CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

By Swati Mukhi

Customer Relationship ManagementLectures: 4 Hrs/week Tutorial :- 1 Hr / weekOne paper: 100 marks / 3 Hrs duration Term Work : 25 marks

1 Introduction to CRM and eCRM: What is customer? How do we define CRM? CRM technology components, customer life style, customer interaction. Defference between CRM and eCRM, features of eCRM

6 hrs

2 Sales Force Automation(SFA)Definition and need of SFA, barriers to successful SFA, SFA functionality, technological aspect of SFA , data synchronization, flexibility and performance, reporting tools.

6hrs

3 Enterprise Marketing Automation(EMA)Components of EMA, marketing campaign, campaign planning and management, business analytic tools, EMA components (promotions, events loyalty and retention programs), response management

6 hrs

4 Call CenterMeaning, customer interaction, the functionality, technological implementation, what is ACD( Automatic Call Distribution), IVR ( Interactive Voice Response ), CTI ( Computer Telephony Integration ), web enabling the call center, automated intelligent call routing, logging & monitoring

6 hrs

5 Implementing CRMPre implementation , kick off meeting, requirements gathering, prototyping and detailed proposal generation, development of customization, Power User Beta Test and Data import, training, roll out and system hand off, ongoing support , system optimization, follow up.

6 hrs

6 Introduction to Application Service Provider (ASP)Who are ASP’s ? their role and function , advantages and disadvantages of implementing ASP

6 hrs

7 Impact of CRM on Marketing ChannelsMeaning, how does the traditional distribution channel structure support customer relationship, emerging channel trends that impact CRM

6 hrs

8Case studies 3hrs

References : 1. CRM at the speed of light by Paul Greenberg, TMH 2nd edition 2. Customer Relationship Management by V, Kumar , Werner J,

Reinartz , WILEY India Edition H3. Customer Relations Management by Zikmund WILEY India Edition

1. Customer Relationship Management

What is Customer?

• The customer is the only source of the company’s present profit and future growth of the company.• A good customer, who provides more profit with less resources is always scarce because customers are knowledgeable because competition is fierce.• Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish who is the real customer because the buying decision is frequently a collaborative activity among participants of the decision-making process.• Information technologies can provide the abilities to distinguish and manage customer.

Definition of Customer

• A Person who buy goods or services. An individual with whom one must deal• A Person, Company or other entity which buys goods and services produced by another person, company or other entity.

Customers can be divided into three zones• Zone of defection where customers are extremely hostile and have the lowest level of satisfaction. • Zone of indifference where customers are not sure. They have a medium level of satisfaction and loyalty towards the company. • The third level of customers are in the zone of affection described as "Apostles". CRM focuses on bringing customers from level 1 to level 3 and retaining apostle customers What is Relationship?• The relationship between a company and its customers involves continuous bi-directional communication and interaction.• The relationship can be short-term or long-term, continuous or discrete, and repeating or one-time.• Relationship can be attitudinal or behavioral. Even though customers have a positive attitude towards the company and its products, their buying behavior is highly situational • For example, the buying pattern for airline tickets depends on whether a person buys the ticket for their family vacation or a business trip. CRM involves managing this relationship so it is profitable and mutually beneficial.

What is Management?• CRM is not an activity only within a marketing department. Rather it involves continuous corporate change in culture and processes.• The customer information collected is transformed into corporate knowledge that leads to activities that take advantage of the information and of market opportunities.

• CRM required a comprehensive change in the organization and its people.

Specific software to support the management process involves• Field service,• E-commerce ordering,• Self service applications,• Catalog management,• Bill presentation,• Marketing programs, • Analysis applications.

DEFINITIONS OF CRM • Traditional marketing strategies focused on the four Ps (price, product, promotion, and place) to increase market share. The main concern was to increase the volume of transactions between seller and buyer. Volume of transactions is considered a good measure of the performance of marketing strategies and tactics.

• CRM is a business strategy that goes beyond increasing transaction volume. Its objectives are to increase profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction. To achieve CRM, a company wide set of tools, technologies, and procedures promote the relationship with the customer to increase sales. Thus, CRM is primarily a strategic business and process issue rather than a technical issue

What is eCRM ?• eCRM provides companies with a means to conduct interactive, personalized and relevant communications with customers across electronic and traditional.• It utilizes a complete view of the customers to make decisions about messaging, offers and channel delivery.• eCRM gives the internet users the ability to interact with the business through their preferred communication channel.• It adheres to permission based practices, respecting individuals preference regarding how and whether they wish to communicate with you and it focuses on understanding how the economics of customer relationship affects the business.

Why Employ eCRM?Companies need to take firm initiatives on the eCRM frontier to

• Optimize the value of interactive relationships.• Enable the business to extend its personalized reach.• Co-ordinate marketing initiatives across all the customers channels.• Leverage customer information for more effective e-marketing and e-businness .• Focus the business on improving customer relationship and earring a greater share of each customer’s business through consistent measurement, and “accountable” customer strategies.

The Six “E’S” of eCRM

Electronic Channels – New electronic such as the web and personalized e-messaging have become medium for fast, interactive and economic communication.

Enterprise- Through eCRM a company gains the means to touch and shape a customer experience through sales, services and corner offices.

Empowerment – eCRM strategies must be structured to accommodate consumer who now have the power to decide when and how to communicate with the company- Through, which channel, at what frequency.

.Economics – An eCRM strategy ideally should concentrate on customer economics.

Evaluation – Understanding customer economics relies on a company’s ability to attribute customer behavior to market programs, evaluate customer interactions along various touch point channels , and compare anticipated ROI against actual return through customer analytic reporting.

External Information – The eCRM solution should be able to gain and leverage information from such sources as third party information networks and web page profile application.

eCRM Features• Driven by a data warehouse.• Focused on consistent metrics to access customer action across channels.• Built to accommodate the new market dynamics that place the customer in control.• Structured to identify a customer’s profitability or profit potential, and to determine effective investment allocation decisions accordingly, so that most profitable customers could be identified and retained and the resources could be invested in relationship s, which are most profitable.

The loopholes in CRM traditional package can be outlined as follow:

• The CRM offering remains channel- centric, not customer centric.• Customer centric metrics is non-existence – Most CRM offerings have weak metrics and measurement capabilities.• Contemporary customer facing system such as sales force automation and customer care there own IT set up, these systems rarely interact with each other.

Customization and Personalizationof Information

Different audience require type of information and different view. Personalized views for different audience are not possible. Individual customization require programming changes

System is designed around the customer need. Enterprise wide portals are designed and are not limited to a department or business unit.

Highly individualized dynamic and personalized view based on purchases and preference are possible. Each individually customizes the view

System Focus System is designed around product and function. Web enabled application are designed around one department or business unit

System maintenance and modification

Implementation is no longer and management is costly because the system is situated at various locations and on several servers.

Reduce time and cost. System implementation and expansion can be managed in one location and on one server

Technology Map of CRM

Back end operations Back end operations

ERP System ERP System

Technology Map of eCRM

Front end operation supported through retail stores and through in-house customer services

Front end operations supported through retail stores, customer call centre, voice response centre, kiosks, through in-house customer service

Customer Database

• Metrics

• Campaign History

• Responses

Customer analytic software

Campaign management software

Cross- Channel Optimizer

eMessaging

Customer opt-in-info

Website

Direct mails

E-mails

Call centre

Response Management

Customer touch point

External and legacy system

Evolving to eCRM : How to Optimize interactive relationships with your customer

CRM technology There are following types of CRM technology –

• Operational CRM• Collaborative CRM• Analytical CRM

Operational CRMTypical business functions involving customer service, order management, invoice or billing or sales and marketing automation and management are the parts of operational CRM.• Operational CRM is the possibility of integrating with the financial and human resources functions of ERP applications.• With this integration, end-to-end functionality from lead management to order breaking can be implemented

Collaborative CRM• It is the communication center, coordination network that provides neural paths to customer and its suppliers. • It could mean a partner relationship management [PRM] application or a customer interaction center and communication channels such as web or e-mail, voice applications and even

Analytical CRM• Analytical CRM is the capture, storage, extraction, processing, interpretation and recording customer data to the user.• Companies such as Micro strategy have developed applications that can capture this customer data from multiple resources and then use hundreds of algorithms to analyze and interpret the data as needed. • The value of the application is not just in algorithm and storage, but also in ability to individually personalize the response using the data.

CRM technology components The following are the components which are common to different CRM approaches:-

• CRM Engine• Front Office Solution• Enterprise Application Integration

CRM Engine• This could be the customer data repository. The data mart, the data warehouse is the one where all the data on customer is captured and stored. This could include basic stuff such as your name, address, telephone number, birth date etc.

• It could also include more sophisticated information like how many times you have accessed a particular web site and what you did on the web pages you accessed. It could also include the help desk support and the purchase history. Ultimately, the purpose is a single gathering point for all individual customer information so that a unified customer view can be created throughout the company departments that need to know the data stored in this CRM engine house.

Front Office Solution• These are the unified applications that run on the top of the customer data warehouse. They could be sales force automations, marketing automation, or service and support customer interaction applications • In the client server environment (and now in the internet environment), they provide employees with the information on the basis of which the decision of ‘what is to be done?’ or ‘What next is to be done with the customer?’ is made • The more specific applications provide an element of self-service for the customer.

Enterprise Application Integration• They sit between back office and front office. They also sit between the newly installed CRM system and old systems implemented by the enterprise. • They permit CRM to CRM communication. They are pieces of codes, connectors and bridges that as a body are called as EAIs. EAIs provide messaging services and data mapping services that allow one system to communicate with different other systems regardless of their formatting. Customer Life Cycle

• It is far cheaper to retain existing customers than to acquire new customers.• During period of economics decline, this become a survival necessity, not just a value proposition.• Therefore, presuming that this is the goal of most companies, whether prosperous or struggling the next thing to determine in the value of the customer to your company.• A customer who is consistently loosing money for you, while he has been with you for 40 years, is not valuable to you directly, though there may be some value in the marketing.• The life cycle of the customer is the process the customer has been undergoing to be with you for all these years. This include customer purchase history, perhaps how often taken advantage of special offers directed or customer class.• Depending on what you identify as important to you on (ROI), it could also include marketing value and how much revenue that marketing value could be worth indirectly.• To find out what is expected revenue generated from a single customer over the anticipated lifetime of the customer’s relationship with you is both the CLC and CLV.

CASE STUDY OF TITAN

WHAT DID TITAN DO?

The titan was one such CRM initiative undertaken at TITAN in may 1995 to provide that extra touch to its special customers at exclusive world of Titan Stores

• Building a special relationship with high life time value Titan customers.• Recognizing his / her loyalty to Titan.• Providing a platform for direct feedback from these valued customers to the company.

Where It initially started in 6 showrooms in Bangalore. Today the Titan has been extended to 102 world of titan showrooms across 59 cities all over India.

How The strongest customer bond require what is called the Three D’s – Database, Dialogue, and Direct media.

To Create a Relationship means one has to

• Know the customers likes and dislikes (database).• Keep up a continuous learning process about the customer (dialogue).• Have some way of communicating directly with them (direct media)

• Critical Success Factors : Recognition, Reward, Response

• Create Your Customer BASE.• Retain Your Loyal Customer.• Maximize the Relationship with your Customer.• Is Customer satisfaction enough?• Creating Customer Loyalty.• Is a CRM Programme Cost – Worthy.• Technology Takes Matters Forward.

CRM IN BANKING SECTORSDelivering Quality Services• Involvement of all staff members in customer service.• An elegant and customer-friendly atmosphere.• Visibility• Making the system simple and customer friendly.• Providing customized services.• Innovativeness.• Empowering employees.• Motivating the employees• Welcoming employees

• Centralized Information2. Sales Force Automation (SFA)

Sales Force Automation• SFA is a subset of the e-CRM front end system functionality and includes contact management, prospecting, lead qualification, opportunity management and account management.• SFA helps to keep track of customers and prospects and allow for greater control in the sales process.• SFA reduces the cost of sales by reducing the time used by salespeople in coordination of effort, in continuous, repetitive data entry, and by making it easier to extract and interpret data.• SFA systems enable salespeople to find and retrieve product information far more quickly than they could by consulting paper catalogues or data sheets.• SFA also increase mobility of the sales force.

Accounts

ContactSleepers interested client, Prospects potential buyer Customer preferred

Creation of opportunityE-mail

In person

Fax

Phone

Internet

Interaction

Product

Analyze and forecastsales

E-CRM

database

Integration tools External

database

External applications

Order

Create, manage, close

Sales force automation

• Define and manage sales pipeline

• Assign/transfer opportunity

•Create tasks, appointment, synchronize with master database etc.

SFA Functionality

Contact Management• Contact management covers the basics: name, address, phone number, company title, personal and business information, activities related to the taste and preferences, attachments related to the individual, and the level of decision making in organization.• This guides the salespeople in dealing with the customer and is useful. It is continuing history with an individual contact through e-mail, chat, telephone and other media.

• For each new meeting , a thread is created in the interaction. Interaction may be open, resolution pending, resolved, closed or auto expired.• For e.g. – If a customer contacts X the first time, then the next time the customer logs in, he should be assigned to X.• The contact and interaction data can be used to provide highly individualized solutions and target them to specific prospects to register higher sales closure rates.

Account Management• It represents the organization and contains all the corporate information. This help salespeople to handle individual corporate accounts.• SFA helps individuals to manage their contacts and business to manage their accounts. This is especially helpful in large companies where more than one person involved in a particular customer’s account.• Therefore, ideally in such a system a company would be able to continue a successful relationship with the customer regardless of who is on the account.• There are multiple department that are interested in viewing the status of invoicing and billing for the same accounts.• For example, the sales department need to see the status of opportunities. The accounting department needs to see the status of invoicing and billing for the same accounts.• Each of them has the individual view that allows them the data that is required for them to see.

Opportunity Management• Opportunities is linked to the account or the contact.• Opportunities grow through interactions with the contacts in the accounts.• Opportunity management covers specific opportunity details such as the company it belongs, the salesperson or team that is working on it, the potential for closing this sales opportunity, the final result of this opportunity, the stage of the sales process that is opportunity is in, potential closing date etc.

Lead Management• This functionality may be seen as a subset of opportunity management.• Therefore, some criteria are set based on the company policy to qualify a lead. Once a lead is qualified, it becomes an opportunity.• Salespersons can import leads from multiple sources and, using criteria established through the sales process, weigh the potential of these leads to became opportunities.• The SFA should also support routing of leads to the appropriate system users.

Pipeline Management• Each company has its own criteria on what constitutes the sales force.• A typical sales process may consist of the following steps:• Prospecting.• Recognition of a potential lead.• Lead qualification.

• Opportunity• Proposal generation.• Negotiation• Opportunity closed• Order acceptance.• SFA provides these basic function and if a company is able to fit its sales process into the SFA application.

Sales Forecasting• Part of PM is getting forecasts from sales and then managing sales activities to those forecasts; • e.g. if the salesperson is expected to do $2.5 million business and eh does 40% of it, then the company have serious problems. If that is due to poor forecasting tools, SFA also has problem. • However, most SFA programs have adequate sales forecasting tools. But most sales forecasts are still nothing more that good guesses regardless of how many algorithms people stuff in program.

Proposal Management• When implemented, it is a way of coordinating and tracking external proposals. • It normally has an overflow which is determined by who is responsible for what part of proposal. • Additionally, it can control the effective completion of the proposal by guiding the stages of evaluation of cards of proposal.

Quota Generation• A simple tool that generates quotes for customers.• Normally, it uses information on pricing in the product catalogue that is available with SFA application and has been customized for individual company offerings.

Territory ManagementThis is another important feature that solves a complex problem. It is not particularly complicated until there is a change in the territory. That can mean a new person takes over an existing territory or a territory can be restricted and re-divided among existing sales people geographically. Re-dividing a territory becomes a very political issue that has to be managed carefully.

Commission Management• This is a tool that calculates commission for sales people. Though it looks very simple, it is not easy thing to implement.• Sales persons can often share the opportunities, which complicate the calculation of commissions. • Additionally, depending upon the company, the sales team might have some private arrangements going. These arrangements are known to the managers and have to be programmed into the application so as to cut accurate commission cheques.

Technological aspects of SFA• The SFA should not only offer the necessary functionality, it should also flexible enough to capture the sales process and endorse future changes.• It should also help to analyze the data for better decision-making on the sales force.• This involves the use of data synchronization, which in the process of updating information among disconnected computers.• Sales people can maintain a subset of the master data and update there local data while others are sharing the same data simultaneously.

Data Synchronization• Data synchronization allow the sales managers and sales team to share information created by the salespeople, such as meeting notes, schedules, and forecasts.• Remote databases are created for mobile salespeople and branch office. Each database is a relevant subset of the corporate database.• For e.g., the information on the field salesperson's laptop need to pertain only to his account. • Remote salespeople can connect to the central server using low-bandwidth modems or a WAN connection.• By using the localized version of data synchronization, where only updates are required, the communication requirements are reduced.• For example, in case of Talisma e-CRM system, the server is integrated with MS Outlook Express during the set-up process.• In case of an off-line client, the communication with the main server is only through e-mails.• For an off-line client, there is a time lag association with the synchronization.• This synchronization of data allows both remote and on-premises personnel to have up-to-date customer information and thus can be utilized to build relationship and increase sales.

Remote Data

Remote Sync processor

Remote transaction log files

Bidirectional exchange of log files

Server transaction log files

Synch & conflict resolution

Server Database

Remote Salesperson

Host server

Remote network connection, email or LAN

Flexibility and Performance• Synchronization system should be capable of supporting large scale field implementation with potentially 100s of reasons. • Besides using most efficient means to distribute and post data, flexible support to modern client-server database is critical to meet demands of data synchronization.• High performance synchronization requires powerful database capabilities and performance capabilities which are available in databases such as MS SQL server and Oracle.• The synchronization engine should be database-independent.

Reporting Tools• Lack of or poor reporting can lead to bad decision making, redundant work effort, and missed opportunities.• Reporting is the creation of customized on-screen or printed views that provide the viewer with information in the form they want and with the content they want.• Most e-CRM packages have a report-processing engine that is web-optimized. It can use dynamic data sources to generate a report and pass it to client browser page by page as it getting generated.• The engine pulls information from multiple sources, such as financial applications, customer data repositories, SFA applications, and generate the reports.• For e.g. – a user may view the sales figures for the year or the quarter by customer, salesperson, or profitability through the drag and drop option provisioned in the package.

The Barrier to Successful SFA

• SFA provides organizations with best practices for selling, and the technology and training to effectively automate them. • If they don’t enter the customer contact information and properly track their sales through the predetermined corporate sales process as Solution Selling other suggest, the data that management is using will be inaccurate and essentially useless.• SFA emerged to allow individuals to not only manage their contacts, but also to allow business to manage their accounts.• The difference is that in a business, the relationship is owned by the company, not the individual.• The larger the organization, and the larger the customer account, the more people are involved with each sale.• If more than one person is involved in an account, such as telesales helping the major account to representative to generate business in remote offices after you get a contract, it is critical that everyone understands the history and future plans for the accounts.• Business would be able to continue a successful relationship with a customer regardless of who is on the account.• But an online shared history of an account that includes not only all contacts, but also promises, conversations, negotiations.

3. Enterprise Marketing Automation(EMA)

Enterprise Marketing Automation• Campaign management systems automate the planning, execution, and assessment of marketing programmes. These system worked with data stored in database.• The marketing application uses campaigns which may consist of direct mail, e-mails, promotions, interactive voice response, newsletters, contents, events, etc.• Indirect marketing campaigns such as advertising in the print media, radio and TV reach traditional massed. The traditional methods of advertising are getting more expensive and more competitive, but yielding less return.• The marketing automation module of e-CRM attempts to increase efficiency of the marketing programmes.• The marketing activity involves the identification and capture of potential long-term and pro-fitable customers• Marketing automation technology improves the effectiveness of traditional marketing by creating new methods of Web-focused marketing and campaign management.• EMA uses a combination of e-mail, fax, the web, telephone and other tools.• The tools help define customer segments that are appropriate to a company business and can help in evaluating the success and failure of EMA campaigns in near real time.• The utility of EMA is more in the B2C.• The EMA module work on the concept of permission marketing.• In this the customer’s permission is asked for a speak regarding a product and his acquiescence is taken at every step of the marketing cycle.• It has two function intelligence and engagement. Intelligence may be obtained by asking the customer to fill a form online and engagement may be obtained after taking his consent in a check box.

Marketing Campaigns• E-marketing software from many of the major players such as Siebel, Uncia, Chordiant and Annuncio is the process identified by the permission marketing mantra “opt-in, opt-out.

Opt-In, Opt-Out• When you fill out an online form at this website with your vital statistics, often at the bottom of the form there are checkboxes that ask you whether you would like to receive further information or an email product. This is opting in.• There is also an opt-out variation – the checkbox is already checked and you have to uncheck it to opt out of the newsletter update or further information.• Opt in marketing has two functions: intelligence and engagement.• The first stage, even prior to clicking your mouse on the checkbox, is the forms you fill out with information about yourself.• The information is stored along with your website activity, which is monitored as you meander your way through the site.

• After the form is filled out, at the point you’ve clicked or unclicked on the checkboxes, you are engaged. Congratulations!Opting In to Web-Integrated E-marketing• Using available EMA technologies, opt-in campaigns- or, for that matter, all marketing campaigns – are honed, sharpened, and thrust into a segmented marketplace so that the level of success is potentially much greater.• EMA provides the templates and tools for planning, executing, and analyzing these campaigns in real time.

Campaign Planning and Management• This is the most important part of an EMA module.• Campaign management is the creation of personalized marketing efforts that not only engage the customer or prospect, but also engage the entire enterprise in the effort and provide a single view of the activity to any department or segment of the company.• Campaigns may be in the form of loyalty programmes, seasonal office, cross-sell/ up-sell offers, product launches, partner and channel schemes, trade show registrations and news letters.

The campaign management features of EMA include the following:• Identification of the prospect• Generation of the lead suspect• Prospect and customer information capture• Lead qualification• Distribution of leads to appropriate segments.• Campaign planning.• Campaign execution.• Response management• Refinement• Channel management.

• Marketing automation uses the Internet to capture, extract, and analyze information about each customer and each market segment.• EMA tools provide a consistent, continues representation of a value proposition across multiple channels.• All parts of the organization see a single view of the customer due to tight integration between the front-office, customer-facing part of the enterprise and the back office which control functions such as HR and Finance. • EMA facilitates campaign definition and planning using work flow , customer profiling and segmentation, personalization of contents and offers, scheduling of events and mailing lists, response management and mailing list.• The work flow captures the logic of the campaign and enable the user to define, schedule, run and manage campaigns.• Customer profiling and segmentation is done based on the demographics and psychographic information available in the e-crm.

Campaign Planning

E-sales

Handoff

ResponsesAnalytics

Other Email Web Direct mail

1

2

3

1 Campaign team

2 Revenue and campaign goals

3 Revenue and cost tracking

AnalyticsOffering Selected

customer segment

Indirect Offering

Advertising

Phone follow-up

Phone, fax

Business Analytic Tools• EMA tools are distinguished from traditional marketing tools by their ability to capture, extract and analyze customer information from multiple and often platform-independent sources and realize the result through the web.• This can mean emails, the Web, direct mailing, voice mail, faxes other sources that may be indirect.• Good analytic software can not only reduce the cost of customer acquisition via targeted and segments result, but can also identify those customers who are potentially going to take their business to competitors.• They have to be clear and distinct with reporting tools that provide with the information need to utilize the data it creates in a readable and understandable format.• The tool also interpret in-depth profiles of customers who are accessing websites, responding to emails, answering direct mail campaigns, and accessing what is called “Customer Touch Point”.• Touch point are either active or interactive nodes of customer communication. They are areas of customer interactions that are considered central to the success of any marketing effort.• For example, Siebel emarketing provides extensive prebuilt market, customer, product and geographical analyses.• The EMA analyses provides in-depth profiling information on customer preferences , buying behavior, revenue, profit, and purchasing frequency.• Successful analytical tool give organizations the view of data that lets them interpret, identify and capitalize on emerging trends in key markets and focus their marketing.

EMA Functionality / Components• Most EMA tools provide functions such as customer intelligence, extraction and analysis of the intelligence, campaign definition and planning based on the data analysis, campaign launch, campaign monitoring tools that handle lead generation, response management and work flow, so that there is a uniform customer view across the enterprise.

Promotion Management• Web-integrated marketing also depends on promotions, contests, cross-selling, and discount coupons.• Some of the business models are loss leaders and sell below cost, as the aim is to gain long tem customer value through repeat customer over time.• Companies believe that loyal customers will stay loyal despite price increase later on.• The EMA system allows personalizing mailers in terms of content and offering (discount rate).

Event Management• Event management tools try to capture customer information through event registration and online interaction.• Registration for seminars, exhibitions, and so on is possible via the Internet. Then there are ‘webinars’ – seminars that are conducted over the Web.• A Web-based registration form is filled out and an e-mail reminder is sent some time before the webcast.• With proper tools like a video plug-in, such as real player, window media player, or a proprietary Web player, customer may watch the pre-recorded or live webinar.• The registration form and news letter are part of the EMA campaign management tools set.• These EMA programmes provide the flexibility to opt out of the newsletter whenever a user desires.• The flexibility to opt in and opt out increases customer satisfaction and helps the marketing people to acquire and retain the customers.

Other registration and lead management features provided by EMA vendors are:• Registration page with provision to opt in.• Unsubscribe capabilities.• User-controlled profile management.• Lead follow-ups from trade shows and other similar venues.• User group registration and follow-up

Loyalty and Retention Programmes• Customer loyalty is difficult to retain in this age where is takes just a different URL and a click or two to switch brands.• Customers are constantly bombarded by next great deal and access to that deal might not be a great effort. • Even if the product is good, there is going to be a better new generation EMA applications built in those small, personalized touches that ensures quality and retain customers ; e.g. Unica’s affinian campaign management has templates for the following-• Birthday greetings.• Holiday and special occasion reminder.• Welcome programs• Delivery of gift ideas.• Point based programs.• Win back programs for inactive customers

Response Management Response Management features include banner ads, direct mail, print ads,

email, website links, surveys, event registration results, Internet registration and online survey results.

Traditional response management is tedious, even with the use of computers. The time it take for response gathering, analysis and refinement is lengthy and costly, and often unsuccessful.

After the analysis, need to work through plans to revamp the next campaign, since the response gathering was often completed after the campaign was completed after the campaign was completed.

Using the Internet as a tool that works in real time, what is now called “closed-loop feedback”.

Closed – loop feedback is the nucleus of Internet based responses management, it is in real time. It is the use of the Internet and the tools to compile, extract and analyze

information while the campaigns are in progress

The return on investment here is: Information gathering, extraction, and analysis time is dramatically reduced. Refinements to the campaign can be done in the midstream, improving

possibility of return within the existing campaign. Automated tasks free up labor time for other marketing tasks that are not tedious

or laborious.

Market Campaign

Other

Email phone

Camp Refinement

Registration Info

New Market Campaign

email

Camp refinement

phoneotherRegistration

info

T

I

M

E

4. Call Center

Introduction• First, there was the customer service counter – the place where you would return to live human representatives. Then came the helpdesk.• Then there was the call centre, which used the voice technologies of the 1990s to provide your service representative with enough information.• The customer interaction centre (CIC), also known as the customer contact centre or multimedia call centre.• Calling this facet of CRM a customer interaction centre or a customer contact centre is not something to treat as a marketing pitch.• Collaborative activity is one aspects of what makes the CRM application.• The Customer directly interact with the company through a company representative and a variety of communication channels, and both use tools that make the interactions valuable. • The customer could be interacting with the website through self service application.• One of the problems in the world of rapidly changing customer expectation is that the evolution of the call centre to the CIC or contact centre is slow , though its rate of change of accelerating.

The FunctionalityThink about a typical call you might make to computer company technical service representative:• You dial the computer company’s number.• You press several button on the telephone that gets you through menu options, ordinarily guided by a human voice.• You wait for a customer service rep while music plays.• If you haven't punched in an ID of some sort prior to this on your phone, you are asked for an ID.• The representative, reading off a screen that outlines your entire history with the company, including the recent calls or email inquires.• Once you have spoken with the rep, the rep enter the information, check several possible results that shown up on a screen and if one of them resolve the problem marks its off, if none of tem resolves the problem you are sent to new level to undergo a higher level of customer service.• But think about all the functionality involved in this call. There is a call routing, assignment management, queue management, call tracking,, workflow, problem resolution, performance measurement, service management.• There is also an audit trail that is keeping track of all the information through a log.• For example, if a call is opened, it is tracked and a record is kept of its disposition.

The Technology

• The technology for CIC and customer contact centre is complex and involves a mix of telecommunications and others communications channels, such a s email, the Internet, faxes or CRM software.• The bottom line of any CIC technology, classic phone centre only or Internet-enabled, is it effectiveness in helping to resolve a customer interaction successfully.

Some of the technologies that are involved

• Automatic Call Distribution – This is phone call workflow, which is how a call gets routed based on the defining characteristics of the call.• Interactive Voice Response – This is one that is menu-driven voices that specify which choices you can make by hitting numbers on your telephone pad. For example – when you call in to a credit card company and get your balance automatically.• Computer Telephony Integration – These are the technology applications and interface that allow data integration with telephones. For example – CTI,-enabled functionality allow both Internet based information and phone based information to be gathered and sent to particular agent or routed to a particular desktop.

Web-Enabling the Call Centre• Web-enabling the call centre is in agreement with the New Economic principle that customer want control over their decision making.• They don’t want to be forced into their vendor’s rules, nor do they want to be railroad into decision.• The problem with IVR is that it involves time for a virtual human voice to provide you with information that could be visually understood in a millisecond, so it became frustrating.• The Web’s greatest strength is comfortable self-activity that provides a true measure of control.• It is easier to sell on the Web because a cross-sale or up-sale is impersonal. Its very easy to solve a problem by going to FAQ

So how do you web-enable the call centre? Start by planning around certain concepts:• Though it is technology being implemented, the customer is the focus. The customer is calling the centre to get answer to issues and questions.• Even while problem resolution is the purpose, the experience has to be pleasant for the customer, which means that the customer need as much interactive control over the multichanneled as possible.• The technology chosen to “e-size” the call centre is the one that is the most appropriate to the business rules of the company.• Web – enablement is time consuming, not just for functioning and technical implementation, but in the retraining of support personnel, the increased intricacy of the job and the change in the mindset of the personnel necessary for success.• Use the existing tools, if possible. Don’t build from the ground up. Integrate the existing tools with your legacy system.

• There are packages like PeopleSoft and Siebel Call Centre for the enterprise and there are packages that handle piece of the puzzle.

For example: a package was released in 2000 called Virtual Hold, by – what else- Virtual Hold technologies, It work like this.

1. Customer Listen to record message while waiting for an agent. 2. If he doesn’t want to wait, he chooses a phone option that tells the system to make a call as soon as an agent is available or allow the customer, via the phone number pad, to schedule a date and time up to seven days ahead.3. The phone number is captured and holds a place in the ACD queue for the customer.4. The Unified Queue Module does the same thing for the Web. If your agents are busy when the customers clicks on the Web site, a similar choice is available: telling the system to have an agent call back as soon as one is available or a calendar pops up to allow the customer to schedule a time and date up to seven days ahead.

• Plan to give higher –priority treatment or some other reward to self-services Web users. Encouraging that behavior is important because two things have occurred with the use of the web. First, the user normally isn’t interacting with alive agent. Second, the information captured is a lot more effective and there is simply more of it, providing a quicker ability to put the publicly available problem resolution back up on the Web so that more people can be solved by self-service.• Try to implement software that will capture information well constantly improve your knowledge base.• Keep the interface simple. It is important that the customer sees the same interface that the CCR sees. That way, customer interaction with the CCR is consistent, either on the web or phone.

Automated Intelligent Call Routing• Call routing gets difficult when email, chat, VOIP and web routing get involved• Managing this means using call-routing software that can be handle increasing volume, geographical dispersion of the CCRs, multiple channels and workflow.• Typically it would be identify who is calling and why they vae calling, use the customer data base to identify the history, and then find appropriate party who is available at the time callers calls.• It should be easily scalable, since all volumes will vary widely between companies, times of day and use it conjunction with the historical data on the customer that exists in the customer data repository.• It should be web-enabled so that web-based routing to the appropriate menus can occur and so that the information given is easily captured and centrally stored.• The software should have strong scripting capabilities and an open interface. This means the interface can control IVR scripting that is governed by applied business rules.• The large companies outlined build much of this functionality ito their CIC software.• It won multiple awards in 1999, with the most significant being product of the tear from both Computer Telephony magazine and call centre solution magazine.

Logging and Monitoring• Logging and monitoring software provides the basic detail needed to do accurate scheduling and improve performance management.• Collecting information based on caller IDs of some sort, there are several other features that logging and monitoring software has. Extensive and very flexible reporting tools. Universal connectivity to ACD system. Analytic tools that can score data so that weight can be assigned to capture information. Easy export to other systems.

• They provide some of the most comprehensive logging and monitoring tools in the business and have four applications. The two that are apt for this usage are:

Recorder – Enable customer contact centers to record and evaluate customer interactions simultaneously through telephone, email, and web interaction.

• It even allows for live monitoring and recording session. Recorder can be accessed from a touchtone phone.

Advisor - A tool that measures agent or agent group performance.

• It imports productivity data from ACD and other business systems and combines it with your quality criteria to give you a complete picture of your agent performance. This is a web based evaluation tool.

5. Implementation of CRM

Pre-Implementation• The time frame on this varies from several weeks to several months according to the depth of preliminary work company need to do.• The criteria are those questions the CRM software functionality need to answer and those corporate software and process need to address.• In this phase where selection of software is occurred.• Picking the software is nearly an endgame, pre-implementation step. Some of the criteria for the selection:• Scalability of software.• Toolset flexibility for customization.• Compatibility of the CRM application with legacy systems and Internet systems.• Level of technical support available during and after implementation.• Upgrade support.• Availability of additional modules such as EMA complementing SFA

Kickoff meeting• Once software selection is made, move on to the kickoff meeting.• This meeting, which should one or two days , is where the customer and the partner decide which responsibilities are assigned to whom.• The team members meet each other and the chemistry for the implementation is established.

What should a typical vendor or partner like SalesLogix team look like

Project Manager• The PM is responsible for all the aspects of the implementation including cost control, quality, testing and customer satisfaction.• The project manager is the one with the connections back to the vendor company headquarters and his own company’s HQ.• If there are changes to the statement of the work, it is the PM who must work out the detail with the customer.• There should be a change management process in place that is approved by both the customer and the implementation services company.

Implementation Leader• This person is called the technical lead.• He is responsible for technical aspects, directs the system engineers and is usually dedicated to only one project at a time.• He tends to be onsite full time until the end of the project. His strength is a combination of people skills and technical knowledge.

System Engineer• Their primary role is to do coding.• In many implementations, technical and functional expertise is necessary to do the work.• For example, to work with SalesLogix Architect tool, it’s important for the system engineer to know how corporate sales processes tend to function.

Systems or Business Analyst• These employees are the functional experts. They provide input on business process and flow that are enterprise-specific.

IT Staff• These are the administrators of the system, the people who are maintaining and setting up the network and its software.• They have to see that there is no significant downtime or problems during the implementation period.

Integration Expert• The person guides the integration of the CRM system with other information system like SFA and EMA.

Heads of Non - Technical departments

• They provide input and approval on aspects affecting their departments.• They can make the implementation is succeed if the partner implementation team member understand that they are non technical, which means patience and explanations are necessary.

Requirement Gathering• The length of the requirements gathering phase can be markedly change if the scope of the project is significantly bigger.• The complexity of the project means the requirement phase is more complicated.• CRM implementation is going to affect the interactions of every appropriate department in the company.• Marketing, sales, finance, and so on all have a direct need to have input in the teams during the requirement gathering phase.• Legacy system need to be analyzed. This is both a technical and a functional issue.• A good requirements analysis bring out some of these issues and some of the answers, though certainly not all of them.• Most CRM packages are fairly flexible in their toolsets, allowing for wholesale or small changes to the business rules that govern the customer’s corporate life.• Once the requirement for the front-office practices are gathered, the next step is identification of the inputs and outputs. This way the user interact with the system.

Some of the questions to be answered in this phase include:

Which screens will be needed to input data? How will information be retrieved from the system? How will the customer want to work with the system? How many users must the system accommodate and how will they connect to it (LAN, individual remote users, remote offices, Web?

• While these questions are being answered, there is a lot of other work to do.• For example, what would be the system’s optimal functionality .• The identification of what data must be imported to the systems and what must be exported.• To make the requirement gathering go smoothly, it is obtain to obtain all information possible about the existing system and the CRM implementation will be fit.• To get this information, nondisclosure agreements and all other necessary paperwork need to be signed during this phase.• The nondisclosure agreement states that neither the implementation partner nor the customer will disclose each other information given during the course of the project to anyone outside those identified at the ones “need to know”.

Prototyping and Detailed Proposal Generation• The next phase is where the actual hands-on work begins-with a prototype.• The purpose of the prototype is to develop some of the key functionality for the customer to examine before the roll out.• For example, if the customer wants to able to click a button in SalesLogix that would populate a customer reporting system, it can be examined in minute detail. This confirms that it can be done or not.• The same goes for the creation of mock screens, with the creation of the screens, the workflow can be demonstrated.• This allow user to participate at each step of the workflow and prototype development.• The result is happy customer because they not only verified the workflow and, often, the look and feel of the screens, but they are also giving input to the team at all times.• The prototype can be demonstrated to varying departments, each with their own agendas and ways of viewing data , and can be worked by the development team, even if the data presentation from department to department is conflicting.• Once the prototype is done and demonstrated, and the proposed changes to the workflow and functions are acceptable to both the customer and the development team, a formal project proposal that states the deliverables, timeliness and final cost is written for the client.

This CRM projects are often divided into four phases:Phase I: • The product catalogs, the sales process, the account and contact databases, and the sales pipeline management criteria, among other things are developed.

Phase II Marketing Module Customizations

• These are no different in technical process from sales module customizations. They are merely different in what need to be customized.

Phase III : Integration with external applications• This is where there are possible difficulties. The “as is” review is often done in the beginning of the requirement gathering.• This is an analysis of the existing IT infrastructure and the network functionality .

Phase IV: Reporting Integration• Reporting is a vital function, especially for business that are scattered beyond one office.• The customization of those reports and their generation are critical to corporate success.• By making sure the appropriate templates are created and the right reports are autorouted to the right recipients, the danger of incorrect decision making is reduced dramatically.

Development of Customization• Once there are the appropriate signoffs on the formal and the final proposal document, the next phase is the development of customization.• The time length of the customizations varies widely, with five to seven weeks and depends on a substantial numbers of factors:

The size of the project. The complexity of: a. The interfaces b. The workflow c. The functions The availability of employees/ user to work with the team to improve the customization in a given iteration. Technical problems unrelated to the implementation that affect it. These can be resolved by creating an independent environment for development, testing and eventually production. Midstream workflow and rules changes for the customization, necessitated by changing corporate business process. These are a few of the many reasons the project can exceed it five to seven week anticipated timeline.

• The elasticity of the application is very important in the ease of the creation of the customization application. SalesLogix, for example has an open architecture, a large third party integration base, and a very flexible toolset, making the customization fairly easy.• The next step is to assign task to developers. These developers may not be, for example, SalesLogix toolset specialists. Rather there may be Oracle database administrator.• The project manager is responsible for a project plan at this phase. The plan is a checklist of what developers and what team members are assigned to what tasks.• Depending on the formalities of the project, status reports can be phone calls or formally written document with the specific successes.

• The change management document should include the understanding that changes to the statement of the work in function or scope will incur extra costs, will increase the delivery time and due date of total implementation .• The final part of this phase is development team testing- making sure the basic system work.Power User Beta Test and Data Import• This is where the star users (usually called “power users” since they are among the nontechnical people who “get it”) get to play.• They get involved in finding the systematic problems that crop up when the customizations are moving to completion and the data migration is being prepared.• By involving power users, verification and acceptance of the system are ensured.• The first major step in this two-to-five day process is to create testing environment at the site.• The successes or failure, and strength and shortcomings of the IT team beta determine what type of backup resources are necessary, what kind of training will be paramount when the times for the vendor/ consulting services company to leave the premises.• Once the beta installation is complete and analyzed, then comes a very tough part: the test data import.• The run will identify the usability and accuracy of the data.• The best thing about beta testers is that they often have a recommendations for improvement that go beyond simply finding bugs.

Rollout and System hand-off• This is the time when the production environment has to be installed at the site.• The final phase is both a delicate and huge task. If anything goes wrong and there is always ample opportunity for that to happen – it could means disaster.• The migration data has to convert all data into format of the SalesLogix PeopleSoft, which could be Oracle, MS SQL Server, Interbase, or any number of other formats. When this is done and acceptable, the new system is powered up.• The other significant part of the rollout is remote user and satellite office preparation. This differs according to different software and methodologies.• Each remote user is given a copy of the general database installed on their desktop or laptop.• Each of them will be customizing it as they move through a given day. Initially all users are guided through the use of the system by trained implementation personnel who, if physically possible, will walk around and work with each person in the hands-on use of the system, answer any questions, and using overall comfort level in using the system.

Training• Training time depends on the number of users and available facilities for training, There are four parts of training:

1.Basic Training. 2.Customization Training 3.Documentation

4.Additional Training

Basic Training• There are no pushups in this training. This is the plain vanilla training for users on the application. Normally this is run by the vendor.• For example, to get training at SalesLogix headquarters. That means you’d pay the cost of the training plus the cost of hotel, food, airfare and other incidentals.

Customization Training• This is done by the now-trained employees who have been engaged in the project, thought it doesn’t have to be..• Knowledge transfer, for those of you never involved in IT “techspeak” is the continuous education on what has been learned from the vendor/integrator and taught to the customer team who will be using knowledge in an ongoing fashion.• It is very important that the knowledge transfer is an intentional written part of the statement of work.

Documentation• The vendor or consulting company’s implementation team has full responsibility to provide documentation on the customized system to see that future use is ensured.• Often, as a part of a team, CRM vendor companies or integrators will provide documentation experts who know how to piece together useful documentation.• Bad writing is endemic to the IT world and making sure that a bad writer isn’t writing the documentation is something that while sounding funny, is deadly serious.

Additional Training

• Train the trainer – As the names implies, whomever you send to this course will be the one who will train the users on your staff. This is a major time and money saver.

• Integration Course – This course teaches IT staff how to make their own customization to SalesLogix or to the other vendors who have such a course.

Ongoing Support, System Optimization, and Follow - up• This is all optional of course. There are a substantial number of companies who opt to not follow through on support after the rollout.• The implementation partner has some liability here, too. What that liability is needs to be part of the contract before the implementation ever start.• Presuming who is responsible for what in the post-implementation era has been decided, the implementation partner must be ready to provide customer with rapidly turn around support.• The support has to be there until the client can swim. Even then, it is good CRM to contact the person to make sure they are happy and functioning.

6. Application Service Provider

What is ASPs

• An ASP provides “applications” as a service specifically, software and services having to do with the information technology requirements of companies and individuals.• The service offered by ASP may include processing credit card payments, providing customer relationship management (CRM) services to business or customized applications.• The operational concept is straightforward a service provider identifies a function or activity that is common to number of companies.• The ASP then offers the service to identified market for a fixed fee, in effect removing the personnel, equipment and logistical challenges inherent if each company is going to set up its own system.• An ASP is a business that provides computer based service to customers over a network.• Software offered over using an ASP model is also sometimes called On-demand software or Software as a service.• The most limited sense of the business is that of providing access to a particular application program ( such a CRM) using a standard protocol such as HTTP.• The need for Asps has evolved from the increasing costs of specialized software that have far exceeded the price range of small to medium sized software.• The issue of upgrading have been eliminated from the end firm by placing the onus on the ASP to maintain up-to-date services, 24x7 technical support physical and electronic security and in-built support for business continuity and flexible working.

Features of an ASP• The service provider operates and owns the software or application, the hardware (e.g. server) and the support personnel.• The application is made available on through the Internet or a “thin client” ( a computer which depends on another computer to handle the majority of its functions, rather than doing data processing itself).• The customer is billed by the service provider on a fixed, time bound schedule (usually on a monthly basis) or on a per-use format.

Common Features associated with ASPs include:• ASP fully owns and operates the servers that support the software.• ASP owns, operates and maintain the server via the internet or “thin client” .• ASP bills on a “per use” basis or on a monthly/ annual fee.

Advantages of ASPs• Software integration issues are eliminated from the client site.• Software costs for the applications are spread over a number of clients.• Vendors can built more application experience than the in-house staff.

• Key software systems are kept up to date, available and managed for performance by experts.• Improved reliability, availability, scalability, and security of internal IT system.• A provider service level agreement guarantees a certain level of service.• Access to products and technology experts dedicated to available products.• Reduction of internal IT costs to predictable monthly fee.• Redeploying IT staff and tools to focus on strategic technology projects that impact the enterprise bottom line.

Disadvantages of ASPs• The client must generally accept the application as provide since Asps can only afford a customized solution for the largest clients.• The clients may rely on the provider to provide a critical business functions, thus limiting their control of the function and instead relying on the provider.• Changes in the Asp market may result in changes in the type or level of service available to clients.• Integration with clients non-ASP system may be problematic.

The Advantages of Outsourcing to an Application Service Provider• For one, it cuts down on the cost of either starting up or maintaining an in-house IT unit.• For another, it ensures that software upgrades, new technologies and the like are available by experts who are bound to provide these under clearly defined services agreements.

The Disadvantages of Outsourcing to an Application Service Provider:• Mainly in relation to matter of data and customer confidentially since an outside entity will have access to confidential data)• Lack of flexibility in terms of software choice.

7. Impact of CRM on Marketing Channels

How Does The Traditional Distribution Channel Structure Support Customer Relationship

Channel intermediaries

Manufacture End Customer

Firm Interaction with Customers Through Channels

What are Channels?• The word channel is used mainly in two ways. The first use refers to the flow of the organization's offering (e.g., physical goods or information) to the ultimate end users (end customers), as well as that of sales proceeds or realization from the customer back to the marketing firm.• The term marketing or distribution channels stands for all entities (e.g., distributors, wholesaler, retailer, broker, agent. Etc) who perform certain functions for the marketing firm.• These functions include stocking inventory, conducting sales transactions, conducting payments, providing point of purchase information, and some times providing upfront liquidity to the manufacturing plants.• The second use of the term channel refers to the mode of communication between firms and its customers.• These so-called communication or contact channels convey information to the customers to raise their awareness about the firm’s products and services and persuade them to make purchase.• Whereas the term distribution channel often refers to several organizations (in the channel), the term contact channel refers to two parties.

ExampleThe distribution channel of Adidas includes several entities such as wholesalers and retailers.The contact channels between Adidas and its end customers refers to the mode of communication comprising Internet, direct mails and SMS or wireless text messaging

Channel Management of:

Distribution Channels

Managing the flow of goods and services from manufacturer to end user

Contact ChannelsManaging the flow of information between any two parties, using one or more contact mode

The Role of Traditional Channels in Customer Relationship

Indirect Customer Relationship• The process of managing customer relationships involves the gathering and processing of customer and sales – transaction information, which can be done by both the channel member as well as the marketing firm.• The entire focus of CRM in the traditional channel structure has been on 1. Building a good working relationship with the channel member. 2. Providing the channel member incentives to build a strong CRM.• Big consumer nondurable marketing firms, such as Henkel and Procter & Gamble, traditionally had significant power over the distribution channels.

Direct Customer Relationship• Traditionally, a direct channel between the firm and the consumer took the form of the communication or contact channel.• The firm communicates product information to the consumer through contact channels such as TV or print.• Point of purchase advertising and promotions at the channel outlet (retail point) further persuades to consumer to make this purchase.• Another traditional form of direct customer relationship is achieved through brand equity.

• By building brand equity firms often try to build a pseudo-relationship with all prospective consumers.• The term Pseudo –relationship implies that even before an individual consumer has made a purchase or has made an interacted with act as prior relationship between firm and consumer.

Key Factors Affecting CRM through Traditional Channels

Incentives for Coordinating Information Exchange• The focal firm should provide adequate incentives to the channels member to gather and process sales and customer information, and share information with the firm.• For example, Procter & Gamble and its powerful retailer Wal-Mart shed their adversarial association and invested in an EDI technology which allowed Procter & Gamble access to real-time customer data to forge customer relationship as well as reduce the cost of operations involving distribution.• By making investments specific to their relationship with Wal-Mart, P&G secured the trust and commitment of a powerful retailer- not only to improve its own relationship with the end customers but also to reduce the cost of operations for Wal-Mart.

Protecting the Interest of the Channels • The focal firms needs to further safeguard the proper interest of channel members while executing its own CRM strategy directed at the end customer.• To this end, the firm need to nurture its relationship with the channel member to induce them to build and maintain relationships with the customers in accordance with the CRM strategy of the firm.• This implies that both the upstream and downstream relationship are important factors leading to the success of CRM.

Major Challenges Facing CRM Through Traditional Channels

Prevent Dilution of CRM Strategies• The challenge for most firms that interact with their final customers through channel intermediaries is that traditional intermediary entities make a continual and direct interaction with the end customer very difficult- to accomplish.• The firm should ensure it messages and offerings of the relationship program reach the target consumer without dilution or digression.

For example: most European retailers such as Carrefour, Dia and J.Sainsbury sell high -quality private-labels brands which directly compete with the established brands of renowned manufacturers. This creates a conflict of interest with the manufacturers, since the private-label promotions often go diametrically against the customer relationship programs of the national brands.

Indirect Control Of CRM through Channels• The primary methods of implementation of CRM includes direct control and monitoring of the CRM program at the channels by manipulating the upstream relationship with the channels, the channels has incentives to manage the downstream relationship.• Although there may be multiple source through which an end customer receives marketing information such as advertising,.• Thus, the focus should be on the implementation of CRM at the customer ‘s preferred channel, with the overall marketing strategy of the firm• The P&G Wal-Mart strategic alliance is a notable example.

Eliciting Customer Information from all Channels for Central processing• The lack of precise information about individual customer does complicate the implementation of CRM in the traditional channels. Firm often obtain from their distribution channel partners only an approximation of customer preference.• Customer identification associated with CRM demands the physical distribution be responsive to variation in customer mobility and contact channels preference in terms of shopping habit.• CRM therefore demand that customer information from different contact channel be centrally processed by the firm and form a critical input to the planning and execution the physical distribution of the goods.• Central customer data processing across different contact channels is essential even among the traditional channel agents.

Emerging Channel Trends that Impact CRM

Proliferation of direct Channels• The presence of the Internet and electronic channels in business and daily life has tremendous impact on the firm’s channel options.• Whether through a website, a self service kiosk, or sophisticated voice response system, consumers are taking advantage of this great variety of direct channels to seek information as well as to transact business directly with the firm.• Under this scenario, firms suddenly have not only direct access to the end-customers but they can also recognize at every instance of interaction a prior customer, and since the interaction occurs through a technology –enabled channel, the option exist to record and store all the relevant information about the customer, and training a third party channel member, such as retailer.

Channel Proliferation and Emergence of Multichannel Shoppers• Internet, email, kiosks, mobile phones, cable TV,SMS, MMS. Each of these new channels is vying for different individuals, and each is obtaining only limited attention of the overall customer base of the firm.• Depending on the product (e.g., books), some customers may switch completely from their original transaction channels to the new outlets like the Internet (e.g., Amazon.com)

• For Example, one may search the web for the best price quotes to be better informed of prices and to be able to better negotiate the deal.• This proliferation of channels and its effect on customer behavior and information offers new opportunities to the firm, but it also create new difficulties in managing the marketing flow.