“Think fresh, deliver more”

Customer Relationship Management at Airtel

Submitted by:

Rashpinder Singh 082

Rishika Goyal 086

Tanika Nangia 107

Chirag Pruthi 119

About the Company:

Airtel comes to you from Bharti Airtel Limited, one of Asia’s leading integrated telecom services providers with operations in India and Sri Lanka. Bharti Airtel since its inception, has been at the forefront of technology and has pioneered several innovations in the telecom sector.

The company is structured into four strategic business units - Mobile, Telemedia, Enterprise and Digital TV. The mobile business offers services in India and Sri Lanka. The Telemedia business provides broadband, IPTV and telephone services in 95 Indian cities. The Digital TV business provides Direct-to-Home TV services across India. The Enterprise business provides end-to-end telecom solutions to corporate customers and national and international long distance services to telcos.

By 2010 Airtel will be the most admired brand in India:

Loved by more customersTargeted by top talentBenchmarked by more businesses

We at Airtel always think in fresh and innovative ways about the needs of our customers and how we want them to feel. We deliver what we promise and go out of our way to delight the customer with a little bit more

What is CRM?

CRM consists of: Helping an enterprise to enable its marketing departments to identify and target their best

customers, manage marketing campaigns with clear goals and objectives, and generate quality leads for the sales team.

Assisting the organization to improve telesales, account, and sales management by optimizing information shared by multiple employees, and streamlining existing processes (for example, taking orders using mobile devices)

Allowing the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the aim of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits; identifying the most profitable customers and providing them the highest level of service.

Providing employees with the information and processes necessary to know their customers, understand their needs, and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base, and distribution partners

After All, It costs five times more to acquire a new customer than to retain one.

Why did Airtel need CRM?

Existing Systems (before 2003)

There were Individual modules for each of the processes and hence a clear lack of integration.

Order processing

Project management

Billing

Customer details

Call center operations

Direct Marketing

Sales Management

Channel Management

All processes were handled with minimum coordination from another and the interdependence was avoided which later proved to create problems like duplicity, insufficient data, inefficient service etc.

Things Changed

A Three Step Program changed is for Bharti Airtel and made them what they are today.

Step1: Technology evaluation and Gap analysis

In the first step of implementation, capabilities of all the existing technologies of Airtel were evaluated and Gap analysis was done to find out the difference between current and required technology levels. The technologies which were required were listed down and their prospective cost of implementation was calculated.

Step2: Internal restructuring and Re- engineering

In the second phase of implementation, Airtel redesigned all the existing modules of for each process, which were earlier process focused to new modules which are now customer focused. These new modules helped them to recognize their customer needs more accurately and provide them with the desired benefits.

Step3: Pilot program and Feedback cycle

In the last and final phase of implementation when all the modules were redesigned, a pilot program was launched and feedback was taken from the users of the pilot program.

Customer Segmentation

New CRM model helped Airtel to segment their customers in a much better way. As per the model, Airtel classified its customers into four major segments:

Achievers -Consisting of professionals and executives who want quick and efficient service.

Funsters - Young people who want fun and entertainment, mobile is a gadget for them. Productivity Enhancer- Like traders, plumbers and electricians for whom mobile is a

productive tool. Social Callers- Consisting of young girls/ wives who make calls to stay in touch with

their loved one/ friends and at times to flaunt it as a status symbol.

Internal and External CRM

Internal and External CRM are nothing but two sides of the same coin. Airtel has classified them as Operational and Analytical CRM.

Operational CRM

Workflow

Day-to-day activities

Analytical CRM

Customer information

Business development

Hence New Modules were introduced:

Marketing

Planning

Campaign Management

Lead Management

Sales

Activity Management

Knowledge Management (FAQs, How to guides)

Call Center Support

Opportunity Management

ORACLE CRM

It is important to understand and segregate customer needs depending on the product and services he is buying. One of the primary things that they have done in this solution is the segmentation of customers. With this, AirTel is now able to give its customers more value for money. With the help of CRM, they are able to provide customers different schemes and services depending on airtime usage. If the customer is a heavy user then they have some specific schemes; for normal users they have other schemes. Apart from this, they have also managed to segregate their workflow with the help of the CRM tool.

Initially, when Bharti started operations, the whole system was run manually. At that point of time only 40 percent of their customer issues were getting resolved—this has now gone up to about 90 percent.

Strategy has also played a major role in improving customer service at AirTel. After starting its services in Delhi, Bharti acquired lot of circles and sought new licences in other circles; whenever they got a new licence, they implemented the CRM tool immediately. But they had to put in a migration strategy in those acquired circles which had an existing subscriber base.

Some of the other benefits include:

Cross selling and up selling of relevant schemes

Generation of accurate leads and SMS bursts that target only the right customers based on their segmentation is possible

Customized and simplified bill formats, payment collection centers, network deployments, and the activation process was enabled

Better value added services were provided

It facilitated knowledge sharing amongst employees.

Started e-billing

Online customer support on new system

Reduced cost of customer or customer acquisition cost

System is highly scalable as the number of subscribers increase.

Automatic escalation of problem to superior authority on breaching pre-set time limit.

E- CRM

As the internet is becoming more and more important in business life, many companies consider it as an opportunity to reduce customer-service costs, tighten customer relationships and most important, further personalize marketing messages and enable mass customization.[6] Together with the creation of Sales Force Automation (SFA), where electronic methods were used to gather data and analyze customer information, the trend of the upcoming Internet can be seen as the foundation of what we know as eCRM today. We can define eCRM as activities to manage customer relationships by using the Internet, web browsers or other electronic touch points. The challenge hereby is to offer communication and information on the right topic, in the right amount, and at the right time that fits the customer’s specific needs.[7]

After implementation of the Oracle CRM, Airtel is now implementing e-CRM.

e-CRM implementation partner is IBM

Airtel would now provide a host of services running on Oracle CRM like:

Online customer support

Customer profiling

Web interface

Sales management for vendors and partners

Such services make it easy for customers, distributors and other channel partners to keep a track of their request/response and expedite the two way interaction.

9 WAYS TO PAY YOUR BILL

It is an example as to how Airtel has been giving choice with convenience to its customers.

Paying bills becomes tedious for a customer if he has to stand in long lines or wait in any other way , also delayed payment attracts penalty. Airtel is concerned about its customers and also to diver the increasing customer base to various other channels it has now 9 WAYS to pay the bill.

Pay from Home

Pay using mChek on Airtel

Log on to www.airtel.in and go to “My Account” Section.

Onetime Payment instructions

Give an ECS for your bank account

Give a standing instruction for charging your credit card.

Walk in and Pay at

Any Airtel recharge outlet

Airtel Relationship centre

Any easy bill/ Oxygen outlet

Any Airtel drop box

ATM payments – For PNB debit card holders

Some Experiences:

Prompt Acknowledgement as soon as you write an email

But, The query is NOT solved as promptly. The replies are most of the time a mere copy paste of procedures and not specific to what customer asked.

Eg; I had written an email recently to stop my paper bill as I was already getting an ebill and hence no need to waste paper.

Irrespective of what I asked them to do, they sent me an email telling me to register my phone on website..........Why would I do that again If I am already getting an ebill and I had reqested the procedure several times...So it was just a copy paste of procedure of getting an ebill...

And few other complaining and furious emails:

RECOMMENDATIONS

Deliver what you promise!!!

Don’t over-commit!!

Be Reasonable while answering Queries!!

Be Accountable!!

Real time billing update

Ensure safe handling of documents

Immediate Activation

Courteous and informed employees is a must

Keep Customer informed about new schemes but do not hinder privacy!!!

Empathise with customers of all age groups- Don’t expect old age people to write emails etc.