The year 2008 to 2009 recessions has had a sudden impact on the business budgets. Its impact is in every sector of economy and even in the field of Information Technology sector there are no investments in new projects due to the recession. This is possibly impact on the strategies of the CRM systems.
Most of the organisations are adopting CRM systems to attain a competitive advantage in the current situation of a business market. Customer plays an important role in the success of CRM systems so many companies are looking forward to manage, maintain and build strong relationships with the customers for a long term healthy relationship. CRM system is used to collect huge amount of data regarding the customers and classify the relationship customers and transaction customers for a customer loyalty.
In this dissertation some of the qualitatively issues of a customer relationship management is exposed. And these issues are arising from the organisational change, top management, and lack of good leadership and lack of learning abilities by the employees in an organisation. And also it has been shown that before implementing a CRM, organisations should have a proper planning, commitment and also the customer relationship strategy. Though, with CRM system having become an important part of any department of sales and service operation, how does a company maintain a balance budget concerns with the need to run a period of time business? This question is also discussed in the dissertation.
In the strategic terms , an organisation benefits by adopting the definition of CRM for their business. It is a methodology managing customer relationships in an efficient and organized way. An enterprise creates a database for about its customers which says about the relationships in detail where management, customer service and salespeople can access in order to provide customer needs
According to Davenport et al. (2001), the CRM has been defined by stating that CRM systems are "all the methods to use tools, technologies and procedures in order to control, manage and improve facilities or facilitate sales, and also by supporting customers with related interactions and also business partners throughout the organisation".
In other words It is said to be an integrated approach to "CRM is an integrated approach to acquire, retain and identify customer needs by increasing the relationship and satisfying them. CRM helps in organizations for maximizing the value of each and every customer interaction and also drives a superior corporate in performance by enabling interaction with customers in different channels, geographies, departments and lines of business." Siebel (one of the mayor players in the CRM market)
According to John Wiley who is a author of the book called "CRM unplugged", is "CRM is not about technology, it's about attracting and serving clients in more attractive ways".
1.2. Introduction:
In recent years, depending upon the increased worldwide competitions, many organisations have been noticed the importance of being friendlier with the customers who are base to organisations. Therefore Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has been raised the agenda of many organisations technical strategies. Customer Relationship Management is a system which is a information system that is meant to enable organisations in order to realise a focus on customers. Many organisations have started adopting CRM (Customer relationship management) with many potential risks and also it has proved to be an extremely popular choice for implementation.
In the present trend of organisations, customers are playing vital role in organisation's success by maintain good relations and by responding to them in a very easy and convincing manner. So keeping that in view that management has trained its employees as listening to the customers such as "the customers are always right," and "do whatever it takes to deliver your promise" or something similar. Organisations not only succeed by providing good quality products but also by advertising about their products in a convincing manner which has done by marketing department. Frequently, these types of different objectives have become important limitations to be noted for businesses as well as their employees when they are not having suitable methods, tools, technologies or equipment in order to achieve their goal. Technology is providing many techniques that help organisations to track their customers by communications with the firms and by allowing the firms. This is called as customer relationship management (CRM) system and when it is being used in a correct way it improves an organisation's ability of achieving the highest goal of existing customers and to get an upper hand on the competitors in the business environment. (Gefen, D. 2002)
According Daft (2000), CRM is said to be as a system or process of digitalizing a employees knowledge about their customers. It is because of relationship with customers to staff is required to remember their clients requirements in order to the customers with their requirement. In real time mostly many of the organisations with their CRM technologies are focusing on building sustainable and long-standing customer relationships which are adding value for both the customers as well as organisations. (Daft, 2003).
Now a day's CRM system is said to be formed with other types of decision support systems like (EIS) Executive Information Systems, (SCM) Supply Chain Management System, (ERP) Enterprise Recourse Planning system, and Product Life-Cycle Management Systems across all functional areas. With the help of these systems, organizations can provide better information for management in terms of retaining, planning, controlling and acquiring across all channels in order to have quality products and services which are directed to larger amount of revenues and profits. Organisations use CRM systems to improve their skills in interaction with the customers. The improved quality leads to improve the speed response to customer's needs (Anderson, 2006).
CRM also helps in finding required tool for business as it analyzes an organization from its competitors with the knowledge supported by the ideas of the products and the capable of finding and indentifying solutions to issues of the customers. CRM systems reduce the distance between the organisations and the customers, which results towards the success of the organization by its customer greater service, loyalty, organizational learning and better data gathering. According Phelon (2004), it takes up a level by expressing that "customer leverage is an art" though some of the organisations or authors argued that customer satisfaction and loyalty is a science.
1.3. CRM Classification:
Operational CRM:
It is also said to be a front office which involves in sales, marketing and service. In this method, customers meet organisation directly which is also called as touchpoint. A touchpoint includes of two types, one is called as inbound for example calling to an enterprise or organisation's for customer support hotline and the other one is called as outbound for example, an organisation only contacts customers by in-person sales or by calling or through an e-mail support. Accoring to Dyche 2001, It is a method of enabling communications with or from customers but this doesn't mean much useful service. (Dyche 2001).
The benefits of Operational CRM are:
It is said to deliver a well organized or personalised sales, marketing and service through multi-channel.
While interacting with the customers, it can be able to have a complete view of their customers.
Regardless with touchpoint, the people those are in sales and service can be able to access total history of all the customer communication with the company.
Analytical CRM:
Analytical CRM is said be as back office or strategic CRM. It involves in the customer actions which have taken place in front office. Analytical CRM does need some tools and technologies where total customer data is to be required and also it provides analysis for customer data in order to progress and managerial decisions and actions. Analytical CRM includes huge amounts of cross-functional information which is stored in a data warehouse. It is mainly based on the two techniques those are warehousing and data mining. In this CRM, the customer database has to be accessible from all the departments like sales, marketing and customer service. Analytical CRM is also having the groundwork for the planning and estimate the value of marketing campaigns and it is also give support for cross selling and up selling operations. (Adrian Payne 2005).
Collaborative CRM:
Collaborative CRM has many departments like technical support, sales and marketing in which they are being collected all the data from the different customers through interactions with them regularly. It is called as one of the approach to meet the CRM aspects. For example when we speak about customer satisfaction, it is totally depends upon the the feedback from customer about the products and services and also it is rated depending upon gathered information which technical support department and marketing department has collected from the different customers. Marketing department should have the capability of convincing the customer with their product and services and also should be capable of explaining about the product which customers required. Collaboration main aim is to provide different techniques to customer service to improve their quality which leads to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Source: Handbook of CRM: achieving excellence in customer management By Adrian Payne (2005).
1.4. Benefits of CRM:
According to Peck et al. (1999), CRM is a way of doing business by implementing new methods which can benefit organisations as well as customers. Ii is also said to be next wave to computer aided marketing business. Below there is a list of benefits which CRM can bring, they are
The aim of CRM is to develop strong relations between organisation and customers which can lead to
Improved sales by maintaining better timing due to anticipating needs of customers based on past trends.
Organisation can identify needs of the customers more by understanding specific customer requirements more effectively.
Cross- selling and up-selling of other products and services by highlighting alternatives or enhancements by giving suggestions.
Organisations should be capable of identify the customers who are profitable and who are non-profitable to the organisation.
Finally this could also lead to successful marketing of companies products and services by focusing on some key elements which have listed below :
By improving customer satisfaction and retention in order to get a good reputation in the market place which tends to continues growth of business.
By aiming customer needs with effective marketing communications.
Increasing the values of the customers by reducing cost and improving quality which associated with support and service which leads to increase overall efficiency.
Enhanced profitability by focusing on the most profitable customers so that the organisation more concentrates on the unprofitable customers dealing them with the more cost effective ways. Some other benefits which are mean to the organisations are:
Shared or distributed data: In the present trend customer relationships are very imporatnat to organisations on different levels. Organisations can gain more new customers and can maintain old customers by sharing the data throughout organisations. A CRM is a system of enabling or making decisions and follow-ups on all the levels.
Cost reduction: CRM is base for running a successful business. The strong point in the CRM is to make the customers as their business partners but not as a subject. Because customers play important role in business by doing their own order entry and by finding the information for right decision in order to find what they need
Better customer service: the customer service department plays major role in servicing customers and also by bringing relationships from customers by suggesting them what they need. Customer service centre will have all the information related to organisation which helps customers, so that its being centralised in order to support the customers. Organistaions can identify customer needs with the help of customer relationship management by great enhancement.
Increased customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is said to be the degree of meeting customer expectations with product or service. Organisations need more customer satisfaction in order to increase their business. The quality of the product after sales also be a major factor in taking any purchasing decision. Many companies are trying hard not only to get customer satisfaction but also for customer delight which leads to customer loyalty. Customer service has the capability of predicting customer needs.
Better customer retention:
By implementing Customer Relationship Management organisations can attract the customers by giving them some special packages and this result in customer loyalty. As a result customers will have a intention to buy the products, visits again and again which increases in customer retention.
More repeat business: If the customer is satisfied with the service provided by the organisation then the customer is habituated to the same organisation and this leads to the repeat of the business.
1.5. Purpose of the study:
The purpose of the study is to understand the CRM application strategies and their successful implementation to bring about maximum customer satisfaction. By doing so, we hope to make Customer Relationship Management applications more useful to the customers.
1.6. Research Questions:
With reference to the above stated research problem, "what are the factors effecting for a successful CRM implementation"? The following research questions have been posed to conduct the study to realize the purpose.
What are the benefits obtained to the customers from the CRM implementation?
What are the challenges for implementing Customer Relationship Management?
What are the factors that help in successful implementation of CRM? And
What are the risks involved in implementing CRM in the organisation?
1.7. Design/methodology/approach:
Thus, this dissertation deals with CRM introduction and effects of implementing CRM systems in an organisation in order to give an close research into the current issues and status of the technology. The literature review will analyze, examine and explore the benefits and problems involved in implementing CRM systems.
.8. Structure of the Dissertation:
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH RATIONALE
This part gives a brief introduction about the purpose of the thesis. It also details the rationale for doing the thesis and validity of the research. This part also states the aims and objectives of the research to be done.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
This part covers the literature on the CRM issues and its functions using journals articles. The existing function will be presented and the information regarding the subject will be outlined and analysed from the academic literature available.
ANALYSIS:
This part analyses the data collected i.e. CRM implementation problems with an overview of the different departments. The current system will be critically reviewed and the effectiveness of the system will be evaluated. Each of the problems research issues is analyzed, interpreted, and the detailed findings are presented
CHAPTER 3:RESEARCH METHODODLOGY:
This part covers the process of research to be done and the research approach. It implies the selection of the method on how the research is to be done and the methodological consideration of the data collection, sample collection and the data analysis
CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND CRITICAL DISCUSSION:
This part provides a summary of the findings and conclusions of the research objective and issues, discusses the contribution of the research findings to the literature and theory, reviews the implications of the findings, discusses the limitations of the research, and concludes with suggested direction for future research
