The 12 blocks for successful Customer Relationship Management

Here are the 12 blocks for successful Customer Relationship Management

1. Customer database

A customer-related database is a convenient tool for interaction at all levels. This, of course, includes conventional data such as

• Addresses
• Contact Person,
• Contact info,
• Customer history,
• Contact history,
• Order and sales information,
• Product and service relevant details.

The database is available at every customer contact. The respective contact person, whether internal service, sales force, service or manager, is up to date when contacting.

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2. Product and service database

Starting from the item list through prices to interactive product configurators, the entire range of product information for customers and employees is covered. The products also include any services offered.

Field staff and call centre staff can provide competent product information and service.

3. Marketing

Electronically-assisted marketing has a variety of direct marketing, action marketing, data centre, field and field integration, planning, execution and monitoring capabilities for marketing campaigns:

• Freely definable, coupled campaign steps;
• Mailings, telesales, events, seminars;
• Definition of responsibilities;
• Participation determination directly, by inquiry, or in coordination with sales;
• Generation of form letters, faxes, e-mails via standard office packages or by data export for external processing;
• Reverse registration with the automatic takeover in further campaign steps;
• Transfer of contact to call centre or sales;
• Cost, effort and result control.

Bidirectional coupling of e-commerce websites:

• Tailor-made integration of the customer's web interactions into the sales and marketing processes;
• Forwarding to the call centre;
• Updating the customer and contact history;
• automatic notification of sales and partner (s);
• Evaluation of product orders and development of customer profiles;
• Integration of web customers in marketing campaigns.

For modern marketing, this tool is indispensable.

4. Sales Force

The "Sales Force" module is the tool for the field service. It enables the provision of sales-relevant data for all persons with customer contact:

• Master data and profiles of the interested parties, customers, partners, competitors and all contact persons;
• Caregivers, roles, relationships, segmentation and status;
• Filtering according to any query criteria;
• complete communication history and document filing (calls, appointments, attendance reports and correspondence);
• Notification of changes or non-performance;
• Project master data with status, probabilities and forecasts;
• Project history and progress control, costs and expenses, product-related planning with quantity, discount, planned dates and service data.

An employee-friendly module "Sales Force" is not an administrative hurdle, but the ideal support for the field service.

5. Call Center

A call centre controls all telephone contact points to the customer. New customer acquisition, customer service, appointments and action execution are essential components.

It is possible to integrate inbound and outbound campaigns in marketing and sales processes:

• Segmentation and grouping of calls;
• Recording service calls, complaints, product and information requests;
• Call forwarding and resubmission;
• Call Scripting;
• Lead handover to sales;
• CTI and ACD support;
• Autodialing and Caller ID.

The call centre is fully integrated into all customer relationship activities. Through direct access to customer and order data, it is possible to react individually to customer needs.

6. Customer Service

Web and call centre-based customer service solutions improve service efficiency and customer focus. This includes extensive knowledge databases, service training, coordination of service technicians, partner integration, information exchange, replacement, and wears part ordering. The whole range of customer service solutions is covered.

Helpdesk can be used to implement an efficient problem management system that also allows qualified reporting and thus supports the identification and elimination of problem areas.

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 7. Web portal

A portal solution means the integration of all sales and marketing activities using the internet or web technology in the sense of a virtual "enterprise marketplace". The entire product, service and information spectrum of a company is made available to existing and new customers. Protected areas are set up for employees and business partners.

The advantage is the uniform alignment of product information, marketing, shop solution, partner integration, employee integration, editorial content, customer service and service. The interactive approach makes the web portal the living medium of the company internally and externally.

8. Web shop

Essential for the successful web shop is the integration of the product configurator and the use of an intelligent ordering system. In principle, the classic printed catalogue, including ordering is now available online. The main advantage is the automatic order processing and the integration into the entire sales process:

• Orders can be taken directly from the website and are seamlessly passed on to order processing, shipping and bookkeeping.
• Sales are increased without additional personnel expenses.
• Decentralized integration of field offices, distributors and partners in the supported sales processes:
• Forwarding leads from the head office;
• Maintenance of customer and contact data;
• Forecasting;
• Enter contract and order information, provide up-to-date product and pricing information.
• Access via Internet browser independent of the client operating system; universal access via LAN, WAN or ISDN. 

9. Partner Hub

The quality of the integration of partners into the processes depends on the most seamless data exchange possible, for example, for the automatic forwarding of partial orders. On the one hand, the necessary balance between demarcation and openness must be found here. On the other hand, interfaces and procedures, best based on established standards, must be used to avoid expensive and less future-proof specialized solutions.

Ideally, sales and service partners are systematically integrated and can access sales, service, marketing and training activities.

10. Sales & Marketing Control

A constantly timely and largely automated reporting is the dream of business and sales management. Only in this way can short-term trends be quickly recognized and used. The meaning is less in a controlling approach: In the sense of comprehensive quality management, the operative employee can acknowledge the status of customer relationships and take appropriate measures.

Current and flexible evaluations of all information contained in the CRM system:

• Monitoring of sales and results;
• Sales pipeline with weighting;
• Project Progress;
• Call centre metrics;
• Expense and cost analysis;
• Customer and product statistics;
• Visualization of trends, deviations and exceptions;
• Analyzes of market shares, segmentation and competitive situations;
• Win/loss analysis; Integration of Business Intelligence tools. 

11. Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence is the central module of an E-CRM system. Here, the data is collected and processed. The information factor is becoming increasingly important for decision-making.

Companies that can effectively organize and analyze their vast amounts of data have a significant competitive advantage.

That's why "business intelligence", meaningfully using data warehousing, is increasingly becoming a key component of business strategy. Business Intelligence means front-end solutions that provide access to critical, legacy enterprise data. Crucial business information is thus available at the push of a button and is therefore possible to the decision-makers for quick analysis.

12. Web Security

Data and transmission security on the Web are crucial criteria for web-based e-commerce and CRM solutions. Payments and insider information must be protected.

The security needs of the user are by permanent use of near-term security systems, such. As a firewall or encryption. Intra-corporate and customer-related confidential data must be protected. Constantly updating security technology to adapt to ever-changing threat potential is also a must for an excellent e-CRM concept.

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