Introduction to CRMThe User Interface Perspective

Ahmed Seffah, ProfessorInformation Systems InstituteHEC- University of Laussane

What is CRM?

• The true business of every company is to make and keep customers

• CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management• It is a strategy used to learn more about customers' needs and

behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them• There are many technological components to CRM, but

thinking about CRM in primarily technological terms is a mistake

• The more useful way to think about CRM is as a process that will help bring together lots of pieces of information about customers (Market research, historical data), sales (Historical data), marketing effectiveness (Sales/Advertising, Sales/Sales Rep), responsiveness (Response to price, promotion, distribution), and market trends (Market research….)

What is a CRM?

Customer Relationship Management

• CRM is an approach that recognizes that customers are the core of the business and that the company’s success depends on effectively managing relationships with them

• Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction

CRM Benefits

CRIM = The Customer is Always Right

• It is essential for companies today to be aware of their customers and treat them like royalty.

• Innovative products & services and superb customer service are becoming a necessity for many organizations. For example:– Customer Profiles and

Preference Analysis– Prospective Customer Lists

& Marketing Databases– Mass Customization– Personalization

Customer Services

• The services can be divided into five major activities, all of which are supported by IT & can be done on the Web, even in a wireless environment.– Advertisement and reaching customers – Order processing – Customer service– Sales support– Account management

CRM, cont’d.• Relationship marketing: the “overt attempt

of exchange partners to build a long-term association, characterized by purposeful cooperation and mutual dependence on the development of social, as well as structural, bonds” (Mowen & Minor, 1998).

• E-Service: customer service that is performed on the Web, sometimes automatically.

Introduction to CRM

• Contact Points:– Advertisements, Retail counters, Website visits, Purchase,

Direct sales, Catalogs, direct mail, Telemarketing, Call centers, Internet email, Sales promotions, Banner advertisements, Market research……

• What do we get: Data, Data, Data• What do we want? Information and knowledge of

customers• Why do we want this? Retain customers, Target

customers, Change strategies, Make it easy for customers to access information, product, services. Identify profitable customers

Goal of a CRM• To use technology and human resources to gain insight into

the behavior of customers and the value of those customers

• Provide better customer service • Make call centers more efficient • Cross sell products more effectively • Help sales staff close deals faster • Simplify marketing and sales processes • Discover new customers • Increase customer revenues

CRM in Action

• According to Seybold and Marshak (1998) there are five steps in building IT-supported CRM. These are:– Make it easy for customers to do business with you.– Focus on the end customer for your products and services.– Redesign your customer-facing business processes from

the end customer’s point of view.– Wire your company for profit: design a comprehensive,

evolving electronic business architecture.– Foster customer loyalty. In e-Commerce, especially, this is

the key to profitability.

IT in CRM

Customer Services

• Providing Search and Comparison Capabilities

• Providing Free Products and Services• Providing Technical and Other

Information and Service• Allowing Customers to Order Customized

Products and Services Online• Letting Customers Track Accounts or

Order Status

Tools for Customer Service

• Personalized Web Pages• FAQs• Tracking Tools• Chat Rooms• E-mail and Automated Response• Help Desks and Call Centers • Troubleshooting Tools

CRM is Cool But How Does It Happen?

• Buy software, install it, and you are all set (Wrong!)• Identify what information you need and what to do with it!• What are the sources of information, where, when, how

data come? Where to store this data? How data is used currently?

• CRM systems link these points. • Data flow between operational system (Sales, Inventories,

etc.) to Analytical systems (Logical system/software to identify trends, patterns, behavior…by sorting through this records)

• Analysts can analyze these patterns to make conclusion about customer needs, profile, profitability to make crucial business decisions

Examples of Data That CRM Needs to Collect

• Responses to campaigns • Shipping and fulfillment dates • Sales and purchase data • Account information • Web registration data • Service and support records • Demographic data • Web sales data

CRM Packages • Ardexus MODE v. 5.5 -- Ardexus Inc. • C2 CRM v. 8.0 -- Clear Technologies Inc. • CMS/Oncontact V, v. 5.2 -- Oncontact Software Corp. • Goldmine v. 7.0.3 & HEAT -- FrontRange Solutions Inc. • Maximizer Enterprise 9.5 -- Maximizer Software Inc. • Microsoft CRM 3.0 -- Microsoft Corp. • NetSuite CRM v. 11.0 & NetSuite v. 11.0 -- NetSuite Inc. • Powertrak v. 8.02 -- Axonom Inc. • Relavis CRM 7.0 -- Relavis Corp. • RightNow CRM v. 8.0 -- RightNow Technologies Inc. • Sage CRM 100/200 v. 6.0 -- Sage Software • Sage SalesLogix v. 7.0 -- Sage Software • Salesforce.com -- Salesforce.com Inc. • Salesplace 2006.3.2 -- Interchange Solutions • SalesPage CRM -- SalesPage Technologies LLC • Siebel CRM OnDemand -- Oracle/Siebel Systems Inc. • StayinFront CRM v. 9.3 -- StayinFront Inc.

Case Studies• NetSuite : http://www.netsuite.com• Maximer : http://www.maximizer.com• Goldmine : http://www.goldmine.com

Why CRM Fail

• Research group after research group report that an extraordinarily high percentage of software projects either fail to meet their goals after completion, are delivered over-budget or late, or are simply cancelled outright.

• Gartner says half the projects in their study exceeded their initial budget tolerance by 200%. Standish Group suggests fully 1/3 of software projects are scotched before a single user has drawn benefit from the application.

• The numbers are higher with CRM projects; studies show up to 70% of CRM projects fail.

A Road Map for successThat starts with some self-analysis covering all three components:• Assess and Benchmark your current team. What does the organization look like? Who has a customer-facing role, and what do they do? A basic organizational map, along with a list of each team’s assigned roles is an essential first step. If you don’t know what you have to start with, it’s nearly impossible to map out next steps and improvement points. • Map out the basic contours of the key customer-centric processes, including those that generate new business, as well as those that work to support existing clients. Who does what and in what order? What tools do they use to accomplish these tasks? Think about supporting processes as well, like prospect generation, lead qualification, or contract writing. The most important rule? Be honest about how it actually works, not how it’s supposed to work. • Create a vision of the future by modeling the way your customer-centric processes ought to be. Now you can set your “AS-IS” information aside and start working through how things should be. For each existing process, you’ll want a corresponding future state. The difference between your IS and SHOULD processes represents your path for change.

Effectiveness

• Users have to be able to complete the tasks and jobs they wish to perform. Sounds obvious, but the implications are significant. Whilst your product may work perfectly well from a functional perspective, many users will have difficulty learning tasks, to the extent that much of the product's features will never be used.

• CRM applications usually encapsulate extensive functionality and complex processes - an intuitive, helpful interface will help users find the functions and features they want, when they want them. Not only does this mean they get the best out of the application, it also saves on training - both formal and time wasted helping others wrestle with difficult applications.

Efficiency

• Efficiency measures how quickly and easily any given task can be completed. It makes sense to ensure that common tasks in particular, that are performed repeatedly, can be completed as quickly as possible. Clearly if a given task takes less time, this leads to increases in productivity.

• In CRM installations, which can often run to hundreds of users, even minor improvements in efficiency can have significant effects on productivity. If similar tasks are performed thousands of times a day in a call centre for example, shaving just seconds from each can save considerable amounts of time and money.

Satisfaction

• If products are not enjoyable to use, there is a real risk that they will be rejected by the people who are intended to use them.

• This problem is particularly acute in the CRM market, where so many implementations fall prey to employees resistant to change or unwilling to adopt to new working practices.

• Products that are a pleasure to use and provide day-one performance are far more likely to be positively welcomed. Meanwhile unpleasant, counter intuitive products tend to end up as white elephants, whilst users return to previous work practices.

Demo and Reference

• CRM Guru http://www.crm-guru.com/• Watch the video

What I Like Best About NetSuitehttp://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj7ZsKZiBiw&feature=channel_page

• Gooldmine demohttp://www.frontrange.com/registration/Register.aspx?regid=677