Elements included in CRM Outsourcing

>Customer Support:-This comprises value-based phone support, e-mail response,live chat and co-browsing and
instant messaging.
>Telemarketing and Telesales:-This covers outbound calling for generating leads,and campaign management, and
for cross-selling and up-selling to existing customers.
>Employee IT desk:-This comprises level one and two multi-channel support for internal applications, system
problem solutions related to desktop,notebooks,shrink-wrapped products,connectivity,office productivity support
tools including browsers and mails, new service requests, IT operational issues, And remote diagnostics.
Vital reasons to outsourcing CRM
The compelling reasons for outsourcing CRM are listed below:
>Cost reduction,>Introduction of Specialist Manpower,>Improved customer ,>Insight into Improved customer
service,>Access to cutting Edge Technology,>Prevention of significant capital investments.

Critically examine the key issues of CRM in the airlines industry?

As Airlines adopt CRM initiatives and programmes,they are faced with a number of challenges. These are
delineated below:-
>Competition-driven Crm Strategies:-Quick adoption of crm initiatives is needed in response to competitive
pressures, leading to commercialization of crm initiatives.
> Complicated and costly integration efforts:-Many airlines deterred by the cost of developing an integrated crm
system to link hundreds of databases.
> Poor understanding of customer profitability:-Customer segmentation is limited to frequent flyer members and
generally based on fare classes or mileage flown, with little analysis of customer value.
> Inconsistent organizational focus on service:-Management crm programmes are spread between multiple
departments and individuals with different goals and needs. Inconsistent adoption of service mentality by customer
facing employees is seen.
> Data integrity:-The data often collected by legacy crm systems are inaccurate and duplicative. This leads to
creation of a database of information which is largely unreliable and therefore remains largely unused.
> Business analysis:-Adequately trained people are required to interpret, relay and act on the information provided
in the crm applications. By far the most important aspect of crm is not the data, but how its use translates into a
better experience for the customer.
Function of CRM
1. Technology-enabled selling:-This helps companies understand how technology can assist in sales and improve
the company’s bottom line.TES integrate customer information and transaction data.
2.Call centre management:-Call centre are playing an increasingly important role in business as they are emerging
as the main point of contact for providing service to customers, business partners and employees.
3. Internet protocol telephony:-This allows customers to speak to the customer representatives at the call centre
while browsing through the company’s website. On the other hand, the call centre agent can similarly extract
information about the customer’s history, product, and service call if any.
4.Better field service:-A company can provide better field service through its call centre which can forward
customer’s complaints to representatives in the field. Establish field service sales representatives can obtain up-to-
date information on customers and products via the internet.
5..One-to-one marketing:-This means that a business house knows each of the customer’s tastes and preferences
allowing companies to customer visit. This helps the company achieve better customer service,to retain its
customers and to develop a long term relationship with them.
Steps to eCRM Success
Many factors play a part in ensuring that the implementation any level of eCRM is successful. One obvious way it
could be measured is by the ability for the system to add value to the existing business. There are four suggested
implementation steps that affect the viability of a project like this:
1. Developing customer-centric strategies
2. Redesigning workflow management systems
3. Re-engineering work processes
4. Supporting with the right technologies.
Discuss about CRM Process?
The customer relationship management (CRM) process uses technology to organize and efficiently coordinate
business practices. The two main goals of this management process are gaining new clients and retaining current
clients. It begins with an analysis of a company and its needs. Businesses require data on why current customers buy
and what can be done to increase sales and attract new customers. The process then researches for correct
technology and begins implementation.
1. Business Process:- CRM incorporates operational, analytical and collaborative processes. The operational
process focuses on procedures for customer sales, service and marketing. The analytical component determines
methods to cross sell and up sell customers. For example, if a customer bought an "Othello" digital video disc
(DVD), the company might suggest he buy a "King Lear" DVD. The collaborative process establishes a variety of
methods to interact with customers, including email, personal mail, phone calls and Internet programs.
2. Customer Emphasis:- CRM emphasizes the customer. Its main goals are to gain, keep or increase sales to
customers. A Harris Study that polled 2,551 people reported 68 percent would not purchase again from a company
after having a poor customer service experience. Also, most participants stated that customer service was more
important to them than low price or product quality. This research reveals the importance of good service on
retaining customers. CRM also emphasizes learning the customer's interests to suggest future purchases.
3. Correct Technology:- CRM uses a variety of software technology. Delivery of these services is on premise or on
demand. On-premise CRM technology is specific to a company. Such CRM processes gather specific data to
increase customer satisfaction, cross sell or up sell. An on-demand CRM system uses software developed by others
that would work with many different companies. An on-demand system is much less expensive; some cost $200 a
month. On-demand systems work best with companies that have standard data that does not need to be customized.
4.Cost and Implementation:- Small companies can purchase less expensive on-demand CRM software. Most
larger businesses require more specific customer management tools. A survey by International Data Corporation of
300 businesses with more than 500 employees revealed an average cost of $3.1 million for CRM software, hardware
and services. Most companies implement CRM strategies in a gradual process that includes collecting data, training
sales staff, establishing interactive websites and paying for call centers or other after-sale support.

Describe the basic philosophy of a retention oriented marketer?

Customer Retention marketing is a tactically-driven approach based on customer behavior. Here’s the basic
philosophy of a retention-oriented marketer:
1. Past and Current customer behavior is the best predictor of Future customer behavior. Think about it. In
general, it is more often true than not true, and when it comes to action-oriented activities like making purchases and
visiting web sites, the concept really shines through. We are talking about actual behavior here, not implied
behavior. Being a 35-year-old woman is not a behavior; it’s a demographic characteristic. Take these two groups of
potential buyers who surf the ‘Net:-*People who are a perfect demographic match for your site, but have never made
a purchase online anywhere. *People who are outside the core demographics for your site, but have purchased
repeatedly online at many different web sites.
2. Active customers are happy (retained) customers; and they like to "win." They like to feel they are in
control and smart about choices they make, and they like to feel good about their behavior. Marketers take
advantage of this by offering promotions of various kinds to get consumers to engage in a behavior and feel good
about doing it. These promotions range from discounts and sweepstakes to loyalty programs and higher concept
approaches such as thank-you notes and birthday cards. Promotions encourage behavior. If you want your
customers to do something, you have to do something for them, and if it’s something that makes them feel good
(like they are winning the consumer game) then they’re more likely to do it.
3. Retention Marketing is all about:Action – Reaction – Feedback – Repeat. Marketing is a conversation, as the
ClueTrain Manifesto and Permission Marketing have pointed out. Marketing with customer data is a highly evolved
and valuable conversation, but it has to be back and forth between the marketer and the customer, and you have to
LISTEN to what the customer is saying to you.
4. Retention Marketing requires allocating marketing resources. You have to realize some marketing activities
and customers will generate higher profits than others. You can keep your budget flat or shrink it while increasing
sales and profits if you continuously allocate more of the budget to highly profitable activities and away from lower
profit activities. This doesn't mean you should "get rid" of some customers or treat them poorly.It means when you
have a choice, as you frequently do in marketing, instead of spending the same amount of money on every customer,
you spend more on some and less on others. It takes money to make money. Unless you get a huge increase in your
budget, where will the money come from?
Types of CRM
CRM is an abbreviation for customer relationship management. It could be software or a methodology that is used to
keep track of customers and manage the business relationships in an efficient manner. CRM is a primary source for
data relating to customers' needs, their preferred services and products and past purchasing patterns. CRM is a
supportive tool for management, sales professionals and service providers.
1. Operational CRM:-Operational CRM helps sales, marketing and customer service professionals. Communication
with past customers would be recorded in this tool. Operational CRM helps with sales-force automation, managing
business campaigns, managing the sales system and automating enterprise marketing.
2. Analytical CRM:-Analytical CRM helps evaluate customer information for designing, implementing and
accomplishing the market campaign's targets. It helps form campaigns for cross-selling, customer acquisition and
up-selling. It helps people comprehend customer behavior toward new products and services and also aids financial
forecasting.
3. Sales Intelligence CRM:-Sales Intelligence CRM is a sales tool that is similar to Analytical CRM. Its notable
features are managing sales, finding customer drift, monitoring sales performance, analyzing customer trends and
identifying customer margins and alignments.
4. Collaborative CRM:-Collaborative CRM encompasses different aspects of a business such as the sales, technical
and marketing departments. This tool is responsible for integrating all these departments into a cohesive unit.

Customer Knowledge Management:- Managing and transferring knowledge - at the right time, in the right place
and with the right quality for customers - enables companies to survive in times of fierce competition. The focus of
this work is therefore on Knowledge Management and Customer Relationship Management. The theoretical part
comprises several approaches to knowledge, its transfer and the barriers to be overcome when sharing knowledge.
This is followed by a description of CRM and CKM (Customer Knowledge Management), outlining how crucial
their successful use is. The practical part explores on the one hand the dependence on knowledge and on the other
hand its availability for a good customer relationship. It includes a case study that investigates both the
administrative and the operational area of a concrete company. The survey results are then discussed in detail, key
success factors identified and mistakes pointed out. After this critical analysis, final recommendations are given that
every company can benefit from.

Steps to be taken for Building CRM /Infrastructure

1 Define a vision of integrated CRM. Understand what services and products you want to offer your customers and
how you want to track customer interactions. It’s critical to look at the whole relationship with the customer and not
limit yourself to a stovepipe view.
2. Understand the customer. How does he or she use the existing products and services you offer? What is good or
bad about the current process from the customer’s perspective?
3. Develop a business case. Analyze where you currently stand and where you need to go. Do not use subpar
technology as an excuse for inaction. There will always be technical weaknesses.
4. Evaluate current readiness. Determine your company’s position relative to the competition. Assess the ability of
existing sales and service infrastructures to gain and retain existing customers.
5. Establish the CRM strategy and specific objectives. Adopt a strategy consistent with the overall company
strategy. Involve marketing, sales, and service organizations, and understand how each deal with customers. Ask
about current and future product and sales offerings.
6. Evaluate appropriate applications with an uncompromising focus on ease of doing business. Ensure that the
applications meet today’s needs and the strategic direction of the firm. Look at the applications from an integrated
viewpoint.
7. Take the customer’s view, not the product or account view. After selecting an application, ensure that the process
redesign will benefit and retain the customer.
8. Identify and target quick wins. Set aggressive and realistic milestones. Accomplish attainable objectives early in
the process to build support and ensure completion. This allows you to implement incrementally and successfully.
Celebrate your successes along the way.
9. Put the ownership of the end-to-end project in the hands of a single manager. Partner your team members with
experienced business leaders and developers who understand how to deliver and deploy integrated applications.
10. Finally, create concrete measurements goals. Through ongoing measurement and continuous improvement, you
will be able to monitor the project and ensure its success.
Scope of e-CRM
In defining the scope of eCRM, three different levels can be distinguished:
1. Foundational services: -This includes the minimum necessary services such as web site effectiveness and
responsiveness as well as order fulfillment.
2. Customer-centered services:-These services include order tracking, product configuration and customization as
well as security/trust.
3. Value-added services:-These are extra services such as online auctions and online training and education.
Self-services are becoming increasingly important in CRM activities. The rise of the Internet and eCRM has boosted
the options for self-service activities. A critical success factor is the integration of such activities into traditional
channels. An example was Ford’s plan to sell cars directly to customers via its Web Site, which provoked an outcry
among its dealers network. CRM activities are mainly of two different types. Reactive service is where the customer
has a problem and contacts the company. Proactive service is where the manager has decided not to wait for the
customer to contact the firm, but to be aggressive a contact the customer himself in order to establish a dialogue and
solve problems.
List the CRM categories based on knowledge orientation.
CRM can implement sales, marketing, service and all-around management for customers.
Also, based on
these, it uses Data Mining and OLAP to analysis the data so decision maker can use business
intelligence. Based
on these functions, CRM can be divided into three layers: operation, customer service center
and analysis layer.
Operation layer. This layer includes the automation of sales, marketing and service. The
sales force
Automation (SFA) used to manage customer relations such as: calendar, schedule
arrangement, contacts and
Customer management, sales forecast, proposal management and so on. Marketing
automation focuses on the
Designing and carrying out the frame for marketing and related activities. As the
complementarities of SFA, the
Marketing automation offers some particular functions: customer request management;
forecast and budget;
Marketing resources management and so on.
Customer service is the core of CRM. And with the increase of internet use, the needs of
self-help service became the most important part of customer service. Customer service
automation can manage all sorts of questions about products, information, orders and local
services. Contact center. Contact center integrate the traditional call center with websites,
e-mail and faxes. Customers may use any way they like to get information from the
company.
Analysis layer. The analysis layer is the decision support system for CRM. The system
gathers all the sales
data, marketing data and customer service data together through analysis layer. Based on
this unify data
Warehouse, CRM will offer customers intelligence and feedback the result to the manager
within the company.
The Difference between Relationship Marketing & CRM
Relationship marketing and customer relationship management (CRM) are closely-related
business concepts. However, most experienced marketing professionals agree that CRM is
an evolution of relationship marketing that enhances key concepts of customer retention.
Customer Retention Basics:-Both relationship marketing and CRM are grounded in the
long-held belief that customer-retention and building customer loyalty over time is the key
to long-term business success. Each concept relates to implementation of business rules
that attempt to turn one-time business transactions into ongoing customer relationships.
Relationship Marketing:-Relationship marketing emerged in the 1980s and into the 1990s
as businesses moved away from transaction-centered operations. It centered on the idea of
taking new customers and positioning them into individual customer groups, or market
segments, and then marketing to groups based on their place in the customer life cycle. Key
points are customized marketing for consumer groups and interactive communications.
Customer Relationship Management:-Customer relationship management, believed to
have been coined in 1999, initially emerged as a technology-driven business process
leveraging database marketing capabilities. While the main emphasis of CRM is still building
and maintaining strong customer relationships, it is a much more complex and more
universally referenced component of general marketing activities for most companies. CRM
attempts to go one step further than relationship marketing by customizing marketing and
business solutions to each individual customer, relying on infinite data storage and retrieval
capabilities.

State the distinct layers or building blocks used by the world’s leading business to reach excellence in CRM
1. Vision: The board must take leadership in creating a CRM vision for the enterprise. The CRM vision should be
used as the guide to the creation of a CRM strategy.
2. Strategy: The CRM strategy is all about how to build and develop a valuable asset: the customer base. It must set
objectives and metrics for attaining that goal. It directs the objectives of other operational strategies and the CRM
implementation strategy.
3. Customer experience: The customer experience must be designed in line with the CRM vision and must be
constantly refined, based on actively sought customer feedback.
4. Organizational collaboration: Changes to organizational structures, processes, metrics, incentives, skills, and
even the enterprise culture must be made to deliver the required external customer experience. Ongoing change
management will be key.
5. Process: Successful customer process reengineering should create processes that not only meet customers'
expectations and support the customer value proposal, but also provide competitive differentiation and contribute to
a designed customer experience.
6. Information: Successful CRM demands the creation of a customer-information blood supply that flows around
the organization, as well as tight integration between operational and analytical systems.
7. Technology: CRM technologies form a fundamental part of any enterprise's application portfolio and
architecture. CRM application needs should be considered as the provision of integrated functionality that supports
seamless customer-centric processes across all areas of the enterprise and its partners.
8. Metrics: Enterprises must set measurable CRM objectives and monitor all levels of CRM indicators to turn
customers into assets. Without performance management, a CRM implementation will fail.
Metrics is the most important of the eight building blocks, yet only a quarter of enterprises measure before
implementation.

Features of CRM

1. Customers Needs- An organization can never assume what actually a customer needs. Hence it is extremely
important to interview a customer about all the likes and dislikes so that the actual needs can be ascertained and
prioritized. Without modulating the actual needs it is arduous to serve the customer effectively and maintain a long-
term deal. 2. Customers Response- Customer response is the reaction by the organization to the queries and
activities of the customer. Dealing with these queries intelligently is very important as small misunderstandings
could convey unalike perceptions. Success totally depends on the understanding and interpreting these queries and
then working out to provide the best solution. 3. Customer Satisfaction-Customer satisfaction is the measure of
how the needs and responses are collaborated and delivered to excel customer expectation. In today’s competitive
business marketplace, customer satisfaction is an important performance exponent and basic differentiator of
business strategies. Hence, the more is customer satisfaction; more is the business and the bonding with customer.
4.Customer Loyalty- Customer loyalty is the tendency of the customer to remain in business with a particular
supplier and buy the products regularly. This is usually seen when a customer is very much satisfied by the supplier
and re-visits the organization for business deals, or when he is tended towards re-buying a particular product or
brand over times by that supplier. 5. Customer Retention- Customer retention is a strategic process to keep or
retain the existing customers and not letting them to diverge or defect to other suppliers or organization for business.
Usually a loyal customer is tended towards sticking to a particular brand or product as far as his basic needs
continue to be properly fulfilled. 6. Customer Complaints- Always there exists a challenge for suppliers to deal
with complaints raised by customers. Normally raising a complaint indicates the act of dissatisfaction of the
customer. There can be several reasons for a customer to launch a complaint. 7. Customer Service- In an
organization Customer Service is the process of delivering information and services regarding all the products and
brands. Customer satisfaction depends on quality of service provided to him by the supplier. The organization has
not only to elaborate and clarify the details of the services to be provided to the customer but also to abide with the
conditions as well. If the quality and trend of service go beyond customer’s expectation, the organization is
supposed to have a good business with customers.

Discuss the step in preparing for technical implementation of CRM?

1. Remember that Culture is King – A CRM solution is more than a new software package. It also encompasses a
mindset, a way of doing business and a way of interacting with others in the firm. The success of a CRM
implementation rests on the shoulders of a workforce that is willing to share information about clients and contacts.
However, this “collaborative” mentality flies in the face of the culture within some professional services firms. For
better or worse, many professional services practitioners are skeptical of sharing contact information for fear of
losing opportunities to generate work that they can produce themselves. However, if a CRM implementation is
introduced to the workforce as an opportunity to create new opportunities for all, success rates will improve
significantly.

2. Set Realistic Goals – One of the greatest mistakes a management team can make is to force-feed new technology
across the organization. This is particularly true with a CRM implementation. As firm management prepares for a
CRM rollout, planning and patience are critical. Working with the implementation team from the software
developer, management should agree upon a plan of phasing software use across the firm. Some organizations
orchestrate a CRM rollout by location, others by practice group or department. Regardless, this type of phased
approach gives both the firm and the implementation team an opportunity to make adjustments, manage
expectations, achieve milestones and promote successes.

3. Obtain and Maintain Senior Management Support -Successful CRM implementations start and end at the top.
Firms simply cannot achieve success without full management buy-in, nor can management set the process in
motion and walk away. As a rule, successful CRM implementations are characterized as those in which management
leads by example. Rolling-out a CRM solution takes hard work, but the benefits are substantial. Management should
not sugar coat the process or minimize the effort involved. Similarly, as milestones are achieved, those same
managers should be the first to strongly promote the benefits being realized by the firm.

4. Analyze Working Processes – The process of fitting a CRM solution into a professional services organization
provides a wonderful opportunity to evaluate processes and procedures across the firm. Working with the
implementation team from the software provider, firm management should review, analyze and evaluate the firm’s
procedures as well as all of the data sources that will be migrated into the CRM solution. This is the perfect time to
discuss and develop new procedures that will increase the firm’s success.

5. Select the Right Software Partner - While teaming with the right solution provider is important to every
software implementation, it is absolutely critical when dealing with a CRM solution. The way CRM is utilized by a
professional services firm differs greatly from the way CRM is used by a product-oriented organization. Therefore,
it is critical for services-based organizations to choose a software provider that specializes in professional services
solutions. Equally important is the software solution’s ability to seamlessly integrate with other business processes
across the firm, including the firm’s financial and practice management systems.