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Abstract

An organisation howsoever large or small cannot thrive without building a customer base. Acquiring and retaining customer’s calls for coordination and communication among various departments. The requirements and understanding of the business processes are analysed, documentation of work and duties, tracking the movement of information along channels, checking duplication of work are all needed to be looked into for the business to run smoothly. Goals and vision need to be shared with everyone and feedback noted. Support staff might be more accepting of the new technology but the outreach staff may be thinking that this has nothing to do with them so their cooperation needs to be sought. The implementation of a CRM system is truly successful when anyone in the organisation is able to assess the history of a client at any point of time and is able to update it and review the status. CRM is a strategic tool with great promise and potential whose successful implementation needs to capture technicalities of process analysis in business with automation of business, influence and bring a positive change in the management mindset about the concept of CRM, provision of training and support with a commitment to put in correct demographics for effective decision making.

Case Discussion

The topic of discussion being carried out in this paper is about the Implementation of CRM in the organisation for maintaining customer relation and forging new relationships. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a system for managing the relationships of the company with other variables, interactions with existing customers and with potential customers. It is a tool which helps to enhance productivity. CRM is just not for increasing sales but has wider implications as marketing tool and embedding it in a business from HR to customer services and supply chain management can make the business efficient and the staff motivated (Polpinij, Ghose, Dam 2015).

It was possible for someone from sales department of Minitrex to call a customer and not know that the person was already a customer and was being called the third time in a week shows the lack of an efficient CRM system in place. The use of data analysis helps in keeping track of customer’s history, business relationships and focuses on customer retention. CRM compiles data from a range of sources including the company’s website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing department and social media (Noori 2015). By using CRM the company understands how to facilitate the business, learn about the target audiences. The main goal of CRM is to have a system to integrate and automate marketing, sales and customer support. The implementation of CRM gives a comprehensive dashboard to provide an overview of all the three functions on a single customer page. Each customer that the company has will have a page to display information regarding client information, past sales and previous marketing efforts.

Steps that Bettman should take in order to implement CRM at Minitrex

• Create and develop strategy to focus on customer before considering the kind of technology required.
• Divide the CRM system into easily manageable portions by setting up a pilot project with short-term milestones.
• Start initially with a pilot program that involves all the required departments but is small and flexible enough to modify it as the need arises.
• Ensure that the CRM plans involve an architectural framework that is scalable.
• The amount of data collected is huge and there should be flexibility of expansion in the chosen CRM so that departments are not flustered.
• Care should be taken to decide what kind and how much data are to be stored. Unnecessary data storage leads to wastage of time and money.

Operational CRM comprises of automation of sales force, marketing, and service. Automation of sales force works in prevention of duplication of efforts between a salesperson and a customer and also tracks all contacts and follow-ups between them. Automation in marketing helps by mobilising a sales lead into a customer. It involves automation of repeat tasks like sending emails at a designated time. Automation in service involves a focus on direct customer service technology. The customer support is given through multiple channels like phone, email, portals and others.

Analytical CRM analyses the data collected through multiple sources and presents it for making informed decisions. Tools like data mining, correlation, and pattern recognition form the basis of this CRM.

The CRM systems are to be collaborative in nature in order to be effective. They have to incorporate stakeholders, salespersons, marketing personnel and share customer information across all departments to provide direction for marketing products and services to a particular customer and converting a prospect into a customer. In order to implement CRM at Minitrex, it must be realised that different people have different kinds of relationships with a company and a brand (Venturini & Benito, 2015). The firm needs to implement training programs to teach employees to recognise, and create strong relationships. The representatives of sales and even the finance or legal divisions must learn to value and build customers.

Application of CRM systems requires changes in infrastructure and usage of newer technologies such as databases (Bull 2003). Bettman must ensure the consideration of following steps for effective implementation of CRM:

• Involve the management: the project should involve the top management as they drive the opinion of the organisation and their agreement gives the stipulated boost. So they need to be turned around first.
• Manage the project: the manager handling the implementation should be the one who is amiable and yet a doer so that things get done with focus.
• A responsible CRM support giver: a person who is enthusiastic about the project, has the knowledge and can give support when problems in application of CRM arises.
• Sell the idea: the new CRM should be sold to colleagues and their agreement sought. Something should be done to launch the CRM with fanfare like a poster or a special launch t-shirt to motivate and create enthusiasm for the CRM.
• Feedback: once the CRM is in place, feedback should be sought by asking how the project is going and helping them in getting along with it.
• Setting guidelines: some guidelines need to put and posted, say on intranet for the users to follow and avoid unnecessary confusion and overlapping of information.
• Training: each one of the employee is different. Some people are open to new technology and embrace the system easily. There might be others who are doubtful about the new strategy. The management needs to handle these groups by provide training. They can either go for classroom training from the vendor or the assistance from internal support giver.

Conclusion

CRM is a strategy that assists in understanding the needs of customers, meeting those needs and enhancing the bottom-line. The data flows between operational systems like the sales  and analytical systems. It is urgent need of the hour to put a CRM system in place when the business owners and management has no clue about existing or potential customers, their requirements today or at a future date and if the business is losing out to competitors. The success of CRM system depends on combining huge amounts of information about customers, market trends and sifting through the data to make some pattern and sense. With effective CRM strategy in place, the business will be able to increase the revenue but communication is the key between different departments. Each department has the picture of the customer from a different perspective, so effective communication between the IT, sales, marketing all have a role.

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