Six steps to elevating customer communication and relationshipsCustomer relationship management programs often fail to realize any meaningful benefit -- usually because organizations approach them as technology initiatives rather than business initiatives. Six steps can help your organization enhance relationships and your potential for return. Seeking a leg up in competitive markets, many organizations pursue customer relationship management (CRM) strategies as a means of "getting closer" to their customers. But according to The Gartner Group, some 55 percent of CRM initiatives fail to deliver any measurable benefit. Why? There are a variety of reasons, but one of the most common factors is when organizations count on a new system to improve the way they interact with customers and prospects. But systems don't form the basis for relationships. People do. Customer relationship management is way of doing business centered on the principles of understanding customers and building profitable relationships. In other words, a new name for an old concept: knowing your customer. It is often supported by technology tools, but to gain the greatest benefit from those tools, they first must be closely aligned with business and customer strategy. Maximize your investment.For most, implementing a CRM approach involves a significant financial investment -- and probably an even greater investment of time. Taking six critical steps can increase your chances of developing a program that your organization can embrace and that elevates the quality of your communication and relationships. - Establish a clear vision and goals for integrated customer communication that your executive team understands and supports. Involving executives and key stakeholders in the development of this vision not only builds consensus around a solution; it helps gain the vital executive sponsorship necessary for obtaining broader adoption within the organization.
- Enhance your relationship-management business processes with supporting CRM, campaign management and Internet technologies -- not the other way around. Take the time to clarify your vision for how your organization will interact with its customers and stakeholders. Doing so will, in most cases, simplify and clarify the process of selecting the right supporting tools.
- Deploy an integrated change management plan that is focused maximizing user adoption of new systems and ways of working. A best practices CRM implementation plan emphasizes the importance of human interaction and behavior changes and incorporates, among other things, targeted internal communication, appropriate methods of training and end-user support, and performance metrics that enable you to determine whether your change efforts are successful.
- Use your web site and email marketing campaigns to facilitate and automate user data collection. Good data is vital to effective communication, particularly as your organization and its base of contacts grow. Take advantage of the two-way nature of these communication channels, and use of them to ensure that your organization always has up-to-date customer information, including interests and communication preferences.
- Integrate your registration processes for email/campaign management and "special" Internet functions, such as access to password-protected content. These functions may involve separate applications. Enabling them to "talk" will eliminate redundant activity and improve the quality of information in your systems and, more importantly, in users' hands as they interact with customers.
- Understand and apply legal requirements and best practices for email marketing (e.g., CAN-SPAM). The way your organization interacts with clients through electronic channels can have a strong bearing on the quality of personal relationships. Make sure that these supporting communication tools do not undermine the real basis of your relationships -- personal contacts.
In future issues of this newsletter, we will look more closely at each of these strategies. West Monroe Partners assists organizations with all facets of customer relationship management -- from strategy and vision, to process, to software selection, to communication strategy and channels, to change management to implementation. For more information, please contact
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