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Next-Generation CRM — Is Your Company Ready to Maximize Return?
At lunch hour, thousands of people are calling their banks to take care of
personal business. They're following the prompts to enter their account numbers
and the last four digits of their PIN or Social Security numbers. Then they're
transferred to live agents who ask for the same information.
Customers may wonder why they need to repeat themselves - and perhaps why their
mortgage statement or credit card bill goes to a former address, even though
they've called to update their records. This poor service is due in part to
poor integration of systems and customer information, which in turn leads to
the situations that frustrate customers every day.
The notion of customer relationship management based on a single, unified view
of the customer seems so…last century. But it isn't. Gartner Research says that
40 to 75 percent of the information required in this banking scenario does not
reside in one single system.¡ Despite
the promise of CRM products offered in the late 1990s, the inflexible reality
of that technology often meant considerable and costly customization projects.
Old Problem
Because many business managers have experienced or read about these types of
CRM implementations gone awry, they are savvier about the issues that confront
customer relationship management. Our experience shows that the challenge
hasn't changed and neither has the goal; it's still every company's aim to
deliver greater satisfaction through service, sales and support that are
informed by a consistent, comprehensive understanding of the individual
customer.
What's different today is the understanding that a CRM application can't
guarantee personnel will actually use CRM technology to improve business
performance. Staff use purpose-built systems for marketing, sales, or resource
planning. They also use basic communication and information systems, from the
telephone to e-mail and scheduling software. But when these tools aren't
connected, plenty of valuable customer information gets lost.
Consumers of CRM technology do not anticipate any kind of integrated "customer
interaction hub" technology until at least 2008.¡¡
These conditions contribute to the isolation of important aspects of customer
interaction into "stovepipes" of understanding, virtually trapping an important
exchange that took place during a Web conference, or locking data in a hosted
sales force automation solution where call center, service and support
personnel can't find out what a customer just purchased.
New Thinking
From our perspective, the next generation of CRM technology that business
managers choose has to be affordable and a practical means to real intimacy. In
the wake of highly publicized failures, business decision-makers would be wise
to select CRM software that fits now and can be implemented immediately to
generate return on the investment. Each day that passes without a solution in
place is a lost opportunity to gain value from capturing customer data that,
combined with transaction history, leads to insight that enhances the
relationship with the customer.
While incorporating core communications tools and information systems can
transform a CRM implementation into an infrastructure for customer intimacy,
the same approach can transform business insight. Business insight is a means
to understand the cumulative significance of customer information.
Nevertheless, we find companies' information tools may in fact undermine their
attempt at customer intimacy. Though these tools collate data, they effectively
confine analysis to the CRM software.
Here, too, integration extends business insight beyond a CRM add-on. Business
insight that is designed as a layer over enterprise applications including CRM
can provide broader, richer understanding by tying in data not only from CRM
software, but also from the rest of the systems that support business function,
such as finance systems, order processing systems, HR systems and so forth.
This leads to corporate knowledge that supports understanding, learning and
prediction of customer behavior.
Then there's the question of how to act on that insight. By integrating the
productivity systems used company-wide, insight can be shared through the most
common channels, from e-mail to calendar alerts. Better-informed employees are
empowered to take action.
Choices for a Clear Path to Productivity
It's no coincidence that tying in core systems contributes to effective,
efficient customer intimacy. CRM technology that can be implemented for
immediate results and takes into account infrastructure IT systems - not just
the operating system, but e-mail, portal, scheduling and other systems -
promises long-term options for extracting even greater use and value from
existing technology investments.
Choosing a CRM solution or upgrading one is a decision that's already fraught
with difficult choices about whether to rent or own, build or buy, keep or
replace. That's why our work starts with the everyday tasks and tools used by
customer-facing personnel, so that we can be sure we deliver a productive,
cost-effective CRM solution with a measure of insight.
¡ "Changing the Contact Center is a Key
to Customer Intimacy," Gartner Research, July 2003.
¡¡Ibid.
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