A study, done by renowned consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), reveals that companies that are organised around the customer are more likely to beat the current recession. In fact, customer-oriented companies grow at a rate higher than the average industry standard. In a down economy when customers are hard to find and still harder to be converted, harvesting customers, i.e., retaining and increasing revenues from existing customers becomes more important.

PwC, in association with The Indian Merchant’s Chamber and CRM 360o India, had organised 'CRM 360o India 2001', a conference and exposition focussing on call centres and Customer Relationship Management on October 18-19 at the World Trade Centre, Mumbai. The event tried to enable Indian companies to understand the importance of CRM.

Companies can use CRM as a competitive strategy. Competitors may copy a company’s products, marketing, services, but they cannot access the proprietary customer information or replicate the customer relationship. CRM involves organising all business processes of the company around the customer. CRM is equally applicable to B2B companies as it is to B2C companies.

A company can be called customer-oriented when every point of customer contact is designed to gain customer insight and this information is used to enhance customer relationship. These would include:
 

• Point of interaction such as sales call, sales service, bank branch
• Point of self-service such as ATM
• Point of communication such as Call centre
• Point of payment

• Single unified view of the customer: Everyone in the company has access to the same information about the customer be it the accounts or themarketing department. This can be ensured by storing all customer information, collected from every point of contact, at a centralised location.
• 24 X 7 access to the customer: Customers are increasingly demanding anytime anywhere access. Channels can be designed to provide this flexibility to customers. Banks are doing this through net banking.
• Cross-channel sales and marketing: Companies can allow customers to deal with the company through a greater variety of channels. For eg. GAP, a US retailer allows its customers to see and select products online but ensures that the same are picked up from the nearest store. This prevents channel conflicts.
• Personalisation: Each customer contact is used to gain customer insight and design offers to suit the customers needs. For eg. Amazon.com tracks customer areas of interest and past purchases. It uses this information to make offers to customers.
• Building communities of interest: The indiatimes chatting clubs are such an example where customers are motivated to come online and chat by providing them with a chance to interact with like-minded people. Another way of increasing online traffic is to provide information of interest on the website.
• Cross-selling/Up-selling: rediff.com makes offers of chaniya cholis to customers who are purchasing jewellery online. This is done during navratri thereby enabling it to sell related products to a customer. Dell offers discounts on a more expensive computer accessory if a cheaper one is not available with it. This way it does not lose the customer and also manages to up-sell to the customer. This helps the company increase its share of the customer’s wallet.
• Customisation: The customer is given the freedom to design the product. For eg. Hamaracd.com allows customers to select their preferred CD brand and choose the songs that will be recorded on it.
• Constant competitiveness: Companies can monitor competitors constantly to ensure its products are competitively priced. This is done by allbooks4less.com that offers books at a price lower than its competitor web sites.
• Expanding customer offerings: A virtual store enables a company to offer more products to the customer than that which are available in its own inventory. For eg. The retail giant, Wal-mart regularly offers more products online than those available in its stores.
• Preferred channel interaction: It is important to allow customers to deal with the company through channels that the customers prefer and not through traditional channels just because they already exist. For example, banks allow customers to deal with it through ATMs and also through call centres, if the customer prefers human interaction, even though call centres would entail a higher cost than an ATM.

Companies need to remember that CRM initiatives are not an additional cost burden. They are an investment towards increasing revenues by gaining a greater share of the customer’s wallet. Finally it needs to be remembered that CRM is not about building customer loyalty to the company; it is about building the company’s loyalty towards its customers.