CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Background of CRM:

Customer relationship management (CRM) has been a focus of a lot of applications with the recent advances in technology. The traditional customer relationship management has relied heavily on the likes of customer satisfaction. The benefits of performing customer centric processes within organizations have led organizations to gain a competitive advantage. Seeing this advantage, many companies have implemented CRM solutions to boost their businesses (Bosse 2006). The growing use of CRM applications has made it possible for companies to self-evaluate their performance. According to Kotler (1991, p19) high customer satisfaction rates are believed to be the best indicator of a company’s future profits. Therefore, the need to evaluate customer satisfaction becomes prominent. The importance of understanding customer satisfaction as a key tool for diagnosing product or service performance has also been mentioned for executive and employee compensation methods (Business Week, 1990). CRM systems built today are all capable of evaluating the level of satisfaction amongst customers. While evaluating the customer satisfaction, CRM systems can also indicate how a customer behaves in a particular surrounding. It can also help in detecting the purchase behaviour and the factors that promote a consumer towards the purchase of a new product. Thus, with ample of importance to the concept of customer relationship management, it is imminent that this research shall play a pivotal role in understanding further the important business concept of customer relationship management.

Customer Relationship Management in the Telecom Industry:

A lot of work has been done previously on managing customer relationships in the telecom industry. Out of a variety of works, there is a common pattern that is being observed. This pattern tends to suggest that the focus of CRM in all of these works is to forge a closer relationship with the customers that can be willing to change their behaviour towards the company. According to Peppers et al (1999) being able to decide what the customer tells you and then changing your behaviour accordingly is what defines core CRM. There have been several examples of implementation of customer relationship management within the telecom industry itself. Moreover, these examples are also evident within the UK since a long time. Examples of CRM include the introduction of a “call me” button on the websites of Telecom companies such as Vodafone. This introduction is nothing but a good gesture that tells the customer that the company “cares for them”. The importance of rendering service quality has been emphasized in ample of researches (see Parasuraman et al 1985, Reichelld & Sasser, 1990; Zeithaml et al, 1990). Further, in the telecom sector which falls into the service category Parasuraman et al (1985) observes that service firms find it extremely difficult to anticipate the factors that can cause high quality and what the customer feels is the right amount of quality. The “core service” is considered as one of the vital components of providing quality in services (Parasuraman et al 1985). However, it is still very difficult to decide what exactly comprises of “core service” and whether or not organizations should strive hard to give extra benefits in an attempt to capture market share. With this dilemma, firms find it increasingly difficult to concentrate on their core service which further gives rise to decrease in the quality. CRM systems in the telecom industry generally make use of I.T powered systems that can automatically cater to the clients. The role of I.T has also been mentioned in CRM related applications and it must be said that the role of IT is heavy in the case of the telecom giants.

References:

1. Achrol, Ravi S. (1991), “Evolution of the Marketing Organization: New Forms for Turbulent Environments,” Journal of Marketing, Pg. 55, 77-94
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3. Agnew, M. (2001), “CRM Plus Lots of Data Equals More Sales for Borders,” InformationWeek.Com, Pg. 52.
4. Adebanjo D (2003), Classifying and selecting e-CRM applications: An analysis based proposal, Management Decision”, Vol 41, Pg. 570-577.
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6. Berry, Leonard L. (1983), “Relationship Marketing,” in “Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing, Leonard L. Berry, G. Lynn Shostak, and Gregory D. Upah, eds. Chicago: American Marketing Associationd”, Pg. 223.