essay on customer relationship

Essay on Customer Relationship Management

Overview of CRM

Customer relationship management is a business model given backup by the information technology, which is generated to enhance the nature of human interactions amid customers as well as businesses. It is an incessant plus strategic initiative which demands a dynamic technique for taking care of customer relationships. As a result, CRM is regarded as the provision of customer care services as a unique product containing reward while producing a happy set of customers via the retention (Lubis et al., 2020, p.84). The model is made up of numerous methods plus technological orientations by organizations in managing customer relationships. The model further proposes that information about existing and potential customers be properly analyzed in order to provide relevant information for business decision-making. The use of automated CRM processes is used to generate automated personalized marketing based on data stored in the organization’s database.

Most businesses have remained committed to the concept of long-term CRM as a means of recruiting and retaining valuable consumers. The conventional forms of customer connection and marketing tactics, which stressed the creation of commercials and other promotional strategies to appeal to the target market, have continued to evolve into the current forms. Today, the emphasis is on the capabilities of information technology (IT) to create value for businesses and customers (Valmohammadi,2017). With the advent of high-tech technology that has consumed the market and the business environment, modern CRM has seen tremendous growth. The demand for a more advanced CRM has resulted in eCRM, which has evolved from traditional CRM. As a result, most businesses have indicated growth in their businesses in several ways and this section is going to concentrate on discussing the significance customer relationship management to businesses.

Contributions of CRM to Business Growth

Relationship marketing and IT infrastructure literature propose that the adoption of CRM technology correlates positively with the conception, development, as well as retention of customer relationships founded on an in-depth review of market studies plus orientation (Talon-Ballestero et al., 2018, p.187). CRM has provided numerous benefits to businesses that have implemented its philosophies since its inception.

Enhanced Services

Most businesses have steadfastly embraced strategic CRM in order to reap the benefits. CRM has a wide range of applications in the corporate world. Through these applications, CRM has assumed its role of promoting the values of businesses strategies of higher sales volumes and customer share. Customers now expect improved, personalized service and immediacy, thanks to the rapid development of the Internet, e-commerce, and self-service customer support (Abu Amuna et al., 2017). As a result, marketing professionals are turning to technology to capture and use customer information in order to better meet customer demands.

Better Customer Retention

Traditional ways of attracting clients and retaining them as customers have continued to be inefficient. CRM promises a cheap and faster approach of recognizing consumer demands and reacting to bring them on board with the goal of solving their unmet wants. CRM, on the other hand, acts as a user-friendly platform for recording customer criticisms.

Proper Identification and Segmentation of Customers

CRM systems assist businesses in properly identifying and segmenting customers prior to incorporating them into the business’s customer stratum (Zebedayo,2020). The system can be defining in providing a business with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to secure high-end customers as well as middle-end customers who matter to business performance through increased profitability.

Better Anticipation of Needs

Businesses have used CRM principles to provide strategic customer expectations with the goal of identifying, exploring, and using CRM to control the value proposition with the goal of improving customer satisfaction. CRM, according to numerous studies, has served to justify the role of information systems in developing approaches that benefit both customers and organizations.

Customer Relationships as a Business Priority

CRM systems continue to be the most important component in assisting organizations in facilitating customer complaints and resolutions. CRM provides a better option for designing mechanisms for proper decision-making for resolving customer problems within the desired time to ensure that firms do their best in terms of offering impartial and differentiated services to their customers. As a result, CRM assists firms in achieving strategic positions that adhere to the Just-in-Time (JIT) principles, in which customer concerns are coordinated and resolved rapidly (Soltani et al., 2018, p.246).

Challenges in implementing customer relationship management to businesses

Despite the fact that CRM systems have had a considerable impact on corporate performance, their deployment continues to confront significant obstacles. These obstacles include both internal and external pressures that might cause a company’s CRM implementation to become skewed, making it difficult to reap the benefits of CRM.

Inconsistency in CRM Procedures

According to studies, firms that perform exceptionally poorly have implemented strategic CRM within their operations. Furthermore, most researchers believe that the inability of CRM to produce the intended value to the business is due to inconsistency in the process of delivering the projections by businesses that have failed (Rahimi & Kozak,2017, p.51). Poor or lack of effective customer orientation, bad IT practices, people management, and the selection of suitable technologies that adapt to the business’s demands are all variables that contribute to these results.

Cost is one of the most significant challenges that businesses face when implementing a CRM solution. Yes, if done hastily and without thorough forethought, it could end up being a pricey affair. It is best to decide why your company requires a CRM at this point. This should provide a clear picture of the type of CRM system and implementation techniques required, ultimately assisting in the establishment of a budget for the same. So merely copying your competitor’s CRM techniques is like to taking a shot in the dark that could end in tragedy. As a result, it’s always a good idea to talk to all of the shortlisted CRM providers about total cost of ownership, IT resources, hardware or software, and so on (Abu Amuna et al., 2017).

Lack of Adequate Training

On the other side, the implementation of CRM systems has resulted in a group of clients who are dubious of the system’s principles and believe that CRM will not be able to assist them in the future. In the past, when compared to the CRM era, extensive information about customers was limited. The use of technology to maintain customer interactions continues to elicit a range of responses regarding client data protection. When technology is used incorrectly, it has the potential to destroy objectivity. As a result, firms employing CRM must be wary of the security risks.

Ways to Overcome the Challenges

Ensure the CRM System is Easy to Understand and Use

CRM software is designed to make users’ lives easier. You should streamline the procedure if your users are having trouble managing or discovering their data in the CRM system. Yes, process streamlining must be considered from the beginning of the system configuration process. Many users are confused or even irritated by interfaces that provide no useful information, such as unwanted fields and/or extensive navigation. As users advance, your system administrator can gradually introduce new items into the system.

Clearly Defined Goals

More than half of CRM projects fail owing to a lack of clearly stated objectives. There is a brief plan spelled out before buying a CRM system that the firm intends to grow and expand in the future and thus needs a CRM software for it, but a clearly defined aim gives considerably more information than that (Badwan et al., 2017). How many transactions will occur, how many security levels will be required, and how will the gap between what your company does and what the software provides be managed? This will assist the company in planning adequately in terms of finances required to ensure the process of transitioning or running the CRM systems works smoothly.

Training your users

Make user training sessions a top priority. Spending time on user training is not a waste of time; rather, it saves time and effort for both users and management personnel who will be reviewing their work and performance. Create training based on the various processes defined in the CRM software. A sales person, for example, is more interested in learning about the sales opportunity module than the service module. Marketing Campaigns, Groups of Companies, Bulk Emails, as well as Individuals are all things that a marketing executive is interested in.

Lessons Learnt by Adopting Practical Steps to overcome challenges

• When coming up with a new development in an organization, begin by involve users from the word go.

The only thing that remains constant is change. Unfortunately, humans are prone to being resistant to change. Employees prefer to stick to their daily routines rather than change them in order to increase productivity. For example, in a number of organizations, people often reject new software when an organization decides to implement it, claiming that they are not comfortable with it. However, in order to avoid the “it’s my way or the highway” mentality, management must persuade and train them effectively on the new system that is well suited to their current comfort zone in order to achieve more growth and stability. Fear of not understanding the system is highly frightening, thus painting a clear picture of the system and assisting them in comprehending it will remove any uncertainties or doubts they may have (Lubis et al., 2020, p.84). For instance, work on changing the employees it’s my way or the highway mentality and train them effectively on the new system that is well suited to their current comfort zone in order to achieve more growth and stability. Also, make it clear to your them how the CRM software will benefit them, and automate a few of their chores. Taking regular feedback from users on the system’s user-friendliness, interface, navigation, and so on will also lead to successful implementation.

• Define goals and KPIs that led to the implementation of the new model/theory.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems are still a mystery to many new businesses, large and small (Kumar & Reinartz,2018). New businesses may be unaware of the significance of CRM integration, which enables businesses to make the most of their data and investment. To users and employees, it is still a mystery that is trying to suppress their norm. CRM implementation requires clear goals as well as objectives. Companies will only be successful with a CRM strategy if they have a clear vision of what they want to accomplish. As a result, setting goals plus KPIs to assess them is critical. You’ll be able to track your progress, client happiness, and continual development once these are in place.

• Engage the Right CRM Solution Provider and Plan Integration in Advance

The key to a successful CRM implementation is enlisting the right CRM solution provider or partner. Choose a partner who can assist with both implementation and pre-implementation strategy. Furthermore, it is critical that your partner lays out all of the implementation risks before you sign on the dotted line. On the other hand, integrating CRM with other business administration solutions such as ERP, payroll, and so on is at the top of most companies’ wish lists when it comes to CRM (Talon-Ballestero et al., 2018, p.187). However, to avoid CRM implementation overkill and information overload for your employees, it’s a good idea to consider any integration requirements ahead of time. For instance, get rid of time-consuming workflows and let technology help your company thrive. Choose a powerful CRM to get the most out of your investment. Integrate your sales and accounting applications to maximize productivity and profitability

In conclusion, A CRM system is a valuable asset for any business, large or small. It is critical to use the right software that allows you to strengthen your customer relationships. Additionally, to have a good implementation, we must plan ahead of time to ensure a seamless and successful transition. This is because, CRM adoption has been a persistent issue for businesses for many years. This is why it is important to identify a person within your organization who can lead the adoption project. A CRM champion’s responsibilities primarily include developing standard procedures and ensuring that users use the system correctly while adhering to data quality procedures. As a result, businesses looking forward to implementing CRM to effect their operations need to include their employees from the start and offer mentorship and training over the same. Additionally, each new model brought into an organization should be accompanied with clear goals and objectives so that its easier for the users to take lead on what should be done and how. Thirdly, ensure the model is accompanied by a CRM solution provider whose work is not only to avail the software, but also be present throughout its operations. For instance, he/she should stretch their roles from implementation to post implementation assisting plus inspiring the organization staff to make use of the new software.

Abu Amuna, Y. M., Al Shobaki, M. J., Abu-Naser, S. S., & Badwan, J. J. (2017). Understanding Critical Variables for Customer Relationship Management in Higher Education Institution from Employees Perspective.

Badwan, J. J., Al Shobaki, M. J., Abu-Naser, S. S., & Abu Amuna, Y. M. (2017). Adopting technology for customer relationship management in higher educational institutions.

Kumar, V., & Reinartz, W. (2018).  Customer relationship management . Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2006, 2012, 2018.

Lubis, A., Dalimunthe, R., Absah, Y., & Fawzeea, B. K. (2020). The Influence of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Indicators on Customer Loyalty of Sharia Based Banking System.  Lubis, A , 84-92.

Rahimi, R., & Kozak, M. (2017). Impact of customer relationship management on customer satisfaction: The case of a budget hotel chain.  Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing ,  34 (1), 40-51.

Soltani, Z., Zareie, B., Milani, F. S., & Navimipour, N. J. (2018). The impact of the customer relationship management on the organization performance.  The Journal of High Technology Management Research ,  29 (2), 237-246.

Talón-Ballestero, P., González-Serrano, L., Soguero-Ruiz, C., Munoz-Romero, S., & Rojo-Álvarez, J. L. (2018). Using big data from customer relationship management information systems to determine the client profile in the hotel sector.  Tourism Management ,  68 , 187-197.

Valmohammadi, C. (2017). Customer relationship management: Innovation and performance.  International Journal of Innovation Science .

Zebedayo, S. (2020).  Assessment of the Effects of Customer Relationship Management in Customer Satisfaction”, A case of MasasiNachingwea Water Supply and sanitation Authority, Mtwara  (Doctoral dissertation, Mzumbe University).

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What is Customer Relations? Everything You Need to Know

Updated: June 24, 2022

Published: November 02, 2021

Your relationship with your customers is directly tied to the financial well-being of your business. Building strong customer relations will develop customer loyalty and retain valuable, long-term clients, increasing revenue from repeat purchases.

You might’ve heard of customer relations. You might even have been on the opposite side of it as a customer.

If you're looking to improve the customer experience and increase revenue, it helps to understand what successful customer relations look like and how you can create it at your business.

Customer Relations

Customer relations refers to the methods a company uses to engage with its customers and improve the customer experience. This includes providing answers to short-term roadblocks as well as proactively creating long-term solutions that are geared towards customer success.

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Importance of Effective Consumer Relations

Developing an amazing product is one of the hardest challenges that a company can overcome and one of the biggest predictors of success. But strong customer relations is what will truly determine the success of a business.

Today's consumers have more industry influence than they've ever had in the past, allowing them to focus on more than just the product that you're selling them. Now, consumers are interested in what you're selling them, how you're selling it, and what happens after you've sold it to them.

The shift has placed pressure on companies to invest in their customer service teams and meet rising customer demands. In fact, a Microsoft study showed that 55% of consumers have higher expectations for customer service year-over-year. Businesses are now facing the challenge of creating an excellent customer experience that's consistent across every interaction.

To achieve this, many companies are now focusing on how they manage their customer relationships. And that’s where customer relations comes in.

Customer relations aims to create a mutually beneficial relationship with the customer that extends beyond the initial purchase.

Customer relations is present in all aspects of a business, but it's most prevalent in the customer service department. Customer service teams, customer support , customer success , and product development all play important roles in building a healthy customer relationship.

Customer relations also extend to marketing and sales teams as well, since these departments have a significant influence over the company's interactions with the customer.

What functions does customer relations include?

Customer relations includes both the reactive and proactive functions performed by your customer service teams.

Reactive functions are the efforts made by your team to solve issues that are reported by customers. This includes tasks like responding to customer complaints and solving problems with the support team. Being able to solve unexpected customer roadblocks is essential for brands that are looking to build strong customer relationships.

Proactive functions are the measures taken to ensure a long-term relationship with customers. These efforts are aimed towards fostering customer success by consistently satisfying evolving customer needs . Customer success teams do this by providing information about products and updates, as well as by promoting discounts and exclusive offers. This type of long-term customer relationship management helps companies create lasting impressions on customers who eventually become loyal to the brand.

Customer Service vs. Customer Relations

You may think they're one and the same, but customer service and customer relations are two very similar concepts with one distinct difference. Customer service is what your company provides to ensure customer success. It is an inbound function that's now expected by customers at the first point of interaction with your business. Companies can provide proactive customer service features, but most customer service functions are delivered in response to customer action.

Customer relations differs because it consists of both the inbound and outbound measures taken by your company. It considers your organization's ability to react to present issues as well as your approach to bettering future experiences. Customer relations focuses on the proactive steps you're taking to engage customers and improve the customer experience .

Customer relations encompasses all of the important functions that customer service performs, but also includes the efforts made before and after customer interactions. While responding to immediate customer needs is a great way to provide excellent customer service , searching for solutions to future roadblocks is how your company can build positive customer relations.

What are positive customer relations?

Positive customer relations are long-term, mutually beneficial relationships between a customer and a company. These relationships are built by creating a stable environment of trust that results in the continued growth of both the customer and the organization.

Positive customer relations include consistent quality of what the business is offering as well as how they are offering it to the customer.

Benefits of Positive Customer Relations

Positive customer relations can result in an array of benefits for your company, including more potential leads and higher customer retention rates. To narrow it down, here are several top benefits that positive customer relations can provide for your company.

Increased Customer Retention

Companies that do a better job of managing customer relations are more likely to see higher customer retention rates. In fact, studies show that 61% of customers stop buying from a company if they have a poor customer experience.

Customers know when your company is being genuine and are willing to overlook your mistakes so long as you demonstrate a dedication to their success. That type of transparency is essential when reducing churn as well as when you're building a positive customer relationship. It can also be financially beneficial too, as studies show increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase your profits by 25% to 95%.

Increased Customer Loyalty

When you have a good history with your customers, it makes it more difficult for your competitors to lure people away from your brand. Customers loyalty is highly valuable for businesses, as repeat customers are more likely to buy from you than leads that have not yet converted.

Building positive customer relations drives customer loyalty because it creates an intangible incentive for the customer to return to the same business. While it may cost more for companies to invest in building positive customer relations, the payoff in customer loyalty can be instrumental for generating consistent revenue over time.

Increased Customer Satisfaction

Often times, it can be hard to tell whether your customers are truly happy with your business or not. In fact, 58% of unhappy customers simply don't return to a company for another purchase. Having strong customer relations can act as your insurance policy for preventing these unidentified customers from churning without warning.

Increased Customer Feedback

Positive customer relations give companies more insight into their customer's problems because it creates an open channel of communication for relaying customer feedback . This leads to better individual interactions with customers, which builds up trust over time and influences their buying decisions.

Studies have even found that consumers believe that a good experience with a company has more influence over their purchase decision than advertising does. So while the commercial of the cute dog may get a smile or two from your target audience, customer satisfaction actually is the result of your brand creating memorable customer experiences.

Every company should aim at building positive customer relations, but hitting your target can be a lot easier said than done. It takes effort from the entire company to build a long-lasting and trustworthy customer relationship.

In the next section, we break down the most important components for fostering positive customer relations at your company.

Building Positive Customer Relationships

• Invest in employee training.
• Create a fulfilling workplace for your customer service reps.
• Improve first call resolution rate.
• Leverage software to increase efficiency.
• Create opportunities for self-service.
• Be accessible.
• Show appreciation.
• Measure and improve customer satisfaction.
• Create an online community for customers.
• Provide education programs that help your customers grow better.
• Be personable.
• Create a customer-first culture.

Since customer relations considers all of your customer interactions, there are a lot of factors that can influence a customer relationship.

When building positive customer relations, organizations need to take a company-wide approach that's focused on promoting customer success. To do that, here are several key factors that any business should consider when pursuing positive customer relations.

1. Invest in employee training.

A great customer experience comes not only from the product being sold, but also from the employees who interact with the customer. Your reps must be highly skilled in their trade and motivated by quickly solving customer problems.

Customer service training may include developing some of the "soft" skills such as improving active listening, developing a professional communication style, and how to solve problems efficiently in your organizational framework.

While you might expect your reps to have these skills when you bring them on, continual training helps align the entire team to your organization's brand standards, policies, and procedures, resulting in a more consistent experience across the board.

2. Create a fulfilling workplace for your customer service reps.

Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines famously said, "If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients." This seems intuitive: If a customer service rep is having a bad enough day that the customer perceives this, it can change the tone of the experience.

Studies have also shown that happy workers are also 12% more productive , and in the service world, productive reps and quicker resolution times lead to higher rates of customer satisfaction.

3. Improve first call resolution rate.

86% of customers will pay more for a better experience , and great customer experiences are becoming the norm in today's marketplace. One of the metrics to look at when creating a frictionless service model is first-call resolution (FCR). FCR refers to the percentage of calls that get resolved with no follow-up or additional touchpoints needed.

It's a critical metric that improves satisfaction (no one wants to call multiple times about one issue, and more calls equate to more frustration) and your team's internal efficiency.

The more calls that are resolved completely, the less your system is taxed by call volume.

Your service and support teams should be equipped and enabled to handle the majority of issues that customers present.

4. Leverage software to increase efficiency.

Speaking of enablement, companies faced with higher volumes of support and service cases should consider adopting customer service tools to help manage customer relations. Adding a help desk software can significantly help customer service, support, and success teams monitor interactions with customers over time.

A customer relationship management tool, or CRM , can help your team expand its bandwidth and create satisfying experiences for every person that interacts with your business.

5. Create opportunities for self-service.

You may not have the bandwidth to provide on-demand one-to-one support at all hours of the day. Ensure that you're providing the tools for your customers to get help when they need it, even without the help of a rep.

Chat bots can help disseminate information and guide website visitors to the right areas on your website. Knowledge bases can address some of the most common questions customers have.

Even though some customers will prefer calling in, these simple steps can address the problems of your more self-sufficient customers and increase satisfaction by continuing to solve problems on demand.

6. Be accessible.

That isn't to say that you should replace reps with self-service solutions altogether. To provide an excellent customer experience, your service and support teams need to be readily available to help. A Microsoft survey revealed that over a third of consumers reported that their biggest complaint with a company is not being able to get help from an agent when needed to.

While it helps to have things like self-service help desks , your team still needs to be there when the customer has a problem.

Technology can help ease some of the stress for your customer service team, but it can never recreate the memorable experience that a live rep can provide. This human interaction is crucial to creating a meaningful relationship between a company and its customers.

7. Show appreciation.

Part of creating a great customer experience is providing small moments of delight where you exceed their expectations. This is particularly important as our culture is shifting away from brand loyalty and more toward loyalty to the brands that provide the best experience. Consider rewarding your best customers with a loyalty program or other small token of your appreciation.

8. Measure and improve customer satisfaction.

Making your customers happy doesn't have to be an intangible effort. Ask for feedback from your customers and develop a system for measuring that feedback. This could be in the form of customer satisfaction surveys and NPS scores .

If you do, also ensure that you're committed to acting on the feedback you receive. As you see scores improve and feedback get better, you know you're on the right track.

9. Create an online community for customers.

There’s no better way for improving customer relations than by allowing your customers to connect with one another — and with specialists on your staff. By creating an online community, whether by a forum on your website or a Facebook group, you ensure your customers continue engaging with your brand and with your products. They’ll also feel supported along the way by other users of your products.

Ensure that if you create an online community, an employee manages it and responds to queries that require their expertise. That way, customers don’t feel they’re posting on a board or forum that you don’t look at. The customer-relationship-building aspect comes in when you’re active as well.

10. Provide education programs that help your customers grow better.

Educating your customers to help them grow their business is one of the best ways to improve customer relations. If your product has a steep learning curve, for example, you can create a series on YouTube that walks new users through the platform or the installation process.

Alternatively, you can create education programs that don’t refer to your product, but that help your customers with problems and issues they face at their business. For instance, if you sell flowers for events, you might provide customers with a course on how to work with wedding clients.

Even though that topic doesn’t immediately have to do with the flowers you sell, you’re helping your customer win a client. Your customer will thus have a much more positive relationship with you.

11. Be personable.

Perhaps the most important tip is to be personable in all of your interactions with your customers. That means that every email, chat, or interaction with your company should be with an actual representative who signs off with their name. The exception is, of course, automated service email campaigns , but even those should have an alias of someone who works at your company.

Giving your company a human name and face is one of the best way for costumers to connect with you and continue buying from you.

12. Create a customer-first culture.

Companies that want to create positive customer relations need to install a customer-centric culture into the organization. This culture has to be focused on customer success as well as creating long-term solutions for every customer.

Companies can do this by creating a customer journey map that outlines the buyer's journey for a target consumer. Employees will be more motivated to help customers as they can see exactly where they play a role in the customer's success. It also helps to hire a customer relations executive who can lead the development of customer relationships.

What's a Customer Relations Executive?

A customer relations executive is an upper management customer service employee who oversees all interactions between a company and its customers. These employees manage and develop strategies for building relationships and aim to provide a consistent, positive experience to every customer.

Customer relations executives motivate employees to deliver products and services that will enhance the customer's interactions with the brand. If they also manage the entire customer relations team, they may be called a customer relations manager.

Customer Relations Manager

A customer relations manager oversees the entire customer relations team, including executives who interact with customers during their day-to-day. Customer relations managers provide strategic direction and generate new ideas for improving customer relations. At an enterprise firm, a customer relations manager may also oversee the firm’s relationships with its most valuable clients.

Customer Relations Manager Skills

A successful customer relations manager or executive possesses a diverse range of skills that will help them manage a team and improve the company’s relationship with external parties. When you’re interviewing candidates, ensure they have the following:

• Problem-solving skills : When the customer relations program isn’t working or when brand sentiment takes a turn for the worse, a customer relations manager should be able to work through the issues and find a solution. They should also solve problems for customers.
• People skills : Customer relations managers work with people all the time. They are either managing them or they’re interacting with customers online. Your candidate must have people skills to be successful in a customer relations role.
• Data analysis skills : Customer relations manager should continually be collecting feedback from the company’s customer base. They should be able to analyze the data from the surveys and glean actionable insights.
• Creativity : Customer relations is an ever-evolving process that will require new ideas, new initiatives, and new programs as time progresses. As such, a customer relations manager should be creative enough to come up with initiatives that retain more customers and increase loyalty.

Hiring a customer relations manager is important if you want to improve your company’s relationship with your customers. That said, you can start improving those relationships right now by always putting your customers first.

Customer Relations is the Key to Your Business’ Success

Start listening to what your customers have to say and remove the points of friction that cause dissatisfaction. A great customer relations and retention program doesn't happen on its own. Creating a thoughtful customer experience begins with always prioritizing the customer’s needs and exceeding their expectations. Do that, and your customer relations will improve exponentially.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Customer Relationship Management, Essay Example

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Introduction

ABC Consulting Group has been contracted by Keppel Offshore & Marine to analyze, assess and implement new customer strategies to help increase revenues and expand their customer base. Following is a detailed Customer Relationship Management Strategy (CRM), custom-designed for Keppel Offshore & Marine Company by ABC Consulting Group.

One of Keppel Offshore & Marine’s primary goals is to present itself as a company customers can trust and feel comfortable forming long-term relationships with. Additionally, Keppel Offshore & Marine aims to identify new business opportunities with future customers as well as grow their existing customer base. The latter is particularly important, because Total Quality Management experts report that retaining and managing existing customer relationships is more cost effective than investing in finding and winning over new customers. However, keeping existing customers satisfied often leads to new customer relationships via word-of-mouth advertising and a high-value perception of the company in the industry. ABC Consulting Group understands that a company’s success is only as good as how satisfied its customers are, and are in place to help Keppel Offshore & Marine realize the benefits from good customer relationships by revamping its customer retention and relationship strategy.

Consequently, one of ABC Consulting Group’s goals is to successfully assist Keppel Offshore & Marine in managing and maintaining strong customer relationships which are outlined in this Customer Relationship Management Plan. The plan’s primary purpose is designed to identify what Keppel Offshore & Marine needs to effectively manage its customer base, including customer retention opportunities, customer communication strategy requirements and customer value propositions to assess public perception of the company. These are key areas of focus. Consequently, identifying and developing these key areas are essential to developing an effective strategy for Keppel Offshore & Marine to realize a long-term, value-added relationship with its customers.

Keppel Offshore & Marine Company Description

Keppel Offshore & Marine is a well-respected, Singapore-based marine engineering company that has proven itself as a global leader in its industry. The company is a major constructor of offshore drilling platforms and vessels, as well as the world’s leading builder of jack up rigs, semi-submersible rigs and floating production and storage facilities (FPSOs). The company is an industry pioneer in the conversion of tankers into FPSOs. Until recent events within the last two years, Keppel Offshore & Marine reported building project revenues of over $7 billion annually. Additionally, the company’s network included 17 shipyards in major oil-producing areas all around the world. The company also specializes in building custom small ship vessels and multi-purpose support vessels for offshore oil search and production activities. Keppel’s current core business-to-revenue structure indicates its ship repair division is responsible for bringing in 76% of its annual revenue ($7.6 billion), with the remainder of its revenue split between offshore construction, engineering/ infrastructure, property and investments.

In response to extenuating circumstances in the industry such as rising oil prices, decreasing demand, declining market trends, competing speculative activity, and politically stagnant conditions in oil-producing countries, Keppel has gone through many acquisitions, name changes and restructuring efforts over the past three decades. This has prompted the company to seek out new business sources and to reevaluate its business practices, particularly in the area of customer focus.

After thorough analyses of Keppel Offshore & Marine’s operations, ABC Consulting Group understands Keppel’s approach to its beginning strategic implementations, its history, and its transformations that have occurred over time. This understanding gives ABC Consulting Group insight into the Keppel’s current situation and the challenges it faces, both externally and internally and will be the basis for structuring a successful customer relationship management strategy to assist them.

Customer Needs Analysis

As part of this CRM, ABC Consulting Group will assist Keppel Offshore & Marine in identifying actual and potential customers, with actual customers being those already buying or having strong buying intentions, and potential customers being those that may buy based on purchase capabilities.

ABC Consulting Group plans to help Keppel Offshore & Marine to identify inefficient processes in its organization, in order to ultimately develop and implement effective courses of action to improve the processes. Processes under consideration for improvement include Keppel’s customer retention strategy, staff recruiting efforts, staff retention efforts and current technology position.

Customer Retention Strategy

To assist Keppel in revamping its customer retention strategy, ABC Consulting Group will use a strategic CRM approach. This approach will focus on strategic implementation activities designed to keep profitable customers buying and also to encourage them to participate in word-of-mouth advertising for Keppel. This is best done through ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction and trust by meeting customer needs and offering value-added services to their benefit. The goal for this effort includes developing detailed project management plans that are broken down into specific phases of completion. Additionally, monitoring check points throughout the project process, with strict budgetary compliance procedures in place, will enable Keppel to execute quality projects, on time and within budget. This is integral to the success of the company’s customer relationship and retention strategy.

Another integral part of the Keppel’s customer retention strategy includes fostering close relationships via open communication with customers, the public, the media and NGO’s.

Staff Recruiting and Retention Efforts

Currently, Keppel is in need of a more streamlined, automated and thorough process for seeking out and recruiting qualified personnel, particularly quality skilled specialists such as marine engineers and naval architects with relevant experience. Competition for experienced and skilled personnel is stiff; however, ABC Consulting Group specializes in developing recruiting processes which include revamping job descriptions and implementing effective advertising/search campaigns. This will allow Keppel Offshore & Marine to attract quality talent and present itself as an employer of choice in the industry. To assist in this effort, ABC Consulting Group will use an operational CRM approach and recommends that Keppel upgrade its technological capabilities, which is outlined under “Current Technology Position” below.

Current Technology Position

ABC Consulting Group recommends that Keppel’s information technology department install an integrated records management system, as an upgrade to its existing information system. Integrated records management allows for the streamlining and automation of human resources, employee benefits, payroll, assets management, equipment inventory, accounts receivables/payables, investment and insurance records. An integrated records management system also allows for the sharing of pertinent data across departments as well as across national and global locations.

Improving Keppel’s technology efficiency is necessary for the effective management of projects and making the best use of each part of its organizational structure.

Potential Opportunities

Results of an organizational analysis of Keppel Offshore & Marine, conducted by ABC Consulting Group, reveal additional opportunities for the company. These opportunities include submersion in the growing market, Singapore’s reputation in the industry, aging fleets and innovation.

The Growing Market

High oil and gas prices and an increase in demand for new oil sources over the last decade has produced an uptrend in the marine engineering business globally, particularly for the market segments of offshore construction and ship repair. This gives Keppel a competitive advantage in the market, due to offshore technology advancement and speculative oil exploration and production initiatives requiring floating solutions in offshore drilling. Keppel is favorably positioned to take advantage of the growing market as marine engineering experts who are able to leverage its capabilities in relation to operational flexibility and its state-of-the-art facilities and infrastructure. ABC Consulting Group will work with Keppel to develop a marketing strategy to increase its market share in lieu of the growing market.

Singapore’s Reputation in the Industry

The Singapore market is known for consistently high quality and timely delivery of projects, as well as top notch technical expertise. Keppel is already established as a leader in the industry globally, and this puts the company at an advantage in the reputable Singapore market. ABC Consulting will work with Keppel to include capitalizing on this advantage in its marketing strategy as well, by structuring marketing focus on highlighting Keppel as the most highly respected, experienced and successful company in the industry.

Aging Fleets

Keppel Offshore & Marine is a pioneer of converting tankers into floating production and storage facilities (FPSOs). This is strength is an opportunity in lieu of tankers becoming obsolete. ABC Consulting Group will prepare Keppel for pursuit of the benefits of this opportunity by discussing strategies to garner a majority market share of the tanker conversion business. Pertinent cost estimates, scheduling, project management plans and resource planning are core discussion platforms.

Keppel’s custom-designed rigs, unlimited capacity and locally managed system of 17 centrally controlled shipyards make it prime to meet the industry’s diverse needs, by being able to quickly adapt and change with the flow of shifting market conditions. ABC Consulting will work with Keppel Offshore & Marine, to this advantage, by developing a plan for the company to continue innovative efforts that will differentiate them as leaders in the industry.

Customer Relationship Strategy

ABC Consulting Group’s aim is to develop and implement an effective strategy for Keppel Offshore & Marine to better organize, strengthen and maintain its business relationships with its customers.

Keppel Offshore & Marine’s current customer relationships show a high level of solidarity; however, Keppel’s executive leaders are concerned about maintaining this status and seek assistance to enhance it. ABC Consulting Group’s plan for assisting with this effort is to create a project performance tracking tool to help Keppel ensure its contracted deliverables are timely met, within budget and with the highest level of quality and integrity. This will allow Keppel to realize the benefits of better efficiency, increased output and significant cost reductions.

Additionally, Keppel’s customer relationship strategy will include ABC Consulting Group’s continued efforts to monitor its operations and processes to identify possible areas in their operations or processes that need streamlining. This will allow ABC Consulting Group to assist Keppel in identifying additional value-added opportunities for delivering value to their customers. A detailed customer communication plan is the next step in the strategy.

Communication Plan

Effective internal and external communications are integral to developing and maintaining mutually beneficial business relationships. Clear communications help businesses identify and understand customer needs. ABC Consulting Group will develop an organized plan for Keppel Offshore & Marine to maintain communications with its customers. This plan includes determining the best communication methods and communication frequencies, as well as identifying company communication contacts, uniform communication information and specific purposes of all communications.

ABC Consulting Group will assess Keppel’s current customer communication process to determine any areas that need improvement to ensure consistent and thorough communications are maintained throughout project processes. Also, communication plans will be custom designed for each customer to meet their specific needs to their satisfaction.

Custom communications will include personalized contact to all customers keeping them abreast of all new services or products available from Keppel that may be to their benefit.

Keppel’s revamped communications strategy is slated for organization by its newly installed integrated records management system which will streamline the processes.

In addition, ABC Consulting Group will communicate with Keppel’s President, Vice President and CEO on a monthly basis to strategize ongoing initiatives identify and correct any fail areas in implemented processes and revamp support areas as needed.

Keppel’s communication strategy is in place to ensure a stable and well thought-out value proposition is communicated to its customers.

Value Proposition

A successful customer relationship management plan is one that ultimately adds value for its customers and communicates how a company stands out as an industry leader. ABC Consulting Group will assist Keppel Offshore & Marine in developing effective customer satisfaction initiatives that include tailored solutions for customers. Also, Keppel’s unique and innovative products and services will highlight value propositions in the market that will set Keppel apart from its competition, and ABC Consulting Group aims to help Keppel capitalize on this advantage. Keppel’s value proposition will serve as a strategic communication base for Keppel’s existing customers as well as potential customers.

ABC Consulting Group will set up Keppel’s value proposition to highlight key areas of purpose, based on its strengths, which set the company in the best light.

Keppel Offshore & Marine’s strengths lie in its product solutions, people, practices and excellent customer service, all of which foster loyalty from satisfied customers. ABC Consulting Group’s plan for maintaining this perception to retain existing customers and attract new customers for Keppel is part of its value proposition.

Customer Value Proposition Strengths

Product Solutions – Keppel’s product solutions include industry-leading production design solutions and pioneered industry innovations. More product solution ideas and implementations are expected with the attraction and retention of Keppel’s quality personnel.

People – In the Staff Recruiting and Retention Efforts section of this CRM above, ABC Consulting Group outlines how it will assist Keppel in attracting and retaining the best personnel and talent in the industry by improving recruiting and employee satisfaction efforts. A high-achieving, quality staff of experienced professionals is an asset to the company and adds a high value perception of Keppel to customers through interaction with them.

Practices – Keppel Offshore & Marine has always followed strict and strategic best practices in the business; however, ABC Consulting Group will assist Keppel in ensuring their best practices are specifically tailored to each customer to fit solutions to meet specific customer needs.

Customer Service – Keppel’s satisfied customer initiatives are based on its customer relationship strategy and communication plan. ABC Consulting Group will assess Keppel’s current customer service processes to ensure they include ways for customers to reach pertinent contacts in the company immediately. Customers should be able to reach a Keppel representative throughout any phase of their contract cycle, to keep them informed and to make sure they are satisfied through to completion of their deliverables. Each customer will receive an information packet that will outline a list of contacts for each stage of their process. ABC Consulting Group will work with Keppel Offshore & Marine to identify any areas of inconsistency with the customer service function and also identify any areas that need improvements.

ABC Consulting Group is confident of providing Keppel Offshore & Marine with a solid customer relationship management strategy for implementation that successfully targets and reaches its target customers in the market. Achievement of this will be driven by protecting existing customer relationships by enhancing customer experiences and revamping any week customer relationships by initiating efforts activities to win back loyalty and trust. Additionally, Keppel’s customer relationship management strategy is designed to put them in a position to start and harvest new customer relationships.

Building on Keppel’s existing strengths, ABC Consulting Group has outlined an initial strategy and will assist, coach and mentor Keppel through each phase of the strategy process. Consistent communication with top Keppel leaders will continue to ensure success, which will be measured by Keppel’s assessment of its bottom line profits and customer roster by year end. The goal is for Keppel Offshore & Marine to realize increased revenues, and also a higher customer retention rate which will indicate success in adding value to its customers and positioning itself in a progressive stance in the industry.

CRM Class Group Work PowerPoint Presentation, 2012.

Geok, W.B. & Buche, I. (2007). Keppel Offshore & Marine – Riding the Waves of Change. Retrieved from the assignment case study from The Asian Business Case Centre website (AsiaCase.com).

Herbatschek, F. (2012). Customer Relationship Management . Retrieved from class PowerPoint notes.

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Introduction

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a common buzzword in today’s business circles. Some researchers define it as an interactive tool for managing a company’s relationship with its customers, or clients, while others perceive it as a set of processes and activities for organisations to communicate with internal and external shareholders. CRM strives to do three main things – create precise marketing campaigns, create a coherent view of customers, and create an effective consumer database.

Precision marketing predominantly focuses on creating products and services that appeal to customer needs (to increase sales). The database creation is part of wider trend created by CRM to increase investments in data warehouses.

Some researchers adopt a simplistic approach of understanding CRM by saying it stems from the appreciation of the need to treat customers well (and pay for information that would help companies to do so). Others claim it is a platform for companies to integrate their business processes and add value to customers.

Companies adopt CRM by buying appropriate software. CRM software applies to key service areas of an organisation, such as marketing, customer service, and technical support. Its functions include “providing a central database where customer related information is stored, retrieves and display that information and reporting tools to interrogate it and answer questions critical to the business.”

Observers say companies use CRM software to track, manage, and store information that relates to their customer relationship platforms. The main goal of doing so is to enhance a company’s relationship with its customers. Through the codification of customer-business interactions, CRM software has allowed many companies to benefit from increased sales and improved customer loyalty.

Using key performance indicators, companies have also used the CRM software to target their customer service strategies in key performance areas. Companies that have done so have decreased idle time and deleted unproductive contacts in their customer service lists. Based on the opportunities that CRM offers, this paper explores the CRM software by exploring its background, benefits, and limitations. However, before delving into this analysis, it is, first, important to understand CRM software.

What is CRM Software?

There are different types of CRM software. Sales automation software and campaign management software are the main types of software in business. Both types describe the full CRM software. However, many companies have been using a pared version of the full CRM software (CM software) because it could offer the same advantages as the complete software version.

The CM software appeals to several organisations because it offers many of the advantages associated with the full CM package, without causing disruptions to an organisation’s operations. For many customer-oriented start-ups, the CM software only helps to augment existing customer service procedures, as opposed to replacing them with alternative procedures. Lastly, the typical CRM software provides a basic method of tracking and documenting customer needs. This platform simplifies the customer service process by providing personalised service to customers.

What Necessitated the Introduction of CRM Software?

Researchers have linked the rise of CRM software to decades of globalisation, which created an increased need for organisations to cope with changing customer demands and preferences. The onset of mass production in the late 19 th century and early 20 th century created an increase in products and customers worldwide. Businesses had trouble keeping up with demand and ultimately lost the personal touch they had with customers because the customers became “numbers” in company systems.

For example, the purchasing process that allowed customers and businesses to interact changed. Businesses did not interact with customers directly because agents stepped in the supply chain to offer mass products and services to customers on behalf of the manufacturers.

Consequently, many businesses lost their understanding of the individual needs of customers. However, this trend recently changed as the businesses strived to re-establish a personalised relationship with their customers. Doing so has been problematic. This is why many companies have decided to use technological tools to help them re-establish customer relationships. Through this need, CRM was born. Based on these intrigues, software developers have based CRM software on the five building blocks outlined below

How Does the CRM Software Work?

Many people have confused CRM with relationship marketing. However, the latter stems from a different philosophy of customer relationship management, which argues that most customers would be inclined to stay with an organisation if they enjoy beneficial relationships with their service providers.

Some researchers have simplified the concept of relationship marketing by saying that it involves attracting, maintaining, and enhancing business-customer relationships. Others believe it describes the nature of relationship between businesses and their customers. For example, One Business 2014 says

“Customer Relationship Management (or CRM) is a phrase that describes how a business interacts with its customers. Most people think of CRM as a system to capture information about customers. However, that is only part of the picture. CRM involves using technology to gather the intelligence you need to provide improved support and services to your customers.”

The CRM concept is useful in implementing this process by providing the right tools for applying relationship-marketing concepts. To realise these benefits, companies adopt CRM software differently. However, commonly, they install the software in call centres and provide customers with information regarding their questions, or direct them to the right agent where they would get help. To explain this fact, some researchers say, “CRM technology applications link front office (such as sales, marketing and customer service) and back office (such as finance, operations, logistics and human resources) functions with the company’s customer touch points.”

What are the Benefits of CRM Software?

As highlighted in this paper, the CRM software helps organisations to maintain and utilise a comprehensive database for customer relationship management. Such databases could add value to an organisation in different ways. However, generally, they are instrumental in improving business-business relationships and business-customer relationships.

Business-Customer Relationships (B2C)

Customers have often grappled with the problem of poor customer service, even with organisations that have well established customer service centres. The CRM software helps customers to realise improved service quality by building a consistent experience with service providers. For example, since CRM allows employees to see a customer’s service history, customers are bound to enjoy the benefit of interacting with a well-informed employee.

Having access to a customer’s service history also allows a company to suggest suitable products that would suit the needs of a customer. Similarly, armed with adequate information about a customer, a technical support employee could help customers solve their concerns at an appropriate level of support. By regularising business-customer relations, the CRM software could also allow customer service employees to hone their skills by optimising their customer service techniques.

This could happen by enabling service providers to offer targeted solutions to customer needs. This way, customers could avoid getting irrelevant information from companies. Poor customer service is a common problem that highlights this challenge because customer service employees often suffer from fatigue and repetitively answering customer questions.

The CRM software helps to solve this problem by “gamifying” customer service environments by tapping into their needs for achievement and status in the customer service environment. Therefore, through their visceral need for achievement, customer service employees improve their services through a structured competitive environment.

Business-Business Relationships (B2B)

Despite the common understanding that CRM software works to improve business-customer relationships (only), evidence shows that CRM software could also improve B2B relationships. The benefits that most businesses enjoy from adopting the CRM software emanate from improved information transfers and improvements in organisational efficiencies. These benefits emerge in different ways.

For example, increased collaboration in the workplace, through CRM software applications, improves cohesion among employees and, by extension, productivity in the organisation. This benefit is useful to organisations that have different employees working on a single account.

For example, Prof Company is a human resource company that used information integration capabilities of the CRM software successfully to improve its customer service relationships. The software allowed employees to know their customers and understand the types of products and services they were interested in. However, the company’s management said the greatest problem they encountered when using the software was its inability to track changes in customer preferences.

For example, although the software allowed them to know who was buying from them, they could not ascertain why the customers kept coming back to them. Nonetheless, referring to the advantages of the CRM software, some researchers reveal, “The CRM software provides tools to organise multi‐step interactions, helps to organise and prioritise sales leads, answer customer service requests, and other common workflows.”

Although B2B advantages of CRM complement B2C relationships, both types of relationships have different characteristics (business-to-business relationships have a longer maturity time than business-to-customer relationships). Therefore, the best software for B2B relationships should have a “personalised feel” which meets the business needs of the different businesses. Modern business practices require businesses to coordinate with one another to create operational efficiencies in the market. Given most of these interactions are virtual, businesses find it easy to interact in real-time through CRM software.

Advantages to Individual Companies

Besides improving B2B and B2C relationships, the CRM software also offers individual benefits to companies. For example, businesses could benefit from improved branding if they offer a consistent high quality customer service to their customers. Studies have also shown that the adoption of the CRM software could also improve a company’s revenue by 41%.

The same studies have also shown that customer retention could increase by 27%. In line with these benefits, companies that adopt the CRM software could achieve a lead conversion rate of up to 300%. Researchers have also reported improvements in information continuity among companies that adopt the CRM software.

Although such software appeal to large organisations, small or medium-sized organisations that adopt CRM early are likely to experience exponential growth as well. This advantage is especially important for service-oriented companies because creating an excellent customer service reputation, while growing, is important for their success. For example, Goods Company is a global consumer company that successfully used the CRM software to improve customer information availability and customer relationship management.

The company used the software to improve its call centre services in America and Europe. It found the software useful because it added value to its customer relationship management process by creating a problem resolution database. The biggest problem with adopting the software was the unavailability of customer information. This problem emerged from its distribution system, which mainly centred on distributing the company’s products via its distributors.

Therefore, it was difficult to know the end users. Consequently, the CRM software only captured information about customers who responded to the company’s advertisements. Usually, these customers called the company through the number advertised on billboards. They mainly wanted to know where the nearest stock list would be. The only other way that the company obtained information from their customers was through clients who registered their products with the company.

Through this method, they could get information about the customers when they made follow-ups about the products. Comprehensively, Goods Company had very little information about their customers. However, by using the CRM software, they could improve their relationship management process using the little information they had about them.

Lastly, CRM could help an organisation to handle many employees without affecting other aspects of its performance. Particularly, such companies could manage many employees without affecting their core strategy. Furthermore, if these companies adopt the CRM strategy early in their life cycles, they are less likely to experience operational disruptions from its adoption. Particularly, small companies could learn from the implementation and cost strategies associated with CRM by adopting the software early in their life cycles. This way, it would be easy to maintain quality customer service as they grow.

Limitations of the CRM Software

CRM software is easy to use and offer immense advantages as highlighted in this report. However, some companies have had a problem with its implementation because of its limitations. To understand the effects of these limitations, researchers say many CRM systems use the standard software. Flexibility issues, high cost, and limited functionalities are only some problems associated with the average CRM software. Limited control and increased competitiveness are also other limitations associated with the CRM software.

Based on these limitations, the greatest weakness of the typical CRM software is the assumption that all organisations have the same customer management relationships. However, this is not the case. For example, some businesses have a direct contact with their customers, while others do not enjoy this benefit. Illustratively, this paper has already shown that Prof Company and Goods Company do not enjoy the advantage of directly contacting their customers. Instead, they use agents to do so.

This is why they experienced some difficulty using the CRM software to improve their customer service processes. In detail, Goods Company had trouble understanding the characteristics of their customers. Similarly, Prof Company had trouble monitoring the levels of service offered to their customers using the CRM software. This way, they could not report on the level of service offered by the company to existing and potential customers.

On an unrelated analytic sphere, other companies have had trouble with the CRM software because of its functionality problems. Mainly, this problem stemmed from the inability of the software to hold data about specific customer groups. For example, researchers say the CRM software is unable to accept configurations that would allow it to hold data about individual customer sales volumes. This is an interesting finding because most CRM vendors sell the software as an “all-fit” technological tool.

Why Do Some Companies get it wrong?

Customer relationship management is part of a wider trend in the business environment that strives to adopt innovative technological methods to provide business solutions to contemporary business problems. However, as some scholars observe, many businesses devour the potential of these IT-based solutions by giving little thought to best practices in CRM adoption. Instead, many business managers continue to subscribe to a philosophy where technology is part of an enchanting and liberal financial system.

However, the magic bullet theory of IT presumes that when managers change this thinking, they are likely to benefit from improved business performance. One problem associated with IT-based business solutions, such as the CRM software, is the emphasis on success as opposed to the implementation of the technology.

The French Socrate Railway System emphasises this challenge because it shows how employees could sabotage a system by placing too much emphasis on the success of the software as opposed to what they could do to implement it appropriately. To emphasise this fact, some scholars remind us that history has many examples where companies leaped into adopting new technologies without evaluating how such technologies could suit their business needs.

This challenge has characterised the adoption of CRM software. Moreover, researchers have also observed it during the adoption of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). Relative to this discussion, some researchers believe that many organisations fail to learn from the mistakes created by other organisations. Many literatures that focus on CRM software fail to provide an accurate picture of its adoption because they mainly depend on vendor rhetoric and information developed to suit managers.

Researchers have also highlighted the technical knowledge of operating CRM software as another impediment of its adoption. For example, Eng. Company (a globally recognised engineering firm that offers technical solutions to different telecommunication firms) recently adopted the CRM software to improve the effectiveness of its customer service department. Although the company intended to use the software to increase its efficiency, it derailed its progress.

One problem was the technical expertise needed to administer the CRM software (Light 2001). Most of the customer service employees were used to using paper-based customer service methods to undertake their duties. When the company introduced the CRM software, they took a lot of time understanding how the system works as opposed to focusing on their main duty – serving customers. Therefore, their efficiency declined in this regard.

Lastly, another reason why companies fail to realise the benefits of CRM software is the poor designs of some of these technological tools. Of importance is the limited application of CRM software for small organisations. Stated differently, most software developers design the tool for use in large organisations.

This action exists despite the immense growth of CRM adoption in small businesses, relative to large businesses. In fact, some researchers reveal that, today, small organisations adopt CRM three times faster than large organisations do.

Conclusion (Future of CRM Software)

Many authors highlighted in this paper agree that the CRM software strives to improve relationship marketing. They have also revealed that the software is incongruent with the relationship management goals of most organisations. These goals aim to improve customer service delivery. However, researchers warn that focusing on customer issues without understanding problematic issues that could emerge from functional silos could possibly impede the future success of CRM software.

The common experience of most companies with CRM is that they implement CRM in unique functional areas (only), such as marketing or call centre services, without focusing on how they would integrate with other departments. For example, this paper showed that Goods Company implemented the CRM software in its call centre department and overlooked how this department would improve the functionality of other sectors of the organisation.

They needed an IT-based support mechanism to synchronise call-centre functions with other organisational functions. This step shows that it is crucial to adopt a holistic approach to CRM adoption. Other companies similarly highlighted the need to adopt a holistic approach to CRM adoption. For example, Eng. Company failed to realise the comprehensive benefits of CRM software by failing to adopt a comprehensive view of its adoption (they used the software to improve operational efficiency).

Mainly, they used the CRP software to improve business-business relationships (linking the business with retailers) without considering how the same system would improve business-customer relationships. A different company, Man Company, implemented the CRM system in its sales department, but quickly realised the need to include other departments in the system to realise the wholesome benefits of CRM.

Based on the need for a comprehensive approach to CRM adoption, the organisation included other departments and partners in procuring and adopting CRM software. Based on this understanding, observers reveal that using the CRM software in a localised manner would not provide the desired payoff. Indeed, most organisations rush to figure out how the system would create operational benefits without understanding how it would create an organisational fit.

For example, the CRM software needs to offer back office integration capabilities that allow customers to link different interactive platforms (such as phone, web, and email). Comprehensively, to improve the usability of the CRM software, there is a strong need for software developers to design new CRM software, which contain the core elements of traditional customer relationship tools and avoid the complexity of traditional software. For example, they should eliminate features that increase costs and instead provide software, which simplify implementation.

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IvyPanda. (2020, May 2). Customer Relationship Management Software. https://ivypanda.com/essays/customer-relationship-management-software/

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IvyPanda . (2020) 'Customer Relationship Management Software'. 2 May.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Customer Relationship Management Software." May 2, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/customer-relationship-management-software/.

1. IvyPanda . "Customer Relationship Management Software." May 2, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/customer-relationship-management-software/.

IvyPanda . "Customer Relationship Management Software." May 2, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/customer-relationship-management-software/.

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