new trends in crm by: amritraj d.bangera

7/28/2019 New Trends in CRM By: Amritraj D.Bangera

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Introduction

The process of developing a cooperative and collaborative relationship between the

buyers and sellers is called customer relationship management shortly called CRM. CRM

aims at focusing all the organizational activities towards creating and maintaining a customer.CRM is a new technique in marketing where the marketer tries to develop long term

collaborative relationship with customers to develop them as life time customers. CRM aims

to make the customer climb up the ladder of loyalty.

CRM is putting your customer at the heart of your business. Today it is more

important than ever to build better relationships with your customers as, in this day and age

ofsocial media, they now talk to hundreds people at a time. They have a megaphone, making

it easier for positive and negative messages to spread fast and wide. Customer Relationship

Management once a traditional customer strategy is now making new strides. Organizations

are trying to make CRM more appealing to the masses and vendors are make an effort to

come up with as many innovations as possible, in order to meet the requirements. CRM is

blossoming out at every turn as the new CRM trends take shape and start to succeed. Old

traditional methods of CRM are fast being left behind as companies try their best to cater to

the client. Its latest trends include a profound integration with customer analytics, business

intelligence etc.

Traditionally, CRM served mainly to collate customer data like profiles, order history

etc. and served to maintain a relationship with the customer and the company. Now however,

CRM has the potential to study the data available and offer predictive analysis as well.

According to the new trends businesses can watch customers and then go on to suggest what

products and services should be offered to them so that the maximum profit is secured.
http://www.crmtrends.com/socialmedia.htmlhttp://www.crmtrends.com/socialmedia.html


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Phases in CRM

The three phases in which CRM support the relationship between a business and its

customers are to:

Acquire: CRM can help a business acquire new customers through contactmanagement, selling, and fulfilment.

Enhance: web-enabled CRM combined with customer service tools offers customersservice from a team of sales and service specialists, which offers customers the

convenience of one-stop shopping.

Retain: CRM software and databases enable a business to identify and reward itsloyal customers and further develop its targeted marketing and relationship marketing

initiatives.

New CRM Trends

Personalization and customizationIn order to be effective in CRM, companies will seek to know more about its

customers and use that insight to talk, engage and interact with their customers more

often and more meaningfully in new and innovative ways (including dynamic content,

blogs to other social networking).

CRM

Acquire

RetainEnhance

Growth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_marketinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_marketing


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BrandingBranding is more important than ever. Brands have always been and are increasingly

becoming a surrogate for value - making brand differentiation all the more critical as

generic features continue to propagate in the brand landscape.

Analytical CRMAnalytical CRM is fast gaining ground as a hot trend in the CRM industry. Firms are

now encouraging their analytical teams to work closer with their customers. They are

endeavouring to see what sort of analysis actually matters to the customer through

finding out what contributes to their highest satisfaction.

CRM Goes MobileAnother hot trend in the CRM industry is the "mobile" interest. CRM has currently

gone mobile and is easily assessable almost anywhere.

Integrated Approach for CRMCRM research shows that this integrated approach to CRM is fast gaining ground and

CRM vendors need to ensure that their solutions pay ample heed to this fact.

Companies need to take this into account and ensure that their products deliver an

integrated CRM solution.

CRM and the InternetCRM's newest forerun is into Internet Technology. This latest trend is fast gaining

ground. Here the customers profile details are entered into the system and the search

engine goes through corresponding articles and products that pertain to these profiles

and gives it back to the organization which uses this information in its customer

dealings.

Vertical CRMVertical CRM solutions are one of the newest trends in the CRM industry. Here the

company focus on the fact that the needs of different organizations differ, therefore

they try to accommodate these differences through customization, in order to fulfil the

individual needs. For instance CRM software that specifically caters to the needs of

the legal, financial, management and accounting sectors.

Outsourcing CRMOutsourcing CRM is yet another new trend gaining ground. Sales force leads the pack

in this area. The lure in this area is the lower costs involved, contributing to overall

profitability.


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Midmarket TrendsThe newest trend in the midmarket is a desire to run licensed CRM applications. The

other trends taking shape is that market leaders prefer to opt for partnerships rather

than acquisitions. Most midmarket players are going in for partnerships including

Sales Net, Net suite etc. CRM research also shows that aside from these CRM trends

many midmarkets prefer now to opt for more flexible and customizable CRM.

Challenges

Understanding of CRMCRM is not software. Its a business philosophy. It is a strategy, implemented using a

software solution, which typically covers all customer facing departments like sales,

marketing, customer service, etc of a company. Hence CRM is a term, collectively

used to refer to a combination of strategy & software.

Getting Clarity on ObjectivesWhat are the set of objectives the company wishes to achieve with CRM should be

identified. Ensure that these objectives are listed and define a measurement metrics to

be used to access the success of the implementation. Without these, the companies

cant access the benefits or the ROI of the CRM system.

No Core CRM TeamUnlike other software implementations, IT team alone should not be expected to roll

out a CRM system. It is very critical for companies to form a core CRM team, which

in addition to IT draws participation from Top Management, Senior Executives of

Sales, Marketing and Customer Service departments and finally the end-users.

Decisions related to the implementation should be discussed in this forum.

Product/Service Evaluation MetricsIn most companies, investments in IT are need based. With time, this buying pattern

results in multiple systems that fragment customer data. While short-listing CRM

products/services, it is essential to analyse overall capabilities of the product, in

addition to the need driver module. As the company matures in its CRM initiative,

the expectation from its CRM system multiplies. As a rule of thumb, consider only

those CRM products that offer multiple modules like Sales Force Automation,

Marketing Automation, Customer Support & Services, etc. This will enable

companies to span horizontally, as requirements evolve.


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Getting User AdoptionUser Adoption is the key for success of any CRM. It is important to design effective

training programs in order to provide enough skills and understanding to end users for

them to be able to effectively use the system. Ensure that the user interface is kept

simple. Consultants often underestimate or miss the motivation required to get the

end-users to start using the system. Consider the sales executives; their motivation is

to meet the targets to get to the incentive cheque.

Managing the ApplicationOnce the CRM has been rolled-out, it is important to re-align the working culture of

teams around it. To illustrate, the VP sales direct his sales team to carry excel sheet

prints of their pipeline when coming for a review. Here either the report was not

configured well in the system, or users have not been updating it enough. Such

scenarios need immediate correction or else the CRM system will slowly lose its

relevance.

ProcessClearly defined processes and their enforcement are critical to the success of any

CRM rollout. The objective is to cut out the ambiguity in the system. It is advisable to

create a central depositary, accessible to all, which store all the process definitions.

Some key processes that need to be defined are Change Management process, Feature

re-evaluation process, Success evaluation process, Business flows, etc. Any process

implemented via CRM, must map your real-world process and vice-versa.

Finding the Right partnerThe rate of CRM success considerably goes up with the right solution partner. While

strategy consultants are good, it is the solution partner who will make it work. Ideally

select a partner who can do both, strategy & implementation. It is important that your

partner shares the risks of your implementation. While global knowledgebase is

impressive, local issues can often negate these learnings. Work with a vendor who

understands local - work culture, technology limitations, and cultural sensitivities and

is willing to listen.


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Benefits of CRM

The use of a CRM system will confer several advantages to a company:

Better Quality - Higher efficiencyCRM induces better quality into the product and service thus enhancing the efficiencyand the overall performance. Today customers are more quality oriented; the

implementation of CRM provides more quality to the products and services they offer.

Reduced Costs - Increased ProfitsAttracting and acquiring new customers is more expensive and time consuming when

compared to retaining existing customers. CRM helps in retaining existing customers

thus decreases overall cost to the company.

Decision Support Better UnderstandingBy retaining the customers and having a good relationship with them helps in

understanding their needs and requirements. This in turn recognizes the demand in the

market and helps in decision making by the company.

Enterprise agilityFlexible ManagementCRM help the overall organization in terms of working and maintaining better

relationship with the customer, which provides flexibility to the various departments

and increases the companies turn overtime.

Conclusion

CRM entails all aspects of interaction a company has with its customer, whether it is

sales or service related; it starts with the foundation of relationship marketing. CRM is a

systematic approach towards using information and ongoing dialogue to build long lasting

mutually beneficial customer relationship. From the above all available data it is clear that

how CRM is placing a vital role in service sector. So, it makes more strengthen this sector.

new trends in crm by: amritraj d.bangera

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