“Customer relationship management is a business strategy to select and manage the most valuable customer relationships. CRM requires a customer-centric business philosophy and culture to support effective marketing, sales, and service processes. CRM applications can enable effective customer relationship management, provided that an enterprise has the right leadership, strategy, and culture.” -The CRM Primer, http://www.crmguru.com
What customers face
Media barrage – Customers are confronted with increasing volumes of information, transmitted at increasing rates and coming from a greater number of sources than ever Choice – Choice overwhelms most customers, making it difficult for you to gain and sustain their business Change – Product life cycles are so short that, in the case of many technology products, by the time the customer makes an informed decision, the basis of the decision may not be valid
Uncertainty – All this change can be very confusing to customers. Products change quickly, but so do the companies that sell them, how they are sold and who does the selling. Complexity – Is there a way for people to determine which product offers will produce the optimal utility for their needs?
Distrust & Suspicion
Distrust and suspicion are more prevalent today than any time in recent history – for good reason. If these issues are not addressed initially, the persuasion process is likely to stall. Distrust and suspicion are emotions that may not be expressed by the customer; therefore you must deliberately overcome their influence.
Regardless of the clarity of the logic of your persuasion, these emotions can trump it! Keep in mind that until you demonstrate otherwise, you and your company have been tarred by the “heightened distrust and suspicion brush”.
Trusted Agent
Each and every employee of your company should preserve the customer’s trust. Experts should counsel the customer on the best choice that he can make. These experts should be trained to think and act always with the customer’s well being and good in mind. Your employees become the customers trusted agent. Companies should thus lead their customers to where they want to go but just don’t know it yet. This has merit and “leading” is the key to building mutually beneficial and adapting relationships with customers.
How to do the “leading”
Implement customer-centric business strategies
Which drives redesigning of functional activities; Which demands re-engineering of work processes; Which is supported, not driven, by CRM technology
Step #1: Customer-centric Planning
You plan around customer wants, not company goals. You focus on listening to customers, rather than forcing them to listen to you.
You relegate promotional marketing communication – including database marketing, e-database marketing, e- database, e-marketing, etc. — to a secondary role, operating in the shadow of informed, informational dialog with customers
Step #2: Redesigning functional activities
When you change to more customer-centric business strategies, you have to work differently. Carefully assess the roles of all departments interacting with customers-to see if they’re adding value to customers, or adding cost instead. Then figure out how to reconfigure our organization so that everything you do is designed to help customers and nothing you do adds unnecessary cost.
Naseem Mariam is the editor of “Management that Soars” Newsletter & author of “Project Serenity – How to gain happiness and peace”. Her ritings draw life from her 18 years experience as software Project Manager. Let her guide you towards Faster All Round Success and a Stress Free, Joyous Life. Her free ebook and Newsletter tell You How. Subscribe with mailto:projectdioxide@sendfree.com Visit her at http://www.123projectmanagement.com