CRM - where is the emphasis? On the C on the R or on the M?
More and more we see the acronym CRM being bandied about in the
business press, CRM or Customer Relationship Management is a hot
topic. In the field, consultants have been asked what is the
difference between CRM and Customer Service. From a purely
semantic point of view - customer service could be defined as
something which you do 'to' your customers, whereas Customer
Relationship Management is what an organization must do 'with'
its customers.
In real life, in companies there is often a feeling that it
would be great place to work if the customers would behave
themselves and that customer service is the responsibility of
one department that is seen as a cost centre as opposed to
adding value! The 'them and us' scenario is alive and well in
Irish companies and as things get busier, the gulf between the
organization and customer increases. The Celtic Tiger may have
been partially responsible for the development of this culture
as there were plenty of customers, the recent down-turn may well
lead to a re-evaluation of the approach taken to customers.
The use of information technology as enablers in the field of
customer relationship management has been hailed a major
breakthrough in CRM, and has spawned its own sub-acronym --
e-CRM. The business press abounds with articles and
advertisements on the e-solutions available to bring e-CRM to
the 'masses'. More and more companies are investing in
e-solutions to redefine and elevate their customer service
activities in the organization, often without the desired
effect. . When we look at the e-CRM solutions, are we actually
reducing the relationship aspect and increasing the management
aspect? But without the relationship will we have any customers
left to manage? This brings in another side to CRM, that could
be termed h-CRM, where the h stands for human.
To have an effective and sustainable h-CRM system, CRM has to be
embodied in the culture, and this can only be truly so if the
emphasis is on building the relationship with the customer. The
mindset of the organization from the highest levels down must be
focused on the customer; the processes must be customer centric.
The strategy and function must be aligned so as to deliver
maximum value to the customer. Often, when faced with the
question regarding whether or not the organization is customer
focused, management will pull out a mission statement that
usually invokes some platitude towards the customer.
So what about h-CRM, with emphases on the h and R - how can it
actually improve our bottom line? Quality Management, has a
distinct focus on the customer in terms of how do our systems
actually deliver benefit to the customer, and how do we measure
it. Having a systematized approach ensures consistency, having
the h-factor as a valued aspect of the system ensures the
relationship. But as with every system, to know how we are doing
we need to be able to measure what we are doing.
As a business, how do we actually measure our service levels, we
-?
- Undertake customer satisfaction surveys (flawed perhaps by the
fact that only those customers who are on good terms with us
will respond and paint a rosier picture than is actually the
case).
- Look at the number of complaints that we receive.
- Look at our turnaround time for customer issues.
- Look at how many calls we can answer in an hour.
These metrics are primarily based on things that we 'do' to the
customer, but what measuring what we do 'with' the customer,
what about the relationship? Is our customer service ethos based
on the alternative-PDCA cycle where the letters don't stand for
Plan, Do, Check and Act, but instead represent Panic then Do
lots of Chaotic Activity! How then, do we measure the
relationship aspect? How do we measure, what we do 'with' the
customer?
By having information on what we do with our customer, what they
expect, what they value and their potential for growth, we can
adjust our offering to allow them to deal with us on a
continuing basis. Information technology, even as basic as an
Excel spreadsheet with accurate customer information, should be
a help to us in the capture and accessibility of information on
customers across the organization. There is real value in having
an e-CRM solution, but it needs to be linked with the people
aspect. The realization that customer information is not
customer knowledge is also worth taking on board - when we look
at our customer information databases, how much do we really
'know' about our customers? Technology will take us part of the
way, but the real value is in the human aspect that builds
relationships through getting to 'know' the customer. This
generates a TOTAL relationship with the customer that can be
defined as one where there is trust, openness, transparency,
appropriateness and longevity.
For a TOTAL relationship that is delivered by the h-factor and
enabled by the e-factor, there is a need for integration of the
customer into the organization. The main barrier to this has
been found to be fear, a fear of letting the customer see that
we are in fact human and operate under fairly much the same
constraints as they do! The barrier is even apparent in how we
communicate with our customers - only when it is safe and
absolutely necessary!
Up to this point, the focus has been primarily external, out
towards the customers. Now let's focus on the staff with whom
our customers interact. How customer focused are they? How do
they treat our customers? What is the attitude expressed towards
customers by our people? What type of image of our organization
do they present to our customers? In HR circles it's often said
that people don't leave jobs - they leave people. From a CRM
viewpoint could the same thing be said - how often do we lose
customers because of the interaction with our people? How many
companies actually use information gathered from the CRM systems
to help specify the training requirements of staff? The basic
point is that the best CRM products and customer service
processes are of no consequence if the people cannot deliver on
the relationship aspect.
Looking at how most companies conduct business, relationships
are not considered as key entities - it’s more like warfare
where we select our 'target' market, gather 'intelligence',
devise a 'penetration' strategy, 'take out' our competitors,
'consolidate' our position and 'attack' through our sales
'force' in an aggressive 'campaign'. Militarily we are moving
towards e-warfare, and the danger is that in our customer
interactions we are moving in the same direction with an
over-emphasis on e-CRM solutions as the panacea. The question
is, can our customers have a relationship with an e-CRM
interface, or more importantly, do they want to?
For the best possible CRM solution for our organization - we
need to make sure we don't lose the emphasis on the R and this
can only be achieved by having people who are ready, willing and
able to establish, develop and maintain the relationship. This
is a key skill, a value adding process for any organization,
because in the final analysis, CRM is the acronym for Customers
Really Matter - is this the case for your organization?
Source: Dr. Jim Bradley
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