IT TOOLS FOR

CRM
UNIT II

By : Seema Agarwal
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 II Information Technology for C.R.M

 What is E-C.R.M :-
– Since mid 90’s, C.R.M. Has been enhanced by
various types of information technologies –
making use of it tools & devices.
– Term E-C.R.M. was used when customers
started using web browsers, the internet &
other electronic touch points (e-mail. Pos
terminals, call centres & direct sales).

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– E-C.R.M. Also includes online process
applications such as segmentation &
personalization.
– Use of internet, intranets & extranets made
customer service as well as services to partners
much more effective & efficient than it was
before the internet.
– With internet technologies, data generated
about customers can be easily fed into
marketing, sales & customer service
applications & analysis.
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– In the world connected by internet, E-CRM has
become a requirement for survival, not just a
competitive advantage.
– E-CRM covers a broad range of tools &
methods, ranging from the proper design of
digital products & services to pricing & loyalty
programs.
– Almost all medium & large companies today
use the web as a customer support channel.
– CRM application on the web can take many
forms, ranging from providing Search &
comparison capabilities to allowing customers4

to track orders.
CRM Applications
 Classification of C.R.M. Application
1. Customer Facing Application
– These include all the areas where customers
interact with the company
– call centres/help desk/sales force automation
& field service automation.
– Such C.R.M. Applications basically automate
the information flow or supports employees in
these areas.
Multiple Channels

Telephone E-mail Web Mobile Devices

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Customer-facing is a hardware or software
product, technology, or anything that the
customer of a business deals with directly.
This can include
 user interface of a software  application
 help desk that a customer can phone into
any mailing or other contact that a customer
receives

Since both customers and companies perceive

value in a company's keeping track of and
anticipating customer needs, customer-facing 7
software is integral part of  
CRM Applications
2. Customer touching applications
– In this category, customers interact directly
with the applications
– Self service (ticketing on line), campaign
mgmt.
– On web & general purpose e-commerce
applications.
‾ Search and Comparison
‾ Technical Information
‾ FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
‾ Community systems (reviews, discussion,
etc) 9
 3. CUSTOMER-CENTRIC INTELLIGENCE
APPLICATIONS
• These are applications that are intended to
analyze the results of operational processing
• use the analysis to improve C.R.M. Applications.
• Can add value to a company by enabling it to
differentiate itself from competitors
• The customer-centric scorecard provides
managers with the vital customer data that drives
performance.
•  Using the scorecard and dashboards, managers
are not only able to watch the long term trends in
customer data, but can also be alerted when
shifts and changes in the customer base require10
action. 
Smart organizations can build an information system used
to sense and respond in their business environment using
dashboard technology. 
Four of the key requirements of a customer-centric
dashboard program are:
1) Provides graphical, real-time views of key performance
indicators to assess the health of customer loyalty
2) Integrates alert management when key measures fall
below the target performance level and variance setting
established for the particular metric
3) Provide staff with a way to drill down into the data that
underlie each key performance indicator to locate the
source of potential problems
4) Issues alerts to individuals responsible for the duties
underlying each key performance indicator to initiate
damage control. 11

Ex.-Data ware housing & data mining.

 CUSTOMER FACING APPLICATION
- Customer Interaction Centre (or web-based) call
centres) (CIC) a comprehensive service entity in
which e-commerce vendors address customer
service issues communicated thru’ various channels
of contact.
– Providing well trained customer service with access
to data such as customer history, previous contact
etc.

– E-CRM applications improve traditional

customer service by easier communication &
speedier resolution of customer problems
frequently by automatic response 12to
questions or by Customer Self Service.
– Automated response to e-mail
(auto responder)
– Auto responder
– Most popular on-line customer service tool is e-
mail.
– Inexpensive & fast, e-mail is used to
disseminate information & to conduct
correspondence including response to customer
queries.
– Ease of sending e-mail message has resulted in
a flood of customer e-mail (tens of thousands of
e-mail sometimes a day)
– Answering these e-mails manually would 13be
time consuming & expensive.
- Customers want quick answer usually within
24 hrs.
– Automated e-mail reply systems are used
(text files), which provide answers to
commonly asked questions.
– They can relay standard information for
support of customer service, marketing &
promotions.
– The e-gain system, for example looks for
certain phrases or key words like “complaint”
or “information on product” & then queries
into a knowledge base to generate 14 a
matching response.
• Messages that require human attention area
ssigned an id no. & Passed along to a
customer agent to reply.

– Sales force automation

Software that automates the tasks performed

by sales people in the field such as data
collection & its transmission.
Ex.:- Use of wireless device that allows quick
communication with corporate intranet. 15
Field service automation
Sales rep./Service rep. are on the move & they
interact directly with customers.
Technology applications manage customer
service requests.
They provide planning, scheduling, dispatching
& reporting features to field service reps.

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 Customer touching applications

– Customers use computer programs rather than

interacting with people.
Ex:- personalized web page:- many companies
provide customers with tools to create their own
individual web pages (ex: my yahoo)
– Companies can deliver customized information
such as product/warranty information when
customers log on to this.
– Not only customer can pull information from
vendor site, the vendor also can push
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information
 Web self service

– Activities conducted by users on the web to

provide answers to their questions.
Ex:- tracking thru’ web or product configuration.

 Campaign management

– This automates marketing campaign activities.

Ex: on-line advertisement & analyse responses
to offers. 18

 
 Campaign Management

– In the highly completive environment, the web revolution

has made internet a channel of mass personalized
communication.

– In order to inform customers about various products &

finally sell them, marketing function should regularly
conduct marketing campaign.

– To launch a new product in a particular region.

– Test marketing a new product.

– Increase visibility of a product thru’ advertisement/target

marketing. 19

– Campaign to build brand image.

– Re-launch an old product with new features.

– Campaign for specific occasions.

– Many CRM vendors have introduced specialised

campaign mgmt. s/w targeted to meet above.

– These s/w products help mktg. To plan, design,

execute & measure the effectiveness of a
campaign.

– They help segmenting the customers & develop

targeting & positioning strategies for each
segment, defining products that match customer
requirement, help in pricing & selecting distribution
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channel.
 CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT
SOFTWARE
  3 main components:
• marketing automation software
• analytics platforms
• new delivery methods
• Channels like email, on social media platforms, on company websites,
communities and blogs, and on mobile devices.

As the technology has become more sophisticated, it has enabled more tasks to be
automated, more personalized messaging and marketing content.

marketing campaign should address audience segmentation, content development, email

automation, omni channel communication and message personalization.

Audience segmentation. The first step in marketing campaign management is to define

and categorize audience segments (also known as customer segmentation). Marketers
often use demographic information such as age, gender, residence or location as
attributes to define categories, along with numerous other predefined attributes. Audience
segmentation enables marketers to target campaign messages and content to the
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appropriate recipients.
Customer Centric Applications
– Data Reports :- CRM data need to be
collected, processed, analyzed and stored.
– Data reports presents raw or processed CRM
related information which managers / analysts
can view & analyze.

– Data Warehouse:- a single server based data

repository that allows Centralized Analysis,
Security & Control over Data - a centralized
Repository
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– Data warehouse can be effective CRM tool
containing customer information from various
touch points,
– Information about company product &
services,
– Information about company’s marketing,
sales & service initiative & customer response
to them.

Data warehouse is an important constituent

of CRM eco system – subject oriented ,
integrated , time varying, non volatile
collection of data used for organizational23
decision making
– It forms basic infrastructure on which
data mining & other analytical
applications are run.

– A customer centric organization uses a

number of channels to engage in an
effective manner & data warehouse
provides much better information
integration to the decision maker along
with other information such as
demographic, competitor info. etc.
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 DATA MART
 data mart a subset of a data warehouse
that supports the requirements of particular
department or business function
 The characteristics that differentiate data
marts and data warehouses include:
 A data mart focuses on only the requirements of users
associated with one department or business function
 Data marts do not normally contain detailed
operational data, unlike data warehouses
 as data marts contain less data compared with data
warehouses, data marts are more easily understood
and navigated
DATA WAREHOUSE
ARCHITECTURE
 Data Warehouse server
 almost always a relational DBMS
 OLAP servers
 to support and operate on multi-dimensional data
structures
 Clients
 Query and reporting tools
 Analysis tools
 Data mining tools
VERY LARGE DATA BASES

 Terabytes -- 10^12 bytes: Walmart -- 24 Terabytes

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 Petabytes -- 10^15 bytes: Geographic Information
Systems
 Exabytes -- 10^18 bytes: National Medical Records

 Zettabytes -- 10^21 bytes:Weather images

 Zottabytes -- 10^24 bytes:Intelligence Agency

Videos
DATA WAREHOUSE FOR DECISION
SUPPORT & OLAP
 PuttingInformation technology to
help the knowledge worker make
faster and better decisions
 Which of my customers are most likely to go to
the competition?
 What product promotions have the biggest
impact on revenue?
 How did the share price of software companies
correlate with profits over last 10 years?
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DECISION SUPPORT
 Used to manage and control business
 Data is historical or point-in-time
 Optimized for inquiry rather than
update
 Useof the system is loosely defined and
can be ad-hoc
 Usedby managers and end-users to
understand the business and make
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judgments
DATA MINING WORKS WITH
WAREHOUSE

 DataWarehousing
provides the Enterprise
with a memory

 Data Mining provides

the Enterprise with
intelligence
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 Data mining & C.R.M.

– Data mining is another analytic activity that involves

sifting thru’ an immense amount of data to discover
previously unknown patterns.

– Large companies generate huge volume of data

thru’ daily transaction. Analyzing such large qty. of
data require different approach than traditional
analysis approach such as statistics, AI etc.

– This has developed the field of knowledge discovery

in database (KDD), more popularly known as data
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mining.
WE WANT TO KNOW ...
 Given a database of 100,000 names, which persons are
the least likely to default on their credit cards?
 Which types of transactions are likely to be fraudulent
given the demographics and transactional history of a
particular customer?
 If I raise the price of my product by Rs. 2, what is the
effect on my ROI?
 If I offer only 2,500 airline miles as an incentive to
purchase rather than 5,000, how many lost responses
will result?
 If I emphasize ease-of-use of the product as opposed to
its technical capabilities, what will be the net effect on
my revenues?
 Which of my customers are likely to be the most loyal?
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Data Mining helps extract such information

 APPLICATION AREAS

Industry Application
Finance Credit Card Analysis
Insurance Claims, Fraud Analysis
Telecommunication Call record analysis
Transport Logistics management
Consumer goods promotion analysis
Data Service providers Value added data
Utilities Power usage analysis

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DATA MINING IN USE
 The US Government uses Data
Mining to track fraud
 A Supermarket becomes an
information broker
 Basketball teams use it to track
game strategy
 Cross Selling
 Warranty Claims Routing
 Holding on to Good Customers
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 Weeding out Bad Customers
 Some real life examples where CRM aided by
results from data mining tools have made a
difference to the ability to retain & serve
customers & profitability.

A. Churn model in Telecom:-

– Telecom market is growing rapidly with stiff
competition. Frequently clients switch
companies.
– If companies are able to predict which
customers are likely to leave in near future, then
possibly can target those to retain them. 35
– Data mining can help in this area.
– A churn model predicts which customers are
likely to leave, using attributes of customers
who left the company recently,- decision tree
models etc.
– Can be used to help extracting the attributes
of the ‘churners’ (i.E customers who are likely
to switch companies).
– These models are then applied to the existing
customer base to identify customers who
have similar attributes.
– Identified customers can be given special 36
attention to retain them.
B. Understanding buying patterns in Super
markets:-
– Super markets sell huge volume of goods of
diverse types, at a competitive price.
– Data scanners are used at check out
counters, which generate huge volume of
data.
– These data’s can be used very profitably to
understand buying behavior of their
customers.

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– Rule of association & algorithms are used.
They find out items & sets of items that sell
together.
– This knowledge can be profitably used to:

1. Design discount coupons.

2. Design display space.
3. Manage inventory.
4. Separate item combinations that do not sell
together etc.
5. Remind customers of items they would like to
buy together.
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C. Data mining in Banking & Insurance sector
– Banks & insurance companies have many
customers whom much is already known -
demographic information. The customer fills for
availing service.
– These companies typically have many products:-
savings a/c, credit card, loans, d-mat service
etc. With insurance company - they have
different policies.
– Companies try to sell other products to
customers.

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 Ex: try selling a life insurance or family
insurance to a customer who already
purchased a health insurance.

– Companies adopt such practices since it is

cheaper to sell more to a customer & retain
rather than search for a new one.

– Instead of sending mailer or contact all, they

can segment potential buyers of new product
with data mining-segmenting the data base
with classification algorithms-who are likely to
respond. 40
Product offering & in C.R.M. Market space

– Many CRM s/w vendors in the market offering

CRM s/w with various functionalities & support
different operations of a firm.
– With rapid growth in telecom & it, capability of
CRM solutions have changed drastically.
– It has become difficult to compare products
from different s/w vendors & evaluate them
before purchase.

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 Some of the functional & technical
requirements for CRM solutions are :-

1) Business intelligence & analytical ability

2) Support for web based functionality
3) Centralized storage for both customer &
other enterprise information
4) Integrated workflow for business rules &
procedures
5) Integration with ERP & other applications.

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 Functionality of CRM application can be
categorized into:

1. Sales application – sales force automation.

2. Marketing application – campaign

management.

3. Customer service & support application. 

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Almost all C.R.M. s/w in the market
provide following capabilities
1. Category mgmt.
2. Promotion mgmt.
3. Demand planning
4. Interactive selling
5. Sales & service contact centre
6. Analytical capability
7. Contract mgmt.
8. Account mgmt.
9. Campaign mgmt.
10. Automatic routing capability
11.Workflow mgmt.
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12.Mobile sales & service support.
Following criteria for evaluating the
Technological solutions for CRM
1. Catering to multiple channels of interaction – including
phone/mobile, internet, fax etc. Customers use variety
of channels & expect firms to support that.
2. Compatibility with existing infrastructure - should be
able to integrate with existing it infrastructure. –
Compatible s/w.
3. Scalability – should be able to cater to higher load with
same performance.
4. Flexibility to incorporate changes & upgradability –
important criteria since increased use or growth of
business may require new capability.
5. Experience in implementation:- the vendor should have
adequate experience in implementing its products. 45
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ADVANCED ANALYTICS, MACHINE LEARNING AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
(AI) WILL REVOLUTIONIZE CRM IN THE NEXT THREE YEARS. LOOK TO THE FIVE
MARKET LEADERS IN 2015 TO INVEST HEAVILY IN THESE AREAS WITH THE
GOAL OF BUILDING PATENT PORTFOLIOS AND INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEY OWN. 

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 CRM Implementation Road Map &
Implementation issues

– CRM implementation road map helps a firm to

develop a positive cultural acceptance of CRM
– The road map enables the firm to deal with
the organizational changes, new business,
customer needs & CRM technologies

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 Stages
1) Scenario analysis
2) Purpose & objectives
3) Business planning
4) Process design
5) Technology & vendor selection
6) Solution development
7) Implementation
8) Measurement
CRM stratyegy implementation road map 50
 A CRM strategy implementation road
map

1. Scenario analysis
– Creation of an enterprise CRM strategy requires
a firm to take a hard look at its business &
environment. Firm needs to ask:-
– What is the business of the firm?
– Who are the customers?
– Where the firm is placed w.R.T competitors? If
the firm has a monopoly, may not need full CRM
approach.
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– What is the present business scenario & how is
it likely to evolve in future-short/medium & long
terms?
2.Purpose & objective
– Firm needs to define its purpose for going in for
a C.R.M. Exercise.
– This may be to build more effective, efficient &
long-lasting relationship, do not embark on
CRM just because competitors have done so or
it is the latest fad in the industry.
3.Planning
– After defining the objective of CRM, planning
phase includes
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 Documentation of high level CRM goal in the
form of a business document.
– Focus for strategy development.
– Planning involves details of what needs to be
done & identify people who would be involved
& responsible.
– Many fundamental changes may happen due to
planning exercise these include:-
– Business focus
– Organisational structure
– Business technology

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– Marketing focus
– Team needs to be formed for change
management.
4.Process design
– CRM requires changing the entire focus of the
organisation to customer centric with the
process & operations getting designed around
the customer.
– Firm looks at current processes and try to
redesign the processes to make them more
customers focused.
– Effectiveness & efficiency of these processes
are considered at this stage.
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5. Technology & vendor selection
– At this stage, various technology & vendors are
evaluated.
– Factors like capability, functionality cost,
integration etc are considered.
6. Solution development
– This stage consists of various activities such as
customisation of features, development of new
features that are not present in the product,
process integration & design the database.
– Some times integration of different

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 CRM solutions with each other & also with
backend systems takes place at this stage.
7. Implementation
– In this final stage, the organization deploys the
CRM solution & documents it.
– End users need to be trained & the system
needs to be sold internally so that it is used.
8. Measurement
– The final stage of CRM implementation road
map involves development of standards for

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 Measuring the performance of the CRM solution
& comparing it with the desired performance.
– If the CRM solution falls short of expectations,
the firm might go back & refine its CRM
expectations requirements.
– Developing standards, enable the firm to
measure the success of CRM implementation in
terms of how well it has solved business
problems.

Thus the development of CRM strategy & its

implementation as a road map consists of many
interrelated stages. All these Stages takes 57
place one after the other & require corrective
feed back at every stage.
– For example, from the measurement stage we
may find that the processes were incorrectly
designed & therefore we may with to go back &
correct them.

CRM strategy development is an enterprise wide

exercise & its success depends upon the
customer focus of the organization”.
 

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KEY LESSONS FOR CRM
IMPLEMENTATION

 Genuine top-level support within the organization is

essential

 Without the cooperation of each business unit, an

enterprise-wide implementation like CRM is not possible

 Data cleansing at the initial stages of an implementation

is crucial

 CRM training time should be planned well in advance, and

managed carefully

 CRM implementations come with extensive business

process reengineering and change management initiatives
 Issues in implementing a technology
solution for CRM
– Technology is just an enabler of CRM but there
are many issues that need to be kept in mind
by a firm before it ventures in to a technology
based solution.
– The issues are not just technical but also
involve many organizational & human aspects
– First & obvious aspect that needs to be
considered is the technology itself.
– First step is to define the business

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 Problem that needs to be solved & determine
what needs to be done to solve the problem.
– This may mean identifying relevant processes
that needs to be revamped using technology as
a driver.
– Second step is to specify the functionality to
meet the specified requirements.
– This requires identifying different aspects of the
customer focused processes that need to be
supported with technology.
– Third step is to define the products that support
the identified
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 Functionality.
 
 Make or buy:- many firms are offering CRM
solutions in the market place but a firm may
look at developing their own CRM systems
under following situations.
– Off the shelf package may be expensive
– Single CRM product can not provide core
functionalities.
– Firm wants a unique product today, mostly the
firms go for purchasing the product.

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