|
|
Set up the CRM Department
Q&A Session Between G-CEM Advisors and Members
Mr. Paul Ward
Vice President, Customer Experience, YourMusicOn
G-CEM International Partner (US)
www.Pkward.com
This article is exclusively written for G-CEM.
Question:
We are a conglomerate engaging in the information technology business. Most of our customer groups are direct end-users. The Company is structured as Headquarter, Regional Office, Branch Office; while in terms of functional departments, we have Marketing Department, Sales Department, Service Department etc. Under such a structure, how should we set up the CRM department (team) and what types of position should we have?
Answer:
1. First decide how your customers vary in their needs and aspirations in working with companies like yours. This requires qualitative input (interviews and focus groups). Based on the variations in their needs and aspirations, create a set of customer segments. Segmenting by what customers value is critical to keeping your organization competitive.
2. Then model the kinds of prospect and customer interactions these customer segments would like. For example, if one customer segment is the "advanced IT user who needs regular communication on project status", you could develop a tool that automatically alerts your staff to prepare a simple weekly report. This could even be a small value-added service you could charge for! Another customer segment might be "beginning end-user requiring frequent help desk access". Here you might look at ways to provide this person help in cost-effective but highly valued ways.
3. Once you've done these first two steps, determine which business processes you must support to create the greatest perceived value across all your segments, for an operational cost you can sustain. Look at the current and future value of different customers to determine whether you can sustain these processes. You may end up dividing your customer segments into "high return, medium return, low return, negative return" categories. Based on these criteria, you can determine how to service your customers optimally for highest value.
4. For prospecting using "contact management", make sure the entire enterprises shares the same data. Each record should identify a prospect by a unique identifier that stays with that person throughout their relationship with you. This prospecting database can be a source for your customer relationship management (CRM) data sources once your prospect has become a customer. This allows you to leverage a uniform data model that is customer centric across the entire lifetime of the person, from prospect identification to when they "leave" you for good.
5. As a result of 4, you should consider a WAN or extranet to make sure all your business units and customer-facing personnel can access records. The challenge is to keep track of interactions and report relevant information, all while keeping out of sight any information that is private or sensitive. You must also train employees to use this system and get their feedback in improving it. Your front-line personnel often know far more about your customers than senior management do! And they also are critical to providing excellent customer service, which drives repeat business and word of mouth.
6. To determine your budget for this "project", you must first decide whether it in fact is a project with a defined end, or a cost of doing business. We generally assume that CRM is not a project, but a strategy. With that assumption in mind, you must then determine how you can improve your margins to support the extra ongoing cost of superior CRM. This is done in Step 1 -- find out what your customer segments really want, in what order, with what weighting. If you deliver on these points, then you'll be able to charge more than competitors. Also, look hard to improving efficiency in every customer-facing process. This can eliminate operational expenses that destroy, rather than create, customer value.
About the Author
Paul Ward provides business management and web services consulting to global and domestic companies and non-profits. He has created digital strategies for the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), and created web sites enforcing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's coverage of film properties internationally. A former senior consultant for USWeb/CKS, Paul has worked on web services and marketing strategies for national and global product roll-outs, working with companies ranging from Philips NV and Apple Computer to Jean-Michel Cousteau and the Estate of Isaac Asimov. Recent clients include governance service provider Axentis, the Department of Commerce's Commercial Law Development Program (CDLP), the International Society of Pharmaceutical Engineers and Bill Clinton's Global Fairness Initiative (GFI).
Mr. Ward lectures and writes regular columns on web branding and web marketing as well as non-profit globalization strategies. He is a recognized authority on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Perceived Customer Value (PCV). He has been an invited speaker for a variety of organizations including The American Society of Association Executives, Cornell University, CLDP's Eastern European AmCham seminar and the Greater China CRM Conference in Shanghai. He serves as the Vice President for Sponsor Relations for the CRM Association of America. Mr. Ward is currently pursuing his global executive MBA with TRIUM, a joint degree program conferred by the London School of Economics, the HEC School of Management - Paris and NYU Stern School of Business. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Davidson College (North Carolina).
Ms. Mei Lin Fung, G-CEM International Partner (US)
www.g-cem.org
Answer:
The best CRM organization/department set up I have seen was at Intel.
This recommendation is based on that set up.
It is a tightly integrated combined sales, marketing and customer contact organization.
The different groups are:
1. Product Marketing
2. Customer Marketing
3. Marketing Communications Department who support all the functions: 1,2,4,5,6 in getting messages and prospect and customer support out through the web, advertising and other channels. They also provide the function called Corporate Communications e.g. Press Relations, Investor Relations.
4. Sales - works closely with the CME's who were responsible for their customer. For example sales people who sold to the government report to the Sales manager. But they also worked closely with the CME who cover Government, so that the CME's can work the internal problems to make the business work better for that segment of customers.
5. Customer Contact Center - Technical and General Service and support
6. Field Technical Support
Let me explain what these groups do.
Groups 1 and 2 - Intel identified the key product and customer segments important for the business and created two functions called Product Marketing and Customer Marketing.
In the Product Marketing function, 1 person was designated responsible for each of the the Key products, e.g. the person in charge of Middleware marketing was called the Middleware Product Marketing Engineer, or Middleware PME.
In Customer Marketing, 1 person was designated responsible for each for the key customer segments, e.g. Government person was called the Government Customer Marketing Engineer, or Government CME. The Government CME makes sure that Government customers are well-informed, supported and their needs anticipated and met at the beginning, middle and end of their interaction with the company.
The Middleware PME would work closely with the CME's for each of the key customer segments to make sure their products met the needs of their customer segment.
The Government CME would work closely with all the other groups, 1,3,4,5,6 and explain the expectations and needs of the Government customers to make sure the Government customers have the support they needed from the rest of the company.
Group 3 - these are people who are good at writing and graphic design, and design and oversee the website. An excellent example is at National Semiconductor where their website has been a key competitive advantage for the whole organization.
Group 4 - Sales work closely with their CME, Customer Contact Center and Field Technical Support. They work with them to solve the short term customer problems and let the organization know about medium and long term customer needs that are unmet.
Group 5 - The Contact Center works closely with Sales, PME's and Field Technical support to provide the timely and responsive services to keep the customers and prospects interested in doing business with their company. They inform the CME's of unmet needs and missed opportunities.
Group 6 - Field Technical support work closely with Sales and the Contact Center and the PME's to provide the input and feedback about what customers are looking for and what they are missing in the current products. They work with the CME's to devise solutions to meet unmet customer needs. The CME's follow up within the organization to address these needs.
This form of organization helped Intel grow from under $1 Billion in sales to the powerhouse it is today. It is very effective in creating excellent customer relationships and aligning all customer-facing functions so that they together work closely to anticipate and meet customer needs.
This is just a very quick overview, please ask me any follow up questions you might have.
About the Author
Mei Lin Fung has been working in CRM before it was called CRM, at Intel and later at Oracle where Tom Siebel recruited her to work on what everyone thought was a wild and crazy scheme to make sales and marketing more productive by using technology. She's been a keen observer the journey CRM has made from Sales Force Automation to seeing CRM become integrated tightly with Call Centers, emerging as the "Customer Interaction Heart" of the business. She works in the US, Singapore and China on Certification and Training for the Experience Economy.
|
About the author
Paul is a strategist providing customer relationship management (CRM) and customer experience management (CEM) consulting for growth-focused enterprises. Currently VP of Customer Experience at a new high-tech consumer startup. He leads management strategy seminars in Asia, Europe and North America.
Paul is a graduate of the TRIUM Global Executive MBA program (ranked #3 globally by Financial Times) through London School of Economics, NYU-Stern, and Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC). His studies took place in Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Paris, New York, and London. As part of TRIUM he also studied with Hong Kong University of Science & Technology and in Sao Paulo with Funda??o Dom Cabral [FDC]. Currently head of the TRIUM alumni steering committee, Paul is organizing events in Shanghai, Florence, San Francisco and Paris. He lectured at Cornell University on Internet trends, social networks and the impact of the Web on economics and globalization. He also lectured at American University (Washington DC) and Robert H. Smith School of Business (University of Maryland, USA) on customer experience management, competitiveness and brand equity. Paul is also the editorial board member of CRM Today.
|
|
Email to Friends |
Print
|
|
|
|
| Top |
|
|
