. With time, loyalty becomes an attitude. The customer finds it very difficult to shift to another brand. He will also gladly accept higher price which might be perceived as higher value by the customer.

 

Summary

So far in this chapter, we have talked at length about customer loyalty which we defined as repeat purchase. We also said the components of customer loyalty are perceptual and transactional.

 

We also discussed ways of creating customer loyalty which we said must be intentional, consistent and different. They must be ready to add values to their customers.

 

Finally, we talk about brand promise which is what people had in mind before they purchased your product. If you fall short of their expectation at any given time, they arc likely to look V the direction of our competitors.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. What is a call centre?’ do you think that the establishment of a cell centre translates to the fact that an organisations is customer centered?

      

2. Explain Segmentation and Profiling in relation to Etisalat products and services.
3. Why do you think that organisation needs to segment and profile their
   customers?
4. “Without a proper customer strategy, a CRM strategy cannot succeed” how
   truth is this assertion.

 

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Introduction

When we talk about customer care in either product-centric or customer centric organization, we are talking about a specialized 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, majority of them equate customer service with CRM. Some even assume that every Dick and Harry can be a Customer Care Representative. CSR. This is wrong.

 

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE  In this chapter, we want to look at ·    CRM strategy and Customer strategy   ·    They have much to do with what the employees need to know before they can evolve into a customer-centric enterprise.   ·    We will also need to know some of the basic things that must be present in a good customer strategy.

 

 

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 organizational 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 from customers’ perspective? 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 organization are trained to place customers first and do business from their own perspective. In this kind of organisation, profit is not the main motive of establishing business. A CRM savvy organisation believes that profit will come, but not immediately. Their immediate concern is to exceed customer’s expectation and gain their confidence. Once this is done, profit will start coming in torrents.

 

Contact or Call Cente

Call centre is more or less similar in function to Customer Care. They are set up so that, customers can call in and lodge their complaints. The call centre agent is expected to work on the complaints and ensure that customer issues are resolved completely.

 

One thing is that is very paramount when setting up contact centres is that the agents dedicated to man contact centres must be empowered to resolve customer issues completely. They must have all the necessary data that they needed in order to resolve customer issues completely. That is why organisations must deliberately seek to know more about their customers, which will ultimately help them in their bid to serve their customers better

 

This is one attribute that contribute to the success of call centres in organisations. The call centres personnel must be able to put themselves customers’ shoes. They must not treat customers as “that thing”. If they can put self in their customers’ shoes, ft will heir them in being more proactive when customer’s issues arise.

 

Professionalism is also important when it comes to the management of call centres. Many call centres are badly managed. The arc filled with people who have no iota of passion for the job that they are committed to do. They also lack the pre-requisite knowledge on what call centres are meant to do. Ibis is out rightly bad for the growth of any organisation.

 

 

Customer Segmentation

Customer Segmentation is the process of dividing customers into mutually exclusive groups, presumably because customers within each group are more similar to each other than to others.

 

Customer Segmentation, involves grouping customers together based on certain parameter. At times, when organisations examine their customer’s base, they might discover that some of their customers have certain things in common. This might make the organisation to introduce products and services that will meet each customer’s need.

 

A Typical Example

If you consider Etisalat Nigeria very critically you will see that the organisation adopted the principle of customer segmentation. They have discovered that they have different categories of customers. We have youths who would prefer to join the easy cliq network where there is free browsing, discount call rate among cliques among others. We also have elite for the rich and easy starter for the working customers.

 

Customer Profiling

A serious customer-centric enterprise must be able to decide and reach a conclusion on the calibre of customers that they wished to attract into their customer base. If an organisation wants to embark on this, they must carry out need assessment in order to discover the needs of their customers. The organization must find out what consumers really want and decide on how to meet those needs.

 

The organisation must also formulate strategies on how to retain and grow their customer base. This involves profiling. In profiling, the organisation tries to gather as much information as possible flout their customer. This will enable them to meet customer at the right place with the right products and services.

 

The customer strategy must also be able to come up with polities to be adopted in order to handle customer that do not fall into target profile, that is, customers special needs. The main reason why organisation develop customer profiling is to reduce the cost involved in getting the right customers into their Life Cycle. Once we have developed products and packages that will appeal to different categories of people; we will not have to worry anytime we are having youths as prospects. If we have products and packaging for elites, it will definitely meet the needs of those in that category.

 

Customer profiling can be based on two parameters which are Behaviour or Demography. The one that seems to be generic is the one that is based on behaviour. Youths have their own behaviours when it comes to specific needs. As youths we like convenience and “free” things. Free browsing, free credit, “buy one and get two free” We also like products and services that enable us to socialize or show that we know what is happening around us.

 

Benefits of Customer Strategy

Customer strategy serves many purposes in a customer-centric enterprise as it allows the organisation to do follow-up on the organization’s policies. It also allows the organisation to see its short comings from the organization’s perspective.

If an organization also wants to have a successful customer strategy it must know all the products and services that compete with that of the organisations for the heart of the customer/prospect.

 

Note:  Without a proper customer strategy, a CRAM strategy cannot succeed,

 

Above all, if an organisation is formulating a customer strategy, the main reason is to make sure that it gains customer loyalty and ensures that customers are satisfied irrespective of the channel that they have chosen to interact with the organisation. This forms the basic foundation of a CRM strategy

 

Summary

So far in this chapter, we have talked about CRM strategy and customer strategy We have also said that one canner work without the other. We said that before an organisation can formulate a CRM strategy it must have educated its employees on the need and ways of doing business from customers perspective.

 

We also discussed about customer segmentation which has much to do with dividing your customers into mutually exclusive groups in order to meet them at the right place with the right products. We also have customer profiling which has to do with equipping yourself with enough information about your customers. You might also need to know much about products and services that are competing with your products for the heart of the customer

 

Brainstorming Session

1. What is a call centre? Do yon think that the establishment of a cell centre translates to the fact that an organisation is customer-centered?

 

2. Explain Segmentation and Profiling in relation to Etisalat products and services.

 

3. Why do you think that organization needs to segment and profile their customers?

 

3. “Without a proper customer strategy a CR74 strategy cannot succeed” how truth is this

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What is E-CRM?

E-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 organization irrespective of the channel that they have chosen to interact with the organization. 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 article, readers should be able to understand ·          The role of technology in a customer-centric enterprise. ·          They will also understand that it is not possible to have a customer-centric             enterprise without the deployment of the internet or other technology             as enables.

 

 

E-CRM covers many aspects of the organisation. It involves deployment of applications that captures contacts, accounts, opportunities, activities, marketing, customer support, sales and service related process in the organisation.

 

Differences between CRM and E-CRM

 #1 E-CRM is web integrated CRM

Under the conventional CRM, we have organization 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 that 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 organization. This allows the staff to be able to have access to 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 organization. Through the deployment of E-CRM, various departments in an organization 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. Ii integrates different functions that can be performed in order to retain customer. These functions are all web based.

 

#5 Integration of Multiple Channels

        One other thing that give E-CRM 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 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-centered enterprise. You should note that E-CRM encompasses the whole of CRM and CRM is gradually evolving into E-CRM.

 

CRM Implementation

Before CRM can be implemented in any organisation, there are some basic things that must be put in place so that the whole process will not fail.

#1 Business Focus

Any product-centered organisation that wish to now make customers the deciding factor of its activities must communicate his new business focus to his customer. As we all know that the main reason why businesses are established is to make 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 customer-centric enterprise. There is the 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 change of address of customers. Under the new organizational structure, staffs and partners relating to customers must be able to resolve customer’s issues without having to leave their table.

 

#3  Business Metrics

Another thing that is needed for a successful evolvement into a customer-centric enterprise is Business metrics, 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 arc on the land and what they need to do in order to move forward.

 

#4 Marketing Focus

In business environment, most especially in product-centric enterprise, organisations tend to judge their performance based on how many of their products 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. This is to prevent customers from being frustrated. It also presents customers with various channels through which they can be served.

 

Implementation Challenges

 

#1 Technology Infrastructure Management

      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 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 ground.

 

#2 Change Management

It has been said that one of the reasons why many l.T project failed, was because the employees were not properly integrated into the new system. Many at time, top management just come up with the suggestion of deploying an l.T technology without proper education of the employees who are likely to revolt against the innovation.

 

An organisation that wants to migrate to customer-centric enterprise must properly sensitize her 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 is the same, it should be stated here that before a 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 web based CRM which 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

1. Examine the difference between CRM and E-CRM.
2. Why do you think many organisations are establishing call centres for their customers?

 

3. Which is the most important? CRM or E-CRM.

 

4. Examine the differences between CRM and E-CRM.

 

5. What sonic of the implementation challenges of CRM?

 

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Definition

The word “drivers” are not strange, even to a layman. They are the ones saddled with the responsibility of taking you to your desired destination (s). Don’t be surprised, CRM as a concept too has its own drivers! They 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 organizations have to evolve into a customer-centric enterprise is due to the fact that, in today’s 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 location. Distance between you and your market is now measured based on mouse clicks. That is why distance is no longer a barrier in business.

 

 

OBJECTIVE OF THIS ARTICLE    At the end of this article, readers would be able to know those v  Elements or pre-exquisites that are necessary in order for an organization to have a successful customer-centric enterprise. v  They will be able to know the role that technology and the internet play in a customer-centric enterprise.

 

#2 Size

In today’s world, the size of an organization is no longer a barrier, organizations nowadays now have a level playing group with the advent of the internet. Some smaller organizations today can now have an edge if they are able to provide the appropriate logistics. The world wide web has made organizations to stand out on the internet if they are able to provide the appropriate technology.

 

#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 organizations. There is also the proliferation of e-marketplaces which has brought about stiff competition among many organizations. Some organizations have also been also been able to automate business processes. This has allowed customers to be able to do many of what they would have had to go to the branch offices to do.

 

Scenario

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 could now transfer money from one account to the other, to check his balance, pay his staff and withdraw from the ATM. He could 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 could adopt such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Sales Force Automation (SFA), and Customer Information Factory (CIF) among others.

 

#4 Technology

One could safely say that with the advent of technology, a palace coup has occurred in between the customer and the organization with 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 serious expectation on the service providers to meet up with the demands of the ever demanding customers.

 

Poser: Are you sure this is happening in Nigeria? If not why? Send your views to info@crmnuggets.com.

 

You should know that it is very difficult for organizations to 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 my readers to know that what stands organizations out in today’s business environments is how well they managed their customers. Organizations must ensure that customers achieve their desired results irrespective of the communication channel that they choose to relate with the organization.

 

Summary

Having gone through this chapter, you should have known the four drivers of CRM. We have said that the drivers of CRM include: location, size, internet, and technology. They are the ones that help in breaking barriers in many organizations. They allowed organizations to get in touch with their customers irrespective of their locations.

 

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. In your own view, why do you think that CRM drivers are very essential for any CRM endeavor?
2. Why do you think that many organizations in Nigeria preferred to do business from product perspective?
3. What can you say about Customer Protection Council (CPC) and the need to protect the interest of consumers in Nigeria?
4. What role do you think ICT will play in helping a Customer-Centric Enterprise to achieve their objectives?

 

BRAINSTORMING SESSION

 

1. How do you think the newly introduced cashless policy introduced in Nigerian banks will help banks to serve their customers better?
2. Some have argued that Nigeria is not ripe for a cashless policy. As someone hat is knowledgeable in CRM, how do you think low bandwidth and internet facility will impact the growth of the cashless policy?

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When we talk about CRM, we are talking about how you relate with your customers. We want to look at where your business is focused on. However, before doing that, I would like to look at the subject matter of CRM from the angle of authorities in the field.

 

Brent Frei, the president of Onyx software, defined CRM as a comprehensive set of processes with potential and current customers and business partners across marketing, sales, and services regardless of the communication channel. The goal of CRM is to optimize customer and partner satisfaction, revenue, and business efficiency by building the strongest possible relationship at an organizational level.

 

From the above definition, we can see that CRM is a deliberate effort by an organization to manage relationships between all stakeholders in the organization in order to increase their value.

 

It is a deliberate attempt at ensuring that customers enjoy maximum satisfaction irrespective of their communication channels. This means that whenever a customer walks into an organization or is called a customer service centre, he enjoys the same benefits.

 

 

 

 From the above diagram, you notice that objectives come first, which shows that objective, they will formulate programs of action to achieve the objectives. The organization will communicate the idea to marketing, sales, and services organization can now introduce technology in order to make it web-based.

 

In essence, CRM is the desire of an organization to do business from the customers perspective. In this regard, all effort should be focused on the customer alone. You should know that this will not happen overnight as it has to be a gradual process before we get to the Zenith of a customer-centric enterprise.

 

You should know from the onset that CRM is not all about customers alone. It has much to do with all the stakeholders involved in your business. You want to make sure that distributors, partners, employees and all others involved in the business chain work to project the good image of your business.

 

Scenario

Mr. Winston is an MTN customer. He used to buy cards and lines in bulk from Mr. Andrew a dealer. If Mr. Andrew did not treat him well as a customer or he had a problem with some of the cards he purchased and Mr. Andrew was reluctant in addressing the issue, it can force Mr. Winston to stop dealing in MTN cards and sims.

The above scenario simply shows that any incident in the distribution chain can affect the business if it is not properly addressed.

 

Another Definition

CRM, according to Robert Thompson of crmguru.com is a business strategy to select and manage customers to optimize long-term values. CRM requires a customer-centric business philosophy and culture to support effective marketing, sales, and service processes. CRM applications can enable effective CRM, provided that an enterprise has the right leadership, strategy, and culture.

 

In applying CRM, you try to select some of your profitable customers and see how you can package products and services in order to meet the needs of your loyal customers. The greatest mistake one can make in life is for one not to be able to identify your loyal customers and how they want to be served. It is unfortunate today that many businesses in Nigeria do not know the total number of their customers and what they actually want. CRM requires a customer-centered philosophy in which you try to make all the departments in the organization most especially marketing, sales, and customer service to make customers the centerpiece of their day-to-day decisions.

 

According to Thompson, CRM needs three basic things in order for it to materialize. These are leadership, strategy, and culture. This is to say that before a customer-centric enterprise comes to fruition, you have to involve the top-level management. You must also have a well-documented plan of action and the organization must metamorphose from a product-centered enterprise to a customer-centered enterprise.

 

In my own view, I would say that CRM has much to do with the innate desire of an organization to do business from the customer’s perspective. This is done in order to raise the exit bar for loyal customers and the desire to meet customers at the organization to ensure that customers enjoyed the same benefits irrespective of the communication channels they are using to reach the organization.

 

Above all, some scholars believe that CRM is a process, strategy, and practice but not a technology. The reason is that it is not the applications or software that really matters but it is a concise decision from the organization to do business from a customer perspective through a well laid down strategy.

 

SUMMARY

In this chapter, we have tried to explain what CRM is. It is the desire of an organization to retain its loyal customers and do business from their perceptive. It is said to be a measure put in place by an organization in order to ensure that customers have the same experience irrespective of communication channel.

CRM is a business strategy to create and sustain long-term, profitable customer relationships through successful CRM initiatives. It starts with a business philosophy that aligns company activities around customer needs. Only then can CRM technology be used as it should be based as a critical enabling tool of the processes required in order to turn strategy into business results? 

 

BRAINSTORMING SESSION

1. You are staff in a new-generation bank. Your Branch Manager has appointed you and some keys staffs to work out the modalities on how the bank will become customer-centered. In your own view, how can you enlighten your Branch Manager on the need for the bank to become customer-centered?
2. Using Mr. Winston’s issue as a case study. In your own view, why do you think that MTN as a large organization needs to monitor the activities of its partners so that they are not misrepresented?

 

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Given the various definitions of CRM
2. Why do you think metric is necessary for CRM
3. Explain Robert Thompson’s definition of CRM.

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Definition
When we talk of marketing communication, from the word we can see that it has much to do with sending and receiving messages that go on between prospects and the organization in the process of drawing them into the lifecycle of the organization.

 

One of such mediums of communication that is used is the process of educating leads so that they can make decisions of becoming a customer or not.

 

Management email is used in two ways in marketing automation, this can be inbound or outbound. Inbound e-mail management capabilities assist organizations in handling organization to extend personalization techniques to multiple communication types.

 

Objectives of this article At  the end of this article, readers should be able to:   Know what email management is.  Know the benefits of inbound email management.   Know the capabilities of email management.

 

 

 

Outbound email management capabilities provide the ability to construct and execute permission-based marketing campaigns. (Where the dialogue has been started with a customer via e-mail communications) and are said to be up to twenty percent more successful than traditional direct marketing at a fraction of the cost.

 

 

While communication channels vary, email is emerging as a popular communication channel. Most businesses, therefore, use e-Newsletters as part of the marketing mix.

 

The response and conversion rates associated with email marketing have been on the rise and have also been found to be an effective method of customer acquisition and retention.

 

 

You should know that sales and lead generation are the popular criteria that are used in evaluating the effectiveness of marketing-related activities.

 

You should be able to know the rate at which your email marketing is yielding results. You should know that your email marketing can yield results by getting the right message to the right persons.

 

Email campaigns are very cost-effective, they have a high return on investment, they are said to be capable of generating at least three times the cost of the campaign in new business.

 

Capabilities
Email marketing has the capability of targeting and sending mass E-mails.

 

The organization can generate a database and send mass emails to potential leads who might be interested in their products and services.

 

 

E-mail marketing also has the potential of generating mass responses to mass e-mails.

 

It will give the organization ample time needed in order to respond to the customers’ requests individually.

 

There is also the use of a decision engine to parse information from incoming e-mail correspondence.

 

The decision engine will be able to look at the emails and decide on potential leads that can be followed up so that they can be dragged into the customer life cycle of the organization.

 

 

There should also be crafting responses to incoming emails without human intervention.

 

This will prevent staff from intervening in the process as they are capable of misrepresenting the organization. This is also needed due to the large number of people that are involved in the process.

 

 

Email management is very valuable as it is capable of being personalized.

 

There have also been speculations about the utility of mass customization when the focus of CRM initiative is ‘relationship’ enhancement.

 

This is addressed through Analytical CRM components, where specific data about the customer is transformed into useful information.

 
Summary
At the end of this chapter, we discovered. How Email management is becoming one of the popular ways of getting new customers.

• We have two types of email management which are inbound and outbound.
• An email has the capability of reaching out to many people, generating automatic responses, and deciding on whether a particular lead of becoming a customer or not.
• The main benefit of email management is that it is capable of being personalized in order to meet the need of the user. But the main essence of it is that it allows organizations to use basic information about the customer for the benefit of meeting them at the right place with the right products and services.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. What is Marketing Communication?
2. What are some of its features?
3. Discuss the capabilities of E-mail marketing.
4. The new organization that you worked for has received numerous complaints that some staff in the organization have a lackadaisical attitude towards customer-related issues. What are the practical ways of correcting this anomaly among your staff?

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Introduction
 
In organizations, the marketing departments carry out a campaign in order to attract new customers to their lifecycle.

 

These campaigns take different forms based on the type of organization in question. In whatever form an organization is carrying out its campaign, there is a need for them to analyze the effectiveness of its campaigns.

 

That is what brought about what is called a “closed-loop reporting system”, which is a system adopted in order to analyse or alter the result of campaigns.

 

When an organisation is planning a campaign, or it is trying to calculate what it has failed in the past. It is when this is done that can then to calculate their return on investment, and decide on whether to jettison a campaign and project the result into subsequent campaigns.

 

Objectives of this article At the end of this article, readers should be able to : Know the reasons why organizations carry out campaigns.  Know why organisations need to examine past campaigns.  Know why record keeping is necessary for campaign management.

 

 

A system that does this, is referred to as a Closed-Loop Reporting System.

 

 
Know that it is possible to measure the effectiveness of the campaign. Let’s take for example a cosmetic company that can base its result on the number of new customers that it got after its product awareness campaign.

 

You can also measure the success of direct marketing through the number of leads that you are able to generate after the campaign.

 

 

One thing that is very paramount in campaign management is that you must be able to link your tactics to the customers’ response.

 

One other thing in the campaign is that it might continue to occur while customers only need a single campaign in order to make their decision.

 

 

As an organization, although it might be very difficult to resolve the issue of the impact of multiple campaigns, you must be able to identify which campaign has the strongest impact and why.

 

The only way that this can be done is for the organization to ask the customers which of the campaigns has the strongest impact on them.

 

 

Before you can develop the ground for a successful campaign in the future, you need to be able to address some of the lapses in your present campaigns.

 

There are two basic things that you need to do. One such is that you have to gather all the knowledge that you have heard from your previous campaigns together.

 

You must have a record of it, so as to prevent the reoccurrence of the errors of the past.

 

 

The second thing that you have to do is that you have to apply the knowledge you have gathered when planning future campaigns. You must never repeat the errors of the past.

 

 

You should know that, as an organization, you must be able to weigh the effectiveness of your campaigns in reaching your target, which might be to create awareness or generate valuable leads for the organisation.

 

Your metrics should be able to tell you about the conversion rate and how far the metrics have been able to generate leads for the organization.

 

The efficiency of any campaign embarked upon by an organization can be ascertained by looking at the cost per response, qualified leads and opportunity for sales that such a campaign has created.

When planning campaigns, you should have metrics that compare campaigns based on budgets, effectiveness and expectations.

 

When these are done, the organization will be able to allocate resources based on business needs for the campaign and the current market situation.

 

This will go a long way in helping the organization to identify campaigns that work from the ones that do not work.

 

 

Summary

• Closed-loop reporting is the ability to analyze or alter the result of campaigns.
• The reason we measure campaigns is to identify the reasons why they worked or failed.
• In closed-loop reporting, you have to keep records of the results and use the knowledge gathered when planning subsequent campaigns.
• You should be able to compare budgets and expectations of campaigns in order to know the reasons some worked while others failed.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. Discuss Analyzing, Learning, Listening and Responding Management.
2. Is this relevant to CRM?
3. From your own personal experience, how truth is the fact that consumers will leave your product once a better product at a moderate price presents itself?

 

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 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 can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNIGERIA 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.

 

Hi, I now use RavenBank to send, receive and save money. I also pay my bills with ease, you should try it out too

 

Definition
When we talk of marketing communication, from the word we can see that it has much to do with sending and receiving messages that go on between prospects and the organization in the process of drawing them into the lifecycle of the organization.

 

One of such mediums of communication that is used is the process of educating leads so that they can make decisions of becoming a customer or not.

 

Management email is used in two ways in marketing automation, this can be inbound or outbound. Inbound e-mail management capabilities assist organizations in handling organization to extend personalization techniques to multiple communication types.

Objectives of this article At  the end of this article, readers should be able to:   Know what email management is.  Know the benefits of inbound email management.   Know the capabilities of email management.

 

 

 

 

Outbound email management capabilities provide the ability to construct and execute permission-based marketing campaigns. (Where the dialogue has been started with a customer via e-mail communications) and are said to be up to twenty percent more successful than traditional direct marketing at a fraction of the cost.

 

 

While communication channels vary, email is emerging as a popular communications channel. Most businesses, therefore, use e-Newsletters as part of the marketing mix.

 

The response and conversion rates associated with email marketing have been on the rise and have also been found to be an effective method of customer acquisition and retention.

 

 

You should know that sales and lead generation are the popular criteria that are used in evaluating the effectiveness of marketing related activities.

 

You should be able to know the rate at which your email marketing is yielding results. You should know that your email marketing can yield results by getting the right message to the right persons.

 

Email campaigns are very cost-effective, they have a high return on investment, they are said to be capable of generating at least three times the cost of the campaign in new business.

 

Capabilities
Email marketing has the capabilities of targeting and sending mass E-mails.

 

The organization can generate a database and send mass emails to potential leads who might be interested in their products and services.

 

 

E-mail marketing also has the potential of generating mass responses to mass e-mails.

 

It will give the organization ample time needed in order to respond to the customers’ requests individually.

 

There is also the use of a decision engine to parse information from incoming e-mail correspondence.

 

The decision engine will be able to look at the emails and decide on potential leads that can be followed up so that they can be dragged into the customer life cycle of the organization.

 

 

There should also be crafting responses to incoming emails without human intervention.

 

This will prevent staff from intervening in the process as they are capable of misrepresenting the organisation. This is also needed due to the large number of people that are involved in the process.

 

 

Email management is very valuable as it is capable of being personalized.

 

There has also been speculations about the utility of mass customization when the focus of CRM initiative is ‘relationship’ enhancement.

 

This is addressed through Analytical CRM components, where specific data about the customer is transformed into useful information.

 
Summary
At the end of this chapter, we discovered. How Email management is becoming one of the popular ways of getting new customers.

• We have two types of email management which are inbound and outbound.
• An email has the capability of reaching out to many people, generating automatic responses, and deciding on whether a particular lead of becoming a customer or not.
• The main benefit of email management is that it is capable of being personalized in order to meet the need of the user. But the main essence of it is that it allows organizations to use basic information about the customer for the benefit of meeting them at the right place with the right products and services.

 

Brainstorming Session

1. What is Marketing Communication?
2. What are some of its features?
3. Discuss the capabilities of E-mail marketing.
4. The new organisation that you worked for has received numerous complaints that some staff in the organisation have a lackadaisical attitude towards customer related issues. What are the practical ways of correcting this anomaly among your staff?

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 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 can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNIGERIA 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.

 

Hi, I now use RavenBank to send, receive and save money. I also pay my bills with ease, you should try it out too

 

 

At the end of this article, readers should be able to understand what: Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is, Understand the drivers of CRM Identify the elements of a good CRM strategy,  Know the relationship between technology and CRM.  They should be able to explain the CRM solution map, Define E-CRM, and know the differences between CRM and E-CRM. They should be able to highlight some of the challenges of implementing CRM in any organization.

 

Definition of CRM
When we talk about CRM, we are talking about how you relate to your customers. We want to look at where your business is focused on. However, before doing that, I would like to look at the subject matter of CRM from the angle of authorities in the field.

Brent Frei, the president of Onyx software, defined CRM as a comprehensive set of processes with potential and current customers and business partners across marketing, sales and services regardless of the communication channel. The goal of CRM is to optimize customer and partner satisfaction, revenue and business efficiency by building the strongest possible relationship at an organizational level.

 

From the above definition, we can see that CRM is a deliberate effort by an organisation to manage the relationship between all stakeholders in the organisation in order to increase their value. It is a deliberate attempt at ensuring that customers enjoy maximum satisfaction irrespective of their communication channels. This means that whenever a customer walks into an organisation or calls a customer service centre, he enjoys the same benefits.

 

 

From the above diagram, you notice that objectives come first, which shows that objective, they will formulate programs of action to achieve the objectives. The organization will communicate the idea to marketing, sales and services organization can now introduce technology in order to make it web-based.

 

 

In essence, CRM is the desire of an organisation to do business from a customer’s perspective. In this regard, all effort should be focused on the customer alone. You should know that this will not happen overnight as it has to be a gradual process before we get to the Zenith of a customer-centric enterprise.

 

 

You should know from the onset that CRM is not all about customers alone. It has much to do with all the stakeholders involved in your business. You want to make sure that distributors, partners, employees and all others involved in the business chain work to project a good image of your business.

 

 

Scenario
Mr Winston is an MTN customer. He used to buy cards and lines in bulk from Mr Andrew a dealer. If Mr Andrew did not treat him well as a customer or he had a problem with some of the cards he purchased and Mr Andrew was reluctant in addressing the issue, it can force Mr Winston to stop dealing in MTN cards and sims.
The above scenario simply shows that any incident in the distribution chain can affect the business if it is not properly addressed.

 

 

Another Definition
CRM, according to Robert Thompson of crmguru.com is a business strategy to select and manage customers to optimize long-term values. CRM requires a customer-centric business philosophy and culture to support effective marketing, sales and service processes. CRM applications can enable effective CRM, provided that an enterprise has the right leadership, strategy and culture.

 

In applying CRM, you try to select some of your profitable customers and see how you can package products and services in order to meet the needs of your loyal customers.

 

The greatest mistake one can make in life is for one not being able to identify loyal customers and how they want to be served. It is unfortunate today that many businesses in Nigeria do not know the total number of their customers and what they actually want.

 

CRM requires a customer-centred philosophy in which you try to make all the departments in the organisation most especially marketing, sales and customer service to make customers the centrepiece of their day-to-day decision.

 

 

According to Thompson, CRM needs three basic things in order for it to materialize. These are leadership, strategy and culture. This is to say that before a customer-centric enterprise comes to fruition, you have to involve top-level management. You must also have a well-documented plan of action and the organisation must metamorphose from a product-centred enterprise to a customer-centred enterprise.

 

 

In my own view, I would say that CRM has much to do with the innate desire of an organization to do business from a customer perspective. This is done in order to raise the exit bar for loyal customers and the desire to meet a customer at an organisation to ensure that customers enjoyed the same benefits irrespective of the communication channels they are using to reach the organisation.

 

 

Above all, some scholars believe that CRM is a process, strategy and practice but not a technology. The reason is that it is not the applications or software that really matters but it is a concise decision from the organisation to do business from a customer perspective through a well-laid down strategy.

 

 

SUMMARY
In this chapter, we have tried to explain what CRM is. It is the desire of an organization to retain its loyal customers and do business from their perceptive. It is said to be a measure put in place by an organization in order to ensure that customers have the same experience irrespective of a communication channel.

 

CRM is a business strategy to create and sustain long-term, profitable customer relationships through successful CRM initiatives. It starts with a business philosophy that aligns company activities around customer needs. Only then can CRM technology be used as it should be based as a critical enabling tool for the processes required in order to turn strategy into business results.

 

 

BRAINSTORMING SESSION

1. You are a staff in a new generation bank. Your Branch Manager has appointed you and some keys staffs to work out the modalities of how the bank will become customer-centred. In your own view, how can you enlighten your Branch Manager on the need for the bank to become customer-centred?
2. Critically examine the fig. 1 diagram and use it to explain to your Branch Manager, how CRM works in any organisation.
3. Using Mr Winston’s issue as a case study. In your own view, why do you think that MTN as a large organisation needs to monitor the activities of its partners so that they are not misrepresented?

 

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Given the various definitions of CRM
2. Why do you think metric is necessary for CRM
3. Explain Robert Thompson’s definition 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 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 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 can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNIGERIA 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.

 

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OBJECTIVE OF THIS ARTICLE At the end of this article, we are going to discover the following: Definition of Sales Forecasting What sales funnel Management is Qualities of a good sales Pipeline Management

 
 
Introduction
Sales forecasting is the ability of an organization to predict what the outcome of its effort would be in a given year.

 

Forecasting will enable an organization to have a clear and timely idea of their expected revenue and what their customers’ demand will be as it will help the organization to plan their sales and this will enable the organization to close more deals, and generate more profit. This ensures that the organization is able to monitor its sales in order to ensure the sales revenue is been maximized.

 

 

Sales forecasting is a very important tool in SFA. It will enable an organization to know their sales potential and it will also embellish them with relevant information that they needed in order to meet their customers at the right place with the right is been manufacturing process of the right place with the right product and services.

 

 

Sales forecasting allows customer and sales agents to list their projected needs so that these can be accounted for in the manufacturing process of the organization.

 

It is one of the things that organizations have to put in place in order to have a successful sales endeavour.

 

 

Sales Funnel Management
A Sales funnel offers a bird’s eye view of sales opportunities and gives sales managers basic information about their sales endeavour.

 

They also work closely with lead management and opportunity management in an organization.

 

 

In any organization, Leads that have financial potential are given an estimated time for closure of the deal. The sales funnel uses time and territory management to qualify the leads as suspects, prospects and sponsors.

 

 

One basic thing about the sales funnel in SEA is that it will allow the organization to have access to basic information concerning the progress of leads and the stage they are.

 

This will enable organizations to have strategic planning and make informed decisions that will allow them to close deals faster.

 

 

Sales funnel will also make sales teams be more efficient, it allows them to be more timely in their dealings.

 

It will also allow them to be more consistent in their operation as they will have a singular and uniform view of customers across the organization.

 

 

Sales Pipeline Management
One point to consider about CRM is that it enables you to predict demands from your customers. But it is rather unfortunate that many organizations do not understand this basic feature of CRM.

A sales pipeline is used in CCE to explain the established sales processes that an organization has established for itself.

 

Every organization whether product or customer-centred must have processes and protocols that they follow in carrying out their sales processes.

 

You should know that the sales processes can be customized to cater to various sales process needs. This includes prospecting, potential lead, and qualification, opportunity, building vision, shortlisting, negotiation and closure.

 

 

In managing the sales forecast, you should embrace best practices in order to earn tile trust of your customers.

 

One of the things that you have to do is you must remove bias and subjectivity from the forecast. You must be able to look at your customers objectively and decide on where they fit into.

 

This should not be narrow-based or parochial in nature.

 

 

The organization should also be able to use past actual sales to determine the current forecast.

 

The organisation can also look into how their sales were in the previous vent to determine the likelihood of an increase ~ decrease in sales in the present year.

 

 

Objective forecasts are more accurate and predictable than forecasts that are being manipulated with subjective weighting or probabilities from sales representatives, the management or other executives.

 

 

Pipeline management tries to extract data from sales forecasts and then plan their sales activities in order to align with the outcome of their prediction.
 
 
SUMMARY
At the end of this chapter we have been able to discover that:

• Sales forecasting is the ability of an organization to predict what xviii be the outcome of the sales endeavour in a given year.
• The sales funnel shows sales opportunities and give sales stakeholders the basic information that they need about sales endeavour
• Sales Pipeline Management shows the sales processes that an organization has been able to establish with its customers.
• Sales forecasting must be objective in its analysis.
• It should also use past sales results to predict the future.

 
Brainstorming Session

1. Discuss Sales Pipeline Management.
2. Differentiate between the three types of leads.
3. What is Sales Funnel Management?
4. In your own view, what are the reasons why CRM as a course and a concept is not popular in Nigeria?

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 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 can drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.

CRMNIGERIA 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.

 

Hi, I now use RavenBank to send, receive and save money. I also pay my bills with ease, you should try it out too

 

OBJECTIVES OF THIS ARTICLE At the end of this article, readers should be able  Define Marketing Automation. Know the features of good marketing automation.

 
Marketing automation consists of the acts of designing, executing and measuring of marketing campaigns of an organization.

One of the software’s used in marketing automation is called Enterprise Marketing Automation (EMA) which is a software used to embark on campaign management.

 

Marketing automation is a subset of operational CRM that focuses on the marketing aspect. It involves capturing customer information, analyzing, customer segmentation and Strategy, campaign management, tracking among others.

 

This does not have to do with advertising and agency relations which can be very difficult to automate.

 

Marketing automation application helps organizations with their campaign management. It enables them to initiate campaigns and monitor the results.

 

They can generate a database which they can use in generating a list of customers that will receive mails and telemarketing calls.

 

It can also include programs that do a manual or automatic follow-up on customers. The organization at times can also receive third-party lists to be included in campaigns.

 

 

There is also the release of software that monitor the behaviours of customers on corporate websites. This at times allow the organization to monitor the efficiency of customer experience.

 

It also allows organizations to sell additional products to existing customers, which are achieved based on customer behaviour.

 

There is also the deployment of email marketing in order to increase customer experience.

 

#1 Flexibility

For the desired solution to be able to fit in into the business; whether it is a small, medium or large scale business, they should be able to compress the solution so that it can fit in into their need.

 

Besides, the IT department of the organization should be to troubleshoot the software and understand how it works.

 

This will help in reducing the period it will take to implement the data, and prevent a situation whereby the solution is abandoned.

 

It will also help in reducing the problem that may arise during future merger and acquisition.
                                       

#2 Adaptability

It is the solution that should adapt to the way the organization wants to work. Staff should not be forced to fit into how the solution is to work.

 

This will enable the organization to have a quick and good return on investment.

#3 Integration

            Marketing Automation in a CCE must be able to integrate with all the multimedia channels that we have in recent time.

 

Some of these channels include web, e­commerce, and email. It also includes traditional models such as email and advertising. This will ensure that the software is not abandoned.

 

 

#4 Reporting and Measurement

The required solution must be able to record and measure the success of campaigns being carried out by the organization. It must be able to show in a graphical manner the cost per lead, cost per order, repent and additional sales, and response rate among others.

 

It should be able to access the response rate by prospects. It should be able to predict based on certain parameters if there is any need for the organization to fine-tune their campaigns before it is introduced to the general public, based on some “what if” queries and analyses.
 

#5 Targeting and Profiling

         A good marketing automation software must be able to present reports in a way that non-technical people can easily understand.

 

They should be able to segment and target audience for a campaign and target it through to completion.

 

 

         The organization should be able to make rules and establish guidelines that will help the organization to carry our campaigns and segment their customers.

 

They should have an array of rules that they can apply to segment their contacts accurately.

#6 Automated Responses

         Any solution that will be deployed must be able to record responses from prospects and customers from various channels.

 

It should also be able to automatically respond to queries, and follow up until customer’s issues are fully resolved.

SUMMARY

In this chapter, we have been able to discover:

• Marketing automation is the act of designing, executing and measuring marketing campaigns of an organization.

 

• Some of the features of marketing automation include flexibility, adaptability, integration, Reporting and measurement, targeting and profiling and automated response.

 

BRAINSTORMING SESSION

1. Discuss Marketing Automation.
2. Discuss the features of Marketing Automation.
3. Why do you think that Marketing Automation is relevant?

 
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 level, I will be very glad to do that I have trained several individuals and groups and they are doing well in their various fields of endeavour. Some of those that I have trained includes staffs of Dangote Refinery, FCMB, Zenith Bank, 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.

CRMNIGERIA 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.

 

Hi, I now use RavenBank to send, receive and save money. I also pay my bills with ease, you should try it out too