eCRM

eCRM

eCRM

Introduction

Consider the following progression for a moment, and let's see where eCRM can lead:

eCRM provides Access

Access creates Information

Information enables Measurement

Measurement is an imperative for Process Improvement

Process enhancement directs to development in incomes & Profit

Therefore eCRM is well applied, it directs to development in incomes and earnings. This paper provides a description of eCRM and explains why this progression is important.

Everywhere you see these days you will find 'everybody.com' and 'e-everything'. CRM (Customer connection administration) has been undergoing evolution towards the world wide web for some years but only somewhat lately have we glimpsed the period eCRM (Clarke, 2005, 336).

So what is eCRM? To properly realise eCRM it is useful to look at the evolution of CRM and to review its initial objectives (Yujong, 2009, 89).

As can be glimpsed in Figure 1, CRM developed out of the SFA (Sales Force Automation) schemes from the early 90s. Prior to this, businesses were not healing Sales & Marketing as main concerns for IT investment. Areas such as Accounting, agency Automation and ERP were the money-spinners and it was difficult to find a gravely funded task for Sales & trading system. Today it is very distinct, CRM is considered as very significant in most organisations and for many it has become a foremost element of their ongoing IT investment.

Of course, buying into in any IT scheme has to ultimately assist to increasing profitability. There is a close association between development in incomes & earnings and the benefits profited from well-implemented CRM, these benefits are:

Retaining existing customers

Selling more to living customers

Finding and victorious new customers

Figure 1 - CRM Evolution

CRM is now well understood as today's technology solution to improving these 3 areas of business by:

Increasing efficiency

Improving trading and sales conclusion making

Enabling method estimation - premier to method improvement

Figure 2 - Integrated Database

Over the past 10 or so years CRM has evolved out of ostensibly separate sales automation, marketing databases, customer service systems into an integrated system serving all front office/customer facing functions across the enterprise (see Figure 2).

Figure 3 - Enterprise CRM

Supporting the Front Office

Many organisations today see CRM as the accepted tool to support these disciplines. Just as an organisation would not consider running their finances without an accounting system, many now would not consider running sales marketing and customer service without a CRM system (Coltman, 2007, 32).

For example in marketing, CRM enables you to know your customers better, understand their value (LTV) and use the information to make better marketing, sales and service decisions. Trying to make marketing decisions today without a system is a bit like navigating at sea using the stars. Internal to the organisation managers can monitor activity, measure performance and improve processes to reduce waste and increase effectiveness. Today's enterprise CRM system will look similar to Figure 3.

The benefits of multiple contact channels are obvious - customers have choice - they will use whichever contact channel in most convenient to them. The information captured during all customer contact and transactions is held on a database in a structure ...