How loyal are your customers?

Richard Bee, Director of Sage CRM, reveals the secrets to selecting the right CRM solution.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is about more than just technology – it is ultimately about aligning your business processes with the expectations of your customers. To be successful with CRM, organizations need to address three critical factors – people, processes and technology. In financial services markets, competition is fierce as each institution continues to vie for customer loyalty and satisfaction. So how do companies improve customer service, yet sustain their competitive edge in today’s marketplace?

As new technologies promise to deliver more benefits to the business, it is becoming increasingly challenging to integrate all customer touch points and provide the seamless, high quality tailored services that customers increasingly expect. The changes in the financial markets over the last decade, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, money laundering regulations, and international financial reporting standards have made innovation even more important. In this new climate of increased competition and more stringent regulation, organizations need to differentiate themselves, driving revenue through customer service and expanding existing relationships, thus building customer loyalty.

People
CRM is more than just software, it is a business culture focused on keeping the right customers, and employee buy-in is the key to a successful CRM implementation. This requires the involvement of all employees who will be using the system; potential CRM benefits will not be realized if this support is not obtained. This ‘culture of CRM’ can be adopted by training all employees that use the system, showing how it will make them more productive, and their jobs easier. Often, one department may be more motivated to implement CRM before other departments, and this strategy of implementing new software one department at a time can be beneficial. However, financial institutions should not lose sight of the overall goal – to implement CRM throughout the company to provide company-wide benefits.

Processes
Given the size and scope of creating a business strategy focused on customers, financial institutions must start with an evaluation of business performance. Only then can they begin to map out the steps needed to achieve sales and service metrics – steps that incorporate all parts of customer-facing interactions – including employees, business processes, and technology systems. Without conducting these initial assessment steps, technology cannot effectively align to drive business results.

Financial institutions can also use smarter applications that offer a range of capabilities, from handling account inquiries, referrals and service requests to facilitating marketing campaigns and creating literature fulfillment programs. This will provide detailed customer insight across the organization, while utilizing existing investments in automation systems and technology. This flexibility enhances the value of existing systems without having to go through a full application replacement cycle. In addition, the applications harness and focus customer information, enabling agents to provide differentiated customer service through more personalized and proactive customer interactions.

CRM technology
From a pure technology standpoint customers today demand choice, not only in functionality, but also in deployment options. Hosted CRM allows companies to place their customer on a vendor’s server. Many of the benefits of hosting - such as low upfront costs and the ability to free up internal IT staff - appeal largely to smaller businesses with less complex CRM needs. On-premise CRM, on the other hand, means companies’ data remains on site at all times, which requires a more complex IT environment. Alternatively, organizations can opt for a combination of the two – this strategy enables companies to get their feet wet with hosted software and then upgrade to on-premise as the business grows, or to link CRM applications in the corporate headquarters with hosted software at remote divisions.

The secret to selecting the right CRM solution starts with deciding the best way to deploy CRM based on the company’s needs – whether as a traditional on premise installation or a hosted service.

For instance, a large business that already has an on premise CRM solution may decide that a hosted solution is the perfect way to rapidly extend access to CRM capabilities to a remote division. Alternatively a small, but fast-growing organization may choose a hosted CRM solution that allows it to gain quick access to market-leading CRM features and functionality. These benefits have historically only been available to large enterprises, but they can now benefit without having to invest up front in hardware or software.

Making the decision to implement CRM technology is not easy, but the payoff can be significant. The importance of detailed insight into a customer’s interaction with the organization has become critical to enable increased cross-selling and up-selling of products and services. In order to survive, financial institutions must re-align their business to revolve entirely around the customer, driving revenue through relationships, positive customer experiences and loyalty. If these issues aren’t addressed, disparate systems may cause customers to disappear. By concentrating on your underlying business processes and carefully assessing the choices you have regarding deployment options, functionality, vendor experience, and hosting infrastructure, you too can drive successful business outcomes with CRM.