The Customer Differential
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Concentrated Knowledge™ for the Busy Executive • www.summary.com Vol. 23, No. 11 (3 parts) Part 3, November 2001 • Order # 23-28 FILE: MANAGEMENT STRATEGIC ® The Complete Guide to Implementing CRM THE CUSTOMER DIFFERENTIAL THE SUMMARY IN BRIEF One company took 12 months and 12 employees to institute a data warehousing project as part of a corporate-wide customer relationship man- agement (CRM) effort, without any appreciable results. Another company By Melinda Nykamp was stymied by the incredible complexities of the processes needed in its CRM effort and had to put the effort on hold almost a year before the right data collection and storage systems were in place. Any company that has CONTENTS begun to implement a CRM plan knows it can be a time-consuming task Defining Customer involving a multitude of business processes and infrastructure dependen- Relationship Management cies; much broader organizational change than initially thought; and exten- Pages 2, 3 sive learning of customer-centric and data-driven marketing concepts. CRM: An Integrated Nevertheless, although it might be easy to dismiss CRM as just another Approach management fad, there are some compelling reasons to take another look at Page 3 this trend. CRM Requires Complete First, customers — aided by the technology of the Internet, in particular Transformation — have much more power and influence than ever before. Customers today Of the Company Pages 3, 4 have higher expectations on service, price and delivery. Second, advances in computer systems are giving companies the ability The Case for CRM to collect and analyze specific, up-to-the-minute customer data. Page 4 In this summary, you will learn how to transform the five fundamental Implementing CRM areas of your company — business focus, organizational structure, business Pages 5, 6 metrics, customer interactions and technology — from a production orienta- CRM and Technology tion to a customer-focused orientation. Page 6 You will also learn how to: Internal Development vs. ✓ Recognize the four stages of CRM. Outsourcing Page 6 ✓ Measure the effectiveness of your CRM program. Changing Your Metrics ✓ Calculate the ROI of CRM. Pages 6, 7, 8 ✓ Identify barriers to successful CRM implementation. The Lifetime Value The Customer Differential is about differentiating your company by Of Your Customer meeting the stringent expectations of today’s customers. Page 7 Here’s how. Measuring the ROI of CRM Page 8 Published by Soundview Executive Book Summaries, 10 LaCrue Avenue, Concordville, Pennsylvania 19331 USA ©2001 Soundview Executive Book Summaries • All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part is prohibited. THE CUSTOMER DIFFERENTIAL by Melinda Nykamp — THE COMPLETE SUMMARY Defining Customer To have a successful relationship with customers, you must understand what services are important to your Relationship Management customers, which products they want to buy and how Although the term “customer relationship manage- and when they prefer to interact with you (e-mail, direct ment” (CRM) is often equated with the old saying, “the mail, telephone, in-person). You can gather this infor- customer is always right,” it is much broader. True CRM mation in the following ways: is a revolutionary, enterprise-wide refocusing of how you ● Perform Customer Profiling. Gather demographic develop and maintain dialogues with your customers. It and geographic information for consumers; for busi- requires a careful focus on providing the best value to nesses, gather information such as number of employees your customers based on how you communicate with and company revenues. them, how you market to them and what levels of serv- ● Segment Customer Groups. This is a practical ice you can provide—without forgetting the traditional place to begin one-to-one marketing. Identify unique areas of product, price, promotion and distribution. groups of customers through similar characteristics rela- Most important, CRM is not just a technology solu- tive to the purchase and use of your products. As you tion. While the Internet and other advances in technolo- continue to narrow segments of customers, you get clos- gies have enabled companies to obtain vast amounts of er to actual one-to-one marketing. customer data, these same technologies also have given ● Conduct Primary Research. You gain insight into more power to consumers, who now demand much your customers’ needs and attitudes toward your compa- higher levels of service, greater choice in product fea- ny’s products and services and about your organization tures and the lowest prices. Businesses need to know as a whole. which data are the most important to collect and how to ● Rank Each Customer’s Value to Your Company. best assimilate and utilize this information while at the No customer is created equal. Using the type of infor- same time providing personal “mass customization” to mation listed here, you can more specifically identify individual customers. This new paradigm calls for a which customers or groups of customers offer the most new way of looking at and interacting with customers. profitability for your company. Four Stages of the CRM Process Develop and Customize CRM is a continual process that involves four inter- In the product-oriented 20th century, manufacturers linked stages: built products, defined distribution networks and then 1. Acquire and Retain. searched for customers. In the customer-focused 21st 2. Understand and Differentiate. century, companies must let the customer drive the 3. Develop and Customize. choice of product and distribution channel. The most 4. Interact and Deliver. successful organizations are those that base products As this process evolves, you will be able to add levels (continued on page 3) of sophistication to your customer strategies. This ongo- ing, enterprise-wide effort yields unique sustainable competitive advantages that can help increase customer loyalty that will improve your company’s bottom line. The author: Melinda Nykamp is the founder, president and CEO of Nykamp Consulting Group, a professional Understand and Differentiate services firm with offices throughout North America. Although business starts with the acquisition of cus- Copyright© 2001 by Melinda Nykamp. Summarized by tomers, any successful CRM initiative is dependent on a permission of the publisher, AMACOM, 1601 Broadway, solid understanding of customers. Therefore, the first New York, NY. 212 pages. $25.00. 0-8144-0622-X. stage of the continual process that we will examine is how to understand and differentiate customers. Published by Soundview Executive Book Summaries (ISSN 0747-2196), 10 LaCrue Avenue, Concordville, PA 19331 USA, a division of Concentrated Knowledge Corporation. Publisher, George Y. Clement. V. P. Publications, Maureen L. Solon. Editor-in-Chief, Christopher G. Murray. Published monthly. Subscriptions: $195 per year in U.S., Canada & Mexico, and $275 to all other countries. Periodicals postage paid at Concordville, PA and additional offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Soundview, 10 LaCrue Avenue, Concordville, PA 19331. Copyright © 2001 by Soundview Executive Book Summaries. Available formats: Summaries are available in print, audio and electronic formats. To subscribe, call us at 1-800-521-1227 (1-610-558-9495 outside U.S. & Canada), or order on the Internet at www.summary.com. Multiple-subscription discounts and Corporate Site Licenses are also available. Soundview Executive Book Summaries® 2 The Customer Differential — SUMMARY Defining Customer Relationship Management CRM: (continued from page 2) An Integrated Approach and services and distribution channels on customer ✓ CRM is not exclusively a marketing initiative. But needs and wants. CRM can involve customer-facing and data-driven For example, financial services providers now offer marketing and can result in more effective market- ATM and electronic banking, which benefits both the ing campaigns. provider and the customer. In the travel industry, wire- ✓ CRM is not exclusively a sales initiative. Sales is less-based reservations and electronic ticketing offer just one piece of the CRM puzzle, and a CRM customers flexibility. focus can improve sales strategies, account man- Interact and Deliver agement and SFA efforts. ✓ CRM is not exclusively a service initiative. Rather, Companies now have many different customer touch- service is merely one functional area of a CRM points—from retail stores to catalogs to Web sites — effort. and creating a common look and feel and assuring supe- ✓ rior service at each site is an essential step in CRM. CRM is not exclusively a technology initiative. Most of these touchpoints have been built around the While IT and IS are big parts of CRM, it is impor- tant to remember that they are simply the tools concept of efficiency for the company, not for creating that allow a company to focus more narrowly on two-way interaction with customers. In fact, although its customers. the term “interactive” is usually associated with online initiatives, most Web sites are less interactive than a bricks-and-mortar store staffed by salespeople. To foster relationships with customers at the various CRM Requires Complete customer touchpoints, companies must make sure: Transformation of the Company ● that all departments have ready access to relevant CRM is an enterprise-wide effort, involving nothing customer information; and less than the transformation of your company from the ● that all employees are trained how to use this infor- traditional product/transaction