Unit-V Developing and Managing Relationship

An organization has to maintain healthy and fruitful relationships with not just with customers
but also with external and internal stakeholders. These relationships are intervened over various
networks, association, and information management. Through this organization are able to
create and maintain closer link with its market and consumers. The traditional marketing
practice is relevant in scenarios where a customer is much pricier driven rather than relationship
driven. Also, relationship marketing takes a back-seat customer acquisition is more in demand
than customer retention.

The organization is looking to implement relationship marketing need to develop the following:

▪ Design and maintain process which is customer focused rather than product focused

▪ Create a clean and clear communication about its objectives across the organization

▪ Identify key process which adds value to customers

▪ Form collaborative relationships across departments and with other organizations

▪ Restructure and refining organization structure

Customer selection

The following checklists consider; which customers to include when conducting market
research, and how to decide which customers to involve in your learning.

Voice of the customer, face to face usability testing, customer development and customer
journey mapping development are some of the examples where these customer selection lists
are useful.

What Do You Want To Learn

1. The most important criteria is to be guided by what you want to learn.

2. Choose those who can best inform your business, product development and marketing
communication decisions.

3. Align with the research learning method you are using.

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Customers By Innovation Adoption

In Crossing the Chasm Geoffrey Moore does an excellent job clarifying the differences
amongst these customer persona types. It comes down largely to different approaches to risk
adversity versus the benefits of innovation.

• Early Adopters

• Early Majority

• Late Majority

• Laggards

Customers By Lifecycle Stage

• New Customers

• Typical Customers

• Experienced Customers

• Lead Customers / Super Users – not indicative of the typical user but potentially an
early informant for future considerations. Carefully consider how super users are
different from your average customers. They can be wonderfully informative, and pull
you dangerously off course.

• Defected Customer – particularly useful to speak to when recently defected as they have
both experience of your offer, and are likely to be able to articulate weaknesses.

Customers By Customer Satisfaction

The Net Promoter Score uses a measure of ‘willingness to promote’ the organization as a
means to understand customers. It’s a common metric in customer experience and customer
satisfaction programme to proxy for customer loyalty..

The three main groups of customers are:

• Promoters

• Neutral

• Detractor

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Customers By Revenue

• Revenue Per Market Segment; this may be different product lines, different geographies
or industries with different needs.

• Largest Lifetime Value – a subsegment of customers who, overtime, delivery most

profit to the organization.

• Average Sales Price – divide customers into buckets based on how much they pay per
item or project. Those who purchase big ticket items likely have a different ecosystem
to deal with, and different needs versus those whose purchase represents a smaller
amount.

Criteria or process of customer selection

1.Purpose: The engagement document should explain that its purpose is to set out and confirm
the understanding of the practitioner of the terms of the engagement.

2.Objectives of the engagement: A brief summary of the objectives of the engagement,

including reference to the fact that procedures performed will be limited exclusively to those
related to the engagement.

3.Scope of the engagement: Pertinent details of matters such as: time period covered, period of
appointment and time schedules, references to any legislation and professional standards that
may be relevant to the engagement and details of information to be provided by the client (and
by when).

4.Engagement output: Details of reports or other anticipated outputs, including: expected

timing, intended use and distribution of reports and nature of any anticipated disclaimer or
arrangement that limits the liability of the practitioner.

5.Fees and billing arrangements: Reference to the basis of fees (e.g., time-based billing, fixed
price contracts, contingent fee arrangements or other similar agreement). Details of agreed-
upon billing schedules should also be included.

Relationship Strategies for Implementing CRM

One of the reasons is that consumers have bigger expectations than ever when it comes to
customer service. They’re not going to think twice about going elsewhere if yours isn’t up to
scratch.

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When we hear the words ‘CRM strategy’, we’re inclined to think about CRM software. But
software is only one piece of a much larger puzzle.

The best customer relationship management strategy incorporates both people and software.

Stay tuned for our comprehensive 8-step guide to developing a CRM strategy for your business.

What will CRM strategy do for my business?

There a number of reasons why your business needs a CRM strategy.

A good CRM strategy will help you:

• Provide an enjoyable customer experience at all touchpoints of the customer journey

• Strengthen collaboration between sales, marketing, and customer service teams

• Clearly and quickly identify the most worthwhile leads and opportunities

• Keep track of your leads and customers as they move through the buyer funnel

• Carry out targeted marketing campaigns

• Produce concrete figures and data insights to inform and guide your future business
strategies

How to create a CRM strategy from zero

There are 8 essential steps to follow when creating a CRM strategy from scratch.

Step 1: Define your CRM strategy vision and goals

The first thing to do before creating a CRM strategy is to revisit your overall business strategy
and high-level business goals.

Create a vision of what you want to achieve from the CRM strategy. That way it has a clear
purpose from the very beginning.

Think about how you want to contribute to the success of your business.

Increased customer satisfaction, higher productivity and efficiency, and decreasing customer
churn rates are all examples of common CRM strategy goals

Remember, your CRM strategy is not an end in itself. It exists to drive business goals. So you
need to integrate it into the overall strategy of the business.

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Step 2: Define your target customer with buyer personas

Create a buyer persona that represents your ideal customer. Make it as detailed as possible.
Include information such as demographic and behavioural characteristics, as well as interests,
challenges, and aspirations.

Here are some research methods you can use:

• Interview your sales and customer service teams

• Study different customer profiles and even interview customers directly

• Send customer surveys

To maintain strong customer relationships and attract quality leads, you need to understand
exactly who is purchasing from you and why.

Having a clearly defined buyer profile is essential to becoming a customer-centric business.

It’s key to ensuring your teams are focused on the true needs and expectations of your
customers.

That’s not all. Knowing exactly who to target will also ensure your sales and marketing don’t
waste time on unsuitable leads.

Step 3: Define your customer journey

To master customer relationship management, you need to know each and every step of the
customer journey. Then you need to ensure a top-notch customer experience at each of those
touchpoints.

Start at the beginning.

Map every single customer interaction from the moment they first discover you. It might be
through digital ad campaigns, email marketing, direct contact with team members, or other
processes.

This is where you’ll highlight areas for improvement and establish who is responsible for what.

When mapping each stage of the buyer journey, ask yourself:

• Which team/process is interacting with the customer at that moment?

• How can these interactions be improved?

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 • Look at the buyer personas developed in Step 2. Based on what you know about your
customer, is this his or her preferred means of communication? Could there be a more
effective way to get your message across?

• What’s the customer trying to achieve?

• What challenges does the customer face? How can you offer better support?

• What content is the customer coming into contact with?

To master customer relationship management, you need to know each and every step of the
customer journey. Then you need to ensure a top-notch customer experience at each of those
touchpoints.

Step 4: Establish the processes for a 360° customer experience

Your CRM strategy planning so far should have highlighted the areas that need improvement.

Now you’re going to look at the structure of your internal processes. Do you have the resources
in place to provide a 360-degree customer experience?

Do an audit of roles and responsibilities to check all the necessary bases are being covered.

Here are examples areas to optimize processes:

• Presales: How are you doing when it comes to analysing customer needs, gathering
information, and putting together business cases?

• Sales processes: What sales tasks can be automated to increase efficiency?

• Customer relationship management: Are your offers tailored to your customers’

needs? Are your communications personalized and relevant?

• After-sales: Have you got the necessary support systems in place to resolve customer
problems quickly? What feedback do you receive on the quality of your customer
service?

In short, ask yourself ‘How can I do it better?’ and then make the necessary changes within
your organization.

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Step 5: Study the market and know your positioning

It’s always a good idea to look to the competitive landscape for inspiration when developing
CRM strategies.

Ask yourself:

• Where does your company fit into the market?

• What is your unique selling proposition (i.e. what makes you different from others in
your space?)

• How do your competitors differentiate themselves?

• What opportunities exist?

• Can you learn anything about how your competitors handle customer relationships?

• What are the trends in your industry right now?

Step 6: Knowing your product or service

Take the time to revise and develop your product/service narrative and elaborate your value
proposition.

What are the messages you want to transmit? What benefits do you want to highlight? Why
should a customer choose you over your competitors?

Communicate this narrative internally and implement employee training where necessary.
Everyone needs to be on the same page, relaying the same message.

This is also a good opportunity to define your brand tone of voice and put in place best practice
guidelines for communicating with customers.

Step 7: Invest in CRM software

One of the best ways to drive forward your CRM strategy is to invest in a CRM software for
your business.

It’s great for collaborating between teams, storing customer data and keeping track of all
interactions between you.

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Define your CRM software needs by evaluating your existing business processes and getting
input from teams.

The main factors to be considered when choosing a CRM software are price, capabilities, and
ease of use. It’s also important that your CRM can integrate with your existing tools.

Marketing integrations aren’t an issue with Sendinblue’s CRM as it’s part of the all-in-one
marketing platform. If you already use Sendinblue for marketing, campaign history will appear
in contact profile along with engagement metrics.

You can also set task reminders and send emails directly from the contact profile page.

Once you have the software, you need to define rules for using it. Designate an admin to
manage user access. When and how will your teams use this software?

You also have to define what constitutes a lead, prospect, or opportunity, etc.

It’s a good idea to put in place a pilot committee that’ll be responsible for training people how
to use the CRM software.

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Remember to clean your contact list before importing it so that you’re starting off with an
organized and up to date database.

Step 8: Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for each team

All strategic actions need to be backed up by figures and data – and your CRM strategy is no
exception. You need to be able to measure its progress.

You outlined your CRM strategy goals back in Step 1. Now you’re going to give your team
some concrete targets to work towards.

When setting objectives for your teams remember to make

them S.M.A.R.T (i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound).

Examples of performance metrics you may wish to include are:

• Customer satisfaction

• Customer retention

• Customer churn (when a customer leaves the company)

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 • Profits (overall total, totals per customer/account)

The success of your CRM strategy depends on the levels of engagement and collaboration of
your teams.

Get your employees on board from the beginning. Keep them informed, educated, and up to
date on all aspects of your CRM strategy.

Mistakes in implementing CRM

While customer relationship management (CRM) systems have been around for a long time
now, choosing the right CRM platform--as well as implementing it--can still be tricky. Choose
the wrong system or make a mistake in how you deploy it and you could wind up worse off
than when you started.

CRM Mistake No. 1: Not thinking about the end users when choosing a CRM solution. "To
succeed with CRM, organizations should get end users actively involved before ever looking
at systems," says Chris Fritsch, a CRM consultant and owner of CLIENTSFirst Consulting.
Explain to the people who will be using the CRM solution how it will benefit them, as well as
the company as a whole. "The discussion should focus on CRM as a tool for improving the
organization and achieving important organizational goals like enhancing revenue, reducing
costs, automating processes and saving time."

CRM Mistake No. 2: Not choosing a CRM solution that is sales rep (i.e., mobile) friendly. One
of "the biggest problem with CRM systems is getting sales reps to use them," says Lawrence
Coburn, CEO and cofounder of DoubleDutch, a mobile enterprise app developer. "Desktop
CRM systems were designed and optimized for management in offices, rather than for sales
professionals on the go. To see higher engagement, businesses should choose user-friendly
mobile CRM [solutions] that integrate effectively with current systems, while facilitating real-
time updates as they make phone calls, visit customer's offices and schedule appointments."

CRM Mistake No. 3: Choosing a CRM solution that cannot scale. "Many businesses choose
CRM solutions 'in the moment,' that is, looking at the current state of the business," explains
Steve Litwin, the president of Litcom. "The CRM solution may be adequate for the first few
years, but what happens when a business expands? When you have more customers and more
orders? Businesses need to carefully assess their data when choosing a CRM solution, keeping
the future of their business in mind."

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CRM Mistake No. 4: Lack of social media integration--or ignoring social media as a CRM
tool. In today's social media driven world, it is essential to have a CRM system that includes
your social media interactions with customers. But "it's not enough to merely collect and
monitor [this information]," says Sid Banerjee, CEO of Clarabridge, a provider of customer
experience management solutions. "Businesses need to intelligently listen to their customers
and... actively engage with [them] over Facebook Twitter [and] other social outlets," he argues.

The benefit: "Social information and engagement can produce vital customer insights and
create a long-term relationship with your customers that can then be used to improve the
customer experience and ultimately benefit an organization's bottom line."

CRM Mistake No. 5: Not integrating your CRM system with other key systems. To optimize
your CRM investment, "integrate [it] with other systems," says Lou Guercia, CEO, Scribe
Software, a provider of CRM data integration solutions. "Companies who integrate their
email... with their CRM, for example, cite year-over-year revenue gains of 22.7 percent vs.
13.4 percent for companies who don't, according to Aberdeen Research."

CRM Mistake No. 6: Lack of defined business processes. "Businesses that view CRM as a
glorified address book miss the bigger opportunity at hand," says David Ciccarelli, cofounder
and CEO of Voices.com, an online marketplace for voice-over talent. "Yes, you can store basic
contact details but where the value comes from is in the grouping of customer information
(contact details, sales opportunities and support tickets) and how that information relates to
each other," he says. "To solve this problem, organizations should sketch out a workflow
diagram that depicts the customer life cycle. This visual tool will aid you in not only
customizing your CRM but fully taking advantage of its functionality."

CRM Mistake No. 7: Inconsistent nomenclature; no guide for how to refer to accounts. "Many
companies have redundant entries for accounts--for example G.E., GE and General Electric--
making it difficult to prioritize and capture information," explains AJ Ghandi, vice president
of Customer Solutions at Lattice Engines, which provides big data for sales software.

"When this problem persists, sales reps often end up abandoning CRM and using spreadsheets,
negating the millions of dollars large organizations invest in CRM." The solution, he says:
"Each account should only be in the system once; customers and prospects should be organized
into a hierarchy capturing multiple buying centers within business units and parent-child
companies; and, most importantly, account names should be matched to other databases like

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Dun & Bradstreet, or internal systems (e.g., purchase history and transaction database) to
enable enhanced insight into the customer within [the] CRM [system]."

CRM Mistake No. 8: Too many fields. "Within each record, make it easy for the sales team to
fill out the information, so they don't get bogged down in minutia," says Catherine Brown, vice
president of Marketing, Mavenlink, a project management solutions provider. "Only require
the most important details about each contact or opportunity. Then the salesperson can fill out
more detailed information when it becomes available."

CRM Mistake No. 9: Being overly ambitious. Often, companies are so excited about their new
CRM system, they set too ambitious goals, and deploy features that confuse or intimidate users
who are unfamiliar with the system.

To increase the likelihood of user adoption, "lay out a multi-step plan that delivers value
iteratively, beginning with quick wins that deliver high value in a short amount of time," says
Ken Shipman, CRM practice leader, Rightpoint, a technology consulting company. "This will
keep users happy." And it will also help you achieve a better return on your investment.

CRM Mistake No. 10: Not establishing metrics to measure success. "Implementing
CRM/Social CRM without a solid [goal] is a dumb idea," says Barton Goldenberg, founder
and president of ISM Inc., a provider of customer-centric business strategies. "There should be
metrics for each of the proposed business areas that will be impacted by the system, and these
metrics should be measured on a regular basis."

Role of Information Technology in CRM

Information Technology (IT) has been a game-changer for India. Businesses and customers
from across the world look up to Indian IT and ITeS companies to do good at work and create
value. With the landscape constantly changing, the role of CRM in the IT industry for
companies to stay ahead of the competition has become more evident than ever.

1.Sales and Marketing

CRM tools store information of leads from various sources like social media, offline marketing
activities, business development, and more. Having all data in a single place makes it simpler
for businesses to manage their sales funnels and convert leads into customers. Business
development managers use CRM tools to find lucrative up-selling and cross-selling

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opportunities and reach out to customers on time for the renewal of their contracts and
subscriptions. They can send quotations directly and log all their activities in the software.

2.Operations and Support

Call centres and customer support units are critical components for customer relations. CRM
tools record all interactions between the support teams and customers and also generate reports
to show agent productivity and highlight metrics like the number of open versus closed tickets,
main causes of ticket creation, and so on. IT companies can thus improve their SLA’s and
provide better service to their customers.

3.Analytics

CRM tools process, interpret and report the data of sales and operations to build a picture of
the ideal customer and current performance of operations. This doesn’t just enable companies
to focus more on which marketing campaigns work, but also how they can improve operational
efficiency. Employees also generate reports to share internally and with their customers faster,
and have to depend less on multiple tools for the same, since all the information become
available in a single integrated tool.

4.Customer Support Tool

Along with telephony, IT companies can also provide customers with a tool to create tickets
for their concerns and queries, which then get answered by web-based and chat-based support
teams. In all this, customers can track the status of their tickets.

5.Automated Reminders

Business development executives and managers can set reminders to follow up on meetings
and quotations, remind customers about contract and subscription renewals, connect for service
appointments, project discussions, and more.

6.CSAT Measurement System

Understanding customer perception is important for a company to improve its services. This is
why companies can use tools to record and analyse customer feedback and satisfaction le

How CRM Tools Benefit IT Companies / How IT helps in CRM

CRM tools give businesses plenty of insights into their current functioning and building a
roadmap to achieve their goals. Some ways in which they enable companies to grow are:

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Stable growth – Growing the company scientifically and sustainably in the national and
international landscape.

Improved communication – Customers, partners, employees, and other stakeholders

communicate in clearer and faster ways with each other.

Resource management – Depending on the current and future market trends and the company’s
goals, it can allocate resources and plan budgets accordingly.

Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty – Timely and efficient customer support helps
companies serve their customers better.

Achieving competitive advantage – Companies can leverage CSAT data and surveys to identify
changing trends and cash in on those trends early

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