Marketing Advisor Blog

A refined CRM strategy is an indispensable tool for banks in order to survive

Atos Origin expertise and EFMA (European financial management & marketing association), recently released the results of European research regarding the use of CRM in banks.

The survey found that the Customer Relationship Management rules applied by banks “before the financial crisis” are no longer valid and that the “post-financial crisis” global CRM approach is still rarely explored.

The research is based on a survey of 75 European financial institutions and the resulting report provides interesting insights for banks to help them refocus their CRM strategy in order to reassure customers and bring back profit in these uncertain times.

The key conclusions are below but remember mainly this: “customer centricity”.

Implementing CRM projects: what is the role of each stakeholder?

The implementation of a CRM project generally requires the intervention of several internal and external resources, including consultants, vendors, integrators, your IT team, marketing, etc.

Of course how many parties are involved depends from many aspects such as the type of CRM system (on premise or SaaS-based), the scale of the project, the specific needs you have, etc.

However, for the people that are responsible for the implementation within the company it’s not always easy to grasp what the role of each external partner is.

Social media become more important customer engagement channels but email still rules

Econsultancy released its fourth Customer Engagement Report. The edition 2010 of the Customer Engagement Report, produced in association with sCape, found that the proportion of surveyed businesses who regard customer engagement as “essential” has risen to a record 55%.

According to the report “customer engagement is seen as being about creating relationships,
which result in value both for customers and for companies”.

37% of the surveyed companies describe their interest in customer engagement as increasing long term customer value and 35% as increasing value delivered to the customer.

Does your company have a Chief Customer Officer?

Customer centricity rules. It has become more than a vague promise of CRM vendors and more than a term that companies use to tell the world (and thus their customers) how they always put their customers first.

Today things are starting to change. Many companies are working hard to implement a more customer-focused and cross-divisional approach and are implementing company-wide ROMI-programs and holistic customer-centric strategies.
 
Doing this is not easy; it requires a different way of thinking and working but often also a huge shift in the corporate culture. But how tough it may be: the customer is key in modern marketing and management thinking. And it’s about time (and do companies have the choice in this digital era?).

If the customer is key, then don’t we need some kind of ‘customer supervisor’ in the company? He exists and his title is not the ‘Chief Customer Supervisor’ or ‘customer manager’. He is called the Chief Customer Officer or CCO.

Two UK marketers in five think the best ROI is delivered by CRM, online follows second

According to the Marketing Trends Survey (Autumn 2009), that was released earlier this week by ‘The Chartered Institute of Marketing’ and conducted by Ipsos MORI, 21% of UK marketers think CRM activities deliver the best Return on Investment.

The ROI benefits of Customer Relationship Management activities are particularly noted among those working in financial services/other services firms (27%), the institute says in a press release.

Second highest overall for ROI, is online advertising with 12%, followed by email and public relations (with both 11%).

Outsourcing your CRM: risks and benefits

Outsourcing of CRM is becoming increasingly popular in times of economic recession, and not only in the midmarket. Outsourcing of course was already growing in popularity in general, even before the economic meltdown.

Especially outsourcing IT-related activities is popular, as well as for instance call centre operations. And although CRM is related to IT and to call centre operations, it is far from the same.

Outsourcing CRM is not without risks. A fundamental question is whether it’s a good idea to put your CRM in the hands of your marketing partner and if it is safe.

Do you recognize a customer (when you see one)?

Every contact is an opportunity to start a relationship: whether it is online or instore, through an email message, a direct mail piece or a catalogue. First step to establishing a genuine customer dialogue is collecting relevant data.

We say relevant as you won't be needing people's entire life story from the get go.

Start with the basics and gradually enrich profiles with additional data such as: interaction scores, purchase behavior, Regency - Frequency - Monetary value, satisfaction & loyalty indicators, etc...

Although indispensable, you have to treat your database only as a means to an end and not as a goal as such.

Some advantages and risks of mobile CRM

Using mobile CRM frees your sales reps from dragging around suitcases filled with printed data (and the inside sales support from last-minute calls from the unprepared field sales rep).

When implemented and used well mobile CRM enables your sales people to take customer data and other tools with them and better prepare their sales call on the go.

According to industry analysts, mobile CRM has more our less three major advantages.