e-CRM (electronic-Customer Relationship Management)
The article is coming from: http://www.vendorguru.com/crm/article/CRM_Best_Practices_for_Building_Customer_Loyalty.jsp
CRM Best Practices for building Customer Loyalty
Creating loyal customers should be an important part of every business’s strategy, and can also help increase profitability. An effective CRM system helps collect and analyzes data about customers. E-CRM can be used to successfully acquire, retain and develop new customers. Companies worldwide spent more than $3 billion on new CRM software licenses in 2005 according to Forester Research inc.
Managing Vendor Relationship
CRM best practices also include building strong executive sponsorship of the program, having units implement CRM with support from IT, emphasizing accountability and decision making, and having clearly defined objectives and processes before applying the technology. Software must be user-friendly, having defined data requirements, and actively managing vendor relationships.
What customers need?
One of the best important things CRM enables business to do is to stay in touch with customers’ needs, and measure customer satisfaction. Loyal customers are committed customers who believe that your company is the best supplier in your field. The longer they are committed to a company, the more value they add by buying a wider variety of products more often.
Customer feedback
Listening to customers is crucial to a CRM strategy. Many companies view customer complaints as a nuisance, they should not view their complaints as a problem; on the contrary they should treat those complaints as feedback that will help to improve their products and services.
Customer Relationship management recognizes that customers are the core of a business, and that a company’s success depends on effectively managing relationships with them. It also helps business builds long-term and sustainable customer relationships that add value for both customer and the company. In order for a company to achieve that it is important for the company to have a one to one relationship with customers, and treat each customer differently depending on their needs because every customer has a different need.
CRM has been practiced manually by corporation for generations. However e-CRM started in the mid 1990’s, when customers begun using web browsers, the internet and other electronic touch point.
The Scope of e-CRM:
1. Foundational service
customers are sometime impatient when using the company’s web site because they are very concerned about how quickly and accurately the service is provided, site effectiveness and order fulfillment.
2. Customer-centered services
Companies have to ensure that customers will be able to track their order, product configuration and customization, security and trust. These services are matter the most to customers.
3. Value-added services
These are extra services such as online auctions and online training and education.
Some other e-CRM activities:
a) Customer service on the web
b) Search and comparison capabilities
c) Free products and services
d) Technical and other information and service
e) Personalized web pages
f) FAGs
g)Chat Rooms