Customer-centric Business Strategies
Customer Relationship Management is a business strategy. You need to become the customer's trusted agent. Learn how you can do "lead" your customer to trust you.
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"Customer relationship management is a business strategy to select and manage the most valuable customer relationships. CRM requires a customer-centric business philosophy and culture to support effective marketing, sales, and service processes. CRM applications can enable effective customer relationship management, provided that an enterprise has the right leadership, strategy, and culture." -The CRM Primer, http://www.crmguru.com What customers face
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Media barrage - Customers are confronted with increasing
volumes of information, transmitted at increasing rates and
coming from a greater number of sources than ever Choice - Choice overwhelms most customers, making it
difficult for you to gain and sustain their business Change - Product life cycles are so short that, in the
case of many technology products, by the time the customer
makes an informed decision, the basis of the decision may
not be valid Uncertainty - All this change can be very confusing to
customers. Products change quickly, but so do the companies
that sell them, how they are sold and who does the selling. Complexity - Is there a way for people to determine which
product offers will produce the optimal utility for their
needs? Distrust & Suspicion
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Distrust and suspicion are more prevalent today than any
time in recent history - for good reason. If these issues
are not addressed initially, the persuasion process is
likely to stall. Distrust and suspicion are emotions that
may not be expressed by the customer; therefore you must
deliberately overcome their influence.
Regardless of the clarity of the logic of your persuasion,
these emotions can trump it! Keep in mind that until you
demonstrate otherwise, you and your company have been tarred
by the "heightened distrust and suspicion brush".
Trusted Agent
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Each and every employee of your company should preserve the
customer’s
trust. Experts should counsel the customer on the
best choice that he can make. These experts should be
trained to think and act always with the customer’s well
being and good in mind. Your employees become the customers
trusted agent. Companies should thus lead their customers to
where they want to go but just don’t know it yet. This has
merit and "leading" is the key to building mutually
beneficial and adapting relationships with customers.
How to do the "leading"
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Implement customer-centric business strategies
Which drives redesigning of functional activities; Which demands re-engineering of work processes; Which is supported, not driven, by CRM technology Step #1: Customer-centric Planning
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You plan around customer wants, not company goals. You focus on listening to customers, rather than forcing
them to listen to you. You relegate promotional marketing communication -
including database marketing, e-database marketing, e-
database, e-marketing, etc. -- to a secondary role,
operating in the shadow of informed, informational dialog
with customers Step #2: Redesigning functional activities
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When you change to more customer-centric business
strategies, you have to work differently. Carefully assess
the roles of all departments interacting with customers-to
see if they're adding value to customers, or adding cost
instead. Then figure out how to reconfigure our
organization so that everything you do is designed to help
customers and nothing you do adds unnecessary cost.
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About the Author
Naseem Mariam is the editor of "Management that Soars"
Newsletter & author of "Project Serenity - How to gain
happiness and peace". Her writings draw life from her
18 years experience as software Project Manager. Let her
guide you towards Faster All Round Success and a Stress
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How. Subscribe with mailto:projectdioxide@sendfree.com
Visit her at http://www.123projectmanagement.com
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