ECRM

WORK BY:
Mohamed LOUKILI IDRISSI

Electronic CRM
The need to manage customer relationships is not a new concept. Around 1998, a
phase emerged, which attempted to encapsulate everything is relation with this. It was called,
customer relationship management (CRM). One significant feature of CRM was that it
focused attention on revenue-generating activities.
CRM appears to be the outcome of several developments in the sales and marketing
domains. With the apparition of ERP systems that were more focused on manufacturing and
related activities but weak in sales and marketing functions, CRM was a clear upgrade to
improve the overall efficiency and customer satisfaction of these kind of systems. Customer
contact management, product and price lists, and direct mailing were among the first
applications to be developed. Later on campaign management, call center services and market
intelligence were included.
A new form of CRM showed up after the undeniable success of social media and the
use of the net. Electronic CRM (ECRM) is an upgrade from the traditional CRM system. It
integrates the use of (IT) technology to manage the relationships with customers resulting in a
more efficient way to communicate with customers and fulfil their needs.

Features and functions of a CRM

system:
CRM enables you to maximise the efficiencies of marketing resources and empower
marketers to acquire and develop long-term customer relationship. Marketers can analyse,
plan, execute, and measure all marketing activities. With CRM, you gain a flexible
application to power marketing success. CRM supports critical marketing processes,
including the following:

Sales force automation

Technology resource management
Segment and list management
Call centre management
Campaign management
Internet telephony
Field service management
Trade promotion management
Marketing analytics

Sales force automation:

Sales force automation (SFA) involves using software to streamline all phases of the
sales process, minimizing the time that sales representatives need to spend on each phase?
This allows a business to use fewer sales representatives to manage their clients. At the core
of SFA is a contact management system for tracking any recording every stage in the sales
process for each prospective client, from initial contact to final disposition. Many SFA

Electronic CRM
applications also include insights into opportunities, sales forecasts, and workflow
automation.

Technology-Enabled Selling:
Technology enabled selling (TES) goes beyond the blanket application of using raw
technology and deals with understanding the ways technology benefits the bottom line. The
changing face of sales is speeding the drive for TES. In consumer markets, customers already
expect a range of channels that offer consistent service. In the business-to-business (B2B)
world the new focus on relationship and the rise of the consultant-sales person have increased
complexity and diversity.
TES has three sets of components building blocks. The first is a foundation of
customer information located in the company database and manipulated either by legacy1 or
ERP systems. The second is an infrastructure of systems that allow the company to
communicate and transact business with customers, these employ telephones, faxes, personal
computers, and other devices. The third is a set of advanced applications that are often
specific to industries or sectors.

Marketing resource management:

Analyse, plan, develop, implement, and measure all marketing activities to maximize the
efficiencies of your available resources and gain visibility and control into your marketing
processes. CRM helps you control and manage your budget and marketing spend. The
application also allows you to facilitate collaboration among team members and coordinate
marketing activities across the enterprise, increasing the speed and effectiveness of your
marketing processes.

Segment and list management:

Manage enterprise customer and prospect data without the need for IT support. With
CRM you can easily create and capture customer profile data to better target and personalize
marketing messages and you can view all relevant enterprise customer information from a
central point. Using an interactive, drag-and-drop 2interface, the marketers can perform ad
hoc3, high speed customer segmentation and segment analysis, and quickly identify
opportunities and gain insights into customer segments with data visualisation features.

Call center management:

1 Legacy systems: is an old method, technology, computer system, or

application program.
2 Drag and drop: intuitive and interactive interface.
3 AD hoc: solution designed for a specific problem or task.

Electronic CRM
Call center are rapidly emerging as a mean to provide service to customers, business partners,
or employees. They are becoming the main point of contact for customers. Call centers
perform the following five functions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Resolve issues or refer problems to the next level of service provider

Provide more information about products and services
Make recommendations to customers about products and services
Take calls and monitor progress on customer requests and problems
Generate reports for root-cause 4analysis

The best call centers link voice, video, and data into a comprehensive system to provide
cutting-edge customer care. A call center system and process must be constructed with the
customer in mind.

Campaign management:
Analyse, plan, execute and measure marketing activities thought all inbound and outbound
interaction channels to build long-term profitable relationships. With CRM, you can make the
most of dialog marketing by implementing inbound and outbound campaigns that are both
multi-channel and multi-wave. You can develop and execute the best marketing strategy
using constraint-based 5optimization techniques to determine the optimum marketing mix.

Internet telephony:
Frequently integrated into a pre-existing call center, Internet Protocol (IP) telephony in
Internet call centers allows customers to speak directly with call center agents while using the
browser to access the companys web page. IP telephony can be used in call centers when, for
example, a user is on a corporate web site and requests technical support. The user clicks on a
call button displayed on the web page. The call button is a hypertext link that activates the IP
telephony software, which then connects the user with a call center agent. If the customer
enters his or her customer identification number, the call center agent can access the
customers history, the product he is using and the problems the customer has encountered
previously. Based on the customers purchasing history, this access also enables the agent to
sell upgrades or new products. This is enabled by computer-telephone integration (CTI)
technology, which is available as a feature of high-end CRM software.

Field service marketing:

E-business customer service also enhances field service, which is the part of customer
service in which qualified representatives of a company are sent to the customers site to
resolve problems. A call center can forward an unsolved problems to an internal or external
field service organization. E-enabled field service helps sales representatives by proving them
with up-to-date customer and product information (including design documents and repair
4 Root cause: method of problem solving used for identifying the root causes of
faults or problems.
5 Constraint-based: programming paradigm wherein relations between variables
are stated in the form of constraints.

Electronic CRM
manuals) via the Internet. Field service representatives can check on outstanding customer
queries, view their active calls, and even update the status of accounts while traveling.

Trade promotion Management:

Effectively manage trade promotion that increase brand equity and achieve sales
objectives. With the CRM tools, you can gain complete visibility into trade programs at each
stage of their life cycles to reduce error, improve efficiency, and control trade spend.

Marketing analytics:
Leverage a wide range of analytics such as customer values; and churn scores 6and
satisfaction scores to make profitable decisions. Insights gained from CRM help you
understand why marketing activities did or did not work. The application also helps you
identify business challenges and opportunities, and predict customer behaviours, anticipate
their needs, and create better relevant targeted messages.

ECRM Opportunities:
ECRM enhances the marketing by improving effectiveness and by delivering a customer
value. It does reduce costs involved in communicating with customers, optimize work flow,
much accessible market segmentation and much interactive customer approach. By doing that
it can improve customer service, retain value and provide analytical data. These are some of
the major opportunities that ECRM offers in comparison to regular CRM:

Enhanced Customer Interactions and Relationships

Managing Customer Touch Points
Personalisation and e-Loyalty
Leveraging ECRM as a Source of Competitive Advantage

ECRM Challenges:
With CRM customers drive the interaction deciding on the type and duration of contact
permissible. The ability to create intimacy with the customer is limited and building trust can
be difficult. When managing an on-line channel companies are faced with the fact that greater
choice creates fickleness among customers and with the competition only one click away
there are no second chances to recover mistakes in these remote channels (Fairhurst). Data
integration and IT architecture challenges also exist for organizations adopting ECRM
technologies. We can mention these as challenges for ECRM implementation:
6 Churn score or rate: measure of the number of individuals or items moving out
of a collective group over a specific period of time.

Electronic CRM

Customer Interactions and Relationships

Managing an On-Line Channel
Challenges of Data Integration and IT Architecture
Marketing and IT Alignment7

Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a trusted
community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around
the world online or from a mobile phone.
Whether an apartment for a night, a castle for a week, or a villa for a month, Airbnb
connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in more than 34,000 cities
and 190 countries. And with world-class customer service and a growing community of users,
Airbnb is the easiest way for people to monetize their extra space and showcase it to an
audience of millions.

Success of Airbnb:
Airbnb is an example of creativity. Starting from its web site, policies, interaction with
customers and even the logo. Airbnb stands out as a serious contender for the hospitality
industry. They
served an unserved
market need with an
easy to use interface
(highly developed
search
functionality).
They managed to
adjust the initial
business model after
putting themselves
in the user shoes
and seeing that the
initial approach of letting hosts post pictures taken at their own discretion - often poor quality
photos - was preventing the business from taking off, plus the user trust features like user
reviews address the high-risk area of trust given the context in which the start-up operates,
renting people's apartments/homes to strangers.
7 IT Alignment: dynamic state in which a business organization is able to use
information technology (IT) effectively to achieve business objectives.

Electronic CRM

Airbnb uses the benefits of social media and communication throw-out the net. This
allows the company to stay closer to the customer and even talk to them and take advice. This
is possible by the help of a company called TWILLIO specialized in telecommunication.
TWILIO allows software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls and
send and receive text messages using its web service APIs8. The services are accessed over
HTTP and are billed based on usage. This way customer will always find the person to talk to
and that mean a better customer service. The company gives special importance to
individuals, and developing confidence and trust.

Airbnbs logo dilemma:

After the introduction of the new logo the blo, Airbnb had a massive response
around the whole world. Designed by a British design cabinet over a few months, the logo
had been interpreted with creativity and reconstructed in ways that could harm the companys
reputation. The logo has been compared to:

8 API: (application programming interface) set of routines, protocols, and tools for
building software applications.

Electronic CRM
This could have been a tragedy for any
other company, but with the quick
response from Airbnb it turned out to
be the opposite. Instead of denying the
facts, they assumed that the response
was due to the logos well conception,
advancing that its awakened everyones
creativity and launched a web page
where everyone could share their
interpretation of the logo and get to see
other creations, they even classed cities
by level of creativity.

This couldnt be done without a wellqualified team and a good IT and

community management skills. They
certainly turned out a tragedy into an
advantage, making more people visit the
web site and increasing the sites
interactivity.

Airbnb is certainly at the top of the lodging industry and is gaining the confidence and trust
of travellers by giving them insurance and offering a quality and interactive service via web.