Customer Relationship Management

Guest Post by

Mahadevan Meikum Perumal, Principal Consultant, Enterprise Application Integration and Solutions (EAIS), Enterprise Solutions, Infosys Technologies Ltd.

 

If you are a Wild West fan and checking this blog for Clint Eastwood magnum opus then apologies...as context setting is done...here you go

How often do you hear these comments or complaints from your operational CRM users community?

• Majority of the call time had been spent on navigating the screens in the CRM apps
• Need to switch between multiple Apps to get the required customer info
• CRM uptime or response time is an issue
• Time to run campaigns is long and unrealistic
• System stability or availability is an issues

All the above comments or critics converge towards a single issue - Yes, the Non-Functional aspects of the applications.

Almost 1 in 3 CRM implementation struggles due to the way Non-functional's were dealt in Requirement Engineering (RE), System design or Post-Implementation. Both Functional and Non-functional requirements are decisive factors in ensuring the success of a CRM application. But most of the CRM implementation focuses on the functional aspect of the application with less or no focus on the Non-functional arena. So the Non-Functional requirements are dealt in a reactive manner without having proper consideration for them during the system architecture or design resulting in system availability, performance or usability issues and sometime even security vulnerability. These issues not just causes dent on business operations or operational user confidence but also impacts customer experience. Needless to say a CRM application can only contribute to the corporate objectives if it is available, useable and supported.

In the contemporary organization, CRM systems are the face of it; just few minutes of downtime or few hours of performance issue can cost millions of pounds to business and also leaves bad taste on the customer. Non-functional is one of the key factors in determining the success of any CRM implementations. Unfortunately, it is most badly dealt aspect; the major reasons are:

• Flawed Presumptions; Non-functional will not have impact on the system development cost or timelines
• NFR are often subjective, interactive and relative, thus realizing the need for particular NFR is by itself a challenge
• Functional requirements of a CRM system can be effectively modelled through the use case driven approach, but there is no standard or de facto method for modelling non-functional requirements (NFR) of the system architecture.
• Unlike Functional aspects of the application Non-functionals requires a continuous focus and robust process/framework post implementations as well (during InLife stage as well).

In addition to the business impact or revenue loss, a badly dealt or an ignored NFR can significantly impact system development or even shoot cost of ownership. For instance, lack of clarity on data retention period or archival solution for an operational CRM system can significantly shoots the data storage cost there by impacting the performance and cost of ownership. Similarly, during the Solution architecture stage if the Maximum concurrent end-users or Maximum of concurrent transactions are not accounted while determining the Hardware it may result in under capacity which will cause severe performance issue after Go-Live and will result in low user confidence or acceptance.

Usability requirements also plays pivotal role in user or business acceptance of the CRM systems. For instance, no. of clicks (or no. of screen required navigate) to complete business transaction will have severe impact on the user behaviour and will result higher call handling time for contact centre users which again consequence itself with higher TCO and low ROI.
 
To conclude, functional requirements describe the behaviours (functions or services) of the system and a non-functional requirement defines constraints and qualities. Qualities are properties or characteristics of the system that its stakeholders care about and hence will affect their degree of satisfaction with the system. i.e., Non-functional aspects are the one that will define effectiveness of CRM application as - Good, Bad or Ugly. Most organisations are increasingly releasing the importance of the Non-Functional aspects and there is renewed focus on Non-Functional both during the Implementation and InLife. Some of the least and key Non-functional qualities or attributes that requires focus in ensuring Good CRM applications are:

• Security
• Usability
• Availability & Reliability
• Performance
• Maintainability

 

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I am in no way going to contradict this statement. We are social and the same can be seen of different species in the world. But an interesting piece of news: Ford car that tweets  just gave a new insight into the whole social paradigm. It took me to a whole new world of interactions and the change it can bring about in future relationships. We have seen it in films, cartoons and sometimes even we talk subconsciously to the objects!

But, with social media the man-made imagination and world of sub consciousness is actually turning into reality.

So, what can be the possible scenarios?

a. The objects directly calling the service department in case of issues - I can already sense the comfort zone!!

b. The objects alerting us for service reminders, feature failure by delivering message using e-mail, sms or twitter.

c. In case of a high-engagement object, it will also give out the best possible recommendations. We already see something similar on our laptops and cell phones.  But a more personalized message - "@xyz dear owner, I found a good deal for up gradation of my tires. I promise it will only strengthen my bond with you :) " might make a good difference.

d. Real-time tips for best way to use the product feature. For instance, amateur photographers look out for information on various forums, brochure to equip themselves with the knowledge. Imagine a scenario where you take a still shot and the very instant camera can analyze a better way to click the same shot.

To elaborate further, I would like to take the Hi-Tech industry as the reference. While working on a formal viewpoint of role of social media in Hi-Tech, I realized that this space is slowly converging with different brands eating on each other's product lines. For example, earlier there were only cell phone makers like Nokia but now the likes of Dell, HP have also entered into this space. Hence, to start envisioning about social network of objects, this industry seems to be the right fit with different type of objects available for the consumer.

From technological perspective, the integration between different devices provided under one brand already has various options like Bluetooth and WLAN. So, a connection at data level is an established affair. The next level desired is where we form a social network with these connected objects.

An object's profile data will have attributes such as Product name, Product ID, Location, date of registration, current status. It will be a member of official support group and upgrade groups to name a few. A user needs to simply log in and see the status of his different objects through a portal. He need not manually register the product in separate portals for getting support and upgrades leading to increased ease of maintenance.

Similarly, I also see a better opportunity for cross-sell/up-sell since with the help of social element. An enterprise will have the aggregate usage patterns of the customer on different devices at its disposal. This will help design a more effective offer for the customer. For instance, a user having a Laptop and Smartphone provided by an enterprise mostly uses Laptop browser for news. Hence, an effective cross-sell can be to promote a Smartphone application of syndicated news feed to the user.

The scenarios mentioned above are still far from reality but do have the potential to alter the way we communicate with objects.  I am definitely waiting for that day  :)

Posted by Nishith Gupta at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In order to be more effective and gain competitive edge in the fast evolving markets it is said that the organizations need to understand more and more about the customers and use the insights to talk, engage and interact with their customers more often and more meaningfully in new and innovative ways such as the blogs, twitters and social networking sites etc.

Data analytics and business intelligence are perceived to be the key drivers of the way CRM would shape in the coming few years.

More and more companies are going after the fact that extracting more data about their customers, to understand more about their behavioral patterns is going to be a key factor in maintaining relations and gaining customers in future.

However I feel that there is another side to this. Take an example of a visit to a restaurant. Say I order my favorite dishes. My activities and preferences are all a part of the data base the restaurant must be maintaining. Next time when I visit the same restaurant they would produce the menu which they know as part of their data analysis, is to my liking and interest.

As a customer I might like it and am impressed that they have taken so much of care to ensure that things are as per my tastes. However it is even possible that as an individual I might not like and feel happy about the same. As a person I have my privacy and personal choices which I might not like anyone to follow or keep a track of. Getting reminders and wishes on birthdays and anniversaries might be some thing to rejoice for one and might not be encouraged by some one else.

It is very important to understand that we have N number of people with N number of behavioral patterns. Also the behaviours or likings of a person at a given point of time might not be constant throughout. Any unnecessary and un warranted intrusion in privacy might be something that might have negative impacts.

Getting phone calls/ messages/ mails etc for latest offers and best deals might actually drive the customer in the opposite direction. As a customer I might be very personal and recluse by nature and any marketing tantrums might just turn me off.

It is important to understand that going by trends and following the blind race is not always good. Data analytics and gaining customer might work for quite a few but that might not always be established as a rule. It is important to remember that human nature is the most complex thing to understand. The psychology and behavior is largely diversified and might largely vary. It is difficult to classify and draw conclusions and in many situations that might even turn disastrous

Posted by Anshul Tiwari at 4:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are good chances that you haven't heard of horseless carriage syndrome before. I don't think it's a popular one but surely very interesting and relevant. If you Google for it, you will find lot of articles floating around on this in the cloud computing context. The horseless carriage syndrome goes like this:

In very early days of the motor vehicle, it was so difficult for everyone to imagine a moving vehicle without horse that car carriage designers used to craft the vehicle with a dummy horse torso in the front and the motor car was actually called 'horseless carriage'. For some time, carriage designers still had the scope and structure of the designs fairly influenced and hence constrained by ghostly non-existent requirements (like horse whip holder). It took some time for the design philosophies, practices and standards to abandon older paradigm which I think was really necessary to give space to the newer paradigm. In some way, it was also argued that simulated horse interface of the carriage and the associated design constructs, though redundant from functional design perspective, were actually helpful in transitioning the paradigm for wider adoption. So there are two important points here:

1. When new paradigm arrives, there is a natural tendency to model its execution with the existing environmental constraints of the previous paradigm. Due to that, co-existence with the older paradigm continues for a while and it allows the uptake in lesser disruptive manner.
   
2. At the same time, square-peg-in-the-round-whole situation becomes a challenge for the emerging design practices. Despite having greater possibilities, design practices keep constraining the future solutions. It makes the innovation process slower and complex.

Something similar we are witnessing in the social CRM space also. There are many companies today that have quickly jumped onto new digital social platforms like twitter but the way they are using almost in the same way how they might use the conventional channels like e-mail, news-paper publication channel etc.  For customers, the experience is not much different (actually reported as worse in some cases) than what they otherwise are accustomed to with the convention channels. In many cases, customer most likely will ignore the overload of the faceless and useless information being delivered on the newer channels but in that process, on-boarding of the new digital social technology with their customer community will happen without much significant change management effort. And that's really much of social CRM 1.0 is going to be like.

Moving to social CRM 2.0 is going to be emergence of the meaningful engagement between customers and business, emergence of the policies, standards and legal guidelines that protect the best interests of customers and most importantly the emergence of new measurement parameters around which companies are going to compete in social space. I can hypothesize, speculate but seriously I do not know what those new parameters are going to be, I will doubt if anyone really knows today beyond obvious metrics of CRM. But that's not important here, it is part of the change, part of the transition. As we discover those new parameters, it will start changing the game in terms of realignment of the enterprise strategies as well as utilization of the new technologies. Till then, I could conveniently call it 'playing around' with the newer paradigms. To build strategic levers on the social CRM, enterprises need to challenge themselves to think beyond current madness of social networking, ignore the glare of the social digital illusions to some extent and put their best think tanks on defining the future possibilities that don't exist today.

Posted by Rakesh Mishra at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Guest Post by
Jakki Geiger, Director, MDM Marketing, Informatica

Seventy-one percent of C-level executives at large multinational corporations recognize the value of data as a corporate asset essential to growth, profitability, and competitive advantage. Yet just 39 percent of them believe their organizations make very effective use of their information.

This alarming gap in C-level perceptions between the value and usability of corporate data was revealed in a Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) Management Barometer survey last year, and it underscores a fundamental problem that afflicts most organizations--they don't put good data in the hands of the business people who need it.

One wonders how those C-level executives would have responded if PwC asked, "What could your company do to improve the value and usability of its data?" Chances are most would have merely shrugged. From the executive suite down through business analyst ranks, too many business users feel powerless in obtaining the accurate, reliable information they need, or they spend untold hours hunting for it across disparate systems.

If you mention a term like "master data management " or "MDM" to a non-technical business user, you're likely to get a dazed look. But if you showed business users how they could easily access and use trusted, reliable master data (such as data about customers, products, channel partners and the relationships between them) to do their jobs better, you'd get a different reaction.

The fact is that MDM isn't rocket science. The IT crew does need to do the technical-level implementation and establish connectivity between an MDM repository and the applications from which it will source data, but after that, business users can get into the driver's seat. Today, the best MDM solutions empower ordinary business users with easy-to-use tools to put master data to work to address common business problems.

Here's a typical example, using MDM in a business-to-business (B2B) sales environment. To best do their jobs, sales and channel personnel need comprehensive, accurate information on customer accounts, contacts, corporate hierarchies, channel partners, products, and more. Yet even small discrepancies in spelling a customer's name (using myself as an example, I use Jacqueline for my billing information and Jakki for my shipping information--talk about a customer information management nightmare) can cause major problems. And many times, customer-facing personnel have no reliable view of product penetration, partner conflicts or gaps, or sales potential. The result is missed opportunity and lost revenue.

Through an intuitive interface, MDM lets users sort, filter, drill down and reconcile discrepancies that exist between similar data in different systems. From a hodgepodge of contradictory, inaccurate data, business users can point and click to generate the single, reliable view they need, without IT assistance.

The next time your CEO or any business person asks what can be done to improve data value and usability, don't let the conversation end as soon as you mention MDM. Explain to the user how MDM can put them in control of enterprise data, and point them to an executive brief that outlines the business usage of MDM in practical, step-by-step fashion, with how-to illustrations.

Posted by Jakki Geiger at 5:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The analogy of the command-and-control and sense-and-respond helps me to connect with the style of management/practices and see the evolution of social CRM in that context. There are emerging discussions about the enterprises that are managing the business in 'sense-and-respond' approach and my post here is somewhat aligns to that thought process. There is a very good post here for those of you who are interested in further venturing into it. Coming back to the topic, let me now drive through the key difference that 'sense and respond' paradigm brings into social CRM.

1. Need of a Network centric customer management - 'digital customer networks' is relatively a new phenomenon for the businesses to deal with, both from strategy as well as operations perspective. So far, customer were a segment, a logical entity, a cluster. But now, network of customers itself is an entity that has slightly different rules of the game. To deal with the complexity of the customer network dynamics, enterprises need to create integrated response (across marketing, service and product design departments as well as with partners) to be able to offer greater and sustainable customer experience - collaboration needs are paramount.
2. Shared situation awareness - I anticipate that customer networks and multiple social identities of customers are going to make it slightly complex to get consistent, accurate and meaningful customer insight. To fight it out, enterprises will need to develop the capability of shared situation awareness about the customer (instead of silos and compartmentalized awareness) across different stakeholder departments inside the enterprise as well as across the partners who might be engaging with the customer at different point in time and for different purposes.  Further, enterprises will need to acquire predictive capabilities based on the patterns of the customer behavior history (instead of reactive customer relationship). Shared situation awareness will help the enterprise to be on top of the customer dynamics and deal with it effectively.
3. Agility to reorganize the enterprise practices - Dynamically evolving market place situation makes the conventional regularized practices a barrier because it were designed for more static kind of problems/scenarios. If enterprises hang onto those practices and try to respond to dynamically changing market place today, effort is likely to be futile. So sense-and-respond approach helps here by creating the capability in the enterprise to quickly re-organize its practices to respond to an evolving situation.
4. Personalized Context based customer engagement - mass oriented and one-size-fit-all approach doesn't work anymore to connect to consumer community. Invisible faceless customers do not exist anymore. There is a strong need for sensing the personalized needs/preferences of the customer and further responding with contextual propositions. I came across this interesting case study of Philadelphia Flyers about their intense customer context focus; (well-articulated by Paul Greenberg here). The way Philadelphia Flyers have gone about recognizing the need to personalize their engagements with the fans, individualized financing options during recession period and "single view of the fan" concept and culture, it clearly shows the strength of deepening the customer context when it comes to social CRM.
5. Strength of the information position - multitudes of social channels, social identities and social customers are going to cause information overload for the enterprises. Managing the strength of the information becomes critical to compete given that everyone is going to have the great deal of information available. Strength will mean accuracy, relevance and currency of the information that can help enterprises to create precise view of the customer's social footprint. This will be instrumental in creating the shared situation awareness about the customer that I talked about earlier.
6. Shift needed from 'controlling' to 'managing'  the customer relationships -  today social customer engagement patterns require enterprises to move away from transaction managed relationship to continuously situation aware (engaged) and high-quality experience driven customer relationships. Digital networks and new age technologies are highly capable of accomplishing it. Customer experience becomes paramount focus and must-have attitude of the organizations because the new generation of social customers just doesn't want engagements dominated by such transactions that reflect the urge to control the customer response or that hard-orchestrate the boundaries of the customer engagements.
7. Shift needed from 'process efficiency' to 'customer value and engagement effectiveness' - In last two decades most of the CRM investment went into process automation, system integration and unified information management of the customer. Moving forward, focus has to be shifted to direct customer value creation processes. Customer experience across various engagement touch points is going to be one such important value creation process in CRM.  Increasingly, customer loyalty will shift from brand wagon to spectrum of opportunities that offer newer/better customer experiences. Recent examples of this shift are Apple-Ford 'Customer for life' program that offers care free customer service, Stella Artois Le Bar Guide that mixes augmented reality for customers to provide unique experience of browsing, promotion etc. (this is really good one, check it out), 'Imagination' Disney store that provides immersive shopping experience, Puma in-store co-creation platform enabled by iPADs (another cool example) and another one in my list is the coca cola village that has integrated facebook application activity with real-life RFID devices. 

To sum it up -  a shift from mission-centric strategies ( that are inward focused, just sales number driven) to value-system centric strategies (that are outward focused, customer loyalty driven) is on the card.

Bottom-line : Social software is just an excuse and is fairly incidental; social CRM offers much bigger opportunity to transform the culture of the customer relationship management when organization sheds 'command and control' model and embraces the 'sense-and-respond' model.

Posted by Rakesh Mishra at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)