Question 1

Interviewer: First of all, thank you very much <Participant 3> for agreeing to participate in this
interview. I am doing this qualitative research on effectiveness strategies of CRM system
implementations. What successful strategies you use to design, develop, and deploy your CRM
systems?

Participant 3: We had a multiyear strategy in implementing our CRM systems that modernized
our existing business processes. We adopted sound project management methodologies which
contributed to the success of the CRM projects. We had a repeatable infrastructure hosting. In
our implementation we used deploy/transition/cutover framework in a phased manner. We made
sure that our implementation is not overly disruptive that contributed to the success. We
selected an experienced CRM solution provider, though a planning, evaluating and outsourcing
techniques. We looked at various tools like SAP CRM, Salesforce, Microsoft etc., but we
selected Oracle CRM, called Siebel.

We had a proven governance framework that kept executive visibility in understanding our CRM
implementation program. We designed and rolled out our CRM implementation with minimum
rollout, minimum data migrations and business transition to service request entity to case
processing entity that is seamless. We did not use over-complicating or over customizing the
application. We pretty much leveraged out of box Siebel administration configuration modules to
drive the business parameters. We did a thorough performance tuning of CRM database,
queries and load testing.

The other thing surrounding the deployment - we had a team focus on kind of the organizational
change management processes of the deployment, so that they were communicating with our
user base constantly about what was coming and kind of what was happening and how
processes were being reengineered and done differently, so that as we brought on a testing
base of people they were hearing about it before they saw it. And then we looked for those
people who were testing it and started to understand it to be that champion out to the rest of the
users saying kind of, Heres how its going to work. Were getting involved with it, so have a
little faith in the process. As opposed to deploying it and saying, Here it is. Start using it.

Question 2

Interviewer: How did you measure the success of your CRM implementation?

Participant 3: Any new implementation requires people to get comfortable with it, and until they
get comfortable theyre not going to really understand or be able to reap the benefits of doing
something more efficiently. But as they get comfortable and more used to the system, they know
kind of what to do and where to click and how to maneuver and navigate through more quickly,
and thats where the efficiencies start to come. Users become efficient with the new CRM
system. We adopted a successful planned transition of operational processing. We ensured
end-user adoption of the application user interface and navigational likeability. We also tried
meeting business SLAs/SLOs on processing times. We looked at the performance metrics and
improvement in downtime of the system.
Question 3

Interviewer: What major issues and challenges have you faced during the CRM system
implementation?

Participant 3: One of the major challenges was customizing the COTS product to implement
unique business processing requirements like configuring Assignment Manager, file processing,
and computer telephony integrations. It required several iterations in making them stable after
initial deployment. We had to engage all the technical resources and Oracle in solving the
issues. Main issue is in coordinating resources who are located in different locations. IT was
hard to come to agreement on few situations. One other issue we had was integrating CRM
application through Oracle Fusion products, especially, implementing custom functionalities
using BPEL, Business Process Execution Language. Ours is a tightly secured environment, so
it was a challenging to adopt to the security standards while implementing our CRM system.

Question 4

Interviewer: How have you addressed those challenges?

Participant 3: We CRM implementer we hired helped in solving the issues and we hired
appropriate resources who can resolve these kinds of issues based on our initial experiences.
On the technical side, to get through a lot of the technical hurdles really it was developing
rapport over the phone. We did have a couple of face-to-face meetings with the two different
groups of people so they could get a little more comfortable with each other and get to know
each other a little better, which I think helped develop a better working relationship when they
needed something done. I think better communications between the team members was crucial
in addressing the challenges.

Apart from those few challenges, we did not face any other major issues or challenges
as since we had well defined initiatives that were supported organizationally. Professional
consulting assistance from industry CRM venders was very helpful. WE also used security
liaisons to address the security concerns.

Question 5

Interviewer: How has the application of these strategies improved the performance and
profitability of your organization?

Participant 3: Performance-wise, I think if you're managing multiple applications performance is

obviously going to be low. So when you consolidate it into one single application, obviously
there's more performance for the system. Performance for the users, right, because you don't
have to log in to CRM application then log out, and log in to other application and then log out,
and then again log in to this CRM application and then log out and then oops, you have to write
something in some Excel sheet etc. So end user performance has definitely improved and
system-wise too because if you only have to maintain one application verses five, your
resources are more committed to maintaining that one application. Less confusion, a more
narrow skillset is required, so to that extent it has definitely improved that way too. By
implementing CRM application, profitability achieved through reducing the manpower doing all
those tasks. When there are fewer systems to maintain, it would consume less resources and
more productivity at the same cost.

Question 6

Interviewer: What strategies can managers use to maximize return from CRM system resources
utilization?

Participant 3: One system to track the customers using the CRM system definitely helps a lot to
get the maximum return. Return from CRM systems can be maximized by building a data
analytical layer to derive business and operational metrics that would help to increase return on
investment. Our CRM implementation helped the bank in identifying the processes which
provides value and which which processes reduce the cost and which does not. We had metrics
to quantify the increase in the efficiency by Customer Service Representatives. CRM system
significantly reduced the time taken to address the customer calls. Our strategy is to look for the
factors that can improve the overall processes by effectively utilizing the CRM capabilities. For
example we now use less representatives to address the phone call volume once we had the
new CRM, thus utilizing the resources effectively.

Question 7

Interviewer: What are your experiences with top management in supporting CRM initiatives?

Participant 3: We ensured stakeholder engagement and support throughout the lifecycle of the
implementation. Top management was very supportive. Their vision was to implement a long-
term goal of complete integration of the CRM solution to the existing processes; we need to get
the employees to consistently adopt best practices so we can gradually achieve that goal. In my
experience for a successful CRM implementation, it requires leadership and vision at all stages,
from selecting the CRM software to implementation and managing ongoing business processes

Question 8

Interviewer: How does your organization maintain and support the CRM system?

Participant 3: Our organization planned and approved budgets to keep infrastructure and CRM
systems operational, upgraded and patched to current levels in a timely manner. Our
organization looks to cater and solution newer product lines through existing system capabilities
such as CRM by newer product plugins etc.

We had a regular schedule of maintenance where if we're applying patches as at least

every other one as they came out we would be less inclined to experience any problematic
issues. Applying patches in this case is not straight forward, right, there are so many levels and
it's always hard to maintain the patch levels, especially the patches that keep coming. We
formed a special team to take care of the maintenance and support of the system.

There was a period when Siebel was just kicking out new patch after new patch, or
Oracle was kicking out a new patch it seemed like every quarter or every two quarters. But by
the same token I remember after the initial CRM application release there were a number of
patches that we could have applied in conjunction with the next upgrade that would have
prevented some of the problems. But sticking to regular maintenance schedule helped us to
maintain and support the system effectively.

Question 9

Interviewer: Is there anything else you want to tell me about strategies you used to implement
CRM systems effectively?

Participant 3: I think what I just talked about would probably be one that, and ensuring that the
people who are supporting the application get trained. So like with implementation team, we all
went to Siebel training, even if we didn't need it, when I started. But since then, nobody has
been sent to Siebel training. So right now actually nobody on the team is trained in maintaining
the application. I personally think that would have been a good idea as new people came on
board to send them off to training. I think it will cause them to think more creatively about
maintaining the application or looking for other alternatives.

Interviewer: Yeah, especially like you should have a training plan because people come and
people leave, right, they don't know what happens next.

Participant 3: And even then, at one point we did have an onboarding process where we would
try to impart any knowledge that we might have had either from Siebel training or just from our
own experiences to the new hires. I think, when the new hires has to learn it on their own it
would be disastrous.

Interviewer: It adds more pressure on them.

Participant 2: I mean, a little bit more systematic training, I think, and knowledge sharing and
getting the team involved in more collaborative discussions about the application.

Interviewer: Thank you very much for your participation.