5 Tips for a Web Based CRM Deployment (On Demand)

• Analyzing the available option

  You have to choose between the various options available in CRM software that suits your business the best. The suitability can be found on the basis of the cost of deploying the CRM. CRM On Demand has a relatively low startup cost and you can be up and running with the software quickly in the time period of maximum two to three months, alternatively an On-Premise web based CRM system has higher cost and time period of deployment. Deploying an online CRM tool is like putting your toes in water and then seeing what it is capable of doing for you and shaping it accordingly thereafter. Also, you do not require in-house IT staff or high levels of technical skills and usually little or no financial outlay in terms of hardware and IT infrastructure. You simply pay a monthly fee to use the product, according to the number of users you have.

• Trade off between departments

  Online CRM on demand allows applications to be built to be drop dead easy to configure and deploy. The technology managers look for an easy implementation and reliable uptime, but sales and marketing manager’s focus on reporting features and the ability to customize the system. Thus, the technology manager requires sitting with sales and marketing people and building a live system so that the users can understand the tradeoffs; in the meantime, technology manager can understand the benefit to business. These things if done on conventional systems become too difficult. Thus, On Demand CRM software enhances and shortens the deployment process and alleviates the twinge of translating business speak into technology speak.

• Planning the implementation

  Some companies have the misconception that before bringing in or deploying CRM software, they will have to restructure their sales or service operations and thus rework their entire business process. But, it is better to be with what you know because complicating the rules and structure of your business can make it difficult to maintain. Nevertheless, changes are an integral part of any new endeavor and these have to be accepted optimistically.

• Verify and then Trust

  The different On-Demand web based CRM’s available need to be evaluated first as without using them their level of success or failure is difficult to determine. This is because the vendors of the CRM software would usually show off their product and you actually cannot get the feel of the software till such time you try it.

• Start with a small package

  The deployment of CRM tool not only requires heavy financial investment but also allegiance of time, for that reason you need to manage the available resources and time properly and optimally. Thus, it is always better to start with a small package and make it in a series of small projects rather than deploying a large sized On Demand web based CRM right at the first shot.

  But, with an online CRM on demand somewhat limited level of customization is possible. So, it is important for you to keep a bigger picture in terms of the growth prospects of your company – is there a possibility of requiring more functionality or customization in near future?

Virtuos is an end to end Business Solutions, interactive marketing and technology consultancy that delivers superior Customer experience and information-driven business solutions through unique “Customer On Demand! Innovation^TM (CODI)”. We have partnered with some of the Industry’s top ranked Global Technology Companies to offer BI & Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) & Supply chain, BPM & Performance Management and Digital Marketing Solutions.

Company plans to implement CRM

If a company plans to implement CRM it should start with an end in mind. It should have a complete idea of what it wishes to gain from the CRM software. The more lucid the company is about what results and benefits it expects to derive from the CRM the higher the prospect of its success. These expected benefits should be communicated to not just the management but also to all levels of the user community i.e. the people who will be actually using the Customer Relationship Management tool.

For example, a manufacturer might want to use the Customer Relationship Management applications to do order management to improve cross-sell numbers, but he might have not properly segmented the customer base. The customer might be wanting cross divisional solution and not the discreet products offered, and this can be learnt only by implementing order management. By implementing order management the manufacturer can know that whether the customer wants a cross divisional solution or a discrete product offered by the manufacturer.

CRM implementation should be done in stages or phases. The benefits that are expected to be derived from the CRM should be pragmatic and relevant to the business. These should then be listed based on their priority so that they can be achieved gradually.

If the company wants to have an unswerving approach towards using the system it needs to embed the same with its business processes. Also, the people who intend to use the CRM tool should be trained on the software in milieu of the business processes.

Earlier a lot of CRM projects were viewed as a failure which later became an excuse for a lot of companies for not meeting their customer needs. But now since we know the reasons for its failures and how to avoid them, the research should be used as indemnity. It’s similar to saying that although a lot of people have car accidents but that does not mean that others just stop driving it. They do drive, having traffic rules and safety measures in their minds.

The real secret to customer relationship management is that it is different for every enterprise, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t learn from the knowledge of others.

Virtuos is an end to end Business Solutions, interactive marketing and technology consultancy that delivers superior Customer experience and information-driven business solutions through unique “Customer On Demand! Innovation^TM (CODI)”. We have partnered with some of the Industry’s top ranked Global Technology Companies to offer BI & Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) & Supply chain, BPM & Performance Management and Digital Marketing Solutions.

Cloud computing software is best for making new connections

Cloud computing software is best for making new connections and improving the existing ones as the software and computing capacity can be obtained through a web based server. The easiest example to quote is that of an email; some people access their emails from a program in their computer while most of them use online services such as Gmail or yahoo which are decentralized and have no common server, but store and host information over the Internet. Now, the first instance in the example demonstrates legacy computing and the second one cloud based computing. So, if you have ever used Gmail or yahoo, inadvertently you have experienced the wonders of cloud computing. Cloud computing is a lucrative and a competent substitute to conventional server based business application software. With this you do not need to buy software and install it on every computer system rather you can just plug into a bank of internet based apps called cloud which can be customized according to your needs.

Long wait times, inadequate information, and other such problems make customer service an irksome task. Conventionally, it requires customers to place a phone call to the call centers, where the representative uses a number of databases to collect the information needed to assist the calling customer. This type of service is neither knowledge efficient nor time efficient as the executive will have to forward the call for further details impeding the process for a quick and pertinent reply. In order to attend to the needs of the customers and make certain that the customers are receiving best possible services, businesses need to route to cloud computing platform. Consumerization is one of the biggest forces driving the use of cloud computing software. Several cloud computing services have an array of customer service applications to make the process smooth from start to finish. This is electrifying for business as it can help the company reach new market, assist customers both existing and new and be able to differentiate itself in the market. The accessibility of data via internet will allow the company to budge its focus to interactions from transactions. In business terminology that can mean everything from improved customer service, to nurturing relationship with business affiliates. Either ways, it’s helping the company metamorphosing the way it handles forming connections that would promote business.

Precise sales forecasting is one of the major challenges and a fundamental task for producing new business and understanding how the company is progressing. Cloud based computing is particularly useful for businesses who depend solely on sales. It is a smart and a simple solution to a disorganized business as it helps to contour data and procedures at one central location using a platform on cloud. This avoids communication difficulties usually faced by marketing managers, sales force managers and production team. The chief and most prevalent service that is cropping up all over “the cloud” is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Cloud computing software can be a solution to a surfeit of problems regarding sales, lead management and customer service, all of which can be embraced into a single large package, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. CRM on the cloud computing platform allows businesses to go virtual in which all the data and procedures run on a computer and local server is housed by the service provider.

Cloud computing may sound like a nebulous concept, but it’s not that difficult to understand. For numerous organizations the ostensible potential of the individual changes will not be sufficient to force them to make a transition to cloud computing applications, especially because the cloud market is new. However, by conducting pilots and building skills, if the company gains proficiency in cloud computing today it will server the company well and position it for the future IT landscape. Also, in the long term, cloud based computing is increasingly appearing to be a transformative change in the business landscape.

Virtuos is an end to end Business Solutions, interactive marketing and technology consultancy that delivers superior Customer experience and information-driven business solutions through unique “Customer On Demand! Innovation^TM (CODI)”. We have partnered with some of the Industry’s top ranked Global Technology Companies to offer BI & Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) & Supply chain, BPM & Performance Management and Digital Marketing Solutions.

Some of the top reasons for CRM Implementation for your Business:

• Improved customer satisfaction

  CRM makes the tailing of interactions with your contacts easier. Having all the data stored along with the contacts information makes it sortable and easier to deal with. It allows tracking not just the contact information, but when you talked, when they were billed, when payment was received and all the other relevant data that you learn while you are talking (birthdays, complaints).

• Identify and meet the demands of customers

  Implementing CRM can link the bookkeeping syncs with the billing/ordering and inventory to the contact records and allows the congeries of important business metrics. This data tracking gives invaluable access to data about the customers purchasing habits. This further earmarks the patterns in ordering, and helps predict and meet future demand, pull reports automatically and automate processes that would otherwise be tedious and time consuming.

• Stronger revenue and profitability

  CRM software can be used to do a needs-based segment analysis of your various classes of customers which involves taking the customers’ view and keying out the gap between their needs and purchases. Using this entropy, a sales strategy can be developed that will allow you to offer products in a more appealing fashion. Example, packaging new goods and services with products the customers are already buying and offering them at an attractive price or some other incentives.

• Work smarter, not just harder

  Another useful metric that is derived from CRM software data is that the profit produced per hour of sales effort for each class of items. Fortified with this information, sales programs can be crafted which emphasize the products which affect your bottom line the most.

• Keep your existing customers loyal

  The most common reason promises are not kept is forgetting they were made. If the sales force enters all agreements made with customers into the CRM system, it’s easier for your organization to carry through on its promises. Also, CRM software can be used to make certain that the potential customer needs are being met which includes proficient handling of after-sales contacts such as service calls, resolving customer concerns or offering the customer the right mix of products at the right prices.

• Better insights and data exchange

  Consistent congregation and analyses of customers and prospect data with the details of marketing campaigns and sales activities through CRM can help capture the insights needed for a long term success. Real-time information exchange between sales, marketing, and service prepares for more directed marketing communications, better pricing decisions, more compelling new product and an increase in brand recognition, revenue, and customer loyalty period.

• Business Customer Continuity

  A chronological customer relationship memory is always retained in the business, should salespeople leave or be replaced within the company, new salespeople get up to speed more promptly, minimizing service interruptions.

Virtuos is an end to end Business Solutions, interactive marketing and technology consultancy that delivers superior Customer experience and information-driven business solutions through unique “Customer On Demand! Innovation^TM (CODI)”. We have partnered with some of the Industry’s top ranked Global Technology Companies to offer BI & Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) & Supply chain, BPM & Performance Management and Digital Marketing Solutions.

Earlier, the organizations relied on agents or walk-ins for the marketing, selling and distributing their insurance policies. But, with the egression of internet in 1990s and the subsequent advancements in the next decade another very important channel for customer interaction was created. And, today most of the insurance organizations in India have internet presence either through their websites or customer portals and the new star on the horizon is social media.

Social media is defined as the media that is posed by the user and can take many different forms such as forums, message boards, blogs, wikis and podcasts. Some of the social media applications include Google, Facebook and YouTube. The reachability of social media in India is about 60 percent, of the total online audience. This channel has immense potential and in the near future the significance of social media is set to grow at a very strong pace. Some facts on social media that might not be known:

• 60% of the social networking traffic comes from Non Metro-Cities but the highest traffic generating city still remains to be a Metro i.e. Mumbai
• The highest number of active users belong to an age group of 15-24 years, but LinkedIn has active users in the age group of 25-34 years
• Facebook and Orkut, together cater to about 90 per cent of the users in the social media space
• Highest number of active social media audience in India are in the age group of 15-24 and are graduates who are looking for a Job or planning further studies
• Majority of the time spent by the Indian audience on Facebook is on Interactive Games/Applications and then on viewing Photos

The above stated fact supports the idea that social media is mainly youth driven, and it is this strata of the society which requires an awareness on the insurance products and services. Furthermore, the majority of the social media using population consists of graduates who would be willing to buy insurance if educated properly and offered customized services.

Indians generally consider insurance as a means of tax saving instrument, and miss out on the primary importance of insurance which is to provide protection and wealth creation opportunity in the long run. Social media can be used as a platform to remind people repeatedly of the need to be insured rather than waiting for a significant event to occur in their lives. Benefits of using social media by an insurer can be as follows:

• Dramatically decreases the cost of establishing and developing a new brand.
• Changing the customer experience to support channel integration and personalization.
• Increasing effectiveness of recruitment, training and skills development for agents.
• Enhancing operating models with improvements in communication and collaborations.

Fig 2 below gives the health of various organizations in the insurance segment from the FY 2009 to FY 2010 and their associated growth patterns.

Some of the challenges associated with the exploitation of social media by the insurance industry are regulatory and compliant in nature. Other challenges include relevant, interesting and timely content creation to market new and existing offerings. Social media strategy, then, is a balance of regulatory compliance and brand management. Indian insurance companies haven’t till date harnessed the power of social media to acquire new customers, service existing ones and create life-long loyalty through personalized and innovative offerings. The time when insurance companies who are not active and engaged on social platforms will be outperformed by their competitors is not too far.

Virtuos is an end to end Business Solutions, interactive marketing and technology consultancy that delivers superior Customer experience and information-driven business solutions through unique “Customer On Demand! Innovation^TM (CODI)”. We have partnered with some of the Industry’s top ranked Global Technology Companies to offer BI & Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) & Supply chain, BPM & Performance Management and Digital Marketing Solutions.

WHY DID FORRESTER PUBLISH THIS REPORT?

Customer expectations are getting higher. Customers are increasingly online, want self-service options, and demand responses in real time, often through their mobile devices. In addition, social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, has grown to be an important new channel for interacting with customers and engaging in innovative ways. To meet these challenges, organizations of all sizes continue their search for solutions to address their most pressing customer interaction management problems. Purchasers of software solutions aren’t sure what they need; however, they continue to tell Forrester they want to strengthen five key capabilities:

1. cross-channel customer service delivery;
2. knowledge management for customer service;
3. business process management for customer service;
4. customer communities;
5. customer feedback management.

HOW DOES FORRESTER INFLUENCE BUYERS?

To help their clients navigate the complex solution landscape to fill their customer interaction management capabilities gaps, Forrester investigated 24 specialty customer service solution providers. Analysts at Forrester suggest customers “dig deep to pinpoint their real customer service issues, measure the cost of the problems, evaluate solutions against balanced set of criteria, and demand reference customers to validate vendor claims.”

WHAT DID KATE LEGGETT SAY ABOUT RIGHTNOW?

Kate Leggett is our lead analyst at Forrester. She was extremely positive on RightNow and told us RightNow has the best solution for multichannel management.

RightNow received “Very Strong” scores in two categories: Standardized cross channel customer service deliver; and Customer communities.

RightNow received “Strong” scores in all the other categories: Knowledge management; Business process management capabilities; Enterprise feedback tradition; Enterprise feedback social; and mobile capabilities.

The following quotes are excerpted from her report and can be added to your external client correspondence:

• “RightNow CX provides a flexible on-demand customer service solution with a particular strength in helping its customers deliver exceptional experiences across the Web, social media, and contact centers.”
• “RightNow CX offers robust contact management over voice, email, chat, co-browsing, Web, and voice self-service.”
• “Knowledge underpins all channels and includes expert knowledge and peer-generated collaborative answers.”
• “Feedback is integrated with all customer interactions over all communication channels, social and traditional, and RightNow provides tools to analyze received feedback.”
• “RightNow’s “social CRM” capabilities are strong, and attributed to the HiveLive acquisition that’s integrated into the product suite. They include forums, a Facebook application, and the ability to monitor and act on social conversations from sources such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and RSS feeds.”
• “RightNow’s mobile applications are robust and include support for mobile Web chat, email, and knowledge.”
• “Once best-suited primarily for SMB organizations, RightNow’s cloud deployments, ease of customization, and flexible pricing models make it an attractive choice for the enterprise-class B2C organizations needing rapid time-to-deployment.”

WHY WILL MY CUSTOMERS/PROSPECTS CARE ABOUT THIS REPORT?

We know prospects and customers will talk with Kate. We can assume Forrester clients who read this report will contact Kate to discuss her findings in more details and to help identify solutions to fill their customer interaction management capabilities gaps. This report, along with follow up conversations that clients will have with Kate, will lead to shortlist recommendations for RightNow as RightNow has the best scores across the categories and vendors evaluated in this report.

Figure 1: Specialty Solutions For Customer Service

Virtuos is an end to end Business Solutions, interactive marketing and technology consultancy that delivers superior Customer experience and information-driven business solutions through unique “Customer On Demand! Innovation^TM (CODI)”. We have partnered with some of the Industry’s top ranked Global Technology Companies to offer BI & Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) & Supply chain, BPM & Performance Management and Digital Marketing Solutions.