Professional Documents
Culture Documents
net/publication/266373774
CITATION READS
1 9,429
3 authors:
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
Study of Business Management Practices in different Poultry farming systems View project
All content following this page was uploaded by Sagar Surendra Deshmukh on 02 October 2014.
reasons, needs and requirements for bringing crm in the organization. Structural changes may
become necessary to bring new values and work culture in the organization.
1.1 What is e-Crm?
It is possible to maintain customer relationships only by consistently implementing well
proven customer bonding techniques like individualized customer care and communications,
special consideration for high-value customers, rewards for customer value and loyalty, and
customized products and services. However, with increase in the number of customers, it
becomes difficult to implement these techniques. Growth necessitates the implementation of
the best practices in customer relationship management with the use of sophisticated
technology.
This is possible only through proper dissemination of strategic, customer-focused decisions
and information, better known as Electronic Customer Relationship Management (e-CRM).
In other words e-CRM provides companies a means for conducting personalized, interactive
and relevant communication with customers across both electronic and traditional channels. It
focuses on understanding the effect of customer relationships on business.
With the help of Information Technology (IT), electronic CRM concentrates on the
management of all forms of relationships with customers. However, it has been wrongly
interpreted by some that e-CRM is an Internet-based CRM. Actually e-CRM has a broader
scope and focuses on the symbolic relationship of CRM strategy and the use of electronics
for facilitation of the same.
E-CRM integrates traditional CRM and e-business application. It makes possible for an
organization to extend its infrastructure to customers and partners in ways that offer new
opportunities of learning customer needs, gaining new economies, reaching new customers,
adding values and doing these in real time while it might sound very simple, achieving
effective e-CRM is itself a stupendous task. Companies agree that e-CRM is critical to their
business, but unfortunately very few understand exactly what it is or how to evolve an e-
CRM solution from their existing database marketing practices.
2. DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CRM AND E-CRM
Crm is a business strategy for creating and sustaining long-term, profitable customer
relationships. A business philosophy aligning company activities around customer needs is
the starting point of a successful crm initiative. The ability of taking care of customers via the
internet or the ability of customers to get customer care service online differentiates between
crm and e-crm. Consider a local shopkeeper who knew his customers' names and birthdays.
What is new is that, now the shopkeeper can use it to serve his customers on a much larger
scale.
This e-crm can be defined as activities for managing customer relationships with the use of
the internet, web browsers or other electronic touch points. However, the challenge is to
provide information on the right topic and at the right time that fits the customer's specific
needs.
These services include order tracking, product configuration and customization as well as
security/trust.
• Value-added services:
These are extra services such as online auctions and online training and education.
Self-services are becoming increasingly important in CRM activities. The rise of
the Internet and ecru has boosted the options for self-service activities. A critical success
factor is the integration of such activities into traditional channels. An example was Ford’s
plan to sell cars directly to customers via its Web Site, which provoked an outcry among its
dealers network. CRM activities are mainly of two different types. Reactive service is where
the customer has a problem and contacts the company. Proactive service is where the
manager has decided not to wait for the customer to contact the firm, but to be aggressive and
contact the customer himself in order to establish a dialogue and solve problems.
3. STEPS TO ECRM SUCCESS
Many factors play a part in ensuring that the implementation any level of eCRM is
successful. One obvious way it could be measured is by the ability for the system to add
value to the existing business. There are four suggested implementation steps that affect the
viability of a project like this:
1. Developing customer-centric strategies
2. Redesigning workflow management systems
3. Re-engineering work processes
4. Supporting with the right technologies
4. E-CRM STRATEGY AND TECHNOLOGY
To compete successfully in the present-day nigh-speed e-business market, e-CRM systems
must be built on top of a technology infrastructure addressing the requirements of the new
Internet-driven businesses. Successful CRM implementation will lead to the customer service,
sales and marketing people and everyone else in the organization to have a holistic view of
each and every customer. This will help them in making quick and informed decisions,
measuring marketing effectiveness, creating up-selling and cross-selling opportunities, and
delivering personalized customer care.
Not only the integration of information and customer touch points, an E-CRM strategy also
includes the training and empowerment of employees and the automation of systems that help
in customer interactions and communications. Customer relationship management is not the
responsibility of die marketing department only. It is a corporate-wide practice that requires
constant improvement on the company's ability of treating customers and prospects in ways
that promote loyalty and continued business. The role of IT is of immense importance and die
following functions are expected to be fulfilled through the use of IT:
4.1 Capturing data: Capturing the right data from identified sources is important for
successful implementation of e-CRM. The challenge in data capturing is that it should be in
diverse formats, for example, when a customer interacts with a bank, the following formats of
data are generated by using multiple channels.
• Customer interactions through e-mails
• ATM transactions
• Internet banking transactions
• Phone banking transactions
• Verbal and other written communications with the bank
Therefore, it is quite obvious that the data sources could generate diverse formats of data. In
the case mentioned above, the ATM transactions and die Internet banking transactions may
be easily captured since they follow structured processes. On the other hand, e-mail and
verbal transactions would generate data that may require voice recognition software to make
the data recognizable to die system. The accuracy of data is very important for correct
valuation and as such, data captured should be authentic and error free.
4.2 Assimilating data into databases: The data so captured above then needs to be
incorporated into a database and assimilated. Therefore, databases having proper design and
structure needs to be created as a part of the e-CRM tool. The database so generated should
fulfill the following criteria for successful implementation
• It should be robust and should enable transactions as and when desired by the users.
• It should be useable through standardization across all corporate data sources.
• It should direct application|-specific analytical processes in order to target homogeneous
customer segments.
• It should be able to collaborate data from all departmental steering committees for
everything from data mart design to strategy development.
• It should be able to produce strategies for launching marketing campaigns that
successfully integrate information, technology, and customer communications.
• Customer database should contain accurate, adequate, authentic and up-to-date data
pertaining to the customers of the organization.
• Future projections for the organization need to be kept in mind while capturing and
designing the formats.
• It should be able to support the number of users and manage the increased load,
i.e., the database should be scalable and be able to cater to the growth in the business.
• The database should be compatible with the existing IT infrastructure as all CRM
solutions are to be integrated with firm IT infrastructure like data warehousing, simply
chain management solutions, etc.
The database should be secure and the security of database should be ensured. Credit card
operations, for example, are very sensitive and security of transactions is very important.
Several organizations are, however, making efforts to centralize customer information and
make it accessible, use that information for a better understanding of the customer, and create
the ability of making decisions that impact certain customer communications.
The products offered by each one of them come with a host of functions and support services.
To compare products offered by each provider is complex and difficult in the wake of the fact
that each of them uses different terminologies to mean the same tiling. The older generation
of CRM solution providers might have provided limited interactivity using only HTML as the
standard; newer solutions might provide more interactive technologies like Java, CGI, ASP,
etc. Under such circumstances, to compare the different products and solutions becomes a
little difficult. Some of the functional and technical requirements of CRM solutions remain
the same across all spheres. These are enumerated below.
• Business intelligence
• Analytical abilities
• Support for web-based functionality
• Centralized repository for both customer and other enterprise information
• Integrated workflow for business rules
• Integration with other ERP and enterprise-wide applications.
• Sales applications - Sales Force Automation (SEA)
• Marketing applications - Campaign Management (CMA)
• Customer Service and Support Applications (CSS)
There is an exhaustive list of CRM solutions providers, but here are a few of them listed for
your reference study.
Siebel CRM on Demand (www.siebel.com; www.cmiondeinand.com)
Oracle CRM (www.oracle.com
My Sap CRM (www.mysap.com)
People Soft (www. people soft.com)
Microsoft CRM (www.microsoft.com)
Onyx CRM (www.onyx.com)
Talisma (www.talisma.com)
6. CURRENT STATUS OF E-CRM IN INDIAN BANKS
Internet has enabled banking at the click of the mouse. At present there are five functional
categories for online banking sites – on line brochure center, interactive bank, e-mails,
calculations and cyberbanks, which offer customers access to account information, inter-
branch funds transfer and utility bill payments. Banks have tied up with service providers in
telecom and power sectors like MTNL, BSES and cellular service providers for allowing
their customers to make bill payments online. In India, new private sector banks like ICICI
Bank, HDFC Bank, Global Trust Bank and UTI Bank, have taken the lead in e-banking.
Among the foreign banks, Citibank, has noticeable presence, while others like Federal Bank,
HSBC Bank, Deutsche Bank and ABN Amro Bank, are moving towards becoming big
players in e-banking. Even the state run banks like SBI and Union Bank of India have
realised the advantages of such services.
ICICI Bank, the first bank to offer e-banking services in India has more than one lakh regular
internet user accounts, of which more than 25 percent are of NRIs. The bank has viewed
advanced information technology as a managerial and competitive tool and has tried to
harness technology to the maximum possible extent to deliver superior customer services.
The Bank has emerged leader in B2B and B2C initiatives. B2B solutions (i-payments) aim at
facilitating online supply-chain management to it corporate clients by linking them with their
suppliers and dealers in a closed business loop. All members in this loop are required to
maintain the account with the bank. This product has gained considerable market acceptance
and the bank has already entered into memorandum of understanding with over 100 large
Indian companies.
The Bank became the first bank in India to introduce utility bill payment through Internet.
Bank has entered into tie-ups with leading telecom companies such as MTNL, Tata
teleservices, VSNL and cellular operators such as BPL Mobile, Airtel and Usha Martin. Tie-
ups have been established with BEST & BSES for electricity payment in Mumbai. The bank
with its net banking service called ‘Infinity’ goes a step forward by allowing the account
holder to transfer fund into another person’s account with the bank. Also one can intimate
about the loss of an ATM card over the net when using Infinity. Corporate sector can issue
letter of credit and make inquiries regarding bills sent for collection via this service. It also
provides facility for nicknaming all accounts to avoid remarking lengthy accounts number.
UTI bank has tied up with Cosmat Max, to create a communication network for its
customers. The network will have 50 VSAT terminals at strategic locations, which will help
in ATM servicing and internal management information system. The bank has signed a
memorandum of understanding with equitymaster.com for e-brokering activities of the site.
This will enable the bank to leverage its database for e-commerce and other initiatives with
data-warehousing and data-mining, where information of the customer spending habits will
be used to sell other correlated products like credit cards.
HDFC Bank has, for the first time in India made the e-shopping experience secure online and
real time with the launch of its payment gateway. This will allow any visa/Master credit card
holder anywhere in the world to make payments for global services over the Internet. The
bank has tied up with 15 portals and is in talk with several others to offer secure business to
customer e-com transactions. The first secure, on-line and real-time e-com. credit card
transaction in the country was done on the Easy.2 shoppe.com shopping mall, enabled by
HDFC bank on a Visa card, heralding the launch of the payment gateway. HDFC Bank also
offers a direct debit option whereby its customer can pay for the goods or services by a secure
password enabled transfer of funds from their account to the merchant account. The state run
public sector bank, the State Bank of India (SBI) made a quiet foray into net banking. The
country’s largest commercial bank launched on-line SBI - an account browsing facility over
the Net for customers in eight select branches including four NRI branches.