Call Center Operation

204 6.2 Strategies for managing customer information

current technologies, and additional training of staff may be required to ensure

the transition to a complete CRM solution.

6.2 Strategies for managing customer information

Large organizations routinely collect vast amounts of personal information

about their customers through the transactions they conduct. Organizations

such as financial institutions, health care providers, travel agencies, retailers,

automotive manufacturers, and communication companies, among others,

use this data in a variety of ways and for several reasons:



For targeted marketing based on individual preferences



To analyze customers for profitability



To evaluate their own service levels

Simply gathering information and storing it will not produce measur-

able business results; many CRM strategies have failed to achieve objectives

because of difficulties in developing a strong understanding of who custom-

ers are and what they really want and applying this knowledge to customer

relationship strategies and processes. (see Figure 6.2) Some companies build

Figure 6.2 Corporate functions and customer interactions.

Customer interactions

Front office

Back office

Customer data

Marketing

Direct Center Web Bricks

Customer Interaction Data

Data warehouse

Marketing

Sales

Manufacturing

Distribution

Customer data

Customer service

Product data

Accounting

Inventory

Contact data

Category management

Campaign management

Customer modeling

Response analysis

6.2 Strategies for managing customer information 205

Chapter 6

large multiterabyte (1000 gigabytes equals 1 terabyte) data warehouses to

crunch information about their customers in an effort to determine their

buying habits or product preferences. Oftentimes, correlating customer pur-

chasing habits is not properly done—just because data can be correlated

doesn’t mean the relationship between one set of data and another is signifi-

cant from a business viewpoint. Obviously, technology and business pro-

cesses must be applied in a logical context to ensure that customer data are

applied in a way to meet CRM objectives. (see Figure 6.3)

CRM brings technology to bear on business processes to enable organiza-

tions to use historical customer transaction data to manage customer rela-

tionships better. CRM is based on a set of technology tools that allows

organizations to capture, analyze, and apply large volumes of detailed cus-

tomer data to achieve a fuller understanding of their customers and to make

more informed business decisions. Informed business decisions are the ulti-

mate beneficial result of successful corporate CRM strategies. Those compa-

nies that adopted formalized CRM strategies early in their corporate

histories have been achieving measurable business results through CRM ini-

tiatives, but, as noted previously, others may have to totally revise their cor-

porate cultures, even completely do away with their traditional ways of

dealing with customers in their sales and marketing programs. Organizations

that do not have a formal process for managing customers by monitoring

and gathering historical transaction data and then analyzing this data to

determine how to respond to each customer’s needs will have to put major

efforts and budgets into developing CRM strategies. (see Figure 6.4)

Figure 6.3

Enhancing

customer service

with technology.

Using technology

Without technology

Answer queries

Customer data

Proactive

Direct

Degree

of

enhancement