Listening to customers must become everyone’s business.

With most competitors moving ever

faster, the race will go to those who listen and respond more intently”.
– Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos

Chapter 1: Conceptual Framework for CRM

What is Customer Relationship management?

Before we begin to examine the conceptual foundations of CRM, it will be useful to define what
is CRM. A narrow perspective of customer relationship management is database marketing
emphasizing the promotional aspects of marketing linked to database efforts.
Another narrow, yet relevant, viewpoint is to consider CRM only as customer retention in which
a variety of aftermarketing tactics is used for customer bonding or staying in touch after the sale
is made.
Shani and Chalasani define relationship marketing as “an integrated effort to identify, maintain,
and build up a network with individuals consumers and to continuously strengthen the network
for mutual benefit of both sides, through interactive, individualized and value-added contacts
over a period of time”.
The core theme of all CRM and relationship marketing perspectives is its focus on co-operative
and collaborative relationships between the firm and its customers, and/or other marketing
actors.
CRM is based on the premise that, by having a better understanding of the customers’ needs and
desires we can keep them longer and sell more to them.
Growth Strategies International (GSI) performed a statistical analysis of Customer satisfaction
data encompassing the findings of over 20,000 customer surveys conducted in 40 countries by
Infoquest.
The conclusions of the study were:

• A Totally Satisfied Customer contributes 2.6 times as much revenue to a company as a

Somewhat Satisfied Customer.
• A Totally Satisfied Customer contributes 17 times as much revenue as a Somewhat
Dissatisfied Customer.

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 •

• A Totally Dissatisfied customer decreases revenue at a rate equal to 1.8 times what a Totally
Satisfied Customer contributes to a business.

• By reducing customer defection (by as little as 5%) will result in increase in profits by 25%
to 85% depending from industry to industry.
An important facet of CRM is “customer selectivity”. As several research studies have shown
not all customers are equally profitable (Infact in some cases 80% of the sales come through
20% of the customers). The company must therefore be selective and tailor its program and
marketing efforts by segmenting and selecting appropriate customers for individual marketing
programs. In some cases, it could even lead to “ outsourcing of some customers” so that a
company better utilize its resources on those customers it can serve better and create mutual
value. However, the objective of a company is not to really prune its customer base but to
identify appropriate customer programs and methods that would be profitable and create value
for the firm and the customer. Hence, CRM is defined as:
Customer Relationship management is a comprehensive strategy and process of acquiring,
retaining and partnering with selective customers to create superior value for the company
and the customer.
As is implicit in the above definition, the purpose of CRM is to improve marketing
productivity. Marketing productivity is achieved by increasing marketing efficiency and by
enhancing marketing effectiveness. In CRM, marketing efficiency is achieved because
cooperative and collaborative processes help in reducing transaction costs and overall
development costs for the company. Two important processes for CRM include proactive
customer business development and building partnering relationship with most important
customers. These lead to superior value creation.
The basic concept is that the customer is not someone outside the organisation, he is a part of
the organisation.

Key CRM principles

 Differentiate Customers: All customers are not equal; recognize and reward best customers
disproportionately. Understanding each customer becomes particularly important. And the same
customers’ reaction to a cellular company operator may be quite different as compared to a car
dealer. Besides for the same product or the service not all customers can be treated alike and
CRM needs to differentiate between a high value customer and a low value customer.
What CRM needs to understand while differentiating customers is:
– Sensitivities, Tastes, Preferences and Personalities

– Lifestyle and age

– Culture Background and education

– Physical and psychological characteristics

• Differentiating Offerings

→ Low value customer requiring high value customer offerings

→ Low value customer with potential to become high value in near future
High value customers who
→ High value customer requiring high value service require a high level of
service are maintained
→ High value customer requiring low value service without expanding the
Low value customers who costly offering to the entire
High require high levels of service customer population
must either purchase the
higher level of service or
become our competitors low
value/high cost customers
Service Requirement

Low
Low Customer Value High
Fig. 1 Customer value – Service Matrix
Keeping Existing Customers
Grading customers from very satisfied to very disappointed should help the organisation in
improving its customer satisfaction levels and scores. As the satisfaction level for each customer
improve so shall the customer retention with the organisation.

• Maximizing Life time value

Exploit up-selling and cross-selling potential. By identifying life stage and life event trigger
points by customer, marketers can maximize share of purchase potential. Thus the single adults
shall require a new car stereo and as he grows into a married couple his needs grow into
appliances.

• Increase Loyalty

Loyal customers are more profitable. Any company will like its mindshare status to improve
from being a suspect to being an advocate.
Company has to invest in terms of its product and service offerings to its customers. It has to
innovate and meet the very needs of its clients/ customers so that they remain as advocates on the
loyalty curve. Referral sales invariably are low cost high margin sales.
(Fig 2. Categorizing Customers)
High

*You have No Choice But To *Cultivate Relationship.

Handle Them Very Carefully.
Spend Energy.
Will Consume Energy
Strat Go Out Of Your Way.
egic
Impo # Think Of Innovative Ways of *Existing
Getting them On Your Side, But The Customers
rtanc
‘Cost Of Acquisition’ Must Be #Think Of Strategies TO Move Them
e To #Potential
Controlled Away
*Very From Competition.
cautious decision needed. Re-examine
Your *Focus On Short Term Profitability. Customers
Busi business Plan & Strategy. Evaluate That
ness Spend Minimum Energy To Meet Your Your Loss (i.e. Your competitor’s gain)
Plan Objectives. Doesn’t become nightmare for you.

#Don’t Pursue. #Needs In-depth strategic review as acquisition

alone and dissatisfaction later could be more
LowUse Opportunity As It Comes. harmful
LowTerm Acquisition Shouldn’t Affect
Short High
Relationship & Profitability Potential
Long Term Image.
 Summarizing CRM activities:
The CRM cycle can be briefly described as follows:
1. Learning from customers and prospects, (having in depth knowledge of customer)
2. Creating value for customers and prospects
3. Creating loyalty
4. Acquiring new customers
5. Creating profits
6. Acquiring new customers
Learning from
customers a&
Creating prospects
Profits

Acquiring new
customers 1
Fig.3
5
CRM Activities 3 Creating value for
4 customers &
prospects

Creating loyal 2
customers

Figure 4 Customer Life Cycle Management

Customer Need
Assessment & Acquisition

Customer Retention
and referrals for new
Customer Development
customers
through personalization
and customization
 Customer Equity Leverage through
Cross Selling and Up Selling

The Emergence of CRM Practice

The Past:
Looking back at a snapshot history of marketing, we can see the following clear developments
and progression over the last four decades:

• 1960’s – the era of Mass Marketing, when Gibbs SR toothpaste began the first marketing of
this kind with its black and white campaign.

• 1970’s – saw the beginning of segmentation, direct mail campaigns and early telemarketing
(such as publishing)

• 1980’s – where Niche marketing made millionaires of those who were best at it.

• 1990’s – Relationship Marketing. The explosion of telemarketing and call centres, all set up
to develop relationships with customers. The recognition of the true value of retention and
the use of Lifetime Value as a business case.
In addition to this, a number of key marketing concepts can also be used to see where CRM has
developed from:

• Satisfying Needs, Customer Orientation

• The organisation needs to be arranged so that all functions contribute

• Profit must be the consequence of delighting customers (Kotler)

Developing customer relationship has historical antecedents going back into the pre industrial
era. Similarly artisans often developed customized produce for each customer. Such direct
interaction led to relational bonding between the producer and the consumer. It was only after
industrial era’s mass production society and the advent of the middlemen that there were less
frequent interactions between producers and the consumers leading to transactions oriented
marketing. The production and consumption factions got separated leading to marketing
functions being performed by the middle men and middlemen are in general oriented towards the
economic aspects of buying since the largest cost is often the cost of goods sold.
In recent years however, several factors have contributed to the rapid development and evolution
of CRM. These include: -
1. The growing de-intermediation process in many industries due to the advent of sophisticated
computer and telecommunication technologies that allow producers to directly interact with
end-customers. For example, in many industries such as airlines, banks insurance, software
or household appliances and even consumables, the de-intermediation process is fast
changing the nature of marketing and consequently making relationship marketing more
popular. Databases and direct marketing tools give them the means to individualize their
marketing efforts.
2. Advances in information technology, networking and manufacturing technology have helped
companies to quickly match competition. As a result product quality and cost are no longer
significant competitive advantages.
3. The growth in service economy. Since services are typically produced and delivered at the
same institution, it minimizes the role of the middlemen.
4. Another force driving the adoption of CRM has been the total quality movement. When
companies embraced TQM it became necessary to involve customers and suppliers in
implementing the program at all levels of the value chain. This needed close working
relationships with the customers. Thus several companies such as Motorola, IBM, General
Motors, Xerox, Ford, Toyota, etc formed partnering relations with suppliers and customers
to practice TQM. Other programs such as JIT and MRP also made use of interdependent
relationships between suppliers and customers.
5. Customer expectations are changing almost on a daily basis. Newly Empowered customers
who choose how to communicate with the companies across various available channels.
Also nowadays consumers expect a high degree of personalization.
6. Emerging real time, interactive channels including e-mail, ATMs and call centre that must be
synchronized with customer’s non-electronic activities. The speed of business change,
requiring flexibility and rapid adoption to technologies.
7. In the current era of hyper competition, marketers are forced to be more concerned with
customer retention and customer loyalty.
8. As several researches have found out retaining customers is less expensive and more
sustainable competitive advantage than acquiring new ones.
 9. On the supply side it pays more to develop closer relationships with a few suppliers than to
develop more vendors.
10. In addition several marketers are concerned with keeping customers for life than making
one time sale. There is a greater opportunity for up selling and cross selling. In a recent
study, Naidu, et al(1999) found that relational intensity increased in hospitals facing a high
degree of competitive intensity
11. The globalization of world marketplace makes it necessary to have global account
management for the customers.

CRM Formation Process

In the formation process, three important decision areas relate to defining the purpose (or
objectives) of engaging in CRM, selecting parties (or customer partners) for appropriate CRM
programs and developing programs (or relational activity schemes) for relationship engagement
with the customer.

Purpose Team Structure

 Increase Role Specification
Effectiveness Relationship
Performance
Planning Process
 Strategic
Process Alignment
Programs  Financial

 Account  Marketing
Monitoring Process
Management

Communication

Partners Employee Motivation

 Criteria
Employee Training

Evolution

• Enhancement
 Fig 5. CRM Process Framework

CRM Purpose
The overall purpose of CRM is to improve marketing productivity and enhance value for parties
in involved in the relationship. By seeking and achieving operational goals, such as lower
distribution costs, streamlining order processing and inventory management, reducing the burden
of excessive customer acquisition cost, and through customer retention economics, firms could
achieve greater marketing efficiencies. They can enhance marketing effectiveness by carefully
selecting, customers for its various programs, individualizing and personalizing their market
offerings to anticipate and serve the emerging needs of individual customer, building customer
loyalty and commitment, partnering to enter new markets and develop new products, and
redefining the competitive playing field for their company. Thus, stating the objectives and
defining the purpose of CRM in a company helps clarify the nature of CRM programs and
activities that ought to be performed by the partners. Defining the purpose would also help in
identifying suitable relationship partners who have necessary expectations and capabilities to
fulfill mutual goals. It will further help in evaluating CRM performance by comparing results
achieved against objectives. These objectives could be specified as financial goals, marketing
goals, strategic goals, operational goals, and general goals.
Customers are motivated to engage in relational behavior because of psychological and
sociological benefits associated with reduction in choice decisions. In addition, to their natural
inclination of reducing choices, consumers are motivated to seek the rewards and benefits
associated with CRM programs.
Relational Parties
In the Initial phase, a company has to decide which customer type and specific customers or
customer groups will be the focus of their CRM activities.
CRM Programs
A careful review of literature and observation of corporate practices suggest that there are three
types of CRM programs: continuity marketing; one-to-one marketing; and, partnering programs.
These take different forms depending on whether they are meant for end-consumers, distributor
consumers, or business-to-business customers.
Table 1 presents various types of CRM programs developed for different types of customers.

Customer Types Mass Markets Distributors Business to

Program Types Business
Markets
Continuity Marketing • After- Marketing • Continuos • Special Sourcing

• Loyalty Programs Replenishment Arrangements

• Cross-Selling • ECR Programs

One-to-One Marketing • Permission Marketing • Customer Business • Key Account

• Personalization Development • Global Account

Partnering/Company- • Affinity Partnering • Logistics Partnering • Strategic
Marketing Partnership
• Co-Branding • Joint Marketing
• Co-Design

• Co-Development
Table 1 CRM Programs
Continuity Marketing Programs
Take the shape of membership and loyalty card programs where customers are often rewarded
for their member and loyalty relationships with the marketers. The basic premise of continuity
marketing programs is to retain customers and increase loyalty through long-term special
services that has a potential to increase mutual value through learning about each other.

One-to-one Marketing
Meeting and satisfying each customer’s need uniquely and individually. In the mass markets
individualized information on customers is now possible at low costs due to the rapid
development in the information technology and due to availability of scalable data warehouses
and data mining products. By using online information and databases on individual customer
interactions, marketers aim to fulfill the unique needs of each mass-market customer.
Information on individual customers is utilized to develop frequency marketing, interactive
marketing, and aftermarketing programs in order to develop relationship with high-yielding
customers. In the context of business-to-business markets, individual marketing has been in place
of quite sometime. Known as Key Account Management Program, here marketers appoint
customer teams to husband the company resources according to individual customer needs.

Partnering Programs
The third type of CRM programs is partnering relationships between customer and marketers to
serve end user needs. In the mass markets, two types of partnering programs are most common:
co-branding and affinity partnering.

CRM Governance Process

• Greater the scope of CRM program and associated tasks, and the more complex is the
composition of the relationship management team; the more critical is the role specification
decision for the partnering firms.

• It is essential to establish intra-company communication particularly among all concerned

individuals and corporate functions that directly play a role in managing the relationship with
a specific customer or customer group.

• With mass-market customers frequent face-to-face interactions will be uneconomical. Thus

marketers should create common bonds through symbolic relationships, endorsements,
affinity groups, and membership benefits or by creating online communities

• Involving customers in the planning process would ensure their support in plan
implementation and achievement of planned goals. All customers are not willing to
participate in the planning process nor is it possible to involve all of then for relationship
marketing programs for the mass markets.

• Operating process between the company and customer partners: Operating alignment will be
needed in order processing, accounting and budgeting processes, information systems,
merchandising process, etc

• Human resources decisions are also important in creating the right organisation climate for
managing relationship marketing. Training employees to interact with customers, to work in
teams, and manage relationship expectations are important. So is the issue of creating the
right motivation through incentives and rewards.
• Periodic evaluation of goals and results, initiating changes in relationship structure, design or
governance process if needed, creating a system for discussing problems and resolving
conflicts.

CRM Performance Evaluation Process

Without a proper performance metrics to evaluate CRM efforts, it would be hard to make
objective decisions regarding continuation, modification, enhancement, or termination of CRM
programs.

If co-operative and collaborative relationship with the customers is treated as an intangible asset
of the firm, its economic value add can be assessed using discounted future cash flows estimates.
Here the term relationship equity comes in where you measure the intangible assets of the firm.

Another global measure used by firms to monitor CRM performance is the measurement of
relationship satisfaction. By measuring relationship satisfaction, one could estimate the
propensity of either party’s inclination to continue or terminate the relationship. Such propensity
could also be indirectly measured by measuring customer loyalty.

CRM Implementation Issues

One of the most interesting aspects of CRM development is the multitude of customer interfaces
that a company has to manage in today’s context. Until recently, a company’s direct interface
with the customers, if any was primarily through sales people or service agents. In today’s
environment most companies interface with their customers through a variety of channels
including sales people, service personnel, call centres, Internet websites, marketing departments,
fulfillment houses, market and business development agents, etc. For large customers it also
includes cross-functional teams that may include personnel from various functional departments.
While each of these units could operate independently, they still need to share information about
individual customers and their interactions with the company on a real time basis. For example, a
customer who just placed an order on the Internet and subsequently calls the call centre for order
verification expects the call centre staff to know the details of his or her order history. Similarly a
customer approached by a sales person unaware that she has recently complained about
dissatisfactory customer service, is not likely to be treated kindly by the customer.

Therefore effective CRM requires a front-line information system that shares relevant customer
information across all interface units. Relational databases, data warehousing and data mining
tools are thus very valuable for CRM systems and solutions.

However, the challenge is to develop and integrated CRM platform that collects relevant data
input at each customer interface and simultaneously provides knowledge output about the
strategy and tactics suitable to win customer loyalty and support. If a call centre personnel cannot
identify or differentiate a high value customer and does not know what to up-sell or cross sell to
him then it would be a tremendous loss of opportunity for the company. Although most CRM
software solutions based on relational databases are helping share customer information, they
still do not provide knowledge output to the front line personnel. As shown in Figure.6, CRM
solutions platform needs to be based on interactive technology and processes. It should assist the
company in developing and enhancing customer interactions and one-to-one marketing through
the help of suitable intelligent agents that help develop front-line relationship with customers.
Such a system would identify appropriate data inputs at each customer interaction site and use
analytical platforms to generate appropriate knowledge output for front-line staff during
customer interactions.

In addition, implementation tools to support interactive solutions for customer profitability

analysis, customer segmentation, demand generation, account planning, opportunity
management, contact management, integrated marketing communication, customer care
strategies, customer problem solving, virtual team management of large global accounts, and
measuring CRM performance would be the next level of solution sought by most enterprises.

Internet
Sales Group

Knowledge
Output
 Data Input

Knowledge
Data Input
Integrated Marketing
Output
Knowledge Information Platform Data Input
Call Centre
• Information Content
Output
Market Knowledge
• Relational Databases
Development Data Input
• Decision Support System Output
Knowledge
• Active Intelligence Data Input
Output
Knowledge
Data Input Customer
Marketing Output
Operations/
Service
Figure 6 . Information Platform for CRM
Since CRM implementation comprises a significant information technology (IT) component,
these companies have handed over the responsibility of CRM implementation to information
technology departments. They are focussed on simply installing CRM software solutions without
a CRM strategy or program in place. This leads to creating an operational tool within the
company, but the usability and effectiveness in producing desirable results from such tools is
limited. CRM tools would be valuable when they are used to identify and differentiate individual
customers and to generate individualized offer and fulfill customized solutions. The lack of CRM
strategy or CRM programs, would leave the front-line people without any knowledge of what
they should be doing with the additional customer information that they now have access to. For
those who apply themselves and develop improvised solutions, it could backfire as ad hoc
solutions could cause unintended deterioration in customer relationships. Appropriate strategy
and excellent implementation are both needed for obtaining successful results.
From a corporate implementation point of view, CRM should not be misunderstood to
simply mean a software solutions implementation project.

Chapter 2: CRM and Related Concepts

Knowledge Management (KM) with focus on CRM
As Peter Drucker defined “Information is data endowed with relevance and purpose”.
To effectively implement a CRM solution it is very important to identify real knowledge about
different types of customers (Viz. Most valued customers, Most growable customers, Below zero
customers) from plethora of internal and external data, figures, surveys, etc. A straightway
technique is to create a data warehouse, thereafter information which is required to effectively
implement principles of CRM, could be mined out of this data warehouse.
Marketing, sales after-sales people would be knowledge workers. Front office could be more
productive if they could utilize customer knowledge. Knowledge Management (KM) is about
embracing a diversity of knowledge resources, like legacy systems, existing data warehouses,
portals, websites, customers, suppliers, partners, external marketing research agencies and
cultivating the knowledge where it resides.

Metrics, ROI, Balance Scorecard method, benchmarking are some of the common technique
of KM system evaluation. KM implementation is the key to CRM.
It’s a proven fact that 80% of an organisation revenues come form 20% of its customers, it
becomes imperative to design CRM solutions keeping in mind these most valuable customers
and to leverage 80% non structured data of about 20% of these most valuable customers.
Just as more tangible corporate assets like computer systems have a finite shell life, so too does
knowledge, it must be available at the right time to be able to act upon it. Retaining tacit
knowledge (derived from experiences, data and documents) means retaining the individual,
which is invariably not possible. It is possible to generate explicit knowledge from tacit
knowledge, but it’s a complex exercise. The key ingredient of this exchange is face to face
sharing of knowledge or virtual environmental tools like Lotus Notes, which can facilitate tacit
knowledge exchange. Hence for tacit knowledge exchange text mining is very useful and
important. There are ways to do text mining, like search engines, web solutions, text analysis
tools, etc. The key to successful customer KM is personalization, i.e. how to extract the
knowledge that is pertinent to the user and translate it into a format that is easily understood. The
choice of Customer Knowledge Management (CKM) architecture should have a layered
approach. Existing systems should be seamlessly linked with the proposed layer. The choice for
CKM system could be Web (Enterprise information portal) or a packaged solution such as Lotus
Notes, Microsoft solution.

Role of CRM in the Context of SCM

In the context of SCM, where alliances and partnerships are keys to success, CRM plays an
important role in building long-term relationships. Apart from the end-users, it involves internal
employees, channel members and other external entities such as advertising agencies and
consulting organisations. The success of relationships depends upon sharing of savings from the
supply chain, which may be reinvested to further enhance its efficiency, and sustain the
competitive advantage.
The supply chain of tomorrow will look like a virtual organisation, seamlessly integrated through
sharing data and savings as well. The bonding between partners will be closely held by CRM
practices.

ERP and CRM

Like ERP, CRM solutions focus on automating and improving business processes, albeit in front-
office areas such as marketing, sales, customer service, and customer support. Whereas ERP
implementation can result in improved organisational efficiency, CRM aims to provide
organisational effectiveness by reducing sales cycle and selling cost, identifying markets and
channels for expansion, and improving customer value, satisfaction, profitability, and retention.
While CRM applications provide the framework for embodying, promoting and executing best
practices in customer facing activities, ERP provides the backbone, resources and operational
applications to make organisations more efficient in achieving these goals.

Regain Management
“ The cost of acquiring a new customer is 9 to 12 times that of holding on to an existing
customer.”-Philip Kotler
A study conducted by Andersen Consulting in conjunction with EIU found that businesses are
intensifying their focus on customer and are taking a more process oriented approach to customer
relationship management. Key Findings of the study are:
(a) the number of businesses citing customer retention as a critically important measure in the
next 5 years has jumped to nearly 60%, as companies shift their focus from attracting new
customer to retaining their more profitable ones;
(b) by 2002, 83% of companies expect to have customer data warehouses, up from about 40%
today; and
(c) companies predict their use of Internet to collect customer data will surge by 430%
Consumer Life Time Value
Quantifying the “value” of customers is absolutely essential in regain management. In fact, the
percentage of profit a company makes from continued sales to its own customer base is
consistently higher than the profit made on original sale.. Each of the customers then delivers an
income stream and the stream of profit far exceeds the value of original purchase. Income
streams contribute cash flows in terms of years for any single product.
Regain Strategies:

•Customization

•Differentiation Strategies

The lost customer would be segmented differently from the existing customer. Base and the
company could provide additional features and benefits to win them back.
“Wow” Syndrome
For example, a client checks into a hotel and his/her room isn’t ready. The clerk could respond
by “You are in luck! Your room isn’t ready. That means you get to eat breakfast “on us” and use
our business centre for free!”

Chapter 3: Technological Tools for CRM

Tools
•Customer database
 A good customer information system should consist of a regular flow of information,
systematic collection of information that is properly evaluated and compared against different
points in time, and it has sufficient depth to understand the customer and accurately anticipate
their behavioral patterns in future. The customer database helps the company to plan,
implement, and monitor customer contact. Customer relationships are increasingly sustained
by information systems. Companies are increasingly adding data from a variety of sources to
their databases. Customer data strategy should focus on processes to manage customer
acquisition, retention, and development.

Other Technologies that are used are as follows:

•Electronic Point of Sale(EPOS)

•Sales Force Automation

•Customer Service Helpdesk

•Call Centres

Call Centre helps in automating the operations of inbound and outbound calls generated between
company and its customer. These solutions integrate the voice switch of automated telephone
systems (e.g. EPABX) with an agent host software allowing for automating call routing to
agents, auto display of relevant customer data, predictive dialing, self service Interactive Voice
Response systems, etc. These systems are useful in high volume segments like banking, telecom
and hospitality. Today, more innovative channels of interacting with customers are emerging as a
result of new technology, such as global telephone based calls centres and the internet.
Companies are now focusing to offer solutions that leverage the internet in building
comprehensive CRM systems allowing them to handle customer interactions in all forms.

•Systems Integration

While CRM solutions are front office automation solutions, ERP is back office automation
solution. An ERP helps in automating business functions of production, finance, inventory, order
fulfillment and human resource giving an integrated view of business, where as CRM automates
the relationship with customer covering contact and opportunity management , marketing and
product knowledge, sales force management, sales forecasting, customer order processing and
 fulfillment, delivery, installation, pre-sale and post-sale services and complaint handling by
providing an integrated view of the customer. It is necessary that the two systems integrate with
each other and complement information as well as business workflow. Therefore, CRM and ERP
are complementary. This integration of CRM with ERP helps companies to provide faster
customer service through an enabled network, which can direct all customer queries and issues
through appropriate channels to the right place for speedy resolution. This will help the company
in tracking and correcting the product problems reported by customers by feeding this
information into the R&D operations via ERP.

CRM – A FRAMEWORK

Traditional Approach to CRM Web-Enabled & Integration

Approach

• Customer Contact by • Customer Information

Integration with
Telephone technology System
• Customer Database
Mail
(Web & Internet)
• Electronic Point of Sale
In Person
• Sales Force Automation
• Personal Selling
• Automation of Customer
• After Sales Service

Data Mining for CRM: Some Relevant issues

Data mining is an important enabler for CRM. Advances in data storage and processing
technologies have made it possible today to store very large amounts of data in what are called
data warehouses and then use data mining tools to extract relevant information. Data mining
helps in the process of understanding a customer by providing the necessary information and
facilitates informed decision-making.
 Operational CRM solutions involve integration of business processes involving customer touch
points. Collaborative CRM involves the facilitation of collaborative services(such as e-mail) to
facilitate interactions between customer and employees. All this effort produces rich data that
feeds the Analytical CRM technologies.

Operational CRM Analytical CRM Collaborative CRM

Customer

Fig.8 Interactions between CRM Technologies

Information Requirements Of An Effective CRM Solution

The employees of a firm employing CRM would require rich information about their firm and
customer base including:

• Information about the market

• Information about the firm

• The current segment

• Demographic Distribution (by age, sex, education, income, marital status, etc)

• The firm’s best customers and the segment they belong to, products they buy, preferences, habits
and tastes of each segment.

• Individual level information consisting of:

→ Customer personal details such as name, address, family details, education, etc

→ The customer group /segment to which the individual belongs

→ History of present and past behavior

→ Likes, dislikes, habits and preferences

→ Events coming up in their personal life etc.

 Levels of data mining operations
The aggregate or the Macro level
Mining at the macro level gives us a broad overview of the data e.g. when customer of the
retail store are segmented by profitability criteria, we obtain clusters who are profitable to
various extent. Knowledge obtained by mining at macro level is useful when dealing with
situations where:

•We are dealing with a customer about whom we do not have individual information . Hence,
we need to extrapolate the characteristics of the group to which he/she might belong. In
retail store example, a store can segment its customers on basis of age and characteristics
can be extracted. When a new customer enters the store, the salesman could use his intuition
in arriving at the customer’s age and recover the characteristics of that age group such as the
frequently bought products, colour preferences, etc.

• Targeting new set of customers. If the retail chain has opened a new store it can use the data
from the most similar current store to predict the behavior of the new prospects.

•We are dealing with aspects of the service, which influence a majority of the customer and
therefore cannot be customized to suit individual tastes, example being the design of the
physical layout of a retail store.

•Predicting the possibility of an action that the cu has never undertaken. A customer might
not have tried out a new product because he/she was not aware of it. A salesman can
encourage him/her to try out the product if his/her profile matches that of the current product
users.

The Individual or Micro level

As interactions of the individual with the firm increases, the firm obtains more data about him/her. Offering individualized value adding
propositions can strengthen relationship with the individual customer. For this, we need to track the cu and mine at the individual or micro
level. Some important features to note about mining at this level are:

•Micro-level mining provides specific information about a particular customer. For

example, the retail store can go to the extent of finding out the preferred colours of his
 shirt

•A firm takes up micro level mining to build a detailed customer profile of a regular
customer.

•Data mining this level might be expensive if the data mining tool has to cull out
individual information from a large database. Having a separate database for profitable
customer might be helpful.

•Knowledge obtained at the individual level is useful in situations where:

The firm wants to customize its offering to the customer based on the customer’s tastes
and preferences e.g. the retail store can offer discounts on the purchase of a bundle of
products that the customer prefers buying together.

The firm wants to assist the purchase of a new product based on the information it has
of the last purchase. For example, if a customer has bought a suit in his visit, then the
store might offer a discount on the purchase of a tie of a matching colour.

The firm wants to take advantage of the personal events in a customer’s life (e.g.
birthdays, anniversaries, birth of child etc.) to further cement the precious relationship.

Current patterns that go against usually observed customer behavior point to

interesting phenomenon. If retail customer suddenly switches brand then he/she might
not be satisfied with the last purchase.
The most common operations used at this level are: -

Classification:
Classification is a process that maps a given data item into one of the several predefined classes.
CRM uses classification for a variety of purposes like behavior prediction, product and customer
categorization.
Regression
Regression is the operation of learning a function that predicts the value of a real valued
dependent variable based on values of other independent variables. Regression finds application
in a CRM environment where prediction needs to be made about the behavior regarding real
value added variables. Suppose the retail store collects data on the monthly visits of the
customers viz. Frequency, time spent on each visit. And purchases made during each visit. If the
manager has a strong intuition that total purchase is linked to frequency of visit, then this
situation can be modeled by regression. This model can then be used to predict future purchases
of a customer. Regression needs sufficient amount of data to be reliable and valid.
Link Analysis
Link Analysis seeks to establish relationship between items or variables in a database record to
expose patterns and trends. Link analysis can also trace connections between items of record
over time. The most important link analysis application in CRM, called market basket analysis, is
an operation that seeks relationship between product items characterizing product affinities or
buyer preferences. The retail store collects thousands of interactions daily. A link analysis task
performed on this data will point to items that are bought together e.g. bread and butter are
bought together rather than bread and orange juice. Such information can be used to design store
layouts, design coupons, etc.
Segmentation
Segmentation aims to identify a finite set of naturally occurring clusters or categories to describe
data.
Deviation Detection
Deviation Detection (DD) focuses on discovering the most significant changes in the data from
previously measured, expected or normative values. Most CRM solutions have a DD task
running in parallel on a regular basis. Suppose a retailer finds out that the sales from a particular
section of the store have been much less than expected. This deviation on further analysis points
out to non-stocking of a popular brand.
Tools such as decision trees, rule induction, case based reasoning, visualization techniques,
nearest neighbor techniques, clustering algorithms, etc are used for the above purposes.
The existing CRM Solutions
Delivering the ‘360 view’ requires automation to bring together all the data concerning a
customer. This implies the organisation has to change from:
Mass Marketing Product Focus
Product Focus Customer Focus
Economies of Scale Economies of time
1 way communication Interactive
Response Time Real Time

Present CRM Alternatives

Present CRM solutions are offered by host of vendors that are to a great extent not industry
specific. While there are some vendors, who have come up with industry specific solutions, the
broad model around which the CRM solutions are built remain the same. Adopting a similar or a
look a like solution across industries is what causes major strain in servicing a customer.
Typical offerings of the current CRM solutions (such as Siebel, Oracle Apps or MySap.com, etc)
vary from solution to solution. However typical CRM offerings consist of:
Customer Development Field sales, Tele sales, Internet Sales
Service Centre Call Centres, Field Service
Sale management and support Internet Customer Service
Market Analysis Service Interaction Centre
Internet, Tele marketing Business Partner Collaboration
Product and brand management

The Customer focussed organisation: CRM Model

The idea here is to develop systems that allow flexibility, work on not completely predefined
processes so as to enable front office to be proactive to each customer needs
The Mindset impact on CRM
A typical data warehouse will have the following components:

•While developing a data warehouse one takes into account all the legacy and operation systems.
But typically sales teams could be managing leads on an excel worksheet. Sometimes critical
DSS input like “Profitability Analysis” itself may reside on a worksheet.

Data
Warehouse
 Legacy & Operation
Extract & Transfer

Risk FP&A Mktg & Campaign

Cube Cube Sales Cube Mgmt

OLAP Tool

Thus a Data Warehouse solution must be able to accept information from such “unstructured”
sources as well as budget for an open architecture to enable plug-in for systems to be developed
in the future.
a) Generally the existing information is mapped into a data warehouse. Since a customer centric
info-base is being developed, its is critical that extensive customer research is done to
identify their information needs and thus what profile data will be relevant for us. Thus any
data-warehousing project needs to work closely with the research team.
b) After extracting the data from various systems, we need to scrub and clean the data,
deduplicate.
c) Even though we may find 80% of the names in a database of a million customers using
combinations of lets say a 1000 first and last names, to take into account all possible
combinations we may actually need a database of 10,000 first and last names. Even then we
may not be able to comprehensively cover all future combinations. Now, the system must
expect this kind of input on a regular basis rather than it happening by exception, as is the
case with updating “masters” in a traditional system.
d) Ad-hoc querying is a tool that is most often used in such applications. Unfortunately not
much effort is made to make this tool “end-user” friendly so that even a layman could run
his/her reports. Typically a data-warehouse and data mining person is placed in information
technology to manage all queries. With the advent of tools like MetaData Repository, drill
down OLAP tools and Palm Pilots it is now possible for hardcore marketing and sales types
 to directly access and run their queries. Infact we need to budget for training the sales and
marketing team with the use of data-warehouse.
e) The real power of the CRM system is its ability to provide a rich, value added experience to
our customers at all touch points – call Centres, kiosks, retail outlets, mobile devices, Internet
and branches. Integration and information dissemination must happen at all these points.
Thus the CRM specialist in marketing must be well versed with all these tools and
techniques.

eCRM
What is eCRM?
In simplest terms eCRM provides companies with means to conduct interactive, personalized
and relevant communications with customer across both electronic and traditional channels. It
utilizes a complete view of the customer to make decisions about messaging, offers and channel
delivery. It synchronises communication across otherwise disjoint-customer facing systems. It
adheres to permission based practices, respecting individual’s preferences regarding how and
whether they wish to communicate with you and it focuses on understanding how the economics
of customer relationship affect the business.
eCRM Vs CRM
CRM is essentially a business strategy for acquiring and maintaining the “right” customers over
the long term. Within this framework, a number of channels exist for interacting with customers.
One of these channels is “electronic” – and has been labeled “e-commerce” or “e-business”. This
electronic channel does not replace the sales force, the call Centre, or even the fax. It is simply
another extension, albeit a powerful new one, to the customer. The thrust of eCRM is not what
the organisation is “doing on the web” but how fully the organisation ties its on-line channel
back to its traditional channels, or customer touch points.

Why employ eCRM?

Companies need to take firm initiatives on the eCRM frontier to

•Optimize the value of interactive relationship

•Enable the business to extend its personalized reach

 •Company-ordinate marketing activities across all customer channels.

•Leverage customer information for more effective emarketing and ebusiness

•Focus the business on improving customer relationship and earning a greater share of each
customer’s business through consistent measurement, assessment and “actionable” customer
strategies.
The six “E’s” of eCRM
1. Electronic channels
2. Enterprise
3. Empowerment
4. Economics
5. Evaluation
6. External Information
eCRM Architecture
The primary inputs to this module are mainly from the eCRM Assessment and strategy alignment
modules. During this stage the company will try and develop a Connected Enterprise
Architecture (CEA) within the context of the company’s own CRM strategy. The following is a
set of technical eCRM capabilities and applications that collectively and ideally comprise a full
eCRM solution:

•Customer Analytical Software

•Data mining software

•Campaign Management software

•Business Simulation

•A real time decision engine

Review and Assessment of CRM solutions

CRM software applications embody best practices and employs advanced technologies to help
organisations achieve these goals.
Categories of CRM solutions
Any enterprise , which wants to implement CRM solutions can choose from four categories of
solutions

Integrated applications suite

Interfaced applications bundle

Interfaced best of breed solutions

Best of cluster

Selecting an interfaced best of breed approach for pure functionality or a front office application
suite solely for integration limits enterprise choices. Enterprises need to start with a clear picture
of the basic truths of integration, interfacing and functionality. An integrated application suite is a
set of application that employs a common architecture, referencing a common logical database
with a single schema. Some suites are more often interfaced application bundle i.e. a set of
interfaced application from a single vendor containing more than one technical architecture or
more than one logical database- frequently assembled by the vendor through the process of
acquisition or partnership
An alternative approach to suites is an interfaced best of breed solution – an approach whereby
an enterprise selects from multiple vendors a set of applications that must be interfaced to work
together, either by the enterprise, one of the selected vendors or a third party integrator. The
individual applications are not the best in any objective sense. Rather, some enterprises select the
applications because they best meet the particular needs. The challenge of this approach is that,
in some cases, the enterprise fails to complete the necessary interfaces to get the individual
applications working together; consequently, the applications remain stove pipes. Best of cluster
is similar to best of breed except that here best is chosen from the cluster and they are interfaced.
Key requirements for CRM solutions
Some of the functional and technical requirements for CRM solutions are as listed below:

•Business intelligence and analytical capabilities

•Unified channels of customer interactions

•Support for web based functionality

•Centralized repository for customer information

•Integrated work flow

 •Integration with ERP applications

Functional Components of CRM solution

CRM applications are a convergence of functional components, advanced technologies and
channels. Functional components and channels are described below:
Sales applications
Common applications include calendar and scheduling, contact and account management;
compensation; opportunity and pipeline management; sales forecasting; proposal generation and
management; pricing; territory assignment and management; and expense reporting.
Marketing applications
These include web based and traditional marketing campaign planning, execution, and
analysis;list generation and management; budgeting and forecasting; collateral generation and
marketing materials management.
Customer service and support applications
These include customer care; incident, defect and order tracking; field service; problem and
solution database; repair scheduling and dispatching; service agreements and contracts; and
service request management.
Given below is a brief review of what some of the known vendors in this area have in their
applications for these verticals. The table 2 at the end gives comparative assessment of the
products discussed below for the above verticals:

•SIEBEL

It continues to out market and out sell the competition. It is one of the few front office suite
vendors having vertical specific functions. Its functionality is compelling. It can be integrated
with most of the back office solution like SAP and Oracle. It has solutions for automotive, public
sector (US), communications, consumer goods, apparel and footwear, energy, finance, insurance,
health care, life sciences and high technology industry sectors.
The solutions for the verticals described above are discussed below:

• For Consumer goods: a Siebel eConsumer goods offers eBusiness solution spanning the
entire demand chain from the end consumer, through the retailer and the wholesaler, to the
manufacturer. It has robust trade promotions planning functionality allowing users to
manage customer promotion plans and the funds to support them, while comprehensive
 route planning functionality enables integrated account targeting. Using Siebel eConsumer
Goods, organisations can also identify customer-buying behaviors and translate this
understanding into new trade promotions and product offerings

• For Financial Services: Siebel eFinance enables banking, brokerage, insurance, and capital
market organisations to establish and maintain long term profitable relationship with
consumers, small businesses, and corporate customers. The organisations can capitalize on
information captured during each customer interaction to more effectively cross-sell and up-
sell additional products and services. Additionally, Siebel eFinance provides a
comprehensive view of the entire customer relationship across multiple product lines,
enabling financial service organisations to provide a personalized experience across all
channels.

• For Healthcare: Siebel eHealthcare gives organisations the ability to streamline and improve
sales, member services, medical management, and network management services. By using
multiple distribution channels, including the Internet, call Centres, home office staff and
independent brokers, Siebel eHealthcare provides organisations with a single view of their
customers, thereby ensuring better service and improved quality of care.

• For telecom service providers: Siebel eCommunications helps wireless, cable, and Internet
service providers to target and win the right customers, accelerate service delivery, and
provide service across all touchpoints. Siebel eCommunications embodies the industry’s best
practices for generating accurate service orders, managing billing inquiries and adjustments,
and up-selling and cross-selling additional services. By using Siebel eCommunications’
integration technology, service representatives and salespeople can instantly access
information such as billing, order management, and network management from Operation
Support Systems (OSS), to deliver highly responsive customer support and significantly
increase sales.
Siebel 99, the vendor's major release, boasts 117 applications that span sales and service and
incorporate multiple vertical markets.
A major effort in the new application release is it integrates all the channels companies use to
contact customers: Web, E-mail, voice, wireless and face-to-face contact.
Some of Siebel employee- Some of Siebel customer- Some of the additional products
facing applications are: facing applications are: available in version 6.0
Siebel eBusiness Connector for SAP
Siebel Call Center Siebel eChannel
R/3 ®
Siebel eMail Response Siebel eCustomer Siebel Communications Server
Siebel Field Service Siebel eMarketing Siebel Distance Learning
Siebel Marketing Siebel eSales Siebel Global Enterprise Support
Siebel Sales Siebel eService Siebel Language Extensions
Siebel Service Siebel Wireless

•Clarify
It offers customer service & support and field service suite; however its sales functionality is
immature.

•Oracle
Oracle is betting everything on its thin, Web Based, centralized computing model. The Internet
computing architecture is compelling for connected non-mobile users; Oracle is rebuilding
functionality on the new platform and integrates its various acquired products. It offers a broad
set of functionality across e-commerce, front office and business intelligence applications.

•Vantive
Vantive offers a compelling customer service and support and field service suite. The rest of its
front office functionality makes it suite more of a bundle. The solution is integrated with
PeopleSoft at the back office.
Table 2 Comparative Assessment of CRM Products for Vertical Specific Requirements

CRMApplicationRequireme Siebel Clarify Oracle Vantive

nt
Consumer Products
Category Management Available Available Available Available
Promotion Management Available Available Available Available
Demand Planning Available N.A. Available N.A.
Interactive Selling Available Available Available Available

Telecom Service Providers

Blended Sales & service contact Available Available Available Available
Centre
Competitive Pricing Analysis N.A. N.A. N.A. N.A.
Integration with Billing System Available Available Available N.A.
 Churn management Available Available Available N.A.

Commercial Banking
Contact Centre Available Available Available Available
Profitability Analysis Available Available Available Available
Integrated Targeting N.A. N.A. Available N.A.
Marketing Datamining N.A. N.A. Available N.A.

Pharma & Healthcare

Contract Management Available N.A. Available N.A.
Marketing Analysis N.A. Available N.A. N.A.
Disease Education System Available N.A. N.A. N.A.
Knowledge Management System Available Available N.A. Available
Some Indian CRM solutions are by Sales Logix, Logix Microsystems, Sonata Software, Oracle
India, L&T information technology, etc.
Other CRM solutions are Aurum, Epiphany, Avyaya and Onyx.

Some frequent modules that most CRM have is:

Forecast Management, Encyclopedia Management, Campaign Management, Brand
Management, Opportunity Management, and Event Management.
CRM solutions are interwined combinations of technology and business processes. In order to be
effective CRM service providers will need a balanced understanding of both products and
services. It’s necessary to have an expertise in not CRM technology but also customer service
processes.
The potential use of CRM lies in it being the leading indicator of future revenue than just being
used as a customer facing transaction-processing tool or as a lagging indicator communicating
past consumer grievances.
The complete concept of CRM can be mapped on a technology solution as per the following blue
print. The databases feed the technology infrastructure which links You with the customer touch
points.
Thus we have four components of a CRM initiative rollout

•Customer Value Management Strategy

•CRM roadmap keeping in mind industry nuances

•Database solutions
•Customer access channels

Case Study 1: Implementing a Technology-

Based CRM Solution
The ICICI Experience

ICICI set up as Development Bank over four decades ago to provide products and services for
the corporate segment, diversified into the retail segment of the financial markets in the early
1990s.
In 1994, it established ICICI bank as a commercial bank that is flexible, innovative and prompt
in meeting customer requirements. In addition to the bank, the retail initiatives include Prudential
ICICI AMC, ICICI Personal Financial Services, ICICI Capital Services, and ICICI web trade,
Prudential ICICI Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard General insurance. This apart the retail
initiatives also include a plethora of web based businesses including city portals and various
other utility sites such as billjunction.com, icicimoneymanager.com, and magiccart.com, among
others.
The Retail Strategy
As part of plans, it is implementing various projects to establish world class CRM practices,
which would provide an integrated view of its customers to everyone in the organisation. CRM
at ICICI involves increased communication between the virtual universal bank and its customers
and prospects, as well as within the group itself. The underlying idea is to enhance every instance
of contact with the customer. ICICI believes that a true customer centric relationship can only be
accomplished by considering the unique perspectives of every single customer of the
organisation. Hence the pressing need to put in place a technology enabled CRM solution.
The CRM Roadmap
CRM, at ICICI, is viewed as a discipline as well as a set of discrete software technologies, which
will focus on automating and improving the business processes associated with the customer –
face –to-face, call Centre, ATM, web, telephone, kiosk, bank branch, sales associates, etc – so as
to allow ICICI to carry out cradle-to-grave customer management more efficiently. It should
allow ICICI to engage in one-to-one marketing by tracking complete customer life-cycle history.
To begin with it will automate process-flow tracking in the product sales process, and be able to
generate customized reports and promote cross selling. It will also enable efficient campaign
management by providing a software interface for definition, tracking, execution, and analysis of
campaigns.
From an architecture perspective, the enterprise-wide CRM solution should seamlessly integrate
non-transactional related customer information housed in the front-office with the transactional
information housed in the back office.
Implementing CRM
A very detailed and comprehensive CRM action plan was developed based on the understanding
that CRM will require enterprise wide transformation.
The CRM Business Transformation Map below shows the various aspects of that change.

BUSINESS FOCUS

Product Sales Channel Marketing Service Customer

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
 Product Place Promotion Channel Contact Customer

Management Management Management Management Management Management

BUSINESS METRICS

Product Place Program Customer Customer Customer

Patterns & Lifetime Value
Performance Performance Performance Revenues Profitability
and Loyalty

MARKETING FOCUS

Mass Sales Marketing Integrated Marketing Segment CRM

Advertising Promotion Campaigns Communications Specific
Marketing
TECHNOLOGY

Transaction Data Data Access Data Warehouse Data Marts Customer

Processing Maintenance Touchpoint
Systems
Source: “How to Get There From Here” by Melinda Nykamp, President, Nykamp Consulting group

Interviews with key individuals throughout the organisation helped identify different initiatives
that have been launched, all focussed on CRM.
The next step in the planning process was a Gap Analysis. This analysis essentially compared
current stage against optimal relative to the five aspects of business, to identify and specifically
describe the gaps.
The CRM Business Cycle:

•Understand and Differentiate

Organisations cannot have a relationship with the customer unless they understand them… what
they value, what types of services are important to them, how and when they like to interact, and
what they wan to buy. True understanding is based on a combination of detailed analysis and
interaction. ICICI group’s customers need to see that the company is differentiating service and
communication based on both what they have learned independently and on what the customer
has told them. At the same time, differentiation should be based on the value customer are
expected to deliver.
•Develop and Customize

ICICI believes that the extent of customization should be based on the potential value delivered
by the customer segment.

•Interact and Deliver

ICICI is strongly of the opinion that value is not just based on the price of the product or the
discounts offered. In fact, customer perceptions of value are based on a number of factors
including the quality of products and service, convenience, speed, ease of use, responsiveness,
and service excellence.

•Acquire and Retain

The more ICICI learns about customers, the easier it is to pinpoint those that are producing the
greatest value for the organisation. Successful customer retention basically involves getting it
“right” on an ongoing basis. And that is exactly what ICICI group aims to achieve out of its
CRM initiatives.
Successful customer retention is based very simply on the organisation’s ability to constantly
deliver on three principles:
 Maintain interaction; never stop listening to customers
 Deliver on customer’s value definition. Remember that customers change as they move
through differing life stages; be alert for the changes and be prepared to modify the service
and value proposition as they change.

•Prioritizing Changes

Because there might be many gaps, therefore many changes that an organisation will
need to make, prioritization was critical. The evaluation of each of the strategies
identified to resolve the gaps at ICICI were based on:
 Cost to implement – including initial one time costs, as well as anticipated ongoing expenses.
 Overall benefit – some changes may have higher impacts on an organisation’s ability to
increase customer value and loyalty.
 Feasibility – based on the organisation readiness, data and systems support, resource skill sets
and a number of other factors.
 Time Required – including the time necessary for training and addressing “cultural” change
management issues related to a specific strategy

•Creating an Action Plan

The next step in the planning process was the development of a very detailed action plan.
While the complete plan might span three or more years, it was based on three-month
phases with clear deliverables that will demonstrate both progress and quick hits or
measures of success. The plan identified interdependent activities and should
comprehensively detail the time and resources required for each activity.
Another key factor for the planning process was the Leadership Action Plan. Advancing
on the CRM transformation map required significant organisation change. This part of the
action plan helped assess the drivers and restraints of change and the organisation’s
readiness to assess the change.
Selecting and Implementing a Technology Based Solution
Technology
The success of the CRM initiatives were contingent on various decisions pertaining to
technology. Some of the key issues were: -
(a) Make or Buy: - The decision to buy was based on an evaluation of an identified set of
criteria. Some criteria were Functionality, Flexibility, Scalability, Fit with existing
architecture, etc. was decided to purchase an off-the-shelf CRM solution and customize it to
suit ICICI’s requirements.
(b) From whom to buy: Some Criteria included were CRM expertise, Retail Finance Experience,
Credentials including financials, client list, life history, etc. A detailed Request for
Information (RFI) was sent to each of the shortlisted companies. After receiving the RFIs,
another round of evaluation was done. After shortlisting two product vendors and system
integrators, reference calls were made to several of the past clients of all shortlisted
companies.
Processes
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