Customer Relationship Management

We would appreciate the fact, that most of our next door small shops/stores have established true long term Customer Relationship, through their personal attention and care, in meeting our day today needs and requirements. We would have traditionally been buying goods, from them, for years, in the past and are sure to continue in the future as well, as long as we both continue to exist. Some of these shops/stores hardly know about the sophisticated CRM technologies, but what they all know is ‘True Customer Relationship and Care’, where they put themselves in our shoes while servicing our needs, retaining the true philosophy of ‘Customer is the King’.

But today, we see huge investments being made by Organizations in CRM technology, but this needs to be done keeping the end users (Customers, Employees and Partners) in mind, appreciating the fact that they are human beings (with feelings) and not just robots.

We can see a few examples to explain this situation,

1. In spite of having the state of the art CRM and Contact Center Technologies, if Customers are unable to have a unified view of their information across all access channels (phone/IVRS, e-mail, web, mobile etc) or if they do not get a polite response/correct information from the Customer Service Representatives (CSRs), they would be disgusted.

2. If the CRM application is not user friendly, for the Employees (Sales, Marketing and Service teams) and Partners, due to numerous parameters/fields for inputs/outputs and complex flows between different screens, it would practically become very difficult for them to use it on a daily basis. They would still continue to use it for name sake, than enjoying the user experience and seeing value in it.

3. In spite of having a futuristic Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS), if there are too many menus/options or if the speech recognition is not user friendly or if the Web based on-line application is very complex, with too many options/parameters, the Customers (especially those who are not tech savvy) would really get lost and be dissatisfied with the overall service experience.

4. If the Customer Requests are not serviced on time (be it sales orders or service support requests), due to the fact that the diverse back end applications/systems are not tightly integrated (say CRM, Order Management, Billing, Provisioning, Fulfillment, to name a few), the Customer would still be quite upset.

5. When campaigns (say phone call campaigns, e-mail campaigns) becomes a nuisance for the Customers, we might actually be losing them, than gaining them.

These are just a few examples, where there is too much emphasis/focus only on the technology part of CRM, leaving the basic fact that the Customers, Employees and Partners are human beings, who would prefer user friendly applications and Customers would value personal care during their direct interactions with the Sales/Service Teams, beyond complete automation.

If time permits, we would still enjoy the experience of going to the nearby store to buy a Music System of our choice (well supported by the personal care, attention and service of the store representative), than just ordering it online (even though it is more convenient).

While technology is certainly an important enabler for Customer Relationship Management (CRM), without the human touch, true customer satisfaction can hardly be achieved. So the CRM application should really have a simple and user-friendly interface (to make life easier for all the stake holders – Customers, Employees and Partners), combined with well groomed sales/service service representatives (who would really care for their Customers). This combination of Technology along with the human touch will go a long way to enhance true customer relationship and satisfaction, thereby leading to increased business and revenues.

Customer Satisfaction Survey could be a good source of information to measure and monitor the pulse of the Customer. If we could promptly act upon the Customer feedback and suggestions, especially in making every Customer interaction an enjoyable experience for them (by combining CRM technology and human touch), we can ensure that our Customers would vouch for us. The Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) such as Customer Service Response Time, Abandoned Call Rate, First Call Resolution, Customer Satisfaction Ratings, Percentage of Repeat Business, Percentage of New Business through referrals, to name a few, would help us to enhance Customer Satisfaction, in the long run. There are Organizations offering excellent Customer Service at an affordable cost, while others offering it at a premium. Possibly, even in this case, the right blend of CRM technology and human touch could help Organizations to differentiate themselves in the market place.

I am sure all of you would have some thoughts to share on these lines and I would appreciate your view and experiences as well…