Benefit of CRM - Seamless communication and customer service
By: Avinash Narula | Tags:
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Even though, businesses collected and stored a lot of information about the customer in the past, the same was available as separate islands of information. That is, some part of information was available in sales department, some in accounts department, some in the branch office and some at the corporate office. In fact, even in the same department, part of the information would be available in one database and the rest in some other database. These islands of information were not connected to each other. For instance, sales, marketing and customer service worked as separate departments in many companies and they still do. All these departments had their own databases. Combine inter-department politics and conflicts to disconnected and scattered information and you have a perfect recipe for achieving high levels of customer dissatisfaction as in the case of Spectranet discussed above.
It is a catch 22 situation. Organizations need divisions, departments and functions for division of work, to assign responsibility and accountability so as to serve the customer effectively. However, these very divisions, departments and functions create organizational barriers for the organization to act in a coordinated manner to serve the customer effectively. It was difficult for these different divisions, departments and functions to focus on the customer in a coordinated fashion, which is a prerequisite for achieving higher levels of customer satisfaction.
For instance, let us assume that the customer is interested in buying a pink shirt and would like to know the delivery schedule of the same from the sales department. The sales department cannot give immediate answer to the customer because he has to contact the production department to find out when the desired product will be available. Since the production department gets a large number of such requests, it takes time for them to respond. Lets assume that the production department responds after a week to say that the pink shirts can only be supplied after 20 days. When the sales department informs the customer, he gets upset as his requirement is immediate. He then asks what colors are readily available? When the sales person tells the customer that he will check with the production department, I won’t be surprised if the customer hits the ceiling and starts doing business with the company’s competitors. Now if the production schedule as well as the stock position was available to the sales department online, he would be able to answer all customer’s queries in one go as well as suggest different options available to the customer so that the customer can take an informed decision.
If we can’t give the customer an accurate price, or delivery date, or account status, then we will have a dissatisfied customer who can and will take his business elsewhere. The way to address this problem would be to have a complete unified view of the organization while dealing with the customer. This means taking all of the information that resides in various systems within the company and making it available to each person that interacts with the customer.
Well, CRM and related technologies have solved this problem for us. CRM solutions have made the organization seamless. By providing a single window for customer communication and interaction, CRM solutions assist in eliminating the organizational barriers which hinder seamless communication and service not only to the customers but also to the internal customers. By linking CRM solutions to the ERP system, the whole organization becomes absolutely seamless. All information related to the customer is now available at one place. Data from every point of contact with the customer, from the cash register to the service counter to the call center can be now made available to everyone in the organization.
Achieving higher levels of customer satisfaction involves having all information about the customer at your fingertips. Businesses need to know their preferences, their behavior, their purchase history as well as their demographic and psychographic information. CRM solutions can make this information available at every company executive’s desk.Practically, every company representative can find out anything that he wants to know about a customer in 'real time'. For instance, all outstanding issues with the customer such as unpaid balances, outstanding complaints and orders being shipped are available at the click of the mouse at every executive’s desk.
No wonder, CRM is expected to unlock the doors of customer satisfaction. By connecting the back office and the front office, CRM has the ability to make the organization function like one entity andnot like many departments. With CRM, the customer no longer has to run from pillar to post to resolve his grievances.
Actually, the very basic prerequisite for CRM to be successful is the existence of a coordinated seamless organization so that customers can be served effectively the first time at first contact.
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