Successful CRM

As the UK economy climbs slowly out of recession, companies need to be in good shape to take advantage of every opportunity. That means not only having the right products and services, but also having a strong bond with customers.

This supplement explores ways in which customer relationship management (CRM) technology can play a vital role in helping to create and maintain that bond. CRM can help organisations build a clear, single view of their customers and deliver a consistently high level of service in all their dealings with them.

But, as we show, technology alone is not the answer. Good customer service can only happen if companies are prepared to review their processes – or in some cases, create processes – in order to make their investment in CRM technology effective.

“Customers need to see technology as an agent of transformation if they are to reap the benefits,” says Carlene Jackson, general manager of the CRM division at software company Sage. “There are still a lot of organisations for which CRM is still an Excel spreadsheet. But many are beginning to realise that a clear understanding of the customer is vital right across their business and, if they take a more joined-up approach, they will reap the benefits.”

In other words, if companies can bring together all their customer information into one place and make it available to all customer-facing staff when they need it – regardless of whether they are working in a call centre, marketing, sales or field support – then they can deliver a better and more consistent service.

The benefits do not stop there. With a well-honed CRM system, new sales prospects can be managed and developed more efficiently and the effectiveness of different marketing campaigns can be easily measured.

The accumulated information can drastically change the way companies operate, says Jackson. “Once you have all the customer data in one place, you should try to plan to mature the investment, and take advantage of the business intelligence and analytical capability within the CRM technology,” she says. “It is important to move on to the next stepping stone in that maturity and use the data to get insight into trends that are happening in their marketplace to drive up performance.”

Ron Condon, Editor, CRM challenge