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Unit 7: Electronic-CRM

the information. The website he had logged into promoted your products very well. He Notes
was able to identify your financial package as the one he wanted. He also enjoyed the look
and feel of the website and the sophistication of the demonstrations. This gave him more
subliminal faith in your product’s sophistication, your company’s professionalism, and
thus your ability to deliver your application successfully.
The EVP’s transactions as shown above are a small segment of the web experience. One has to
recognize the significance or purpose of the Web experience in the CRM world. It is to identify
a customer, derive the value of the customer, and interact with the customer. This is so, whether
it is a single individual who buys more frequently than other individuals or a corporation that
is doing more business (or less) with you than any other customer. Its odd nature makes innovation
necessary to make sure that the identification, derivation, and interaction work towards the
benefit of both the customer and the company.

E-CRM’s value comes from giving a customer a “total experience” on the Web. Traditional CRM
channels cannot do that because they are based on applications that may not be effective in
giving the customer direct access to the interfaces functionally. Ordinarily, CRM provides sets
of tools, which while possibly Web-enabled, are not designed from the ground up for the Web.
It is more for the corporate department or the interfaces and functionality. Ordinarily, the
individual employee does this customer ground-up creation or redevelopment so that all
functions, external and internal, is entirely web based. For example, personalization tools are
more appropriate to Web customer experiences. Personalization tools have little value if used
in a purely client/server environment. However, this doesn’t guarantee that even CRM is
entirely wonderful.

Features of Effective e-CRM

Any e-CRM is the customer-facing Internet portion of CRM. It includes capabilities like
self-service knowledge bases, automated e-mail response, personalization of Web content, online
product bundling and pricing, and so on. The web-based e-CRM gives Internet users the ability
to carry on with the business through their preferred communication channels. It also allows the
business to offset expensive customer service agents to add value to its ability to improve
customer satisfaction and reduce costs through improved efficiency.
However, an e-CRM strategy deployed alone can also backfire and this actually may result in
decreased customer satisfaction. If the customer’s interactions through electronic channels are
not effortlessly integrated through traditional channels the customer is likely to become
extremely frustrated. Also, if the basis for the content being served to the customer does not
consider all the data gathered for the business, the customer is likely to be served in that way.
Therefore, it is imperative that e-CRM be installed in conjunction with traditional CRM and that
the two function together. Otherwise, the result of e-CRM might actually prove negative.

Designing e-CRM

Some CRM companies have Web-enabled their existing application and called it “Internet ready”.
Others have redesigned it from the bottom so that it is referred to as a Web application, rather
than a client/server application that can be viewed on the Web. These are the fundamental
architectural differences. Mere accessibility from a browser does not turn a CRM application
into e-CRM. For technology to fulfill the promise of making the desired customer activity
possible, the invisible technical details really matter.

Example: If one wants to have an application that is optimized for Internet security
activity, it uses HTML that is, accessible from either desktop or palm, or even laptop. It can be
accessed securely using Internet security protocols that are reachable via TCP/IP and so on.

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