Customer revisited

1. What led CRM to be a major tool in business By: Maxwell

2. 1 . Realisation of importance of relationship marketing Focus on maintaining a continuous relationship with the customer and building a long term bond Focus on customer relationship as opposed to one time transaction Building trust and friendship within the customer base were seen as a major thrust in developing long term businesses. Creating an environment where both customers as well as the business feel that they are on a win win relationship

3. 2. Marketing Research It could be argued that origin of CRM rooted in the Marketing Research (MR) MR did so much of studies on how people purchased products, there post purchase behavior , why customers do not buy again , why they buy again, what are their perceptions etc. That had shown the importance of understanding customer more to profitable businesses. However, MR never presumed that CRM could be done so effectively as it did not predict the development of IT that is used as a tool in CRM

4. 3. Development of B to B relations Dealings done with business customers and the close relationships made with them, showed how it worked for the benefit of the business It was viewed that even consumer relations should be developed to gain the maximum benefit

5. 4. Application of Material Resource Planning,(MRP)and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions by SAP When MRP was introduced in mid 1980s companies began to construct customer and supplier data bases In early 1990s company called SAP integrated MRP with accounting and customer data warehouses were established. Once it was done companies had demographic, behavioral and contact data where they could use for CRM

6. 5. Introduction of Customer Call Centers Customer inquiries or trouble shooting done through call centers Call centers received so much of customer complaints and comments The information gathered through call centers were warehouses of information about customers and their expectations That persuaded to go further and develop CRM

7. 6. Sales Force Automation SFA enabled to capture prospects and customers information and provide the SF real time information SFA was originally meant to improve sales force productivity and encourage sales people to document and communicate their field activities However, the information gathered were so important that it shed light on the importance of establishing much better relationship with customers and it provided the main ingredients also to do so.

8. 7. Campaign Management Customer data were used to specifically target communications about new products and developments as mass media was very expensive Companies could fine tune and plan their campaigns and monitor them well with such data of customers Therefore campaigns also would have prompted to highlight the importance of CRM

9. 8. Web and Channel integration Customer data were gathered by different functional departments for different purposes when they interact with customers ( Customer touch points) Later on centralised cross functional database was introduced to provide a single vision of the customer. The customer data came from all touch points and it provided a 360 degree view of the customer Much of today’s CRM efforts include gathering customer information from each touch point and integrating it into the customer’s profile in order to better service across all contact points of the customer.

10. 9. Wide use of personal computers Availability of personal computers enabled different departments of the business to gather, store and analyze customer data When all such data were consolidated by the Headquarters it enabled the company as a whole to develop better customer driven activities and products Therefore, it also would have prompted to formally develop CRM as it was beneficial to the company

11. 10. Industrial and Services Marketing ( ISM) It could be argued that ISM prompted to formally recognize CRM ISM emphasized more on relationship building, developing trust, commitment to customer services, services quality, satisfaction, and the need to maintain a customer base. Services Marketing lead to introduce additional 3 Ps , People, Physical Evidence and Process into the traditional Marketing Mix of 4 ps.

12. Be a happy family. Use CRM in family first ?????