CRM Systems

Learning Objectives
• To discuss the most important elements in the CRM system
The chapter focuses on?
• Partner relationship management
• Features in the call center
• Internet and website
• Data warehouse
• Campaign Management System
• Content Management System
• CRM software packages
 Overview of CRM Systems
• Customer relationship management has been practiced since the abolition of
economic self-sufficiency and the arrival of the division of labour.
• CRM systems make it possible for the members of decision-making units for both
parties to easily find one another and remain informed about the communication
between them.
• CRM systems offers suppliers and intermediaries the possibility of collectively
developing a clear customer profile and creating and implementing a customised,
mutually beneficial relationship strategy.
• The primary task of CRM systems consists in supporting or performing the
activities involved in customer contact processes. Orders, payment, service, etc.
 Overview of CRM Systems (Cont.)
• The CRM system supports the employees during their contacts with customers.
• The secondary task is related to facilitating the primary task, and involves
providing customer information and management information, among other
information.
• A variety of CRM sub-systems have been developed for the performance of these
primary and secondary functions in the front and back office and linking
activities between the two.
• In many situations, companies use what is known as middleware to achieve this,
which also coordinates activities that take place through different channels.
• Fig 18.1 shows different systems in the next slide
 Overview of CRM Systems (Cont.)
• The front office
• The sales information system that supports the salesperson during face-to-
face sales and relationship management activities.
• The partner management system which is geared towards providing
support to the intermediaries.
• The call or contact centre.
• The website.
• The kiosks.
• Middleware
• The data warehouse in which data originating from different sources are
compiled to obtain a clear and better customer profile.
 Overview of CRM Systems (Cont.)
• The campaign management system.
• The content management system.
• The back office
• Legacy systems are designed for the management of transactions or
products.
• They are intended for the batch processing of large quantities of similar
orders.
• In order to support or perform the activities in a process, data are required.
• Insufficient attention to one of the aspects of the system will, without a
doubt, lead to problems during implementation.
• CRM Subsystems: Call Centre, website, data warehouse, campaign and
content management systems
 The Call Centre: Componnents
• Switches, computers and connections
• An indispensable component of the call centre is the telephone switchboard
or switch.
• Automatic call distributor (ACD), first distributes the incoming calls to the
various employees. The application may be programmed in such a way that if
it gets too busy for a certain group of agents, the overflow of calls may be
automatically routed to another team or even an external call centre.
• The computer or the computer network plays a role in the storage,
processing and supply of data.
• Will have to be connected to one another via physical links, modem
connections and the like.
 The Call Centre (Cont.)
• Calling-line identification
• Thanks to the calling-line identification, the telephone number of the
caller will be visible, provided the caller has not prevented this.
• Automated outbound dialling
• The computer is used to select the numbers to call and then make the
connection.
• Power dialling means that the system calls at the time the agent is
available. Predictive dialling is an anticipatory system.
• Voice processing
• With voice processing, the digitisation of speech is the focus.
 The Call Centre (Cont.)
• Speech recognition is an important component of IVR.
• Voice mail and voice messaging involves a non-interactive form of
communication between the sender and the right recipient of a recorded
or typed-in message.
• Computer–telephone integration
• CTI becomes important in cases where there is a need to integrate the call
and data traffic. CTI applications include:
• On-screen dialing.
• Intelligent routing.
• Call-based data selection.
• Voice and data call association.
 The Call Centre (Cont.)
• The database
• A database is required first and foremost in order to record customer
data, so that customers may be identified and so that their contact
history may be known.
• Call centres will often have their own datamart which may be used to
manage these data and to make them accessible in real time and to
process them.
• Telebusiness software
• Tools may be used specifically for the call centre:
• A scripting tool.
• Trouble ticket software.
• Workflow management system.
• Documentation information systems (DIS)
 The Internet and the Website
• The Internet is a worldwide network of computers, each of which may
independently consist of different computers, terminals and other equipment.
• The TCP in TCP/IP is responsible for splitting the message into separate packages
with unique numbers which are then regrouped into the appropriate sequence
again upon receipt so that they form a logical message.
• Messages may only be sent if the servers on the Internet have a unique address;
this is the IP address(32 bit).
• One of the most well-known segments of the Internet is the World Wide Web.
• Webpages that are generally accessible are called websites.
 The Internet and the Website (Cont.)
• A webpage is a hypermedia file that belongs to a certain website and may
consist of a combination of text, images, sound and video.
• Intranet, extranet and internal computer networks
• The intranet is a computer network that is protected and accessible only to
those within an organisation who have authorisation to use it.
• An extranet is designed also to grant access to external parties to the
computer network such as customers and suppliers so that their activities
may be better coordinated with one another. Tour operators
• To obtain an acceptable integration level, a ‘mid-office’ with data
warehouses and datamarts may be created.
• Hotel booking by customers
 The Internet and the Website (Cont.)
• Security
• The security issue is a two-sided one. First of all, not only does the stored
data require protection, but the transport of the data must also be
protected.
• Control over access starts with verifying the authenticity of visitors.
• Different authorisation methods may be used simultaneously. One or more
firewalls may be placed between the internal computer network and the
Internet.
• Coding or encrypting techniques may be used to protect the transmission
of messages.
 The Internet and the Website (Cont.)
• Electronic commerce
• E-commerce is defined as the process of buying, selling, transferring, or
exchanging products, services and/or information via computer
networks.
• The description under the following sub-headings summarises the
integration with internal computer networks.
• Information infrastructure: All of the traffic must be sent via one or
more communication networks which comprise the information
infrastructure.
• Message distribution infrastructure: This level consists of software
used to send and receive messages and ensures that messages go
from the server to a client.
 The Internet and the Website (Cont.)
• Electronic publishing infrastructure
• Three elements play a role in this:
• A uniform resource locator (URL)
• A network protocol
• A structured markup language, HTML/XML
• Business services infrastructure: The secure transmission of credit card data
is supported here thanks to encryption and identification techniques.
• Searach machines
 Data Warehouse and Datamart
• A data warehouse is an isolated environment,
• destined for the support of management information systems/executive
information systems/decision support systems;
• that contains data that make it possible to gain a clear, topic-oriented view
into the organisation’s history;
• in which users may obtain access to information.
• Analysing large quantities of data was very time consuming, and SQL appeared
to be a laborious solution for answering complex questions.
• Data in a data warehouse originates, from operational systems that are usually
set up as OLTP systems. online transaction processing
 Data Warehouse and Datamart (Cont.)
• The data warehouse, consists of one or more computer systems which are
able not only to quickly answer questions that require large quantities of
data but also to store data efficiently.
• For the databases to be built locally for a certain function, the name
datamart is used.
• Four types of Data Warehouses(Next Slide): Centralized is Warehouse,
decentralized datamart
• A direct link with an existing database is chosen if a certain department
would like to consult a single operational system on a regular basis for
questions that are not too extensive and complex.
• In order to prevent the connected operational systems from being
interpreted in a specific way in each datamart, it is preferable to feed the
datamarts from a central data warehouse.
 Data Warehouse and Datamart (Cont.)
• The application of CRM often requires a data warehouse to be set up, as
well as several datamarts.
• For marketing purposes, a data warehouse is kept with data on customer
identification and the further profiling, and a separate active datamart is
used for the website.
• Answering questions from the data warehouse
• A query is a question which consists of a combination of choices and
criteria as these have been compiled by a user, the objective of which
is to search for and find data in a database. X,Y,Z products with in 3-12
months customers
• OLAP, or online analytical processing, make it possible to compile
complex queries easily and to run them on a database that is usually
maintained on another platform.
 Campaign Management Systems(CMS)
• Origin
• Back in the old days campaign management referred to the planning and
execution of a single marketing campaign, which made use of the
telephone and/or the postal services.
• Nowadays, within the framework of CRM, campaign management
encompasses the multitude of campaigns that are planned and executed
through different channels so that a continuous marketing communication
flow is created.
• Functionality of campaign management systems
• CMS on the other hand, are characterized by the following functionalities.
 Campaign Management Systems (Cont.)
 Opportunity identification,
 Relationship planning,
 Campaign management,
 Customer interaction,
 Measuring and evaluating.
• Within the framework of the opportunity identification an analysis is
performed to determine who should be approached at a certain time with
a certain marketing communication message.
• Contact opportunities are now also placed within the context of
relationship planning. It will be determined what the opportune time is
to approach a customer with the particular offer.
 Campaign Management Systems (Cont.)
• Within the framework of campaign management, the campaign is
designed. Readymade templates are used to generate the campaign.
• The goal of the customer interaction functionality is to initiate and
support the contacts which follow the communication message.
• The results of a campaign are continuously measured to the measuring
and evaluation functionality.
• Input for campaign management
• The link between data warehouses, datamining and the campaign
management system forms an important point of interest.
Four Types of Campaigns
• Longitudical campaign: This campaign takes place over time and its
goal might be to acquaint the customer with the supplier and thereby
develop a relationship?
• Single shot campaign: One step approach
• Triggered campaign: Customer behaviour timing
• Wave campaign: Multiple-step approach. Mail, telephone etc.
 Campaign Management Systems (Cont.)
• Selection of a campaign management system
• In selecting a system and a supplier, the following elements should be
taken into consideration
• Functionality of the system
• User friendliness
• Market position of the supplier
 Content Management System(CoMS)
• Content management is interesting for companies with a great deal of
content.
• It offers advantages to those companies who wish to manage all data and
documents in a structured way, organisation-wide and make this information
available through different channels.
• The functions that a CoMS should fulfil are:
1. Authoring
2. Workflow management 3. Storage
4. Publishing
• A content management system makes it possible for data from different
sources to be combined.
• To ensure careful management of the data, management procedures and
authorisations must be established.
 Suppliers of CRM Systems
• The suppliers may be divided into five categories:
• Suppliers of integrated ERP applications. SAP, Oracle
• Suppliers of CRM suites. Siebel
• CRM frameworks. Pegasystems
• Best of breed. Allegies
• Building own applications. With the help of IBM, Sun, Oracle
• The expectation is that the market share of CRM applications integrated into ERP
will grow in the years to come.
• Companies should not look for the differences among the leading packages in
terms of the generic functions, but in the details. The depth to which a certain
function is supported can differ.
Questions?