 Message From Our CEO
I trust that everyone had a wonderful summer and is ready for the change in seasons. This was productive summer for Inserso as we launched our Government Services Group, expanded our staff, added a few new clients to our family. Once again, we have been recognized for our expertise by the industry pundits. Noteworthy mentions go to Christian Thompson, one of our senior engineers, published repeatedly in ColdFusion Developers Journal, and our e-rulemaking team for receiving a personal invitation to address all of the Secretaries of States at their national conference. It went very well, and I would happily go into detail for anyone interested in learning more. We hosted a series of seminars on CRM, related articles provided here in Insights. And finally, we had a little time for some needed R&R to get us ready for a busy fall! I encourage you to drop me note and share your best summer highs and lows.
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Hamid Moinamin
CEO | |
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Communication Tactics |
In past issues of Insights, we have addressed CRM as an encompassing strategy for managing business relationships. Today we will look at a functional component of this strategy - Communication Tactics. Drilling down deeper we will focus on how it applies to customer service, one of the three pillars of CRM. What do you think of when you hear the words, "We are customer focused".....More
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Three Pillars of CRM |
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a comprehensive philosophy and business strategy. Like all good business philosophies and strategies, it is built on a rock-solid foundation. The foundation of CRM is composed of three pillars: marketing, sales, and customer service......More
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| Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Communication Tactics |
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Communication Tactics
In past issues of Insights, we have addressed CRM as an encompassing strategy for managing business relationships. Today we will look at a functional component of this strategy - Communication Tactics. Drilling down deeper we will focus on how it applies to customer service, one of the three pillars of CRM. What do you think of when you hear the words, "We are customer focused", or "We have great customer service"? Stop laughing, take a breath and realize that your customers, members, and users have had the same experiences and thoughts. Can you be certain that their unpleasant brush with poor customer service was outside of their interactions with your organization? Regardless of where they encountered bad customer service, and we know that they most likely have, it remains burned into their psyche. Now it is a hurdle that all customer service groups and customer centric organizations must strive to over come. The right efforts are there, the philosophy may even be in place, but it is nearly impossible to manage all the information on your clients without a system to capture, organize, and disseminate the data. Herein resides the core issue - Do you really know your customer, and do you understand why they are a customer?
Customer Meets the Road Less Traveled
CRM tactics such as "closed loop" communications (end to end) speak to the issue of how we identify customer behavior and preferences, and then provide them with services based on this information. By compiling and analyzing data gathered from customer calls, emails, and web site interaction we can better address each person as an individual. The system can then send an automated reply, schedule an action for your customer support staff, or offer contingent options like a survey. Once the action taken meets the request, it is considered a closed loop since it has addressed the customer's and your needs by giving them desired results while providing you even more data on the client.
A Balanced Diet of Well Blended Services
A balanced contact center is one that allows assisted, agent-based service, unassisted, personalized self service, and a nice combination of both. By letting the client choose the method of communication you enable each customer to have more control and get the individual attention they require. The win/win proposition: Happier customers, faster responses, with better understanding of their specific wishes, controlled and reduced costs, far greater grasp on customers as individuals, and fewer lost relationships.
A Closing to the Heart
As we move forward with CRM our directives grow from reactive, the who, what, when, and where, to predictive, the why, and what is next. The very heart of CRM philosophy is to know what your customer wants and then give it to them - before they ask for it; hmm; sounds like CRM should be standard issue when you purchase a marriage license.
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| Three Pillars of CRM |
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a comprehensive philosophy and business strategy. Like all good business philosophies and strategies, it is built on a rock-solid foundation. The foundation of CRM is composed of three pillars: marketing, sales, and customer service. While it is true that these three pillars are not new to the business world, CRM's treatment of them is. Used properly, CRM supercharges them.
Marketing, often the first avenue through which a business reaches a customer, is a process that involves much time-consuming research and planning. The more knowledge that a business can gather for its marketing campaign, the more successful that it will be. CRM enhances marketing efforts by providing a ready available store of knowledge on your current customers and a number of methods to extract and examine the data. This same data can also be used to track the effects of the marketing campaign.
Sales is often the component that is most emphasized by CRM vendors. However, sales management is just one pillar of CRM and, like the other two, is highly dependent on the knowledge that is gathered from the other two areas. Having the proper knowledge and distributing it effectively is key to ensuring repeat customers. CRM boosts this process by storing all of the related data in one cohesive repository and ensuring seamless knowledge transfer to the proper recipients during all points in the sales cycle.
Customer service is the final pillar of CRM. Most of your knowledge of about your customers will be developed after your first sale is completed and you have established a relationship with them. However, many of the current systems do not effectively distribute this valuable information back to the marketing and sales divisions. In effect, this hard won intelligence is lost to two-thirds of the business. CRM prevents this by providing meaningful views of this information to marketing and sales divisions, augmenting their respective business processes.
Marketing, sales, and customer service are the three pillars that many businesses are built on. Likewise, CRM is built on these pillars. Because both foundations are shared, CRM can turn into the foundation for an organization. By compiling and, more importantly, sharing data, CRM takes marketing, sales, and customer service - often treated by organizations as three distinct entities - and allows them to be viewed as a group of tightly coupled business processes. It is this ability to provide a cohesive interface between an organization and its foundation that allows CRM to supercharge marketing, sales, and customer service.
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