Technology briefing: Customer Relationship Management

CUSTOMERS NEED YOUR CARE

Your relationships with your customers underpin the success of your business – as such, they are worth cultivating. Technology can help bring together all the information you have about your customers, so you can give them the best service, while predicting their buying habits. This technology, called customer relationship management (CRM), can help you manage your customer relationships in an organised way. David Bradshaw, principal analyst at business consultancy Ovum, says: ‘CRM has a very simple concept at its core – managing your relationships with customers. Customer relationships are one of the key assets of almost any business you can imagine. It makes sense to manage these competently.’ Paul Younger is an applications specialist for voice and convergence solutions at BT, and has helped many businesses plan their CRM strategies. He says that before embarking on a CRM project you should ask yourself some key questions. How do you make contact with your customers? How do they like to contact you? What do you need to know about your customers? Because, at the end of the day, ‘Customer management isn’t about the quantity of information you capture, but the quality,’ he adds. ‘SMEs often know their customers by name, and who their best ones are. The difficulty comes when there’s more than one person in the firm. How do you share your knowledge, and what happens when an employee leaves? You need some way of storing their knowledge and of storing the transactions... and whether the customer is happy or has an issue with the firm.’

Knowing who’s who is easy

Software applications can provide a powerful way to automate the way you manage your customer relationships. There are simple software applications that businesses can buy and run themselves to track financial transactions and customer data, such as names and addresses.

Maximising your knowledge

More powerful suites are also available that link a ‘data warehouse’ – essentially a customer information index – to the other business applications you are likely to use to record data on sales, accounting, and products and services. Many call centres use these suites as a means of gaining powerful insight into their customers and linking the different ways they communicate with the business, be it through email, fax, phone or the web.

Getting the package that suits you

You can also choose a CRM service run by a ‘software-as-a-service’ provider, such as Siebel, Netsuite or salesfore.com. In this way you only pay for what you use, usually on a monthly basis. This can be a huge benefit as you are able to predict the costs that you will incur by using the service. Siebel Contact OnDemand is available from BT as a managed service, and can even be made available to mobile employees via their handheld computers.

‘CRM on demand reduces the technical and commercial risks for you, and allows you to use CRM seasonally or dip your toe in the water,’ says Younger. He adds: ‘BT can help to tailor a CRM solution for your business, providing the voice and data infrastructure to bring it all together. Speak to your account manager and get them to engage their BT CRM Specialist.’

Words by Arif Mohamed
Illustration by Georgios Manoli

Let BT help you improve your customer relations

6 WAYS CRM CAN HELP YOU

Customer relationship management (CRM) technology is all about putting your customers first. Not only can it help you to give them a better service, but it can also enhance your business in a number of ways...

1. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

CRM gives customers the personal touch, as you track what they like and their buying habits and history.

2. SINGLE VIEW

The technology can gather all relevant customer information and present it in a readable format.

3. INCREASED REVENUES

CRM can help identify new sales and marketing opportunities, to highlight buying trends.

4. INCREASED PROFITS

It identifies your most valuable customers, so you can concentrate efforts on them.

5. PREDICT SALES

CRM helps predict sales more accurately so you can improve inventory and cash flow.

6. REDUCE COSTS

CRM can help you cut service costs through greater efficiency and effectiveness, for example by focusing your customer service.