CRM - February 2008 - (Page 25)

PAML Pushes Forward STAGE ONE: Crawl from the Wreckage Early adopters that bought CRM technology also bought into the initial hype, and many never saw the expected benefits. This gave CRM a less-than-stellar reputation; a company suffering from that immediate disappointment, according to Gartner, occupied Stage One. A wave of companies has successfully passed through—some might say “survived”—this first stage, but it’s hardly an historical artifact. “Certainly there were more [Stage One firms] in the past,” Nelson explains, “but you still run into a lot of companies in a lot of areas that are still very early in the CRM game.” Rob Bois, research director at AMR Research, notes that many B2B companies in particular remain in this preliminary stage as they have not yet felt the direct consumer pressure to deliver a better overall experience. A Stage One firm’s vision is centered on product and profit, and customer experience is an afterthought. Often, CRM is installed to solve a single problem in one channel—resulting in an inconsistent customer experience, and in some cases damaging other areas of business while one gets stronger. The full return on investment, therefore, may never be realized. STAGE TWO: First Steps Nelson calls Stage Two the “self-awareness stage.” Firms realize why first-stage investments haven’t yet yielded a return, and begin reorganizing processes and value systems. Technologically, little occurs in this stage—or in any stage past the first. Systems have already been implemented; the next steps are to understand how to best utilize them. Although the vision becomes customer-focused, departmentlevel initiatives remain discrete. Nelson says, “I often joke that [this] is the stage of CRM that happens after everybody who did the first generation is fired.” Although Nelson’s joke doesn’t apply to Collette Vacations, the Rhode Island– based tour operator serves as a good example of the shift between Stages One and Two. Collette decided to install marketing software to increase return on investment when campaigns were moving too slowly and segmentation was elewww.destinationCRM.com S ix years ago, when Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories (PAML) lost a million-dollar client due to misaligned business practices, the company knew that its corporate culture needed a significant makeover. The hefty blow forced PAML to realize just how crucial customer satisfaction was to overall success. Rosalee Allen, PAML’s senior vice president and chief operations officer, says, “We didn’t have any way to interact with the client at all—or even act like we knew them if they called 10 minutes ago.” To better serve customers, PAML implemented Microsoft CRM. Although the process was not easy—the implementation took two years—the benefits were invaluable. The company has been able to reduce response rates from three days to under 24 hours, and can now treat each customer as an individual with an understanding of inquiry history and client profile. And, as any company with eyes on Stage Five must do, PAML continues to push forward, making its CRM database available via mobile devices and even deploying its CRM system in the local hospitals that participate in its medical testing. Implementing Microsoft has not only improved customer satisfaction, but has also allowed the company to expand its client base. Allen cites CRM capabilities as a high selling point in meetings with potential clients. And PAML has discovered that perpetually asking more of CRM is the only way to derive additional benefits. “We continue to look through the application and see what it can do and apply this to business practices,” she says. —JS mental at best. As Diane Gorine, Collette’s direct marketing manager, puts it, “We were using very kludge-y tools.” Using Unica’s Affinium Campaign and Affinium Model, campaigns that had taken two or three days took 20 minutes. Within months, Collette was segmenting customer groups and handling them accordingly. These Stage One steps— implementations improving single problems in an individual unit—have begun to bleed out to other siloes. “We can talk to people like we know who they are—that is something that has been noticed [in other areas of] the company,” Gorine says. Although the original goal was simply for marketing to drive revenue, this illuminated the importance of customer centricity beyond marketing to other lineof-business areas. Gorine says further channel integration is planned; preparations for deploying Affinium Net Insight include integrating Collette’s existing inhouse contact database. STAGE THREE: Stand Tall Companies achieve Stage Three when they begin to think (and act) on an enterprisewide level. In the second stage, customer centricity was important, but was still pursued as a siloed effort: each unit trying to improve simultaneously, but separately. Nelson says, “In the second [stage], you have disparate projects going on. The third [stage] is an attempt to consolidate those much more.” The firm begins to see that in order for channels to operate at the highest level, integration must occur at a higher level as well. As in Collette’s case, a company often begins maturing toward Stage Three when one group within the company is clearly outperforming the others. A vision pursued by the outperforming group can spread to other groups, aligning customer-centric efforts. Implementing integration technology is crucial at this stage to share data and break down silos. However, this process can be quite difficult. Wollan calls this the sticking point for many of today’s companies, the main reason the bulk of CRM users remain at this stage in the maturation process. “It’s the interplay of the channels that’s the real challenge,” he says. As companies stagnate, frustration— and costs—can mount. Zachary McGeary, lead analyst at JupiterResearch, says, “We’ve seen integration cycles lasting as long as 12 to 18 months, with professional services costs piling up over this duration.” To align marketing, sales, and customer service, internal processes may need to 25 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | FEBRUARY 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - February 2008

CRM - February 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point The Loyalty Riddle CRM Drives Down-Market Out of the Gate: Marketers Rate ’08 Traits The Pulse Consultants Adapt to CRM’s Changing Landscape Required Reading Cover Story: CRM Gets Serious Contact Center Solutions Always On Rumble in the Office The Smallest Slice Tying Up Cable’s Loose Ends Burning Up the Paper Trail Sunny Skies for Knology No More Bumps for BlueRoads Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - February 2008

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