CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Transcription

1 Journal of Information, Control and Management Systems, Vol. 5, (2007), No.1 67 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT Paulína MAREKOVÁ University of Žilina, Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, Slovak Republic Abstract Business success depends on customers relations. Customer relationship is effective or noneffective depending up information quality about customers. If businesses dispose of right informations then they are able to offer right products and/or services at a good time to their customer. So for businesses are important to be in picture. This request supplies CustomerRrelatinship Management (CRM) systems. These systems participate in customer relations control and monitoring. Keywords: customer, CRM, business, CRM systems 1 INTRODUCTION One of the most important targets of commercial company is to keep a customer. There are many approved procedures how to build and to keep effective relationship with customers. Although their history started many decades ago there are specialized complex systems for customer relationship management (CRM) having only few years history. If the company have the right information they can provide right product or service in right time with better final profit as a result of their business effort. 2 WHAT IS CRM? Actually everyone knows it and now it only has to be introduced in practise. It is simple. Just take a look at your favorite pub: - You are welcommed with a smile - You are called by the name or nickname - They know what you want if you say "As usually!" - You get your order before you finish to tell your new joke. - Your glass is always clean and shining. - Your beer is drawn a little bit over a punch mark. (no less) - One smile is enough to order next round.

2 68 Customer Relationship Management - They are always ready to fulfill your extra wishes. (bottle of beer packed in a box as a funny gift for your friend) - You get a small present and congratulation if you have a birthday. - You always pay only for what you get. Looking for the official definition of CRM? There isn't one. If you find "what is CRM," you get more than 50,000 options. For example Customer Relationship Management is: - the art/science of using information to find, acquire and retain customers, - the people, processes, and technology questions associated with marketing, sales, and service, - at the core of any customer-centric business strategy and culture, - supported, not driven, by technology; CRM involves redesigning of functional activities, - actively deepening the knowledge you have of your customers to meet individual customer needs, - a holistic approach that unifies all points of customer interaction, - measured by customer retention and referrals as well as the growth of valuable customer segments. The true value of CRM is to transform strategy, operational processes and business functions in order to retain customers and increase customer loyalty and profitability. Customer Relationship Management is not: - just about buying technology; however, some technology is required to enable a CRM strategy, - possible with remembering that the driving force is often human relationships, - not a destination, but a journey; it is iterative in nature, to be improved on a regular basis. Customer Relationship Management are the functions and programs a company uses to connect with its customers; typically divided into: - Operational CRM (call centers, sales force automation, supply chain management), - Analytic CRM (customer analysis, database marketing), - Cooperative CRM (for cooperation support for example s, voice services, teleconferences). Main idea of CRM is to help company use technology and human resources to understand customer behavior and their most important values. Effective CRM strategy leads to raising incomes trough serving "the right" services and products the way as customers exactly wants.

3 Journal of Information, Control and Management Systems, Vol. 5, (2007), No.1 69 CRM can be used for controlling contacts with a customer either by phone, fax, mail and . The data collected can be used for research and analysis of the customer relationship. The CRM is the procedure that is crucial for every business. As the customer is the most important part of the business, the CRM is the procedure that analyzes the contact with the customers in a call center for example. CRM offer important characteristics: - track and report every interaction with a customer, describing the customer's purchase, interest or demand. - report also the changing needs of the customer and the way your business reacts effectively to them. - be a universal instrument for collecting data about the service requests, order entry, satisfaction and billing. - be able to measure the performance of the business on the basis of internal benchmarks. - facilitate the working processes by emphasizing on the positive and exclude the negative practices in your customer relations center. The idea of CRM is that it helps businesses use technology and human resources to gain insight into the behavior of customers and the value of those customers (Figure 1). If it works as hoped, a business can: - provide better customer service, - make call centers more efficient, - cross sell products more effectively, - help sales staff close deals faster, - simplify marketing and sales processes, - discover new customers, - increase customer revenues. 3 BUSINESS AND CRM Nowadays there is a huge boom of CRM systems. Every company wants to have some competitive advantages in the saturated market. The customer becomes one of the most important interests for the company. Every company deal with following problems: - sustain longstanding customers, - customer understanding, - ability to listen, - key process identification, - increase customers satisfaction for improving key processes,

4 70 Customer Relationship Management - marketing strategy creation for sustaining longstanding customers and obtaining new customers, - request ability new customers. Service Management Demand Marketing Leadership Centre for Customers Informations CUSTOMERS Sales Funnel Customer Management Contracts Order Management Figure 1 Customer position in CRM system Quality-equalizing products and services in the same price levels causes that the customers start to respect other thing as competitive advantages. One of the main attributes building supplier-customer relations is faith. If the companies enough build and take care of customer relations, it is unlikely that the customers switch to the competitors. By contrast to production control, resources planning and other similar modules of business informatics is more important human factor by CRM systems. Here can be applied only psychology from exact science. The companies register importance of trust, which follows to company loyalty of customers. For all that they strive to confirm in the customers trust. They use various discounts and bonuses for achieving their goals. It is profitable for both sides. The customer does not have to spend his time and money by comparison competitive supply if the company offers to him products and services satisfied his expectation.

5 Journal of Information, Control and Management Systems, Vol. 5, (2007), No.1 71 In the field of customer relationships companies have to monitor, analyze and find potential problems and response to changing customer needs and competitive activities continually. It is prevention that some of our best customers go to competitors and the company will notice this situation very late. The companies know that the purchase is only the beginning of supplier customer relationship. Also both participants are aware of the risky of their relation. Well organized supporting, servicing and claiming process makes monitoring of customers possible. In addition it could be important resource of customer valuable information. Then this information has to be prepared and appreciated. For effective pursue and provide all factors, which influence building relations between customers and suppliers, companies use information and communication technologies. These ones are used to huge growth of trade volume and customers. They are tools for achieving optimal customer relationships. Similar as other modules of information systems could be CRM built as a part of own information system, which runs at company s server. Complete view of CRM systems supplied and used in Slovak market is not easy to show because a lot of small and medium-sized enterprises use their own various systems. Following list include CRM systems, which are supplied as independent solutions or as addition to complete company information system (Figure 2). CRM solutions in Slovak market ABRA G3 CRM Cígler CRM S3 Datalock CRM FLEX CRM Microsoft Dynamics CRM Oracle, Peoplesoft a Siebel SAS CRM mysap CRM addition to ABRA G3 information system addition to Money S3 electronic system addition to SPIN information system addition to FLEX IS information system part of business solution Dynamics, before Microsoft Business Solutions parts of information systems Can use other solutions and analytical tool of SAS ERP addition to SAP R/3 system Figure 2 View of CRM systems in Slovak market

6 72 Customer Relationship Management Modern CRM systems provide to build effective customers relationship in optional sphere of business. We use quantitative (number of request) or qualitative ways of evaluation these CRM systems. 4 CONCLUSION Implementation and using CRM have to bring advantages to the business. The objective of CRM is to optimize profitability, revenue and customer satisfaction. CRM brings quantifiable advantages and effects that show later. These are main assets founded from using CRM: - trouble free business processes, - more individual contacts with customers, - more time for customers, - differences between competitors, - image support, - information access in real time, - certain and quick predictions, - communication among marketing, sales and services, - increase of effect teamwork, - motivation growth of employees. It is not enough to buy any concrete software and think that it solves every CRM problem and saves our business itself. It is the main big mistake and the beginning of the journey to bankruptcy. Neither the highest quality software does not solve the problems all by itself. Without enough amount of correct information, critical factors knowledge of business process and skilled employees the software does not do anything. Only customers and their cash payed for the products or services can provide development and business success. That the businesses have to manage and confirm their customer relationships. REFERENCES [1] STORBACKA, K., LEHTINEN, J. R.: Řízení vztahů se zákazníky (Customer Relationship management). Grada Publishing 2002, ISBN X [2] DOHNAL, J.: Řízení vztahů se zákazníky: Procesy, pracovníci, technologie. Grada Publishing ISBN [3] WESSLING, H.: Aktivní vztah k zákazníkům pomocí CRM: Strategie, praktické příklady a scenáře. Grada Publishing ISBN [4] [5]