rti software - Why CRM -Overview of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

WHY IS CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT NEEDED?

Retaining your customers is a critical factor in being successful. It is much more expensive to get a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer. Customer retention requires that you have a more personal relationship with your customers and provide multiple methods of communication. Many people in your organization have contact with your customers: sales people, customer support reps, consultants, management, and, sometimes, developers. Customer Relationship Management enables you to provide information about all these relationships and contacts with each customer. The CRM methodology requires creation of an enterprise-wide database containing all information about your customer. This enables all individuals who have contact with the customer to know everything that is taking place with the customer.

WHAT DOES CRM REQUIRE?

As mentioned above, Customer Relationship Management requires a central enterprise-wide database that is used by all members of the organization, and is often referred to as Enterprise Relationship Management. The first relationship generally occurs during the sales and marketing cycle when the "customer" is first a "prospect". During the sales process, all information gathered about the prospect site and their personnel is recorded in the CRM database. Once the prospect becomes a customer, sales will most likely still retain a relationship with the customer. In addition, customer support, professional services, development, and management play important roles in providing service and maintaining a good relationship with the customer.

Every conversation, visit, or correspondence with a customer should be recorded in this database. You need to track the individuals at your customer, the products which the customer has purchased, what has been shipped to the customer, maintenance contracts or service level agreements as well as all work or support provided to your customer.

If all relationships and contacts are maintained in this database, any person who is speaking with the customer will have access to all this information. Not only does this improve the ability to provide superior service, but each customer feels like they are important to you which results in higher customer satisfaction.

WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS AND WHO ARE THE USERS OF A CRM SYSTEM?

Marketing needs to analyze previous marketing campaigns to determine where marketing dollars should be spent. They should be able to identify the type, size, etc. of their ideal prospect.
Sales Force Automation (SFA) is crucial for your telesales and/or outside sales force to automate their sales effort. This should include tracking a history of each Sales Opportunity and the ability to set ticklers, do forecasting, track the competition and all other available information about the prospect.
Once the prospect becomes a customer you need to record the products purchased, quantities, maintenance contracts, and/or service level agreements. You will also need to track the products that have been shipped to the customer. This might include the version/release for software products and the serial numbers for hardware products.
Customer Support comes into the picture to provide service for the customer in answering questions, resolving bugs, and tracking enhancement requests. During this process, the support rep should be notified if the customer's maintenance contract has expired. They also need to be aware of all other open issues for this customer.
Development and QA are involved when the customer's issue is an actual software bug. Development needs to record the way they are fixing this problem and how the fix is being supplied to the customer.
Professional Services maintains a relationship with the customer to provide implementation services, training, custom modifications, or other consulting services. All this information should be recorded in the CRM database to provide a complete picture of all contacts and services provided to the customer.
Management must be able to review and monitor the services and interactions with customers. An automated Escalation or Notification system should warn management if response times or other time commitments are not being met.


		OVERVIEW OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) WHY IS CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT NEEDED? Retaining your customers is a critical factor in being successful. It is much more expensive to get a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer. Customer retention requires that you have a more personal relationship with your customers and provide multiple methods of communication. Many people in your organization have contact with your customers: sales people, customer support reps, consultants, management, and, sometimes, developers. Customer Relationship Management enables you to provide information about all these relationships and contacts with each customer. The CRM methodology requires creation of an enterprise-wide database containing all information about your customer. This enables all individuals who have contact with the customer to know everything that is taking place with the customer. WHAT DOES CRM REQUIRE? As mentioned above, Customer Relationship Management requires a central enterprise-wide database that is used by all members of the organization, and is often referred to as Enterprise Relationship Management. The first relationship generally occurs during the sales and marketing cycle when the "customer" is first a "prospect". During the sales process, all information gathered about the prospect site and their personnel is recorded in the CRM database. Once the prospect becomes a customer, sales will most likely still retain a relationship with the customer. In addition, customer support, professional services, development, and management play important roles in providing service and maintaining a good relationship with the customer. Every conversation, visit, or correspondence with a customer should be recorded in this database. You need to track the individuals at your customer, the products which the customer has purchased, what has been shipped to the customer, maintenance contracts or service level agreements as well as all work or support provided to your customer. If all relationships and contacts are maintained in this database, any person who is speaking with the customer will have access to all this information. Not only does this improve the ability to provide superior service, but each customer feels like they are important to you which results in higher customer satisfaction. WHAT ARE THE COMPONENTS AND WHO ARE THE USERS OF A CRM SYSTEM? Marketing needs to analyze previous marketing campaigns to determine where marketing dollars should be spent. They should be able to identify the type, size, etc. of their ideal prospect. Sales Force Automation (SFA) is crucial for your telesales and/or outside sales force to automate their sales effort. This should include tracking a history of each Sales Opportunity and the ability to set ticklers, do forecasting, track the competition and all other available information about the prospect. Once the prospect becomes a customer you need to record the products purchased, quantities, maintenance contracts, and/or service level agreements. You will also need to track the products that have been shipped to the customer. This might include the version/release for software products and the serial numbers for hardware products. Customer Support comes into the picture to provide service for the customer in answering questions, resolving bugs, and tracking enhancement requests. During this process, the support rep should be notified if the customer's maintenance contract has expired. They also need to be aware of all other open issues for this customer. Development and QA are involved when the customer's issue is an actual software bug. Development needs to record the way they are fixing this problem and how the fix is being supplied to the customer. Professional Services maintains a relationship with the customer to provide implementation services, training, custom modifications, or other consulting services. All this information should be recorded in the CRM database to provide a complete picture of all contacts and services provided to the customer. Management must be able to review and monitor the services and interactions with customers. An automated Escalation or Notification system should warn management if response times or other time commitments are not being met.

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