Customer Relationship Management

Field Service: The way ahead – Part 1

2010-03-18T18:25:03Z

by Shyamalee Pramod Samvatsar

In this era of product commoditization and soaring customer expectations, manufacturing companies are transforming their business model to reduce their dependence on product revenues and cash in on the demand for Services. Based on my experience and reading, I have noted the following trends in customer service:

]]> 1) Companies are moving from product focused to a service focused model.

Owing to decreasing revenue and margin contribution from new product sales and stagnating new product demand, manufacturing companies are increasingly focusing on post sales service for market differentiation as well as revenue generation. Increase in installed asset base and life of the assets generates demand for maintenance activities over the lifetime of the assets. Therefore, services for these installed assets are becoming very lucrative.

2) Revenue via services is growing as a % of overall revenue.

Companies have begun to derive a greater proportion of their overall revenue from Services owing to the following:
• Revenue from services is more steady, predictable and counter-cyclical to product revenues.
• The profit-to-revenue ratio in services is higher than in the traditional products business, given the eroding margins on products from increased competition.
• Customer potential spend on services and consumables is far higher than the initial sales price of the equipment.

3) Companies are leveraging service channels to increase revenue.

Customer service is being seen as a channel to cross-Sell/Up-Sell and increase revenue and profitability as below:
• Multi-layered service contracts help win long term business from customers as these assure the customer that all their service needs will be addressed by the company.
• A customer service rep with a 360 view of the customer is in a position to understand customer needs and make recommendations about other products/services that are of relevance to the customer. Customers are more receptive to this message as it is communicated at the time of service delivery and would be seen as ‘tying in’ to their requirements.

Specific to Field Service channel, these trends can be extended as below:

4) Field service is transforming from a cost center to a profit center.

Companies are no longer looking at field service as a ‘necessary evil’. They are enabling their field force with processes and technologies to provide quality service that will help transform the service function to a profit center as below:
• High quality service delivery can act as a tool for customer retention and therefore increased revenue in the long run.
• Efficient service delivery in terms of having the ‘right technician at the right place at the right time with the right parts and tools’ can help increase the profitability of the service function.
• Proactive repair and maintenance of assets can reduce costly SLA violations and warranty charges down the line.

5) Mobility has become a key to field service delivery.

Organizations are providing their Field force with mobile devices that give them access to real-time data on the field and keep them active, productive and efficient. Mobile solutions for Field Service can achieve the following:
• Eliminate Manual and Paper work
• Provide ability to get real-time customer data
• Provide access to product and inventory data
• Provide ability to invoice on-site and reduce the daily sales outstanding
• Provide ability to cross-sell/up-sell service

In my subsequent posts, I intend to explore how these trends have influenced IT solutions for Field service and how these solutions can be leveraged to enable the field force deliver better value to their customers. Would love you hear your thoughts and observations before proceeding.

About the Author

Shyamalee is a Lead Consultant with the Enterprise Solutions unit. She has end-to-end implementation experience in CRM modules spanning sales, marketing, service and analytics. She has successfully managed a transformational CRM program at a global logistics provider and is currently anchoring a CRM solution initiative. Shyamalee will blog on various aspects of CRM, specifically around service and mobility solutions.

Social Media – Be Aware or Beware? – Part 2

2010-03-17T08:28:54Z

by Amrith Rajasekaran

What are companies and corporations doing to enhance their presence on the social sphere? For starters, they create accounts on sites like Twitter, Facebook and mySpace. They use these forms of social media to spread awareness about products and also do a lot of branding and marketing activities through these.

]]> With the advent of Twitter, more and more companies are offering ‘help-desk’ like features. They create accounts and employ people to constantly monitor these accounts and provide assistance. The idea is to leverage these social media platforms in helping reduce call center traffic and thereby cutting costs. In addition to just cost cutting, the aim is also to firmly establish a ‘connect’ with the customers. Increasingly, companies are realizing that however great a product they come out with, in the end, it’s the acceptance that determines how well the product does.

Companies now are developing dedicated ‘social media strategies’. They invest heavily on marketing on the internet and create entire marketing campaigns online. By getting to be ‘one-with-the people’, they essentially try to create a fan base by creating not just fans but ‘influencers’, people who go around and actually build the company’s image by recommending it’s products and services. In this day and age, when trust is not really the most easily obtainable thing in the world, companies try to win the trust of the customers by projecting a friendly image and making themselves inherently more sociable.

While some companies merely have a social presence to advertise and spread awareness about their products, others have entire strategies based on these social media sites; a few that instantly spring to mind are Dell, Zappos, Comcast and Starbucks. Frank Elaison, a senior Director of National Customer Service Operations of Comcast set up a Twitter account, ‘@comcastcares’. This account has become a massive hit in the ‘Twitterverse’ with thousands of queries being posted and people receiving quick solutions to their everyday problems. Not just limited to solving everyday problems, they have been very good at channeling the negative comments they recieve. Anyone who has a complaint against Comcast is sure to be heard and responded to. This truly sets them apart from the competition.

Zappos is a unique site that sells apparel and footwear through a website. Now what makes them unique is that they were probably the pioneers of the use of Twitter to do business. Social media is inbred in the company’s corporate culture. Almost all the employees have an active Twitter account and use these to share interesting information with the clients and thus establish a firm relationship with them. The CEO of the company, Tony Hsieh, also plays a vital role in being accessible and providing a heartwarming personality to the entire company as a whole. Such was the tremendous growth of Zappos that it crossed over $1 billion in sales in 2008 itself and was acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion. The reason for the tremendous business has most certainly been the relationship that it has managed to forge with its customers.

Starbucks managed to capture the imagination of its customers by opening up a site that called out to them to give their ideas for what they would like to see in their favorite coffee shop. Not just limiting the customers to ideas about new beverages, Starbucks also asks people to give ideas about merchandise, involvement and the whole ‘Starbucks experience.’ They then actively participate with the customers and incubate these ideas and implement the most feasible ones. Seeing their ideas getting implemented creates a ‘sense of belonging’ among the people and thus improves business.

Lastly, Dell. If one brand has been able to make the utmost use of the social media platform, it’s Dell. They were one of the pioneers in the initial e-commerce model and have now seamlessly integrated social media into this model. They shifted from the broadcasting to the direct communication with such ease and simplicity that no one actually noticed the change. Through their Twitter account, ‘@DellOutlet’, they have managed to garner more than a million followers, which has translated into a revenue of roughly $3 million. Also, they have platforms like ‘Idea Storm’ through which more than 350 user ideas have been implemented. ‘After three years of experimenting, listening and learning, however, we have concluded that social media is ultimately about connecting and communicating across all aspects of our business. This means that while a core social media team remains, the marketing, sales, service and support, and product groups all need to have their own fingers on the pulse and arms around their customers. While social media started as a way for Dell to distribute news and special offers, it has evolved into a critical relationship builder, integrated into all business units’, says Richard Binhammer, a senior manager in corporate communications at Dell.

Thus, it’s quite safe to conclude that social media is a phenomenon that is indeed taking the world by storm. Companies have shown that it is the way forward and they have shown that with a little bit of innovation and out-of-the-box thinking, customers can be converted into ‘friends’ and ‘well-wishers’ who can further your business by reaching out to the people who actually matter, the customers. Social media is the present, and by the looks of it, will be the future too.

About the Author

Amrith Rajasekaran is part of the Product Incubation and Engineering unit. His areas of interest are social media, its impact and potential.

Closing the loop on Marketers’ Holy Grail

2010-03-14T22:36:05Z

Here is what Mark Killens had to say on my last blog post on functionality coverage in CRM products for Marketing Automation: “CRM systems and marketing are very important sales enablement resources. They both must include tools to manage and report on how marketing is helping and enabling sales and how to keep track of the customer after a sale closes”. Please find the post, the comment and my response here.

I perceive Mark’s comment as referring to one of the long standing challenges for Marketers – how do you attribute the end Sales revenues to the original Marketing efforts? This ability to tie the eventual revenues back to the campaigns, thereby closing the loop, has largely been either impossible or a difficult task to accomplish for Marketers - thus making it a Holy Grail.

]]> One of the reasons for this is that the leaders in the Enterprise Marketing area today evolved differently. For instance, the enterprise vendors typically started with database / eMail marketing (capitalizing on the contact / account data already available in the sales automation system) - the ‘execution’ area - and gradually integrated (and integrating) backwards into Marketing Resource Management (MRM) area. And there were point solutions aimed at fulfilling the needs of MRM area – the ‘planning’ area - which integrated forwards into eMail Marketing. This resulted in organizations large enough with needs in both planning and execution areas investing in more than one application for Marketing needs. And the result is the familiar story of issues with tying these multiple systems together.

And just tying the systems together – or, for that matter, having just one integrated solution –has not been sufficient to address this either. You have the classic attribution problem. You can run eMail campaigns, have prospects/contacts respond to them and capture them as leads in the system. But, what if a prospect just talks to one of your sales guys who just decides to ‘pocket’ the lead and just creates an opportunity without tying it back to your email campaign?
The good news is that vendors are making progress in addressing issues like these. For instance, in version Siebel Marketing 8.1, Oracle introduced Inferred Responses functionality, which in a sense addresses the above attribution problem. While that certainly does not address all the issues, that indeed is a step towards closing the loop – Marketers’ Holy Grail.

Self Service for Cards Dispute Resolution – A means to increase profit margins and customer satisfaction

2010-03-11T09:20:27Z

by Vinod Nag

A “dispute” in the context of credit cards pertains to questioning the validity of a card transaction. Most dispute complaints begin in a similar fashion - the card holder communicates with the card issuer bank through one of the channels – telephone, e-mails, direct mail (posts) etc. The customer service representative will then collect the necessary details and determines how this enquiry has to be dealt with.

]]> It is common for dispute cases to be processed by the back office, which involves identification of appropriate reason codes, analyzing validity of dispute, requesting additional documentation, processing chargeback and re-billing, finally closing the dispute case or taking it to arbitration. Back office agents spend a good amount of time resolving disputes, however, they sometimes ends up forwarding cases to another agent for analysis and closure. Banks aim to minimize excess fund spent on resolution, charges/fees and write-off disputed amounts in favor of their customers. It is seen that a huge number of small value write-offs totals to a big amount which is a loss to the issuer bank. Similarly, the time spent on dispute investigation and fees/charges paid to a third party for transaction retrieval and document processing will also account for a reduction in profit margin. It’s been a challenge for banks to minimize write-offs and reduce the dispute resolution time to increase profits.

At the same time, a card holder who has raised a dispute will be not sure of processes and reversal of disputed amount. He will be in a fear of losing dispute case and unaware of the prevailing status of the dispute case. Thus any unclear communication or delays caused can irritate the customer and become concerns for customer experience.

On the other hand, the merchant involved in a disputed transaction is required to furnish details/documents if he thinks the presentments (bills produced to the Issuer bank through merchant bank called Acquirer) are correct. In such a situation, the merchant need to spend time in verifying reason codes, transaction details, related documents etc and represent them to his bank to stand by his initial presentment. Merchants are at a risk of losing the disputed amount if representments are not made on time and details verified are incorrect. The merchant then not only loses the disputed amount, but he will end up paying a service fee/penalty to the acquirer. He will also have the risk of fraudulent transactions and cases getting ended up in arbitration.

While attempting to please all the parties involved in disputes case processing, is it not a good idea for banks to expose some of the dispute resolution processes to card holder and merchants? Online dispute processing can work smoothly for onus-onus transaction wherein a bank is acting as an Issuer and acquirer for a given disputed transaction. Enabling online processing may be a challenge if the merchant bank is different from the issuer bank as he will be represented by his acquirer bank.

Following is a representation of what steps/processes can be exposed to the card holder:

Issuer banks can invite card holders to submit their disputes on a secured portal. This portal can be supported by integrating with the existing CRM system with a little customization for case management for tracking and update purpose. To help a card holder respond to the required questions, forms should be made available on the portal which should be driven by a decision engine for foolproof data entry and assignment of correct reason codes. There should also be a facility to upload documents and images supporting dispute. With this, a customer can easily raise a dispute case, continuously monitor the status and respond as required. The back office will review this and request the customer for more details, decide whether the card holder is liable and if otherwise, route it to merchant for chargeback. The merchant with a notification would review and respond quickly. This would also minimize his paper work and the time spent in correspondence with his acquirer.

Listed below are a few benefits that might set banks thinking on the lines of externalizing some of the steps involved in dispute resolution and increase its satisfied cardholders segment.

Benefits to Issuer

• Reduced time for data capture, analysis, validation, routing and decisioning
• Elimination of misinterpretation during data capture
• Increase in back office productivity of
• Efficient communication and correspondence system
• Reduces expenses on documentation processing and management
• Satisfied customers
• Increased customer trust with the issuer bank
• Reduced number of write-offs
• Controlled number of Chargeback initiation
• Possibility of externalizing the back office tasks (off shoring or sub contractors)

Benefits to Card holder/ Merchant

• Customer understands the importance and relevance of the data being furnished
• Card holder knows what went wrong better than analyst – a feeling that he was able to express his concerns completely
• Provides clear and required details even for low value disputed transactions
• Cost and time saved as case is created electronically – no posts, re-posts, confirmations etc.
• Transparent processes appreciated by card holder
• Right status at any time across all communication channels (email, web, telephone…)

With an online support system, it is possible to fast track dispute cases, reduce the time and money spent on dispute investigation, reduce write-offs and minimize cases getting into arbitration, and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Will such a provision for interaction not be beneficial to both cardholder and merchant besides improving customer experience?

About the Author

Vinod anchors the Chordiant Centre of Excellence within the Enterprise Solutions unit, besides being involved in presales. He has managed offshore delivery of projects for major North American banks, achieving high customer satisfaction in these engagements. He has also been active in initiatives for competency development. Vinod will blog on marketing, campaign management, and various aspects of CRM.

Data streaming and MDM

2010-03-11T03:30:55Z

Data streaming, so what does this mean? What does MDM means for data stream? Good question read on.

]]> Data stream is an entirely new concept, which effectively means do not query onto a consolidated data set, but stream the data through a set of query to obtain the result. Too complicated to comprehend. Let me explain this through a diagram.
Good. An image typically describes this better than 1000 words. So where can this be applied? Well in Master data management, most of us would have heard about a concept called Identity resolution (please refer to my previous blog for additional details). It means effectively identifying positively relationship between two individual based on who you know? and whom your relationship (network) know through direct or indirect interactions? There are specific tools in the market which does this especially to perform risk profiling, calculating risk delinquency etc.

So where does, MDM fits in? Master data management implemented in a transactional style of implementation may have to pass the data stream at real time for providing the business insights. This could be based on the domain the implementation is done. In case this is for a health care provider it may be to quickly collate whether a prenatal baby is subjected to higher risk incidence of a particular type of disease or not.

How is this implemented? Well a prenatal baby that is tagged into the emergency ICU will have probes that captures various vital signs at real time and pass this data to a correlation engine where the disease and risk incidences are profiled and reported. This effectively means lower effective work load on doctors and helps to detect medical conditions in advance to that of an experienced nurse. The advantage of data stream on top of MDM systems are

obtain real time insights from data in motion
sufficient level of nimbleness in decision making
support for mission critical applications

The opportunities are unlimited and the possibilities are constrained by our limitations to imagine. So the aim of this blog is to identify possible business scenario, to collaborate and develop this solution?

Improve Customer Experience through a well planned Online Self Service Strategy

2010-03-10T10:44:14Z

We have seen the tremendous rise in internet usage in the recent past. Even with such fast growth, internet penetration is only about 25% of the world population with a large scope for further growth. Also, commerce over the internet is growing due to increased transaction security and ease of operation. Companies should take advantage of this online channel for trade to increase customer satisfaction and reduce cost of operations through a self service facility. But in order to take the full advantage of online channel, companies should conduct a detailed study of the various factors involved before embarking on their online strategy.

]]> Some points worth considering before implementing an online Self Service application are:

Identify the type of customers who are going to use the self service application (e.g. consumers, business users, distributors etc).
Check if self service functionality is absolutely essential for the company to increase revenue / improve customer experience / reduce operational costs.
Perform a Cost Benefit Analysis (investment vs. the revenue/cost reduction) before making a decision to implement self service.
Conduct an analysis of the requests made by the customers through retail stores / call centers and apply 80-20 rule to decide the functionalities to be offered through self service.
Keep in mind the broadband penetration in the geographies where the self service application needs to be launched.
Try to keep the functionality very simple so that customers can use it easily and effectively. Simple websites can fetch quick and more revenue.
Transaction security is one of the factors that need to be considered.
Check if the current trend of Social Networking (through Facebook, Twitter etc) can help increase customer satisfaction, loyalty and increase order conversion rate etc.
Identify the services that you would like to offer to the customer via the self service mode based on the cost-benefit analysis. Some of the services like disconnection of services are not advisable to be offered through self service channels.
Segregate the functionalities into real time service or non real time services.
Ensure that you have appropriate teams to handle requests received through self service channels.
Try to implement the self service functionality in phases in order to minimize risks and improve usability.
Ensure that your current systems are capable of handling some of the most important services offered through internet like up-sell / cross-sell, product comparison, personalized offers etc.
Try and ensure that the customer experience obtained through self service is comparable with the experience through retail stores by providing functionalities like click to call or click to chat etc.
Find ways to motivate customers to use self service application rather than call centers.

It is very essential to perform the analysis of the above factors before deciding on an online self service strategy. A carefully designed self service application can go a long way in improving customer experience, and customer satisfaction rates while reducing costs of operation.

Could CRM lead to innovation?

2010-03-09T14:06:58Z

For companies to innovate, it is largely understood that there are two components involved: exploiting existing internal repository of knowledge and secondly, exploring new ideas, some of which can be directly adopted from external sources including customers, suppliers, partners etc. On one hand, managers may experience a cultural inertia on the idea of customer as a collaborator; on other hand, there is also an access issue - how do you make relevant customer feedback flow through the organization?

]]> Lego, for example, used a virtual platform legoclick.com to invite customers to suggest new product features and the company rewarded those whose ideas were marketable. Others like Dell are collaborating with customers through online forums, helping it identify new avenues for growth. SAP has a formal program for inviting "expert" customers (or partners) to test out new functionalities in SAP products. At the end of the testing session, partners are required for fill out an online feedback form on areas including usability, performance, functional completeness and correctness.

An IBM study reveals that collaborative partnership with customers makes sound business sense - it not only reduces overall costs, but also helps increase revenues by approximately 40%. Moreover, customers tend to be better retained (loyalty) and enjoy a close partnership with the company.

Which brings me to the question: Is CRM the untapped avenue for innovation? Customer-led innovation can occur when CRM system essentially captures ideas from customers by engaging them in a community-like forum, and some of these ideas could be pursued by the company and tracked through the CRM system. Nowhere this is more relevant than in context of social CRM, that attempts to use external social conversations for business benefit. Customer roles in such an engagement can be broadly formalized into conceptualization, design, testing, support and marketing stages. However, currently, CRM systems are not equipped to incorporate customer involvement in the first three stages. CRM vendors need to explore the possibility of modifying existing capabilities to fit in new ones - for example, in conceptualization, which includes suggestions for new products or for product improvement, the current opportunity management could be modified, the key difference being the change from sales-driven approach to a value-driven one. Linking to other areas of CRM such as loyalty management should also be explored.

Is functionality coverage in CRM products today sufficient for Enterprise Marketing?

2010-03-01T03:19:40Z

Some of you might have read the recent blog entry titled “How CRM products can aid Marketing” by fellow Infosys CRM blogger Vamsi Krishna. He ended his entry with the question “are marketers really using these CRM product capabilities to the maximum extent?”

While that certainly is a relevant question to ponder for small scale and stand alone marketing implementations, a deeper look at the needs of large scale Enterprise Marketing departments seems to indicate that functionality coverage in today’s CRM products is not sufficient.

]]> Let us look at some of the key capabilities that Enterprise Marketing departments need:

Capability to manage strategic planning process. This groups most of the requirements that are normally clubbed under the umbrella term Marketing Resource Management or MRM. Marketers need the ability to

Manage plans for the upcoming plan period
Manage budgets
Manage approvals with appropriate audit trails
Manage goals and track metrics

Capability to prepare for Marketing Tactics that have been identified from the planning process. Once the plans are finalized for the upcoming plan period, Marketers need the ability to

Break down the strategic plans to execution tactics level
Manage tactics like single or multistage campaigns and events
Manage purchased lists
Manage the creative or collateral development process
Manage segmentation of the target audience
Manage outside vendors for creative development
Manage related approvals
Manage Marketing Calendar

Capability to execute Marketing Tactics. During the execution phase, Marketers would need the ability to

Launch tactics across different channels like email, direct mail, phone, fax, etc.
Run automated, triggered, multistage and recurring tactics
Run campaigns in manageable chunks or waves
Test launch campaigns
Integrate with outside organizations partnering in campaign execution

Capability to capture Responses and process them: Once campaigns are launched, Marketers need the ability to

Capture responses to tactics coming in from different channels
Associate responses to the right campaigns with minimal manual interventions
Score responses based on a configurable set of scoring criteria
Pass Responses / Leads back and forth with Sales department

In addition to the above, there are also ongoing needs like Knowledge Management and Reporting that are commonly part of Enterprise Marketing requirements. And then there are other other industry specific requirements - like for instance, a brand marketer from consumer goods industry may require the ability to track the market share of the brand compared to competitors.

Current offerings from product vendors - including the ones from the Market leaders like Unica, Aprimo and Oracle – do not address all the above needs in a holistic and integrated manner. In fact, not all products seem to have all the capabilities mentioned above.

Would love to hear what your take is given the above needs and any other needs that you may have come across - Is functionality coverage in CRM products today sufficient for Enterprise Marketing?

SAP Insider CRM 2010- The New Normal is the “Now” normal

2010-02-26T07:48:24Z

The New Normal is the “Now” Normal. This was the theme of the key note address at SAP Insider conference currently underway at Orlando, FL (see my previous blog post, SAP CRM 2010 Insider Conference). As the economy is coming out of a major slow down, the organizations are not necessarily changing their cost structures that came under tremendous pressure but expecting to continue at the same levels and do more with less. New investments are being planned but only with an expectation to demonstrate better results on an immediate basis - the ‘now’ normal. SAP’s executives discussed ways how SAP’s suite of products can be leveraged in identifying such targeted investments which will help solve today’s complex business problems, be nimble, effective, profitable and quicker to implement.

]]> I am observing this year a whole lot of focus has been given on innovation, sustainability, improving operational efficiencies and overall business transformation. Specifically on SAP CRM a series of sessions were planned across 7 tracks ranging from Sales Force Automation, Marketing, Trade Promotion Management, Service, ecommerce, Interaction & Call centers, and Managing SAP CRM programs. Each track had a mix of customer case studies, SAP experts and vendor led sessions.

Based on my experience of first two days at this conference Mobility and Analytics were the two most popular areas. SAP announced co-innovation partnerships with industry leaders in the Mobility space and this created lot of curiosity among the participants including me. Around Analytics, SAP seems to have progressed well on integrating recently acquired Business Object’s suite of products with SAP CRM. There were many sessions which provided insights on how SAP customers can build robust Analytics, executive dashboards leveraging these tools.

Another important session was where SAP’s product management team provided insights into SAP CRM’s future roadmap. Key future improvements and innovations are planned across 3 main themes- Interaction excellence (Mobility, Web-channel, Social media), Operational Excellence (Core enhancements in Sales, Marketing and Service) and Decision Excellence (Analytics: Business Objects Integration).

With all the new features being introduced in SAP CRM 7.0 and seeing what’s in store for the future, I would definitely agree with a speaker’s statement that SAP CRM is ready for the prime time. Overall mood among the participants was also very upbeat. There are few areas which I want to understand more, top on my agenda is Mobility and the upcoming new Web-Channel. Over the next two days of the conference I am hoping to get a better grip around these topics and will surely share details of what I understand in a follow up blog post.

Rendering a social experience to your Social CRM strategy

2010-02-25T05:42:48Z

by Satyajit Swain

Each day brings another milestone in the constant evolution of Social Media. Recently, Google launched Google Buzz to give a social experience to its popular mail service and the other day I was going through OneYoungWorld(the world’s first global youth leadership summit ) forum website and was amazed to find that it was inviting registration/selection of delegates not through its own site but through an application hosted on Facebook. The last time I checked OYW’s Facebook campaign had 6619 fans and the One Young World Facebook application had 12,305 active monthly users; these statistics could indicate an emerging trend in the way Social Media can affect us in the coming days.

]]> The One Young World Facebook application also encouraged the users to garner votes in their support by campaigning for themselves amongst their Facebook network and these days we have customized Facebook apps for conducting competitions, donation drive/fund raising. Recognizing the power of social media organizations have started using it as a platform to market themselves and reach out to their customers. We even now see companies having their own social collaborating forums such as Microsoft Answers or At&T’s Utalk; online communities such as these are proving an ideal way in controlling customer support costs, influencing public opinion and personalize/humanize the brand hence the rush to jump into this whole social bandwagon. Those who will make right use of it will flourish, but those without a proper understanding of it can invite bad PR for their company or products/services. The most popular social-networking platforms - Facebook, Twitter and blogs, deliver an experience of not just connecting with family, friends and people of similar interests but also a medium of expressing oneself, promoting events, ideas and opinions about anything ranging from national issues to products/services they recently made use of.

However a social-media solution for corporate as in online collaborative community support is a slight different from that of Facebook/MySpace. When a customer visits an online community support he/she is more interested in finding solution to her problem/issue rather than “enter into a relationship” with the site (as he/she would with Facebook). Corporates will need to consider this aspect and though social media & social CRM may not be the same it is however possible to lend a social experience to the whole Social CRM space. Erin Malone writes an interesting article on her blog (http://boxesandarrows.com/view/5-steps-to-building) where she has explained a step-by-step approach in giving a social experience to a site:

"Step 1 – What’s your social object? Make sure there is a “there” there. Give users a reason to rally. Why would someone come to your site?
Step 2 – Give people a way to identify themselves and to be identified.
Step 3 – Give people something to do.
Step 4 – Enable a bridge to real life (groups, communities, forums, chat).
Step 5 – Gently Moderate. Let the community elevate people and content they value."

Through the above mentioned steps as outlined by Erin Malone, one would be able to provide a healthy social experience to their site. Going ahead with these points in the framework of Social CRM one can also consider the following points:

a) In the social CRM context the social object would be the company’s product/service offerings and people would want to visit their social CRM space to find out the reviews of their customers, or if they are already an existing customer they would visit to find solutions to their problems (with specific product/service offering) or have their queries answered.

b) With the perspective of ‘giving people something to do’- Social CRM can also have a feature of rewarding points (which can be redeemed against a buy) to participants who are able to give a very efficient solution to a particularly difficult issue or participants who have been consistently rated highly by users/members.

c) In the context of ‘enabling a bridge to real life’- Social CRM strategy can consider inviting people to share their stories/wonderful experiences with a particular product/service. For example inviting people to share the experience of how elated their friends/loved ones upon receiving a particular product as gift from them on Christmas Eve or some other special occasion. The goal of all this is to encourage people engage in interactive exchange of information so that they innately feel it worthwhile spending time on the site or keep visiting it from time to time.

Companies can also include information and updates on their various CSR work or initiatives in the field of environment and education to humanize their social CRM strategy.

With the increasing influence of Social Media and it becoming a source of real time news & updates, companies can hardly choose to ignore Social CRM as a part of their communications strategy; however at the same time they need to take care of certain bare minimum necessities to render a wholesome social experience to it.

About the Author

Satyajit Swain is part of the Product Incubation and Engineering unit. He has experience working on the UI design for various products. His areas of interest are social media, Information Management and CRM.

SAP CRM 2010 Insider Conference

2010-02-22T08:01:10Z

The SAP CRM 2010 Insider conference is being held this year at Orlando from Feb 23 to Feb 26. This is by far the most important event for people following SAP in the CRM space. Customers, Partners, Solution vendors all demonstrate equal excitement to be a part of this annual event. With slight hope of economic recovery I am hoping this year the participation would be even better than what was witnessed last year.

]]> CRM 2010 is hosted along with 4 other major events namely Logistics and Supply Chain Management 2010, PLM 2010, Manufacturing 2010, and Procurement and Materials Management 2010. In SAP’s words this conference provides “an unparalleled educational and networking opportunity” to all attending. A range of expert led sessions; customer case studies and specialized networking events are being offered. Starting from the jump-start day on Feb 22, many key topics around SAP CRM would be covered which will not only provide deeper insights into SAP CRM capabilities but also provide tools & tips to better plan and implement CRM transformation programs.

Over the past few years SAP has made significant investments in improving existing SAP CRM solution, plus a strategy to acquire complementing technologies and capabilities from the market has helped SAP attain a leadership position in the CRM space. Many of the key customers concerns around CRM being ugly, difficult to use and implement have been addressed in the new releases of SAP CRM (7.0/6.0). The new release SAP CRM 7.0 offers a host of new functionalities, and a Web 2.0 enabled user interface, which not only has a nicer looking interface but also is also very easy to configure and customize as per client needs.

Given the economic pressures and business uncertainties still prevailing, organizations are busy reevaluating their strategies and working hard to identify ways to continue operating more efficiently and investing in opportunities which will either yield immediate results or will help build a distinct advantage over competition. The changing business priorities have fundamental implications on organization’s Sales, Services and Marketing business architecture. Technology will be a key enabler for implementing these strategic imperatives.

Many of the key themes in this year’s CRM 2010 conference are aligned towards helping enterprises to be successful in these difficult economic times. One will find SAP’s Executives discuss how their clients can leverage SAP components like SAP Business Suite, SAP BusinessObjects, new products such as SAP Carbon Impact and industry-specific best practices to achieve greater operational excellence, empower customer-facing employees, and provide them with the tools they need to ensure a consistent experience across multiple touch points. Overall I think CRM 2010 should provide a great opportunity to learn about SAP’s product direction, share own perspectives and learn from others experiences. I would highly recommend this event to all SAP practitioners and those tracking SAP's future direction. I will be attending this event and would be posting from the event site, so please come back for my take on the happenings at this event.

Measuring CRM Effectiveness

2010-02-19T05:52:23Z

Enhancing customer experience is always a challenge. In order to enhance business performance, organizations have to expand their customer base.

Growth happens only when customer relationships with the organization are robust and satisfied. And customer satisfaction can only be increased with effective CRM in an organization.

But how would one measure the effectiveness of CRM for an organization? Below are some criteria that can be applied:

]]> 1. Increase in customer retention

2. Increase in orders per customer per year

3. Increase in average spending per order or visit

4. Increase in cross sales

5. Increase in up sales

6. Increase in reactivation of previous customers

7. Increase in referrals of new customers by existing customers

8. Achieving each of the above while keeping increased costs (required to make them happen) from offsetting the increased sales

Certainly, all this data can be collected over the years and a trend can be identified to measure the effectiveness of the implemented CRM program. Perhaps other parameters such as increased order per customer, number of orders per year, defections etc. could add to it.

But will all these parameters really ‘measure’ the effectiveness of CRM in an organization?

To me it goes beyond that –

1. Customer Expectations
Can we bring in customer’s perceptions or their expectations into this calculation? Will there be any effect of these parameters on the overall effectiveness?

E.g.: - A organization’s intent might be to provide quick service – say in 5 minutes/customer - but the customer might expect service to take 10 minutes or more than that for it to be performed to his satisfaction.

So here the customer expectation might be different from what the organization is providing/intends to provide.

2. Perceptions
What has been the customer’s past experience with the organization, and what is his current experience? Perceptions keep changing with each experience. Does every customer carry the same perception every time? Does the organization maintain the same perception each time to keep their customers satisfied and happy?

3. Emotions
It is clear that people make emotional decisions based upon experience as described in my previous blog post “Mantra of Growing Business”. Emotions keep changing as per the experience and so does the perception.

Some customers take rational decisions and accordingly their perception changes. So what emotions do customers carry when their expectations are met, and how can this be measured?

4. Customer History
Sometimes, everyday interactions with customers or past history of a customer would help understand a customer better to serve and fulfill their needs. So are organizations tailoring their services in a better way based on this to keep their customers happy?

5. Belief
Customers ‘belief’ in the product/service or overall organization may vary. As mentioned above, “perceptions” would turn into belief if the customer experiences similar service over a period. Customers carry this belief towards the organization and this belief would impact customer relationships and future growth.

6. Communication
The key element – how frequently organizations communicate to their customers not only through advertising but also through personal communications. People feel valued if communication happens at a personal level and their opinions are sought and taken into consideration. Personal communication helps to influence perceptions positively. So, how effective is the organization’s communication towards their customers?

Understanding these six aspects, capturing and recording this data, and then linking it to other growth/decline parameters and analyzing these stats would help understand customers better. And that is a good place to start on the path towards improving customer relationships!

Relationship Management in Sales

2010-02-18T07:21:49Z

Any product or service company would initially like to sell their products or services to acquire customers and in the long run, the focus would be to increase the revenues. While the company in the long run would aim at building a strong revenue base, the representative at the Point to Sale is bound by daily, weekly, and monthly sales targets. So where does that take things?

]]> Yes you are right! Though sales and relationship need to go in the same direction it goes in different directions. Many think that relationship would come into effect after a sale is made. A client who books a ticket through a travel agency would love to do so again with them if that transaction was memorable and if a good relationship was maintained. This should not be viewed as a one-time transaction but instead, it ought to be viewed as a seed for a bigger revenue tree. If the ticket booked was for a holiday package, the travel agency can send future offers on holiday packages to this customer.

We often hear many commitments made before a sale which are not met or not even viable in some cases. Even the hard facts should be told openly during the sale, the sales person should drop the fear of not getting a sale if some information is revealed. That is essential for building a solid relationship. Though prospects demand a lot during a sale transaction, they also know that everything they wish is not feasible. Rather, they would prefer to know the real deal than be promised the moon only to be let down later.

Many product or service companies term their Sales Managers as Relationship Managers and this trend is picking up in right from SMEs to Corporate segments. The market today is driven by the customer and the customer has many options to choose from. The winning move for a company would therefore be to ensure that relationships are not sacrificed for sales in the short term; rather the two should be managed such that they resonate to the best effect.

Do let me know your thoughts!

Importance of service based approach

2010-02-13T19:27:47Z

Anyone who has experienced the last fifteen years of generational shift in marketing would have seen every aspect of marketing strategy and varied focused approaches towards selling. We do remember a time when organizations were more ‘product’ focused, launching of products was not all that frequent and retiring cycles were long. Customers didn’t have many options other than sticking on (in fact, the term customer experience was not used very frequently) as there was less competition. Then came the era of competition, where organizations not only thought about acquiring new customers but retaining the customers became a key priority. This was the dawn of a ‘Customer’ focused approach with up-selling, cross-selling, loyalty etc being the new buzz words.

]]>

All in all, customers today are happier with lots of options available for them to switch service providers whenever they want. We can call this as Consumer controlled market Phase 1. But the very important essence of customers, connecting to organization products and brand is ‘service’ so effectively whatever the approach, customer should not come to you for any problem but it should be other way round and organizations need to be reactive for customer problems especially in service industry.

If organizations do the same level of investment (which includes resources, IT investment etc) in acquiring as well as in managing the customers then why is the service is not at the same level if not better than during the Order/ Marketing/ Campaign services? Organizations need to see the most important part of retaining the customer i.e. ‘Service’ focused approach. We may call it Consumer controlled market Phase 2. Many would be of the opinion that a number of companies provide excellent service and but very often, servicing is seen as a second, not-so-important priority.

Very often, when you go to buy a new product the approach towards you is very cooperative and friendly, with many options made available. But consider the experience of approaching them for a post purchase repair/ servicing , and very often you would see quite another face of the organization.

Everyone agrees on the critical role of customer service in customer satisfaction, but still many large companies are not able to convert put it into practice. I had such an experience with the company I purchased my laptop from, after which I don’t think I will ever buy from that company. I bought the laptop last year from the US. From the first day it ran into some basic wireless LAN problems. I ignored it and continued using that the laptop, and then the wireless stopped working altogether. I visited the service center in India and was told there was some internal damage which they would not repair under warranty and that I had to visit another service center. There, I was informed there was hardly any likelihood of getting it repaired here as it is bought it in the US. Anyhow, after a while they confirmed that it could indeed be repaired, but that it would take a minimum of 5 working days to create the quotation and that I would need to leave the laptop with them for that duration. 5-6 days for creating a quotation? And on top of that, I was asked to call customer care to confirm whether the laptop could be repaired there. Sitting in the service center, do I need to call customer care about that?

I have a few questions for the company here: Why is it called a global warranty if it is not global? Why was I not informed in the first call itself which service center the warranty for this laptop would be valid at? Why don’t service centers have detailed information readily available when they are connected to the same system across the globe?

Customer satisfaction and customer experience are best tested when a customer approaches a company for servicing. Get this touch point wrong, and your customer satisfaction levels are sure to dip, and so will your chances of repeat business and referrals.

Social Media – Be Aware or Beware? – Part 1

2010-02-11T11:38:08Z

by Amrith Rajasekaran

‘Follow us on Twitter.’ ‘Become a fan on Facebook.’ These are now common messages on sites of so many companies wanting to reach out to their customer bases. The rate at which social networking has grown in the recent past is nothing short of phenomenal. Facebook crossed 250 million users as of July ’09 and Twitter has recorded a growth of over a thousand percent (year on year). What has that essentially done for the CRM space? Well, for starters it has really made the corporate world sit up and take notice of this new phenomenon of social networking.

]]> Advertising and marketing products through Twitter accounts and Facebook pages have become commonplace enough these days; the really tech savvy companies have created customer service agents to maintain service accounts in Twitter, Facebook, mySpace and many other such networking sites. There have been numerous success stories of companies innovating to enhance the customer experience by, in a way, embracing these social media platforms and reaching out to customers (There can be no better example than zappos.com – a site that sells shoes online).

Companies now see social media as integral to their future plans and have already started chalking out strategies to harness the phenomenon that is social media. Corporations have started employing personnel to maintain their Facebook pages and Twitter support accounts. The reason? Well, cost cutting of course. Employing people to maintain online accounts works out to be much cheaper than hiring more call center executives. By one estimate, on an average, each call to a call center costs the company around $8 but getting a problem resolved through an online account costs a fraction of that amount.

Apart from just cutting costs, companies have also recognized that with the advent of these social networking sites, public opinion is getting more and more influenced by the goings on in the internet in general and these social media forums in particular. Companies are increasingly jumping on the bandwagon of these social media sites and are developing marketing strategies revolving around these sites. Collaborative consumerism has well and truly arrived, and by the looks of it, is here to stay.

So in light of all the above, the future does indeed look rosy and the world will soon be one big social network. But hold on; nothing can be that good, can it? I mean, sure it’s the next big thing and all but then isn’t there a catch? Of course there is. There always is.

So here are a few things that social media cannot do:

a) It can give you an opinion on what product to buy but cannot actually promise that the product that you buy will live up to your expectation.
b) It can promise you visibility and great PR but can’t guarantee that your product will be sold.
c) In spite of all the good reviews and publicity, the consumers still lack that ‘touch-n-feel’ that actually drives people towards buying.
d) If someone decides to bad-mouth your product, and if he/she is quite big in the social sphere, there is not much that can be done to stop the defamation of your product, and once you can get them to stop, it’s more likely that irreparable damage has already been done.
e) With the power in so many hands, there are bound to be hoaxes and threats, and in such a vast expanse, tracking these hoaxes could get tiresome (the recent hoaxes that perpetrated on Twitter about the Haiti earthquake are great examples of this).

Social media, in its entirety, is a fantastic concept that has taken the world by storm and to take Yahoo!’s tagline, has really made the saying “Power to you” come true. Yet, social media, for all its good, still does not substitute for the real thing. Social media in itself is not an end; it is merely a means to an end. A means that is so powerful, that the opportunities are vast and the possibilities endless.

In the upcoming posts I would like to talk about the reaches of social media, what you can make social media do for you, the current social media strategies followed by the companies and also how social media will be the game changer in the near future.

About the Author

Amrith Rajasekaran is part of the Product Incubation and Engineering unit. His areas of interest are social media, its impact and potential.