Page 346 - DMGT308_CUSTOMER_RELATIONSHIP_MANAGEMENT

Unit 13: Emerging Trends in CRM

Volvo Construction’s products and services are offered in more than 125 countries, and Notes
channelled through proprietary or independent dealerships. The company’s machines are
used for road construction, oil and gas exploration, building demolition, industrial material
handling, and forestry.
So what’s all this have to do with email and data? First, let’s start with a look at the power
of email.
A study by MarketingSherpa found that 75 percent of social media users prefer email as
the method for companies to communicate with them. Whereas social is more easily a
turn-off, turn-on channel that users can selectively engage with, email is far more intimate
and direct. Dave Scott, CEO of MarketFish, put it this way in my interview with him
earlier this year, “In order to make digital marketing effective, you have to drive the right
traffic.”
Email is certainly a good way to do that. After all, people rarely switch email addresses,
but they do migrate from one social media channel to another. And a recent study on
word-of-mouth influence by Zuberance shows 57% of brand influencers use email as their
main online recommendation tool.

Volvo uses ExactTarget as its targeted email marketing provider. ExactTarget’s email
solution allows Volvo to power data-driven messages—everything from transactional
email sends and abandoned cart campaigns to dynamic content and live offers. Volvo has
mastered the product, and uses it to deliver monthly newsletters and targeted offers.
The Power of Data + Email

The buzzword of the past two years, big data, is more than idle talk. Big data is now
mainstream, moving from the supercomputing environment managed by data engineers,
to enterprise IT applications used by much broader audiences. For digital marketers and
advertisers in particular, the benefits of bringing big data mainstream are unmistakable;
it provides access to a goldmine of untapped, previously unusable information.
Source: http://technorati.com/business/article/an-exacttarget-case-study-volvos-integrated/
The Road Ahead

Technology has been a major driving factor for CRM and is bringing about radical changes. The
developments in several technological areas are likely to have a major impact on CRM. Some of
the areas are listed below:
Biometric Sensing: passwords continue to be the least user friendly and the most unsecure link
in the CRM chain.

Did u know? Advancement in biometrics will soon make it possible to make a foolproof
recognition through voice, live fingerprint or image. The system would automatically
identify (and not just verify) the user. PeopleSoft has already announced that it is working
on voice recognition.
M-commerce: There has been an enormous advancement in this area. Rapid developments in the
mobile computing and data access devices are likely to be a major growth area for CRM. The
global marketplace is all set to shrink to a palmtop, digital signatures and secured identification
technologies.

Integration with B2B Marketplaces: Many argue that online market-places will drive sales in
the coming decades and branding will no longer be important. Even if such a postulation is

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