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Back to Basics: Four things every department needs to know about customer relationship management
Customer relationship management is not just a piece of software. Rather, it is a management philosophy that is aided by software. Viewing CRM as just another technology-based implementation would be a mistake-and CRM implementations that are led by the IT department are more likely to fail. Support needs to come from all customer-facing departments-from sales to marketing to customer service. Below are some CRM tenets that, if embraced, will ensure you get the most out of your customer relationship management implementation.
Basic #1: CRM is a management initiative
CRM is a management initiative, not an IT initiative. Although the IT department is responsible for the technical implementation, the strategy is designed from above, and the decision to implement should initially come from the boardroom-rather than an individual department, or the technologists. As a management initiative, a CRM implementation needs to start with clearly defined goals. These customer relationship management goals need to be defined from the perspective of the enterprise as a whole, rather than the goals of individual departments, which may sometimes conflict; or the goals of the IT department, which may not serve the customer.
Basic #2: CRM is about data sharing
In most cases, the customer is better served when information can be easily accessed from a single location. For example, an efficient call center will have a direct line to information from the warehouse, such as inventory control and shipping. This type of access would allow the call agent to easily answer questions about availability, and to respond to queries about expectations for delivery, without having to take time to refer the call to the warehouse. Great customer relationship management requires a shift towards database transparency, something that is not natural to businesses accustomed to operating with multiple, disconnected data silos. As such, there are two things needed: the underlying technology to eliminate stovepiped data and provide for inter-departmental access, and a shift in mindset to eliminate the possibility of data hoarding.
Basic #3: The customer doesn’t care which department you work for
When a customer calls with a question or a problem, their goal and expectation is to have that issue resolved quickly, and without having to deal with more than one person. However, this conflicts with the way most companies operate. In a company where multiple people in multiple departments each handle a separate aspect of the customer relationship, issues take longer to resolve, the customer may have to interface with many people, and ultimately the customer is not well served. Customers want resolution from a single point of contact, requiring the customer-facing employee have easy access to inter-departmental information. Said employee must also be encouraged to take ownership of a customer call and see it through to completion, regardless of where that issue may go within the company.
Basic #4: Help the customer serve themselves
Customer relationship management technology not only allows the customer-facing employee to provide assistance, it also helps the customers help themselves. The goal of CRM is to facilitate this self-help, but only to the degree to which the customer is comfortable with it, allowing for a live interaction as an alternative whenever possible. But by making minor requests automatic, such as allowing a customer to look up order information through an online portal, the customer-facing staff can devote more energy to providing live support to more pressing issues.
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