CRM Processes CRM Information.

CRM Processes
The customer relationship management (CRM) process uses technology to organize and efficiently coordinate business practices.

The two main goals of this management process are: Gaining new clients and Retaining current clients It begins with an analysis of a company and its needs. Businesses require data on why current customers buy and what can be done to increase sales and attract new customers. The process then researches for correct technology and begins implementation.

5 Step Processes Step 1: Clearly Identify Your Target Market & Value Proposition Most business owners will have this well documented in a business plan. Organizations should exactly know who the target market is and a clear value proposition should be offered. List customer profiles in priority: for example: A, B, & C. A would be your most valuable customer. B would be second priority, etc. Customer priority list in a CRM process looks: Customer A- Past/Repeat Buyers (Conversion rate of 75%) Customer B- Subscribed to Email List (Conversion rate of 34%) Customer C- Website Traffic and/or Walk-in Customer (Conversion rate of 15%) Different customers may also have different value propositions, but knowing what is important to each type of customer is what sets the CRM process up for success.

Step 2: Define Your Overall CRM Strategy and Consider Costs

This is solely based on what type of customer service and relationship management will work better for business, and customers. It can include co-creating the CRM process with customers, having a dedicated online social CRM community for your business, or handling customers the old fashioned way with hands-on assistance. Each has their positives and negatives. Each option in the CRM process also has different prices which can have a great impact on the businesss ROI. Hence it needs to be chosen carefully.

Step 3: Define How Each Customer Type Will Be Handled

Taking the customer profiles in priority from step 1, and The customer service strategies in step 2; Define how each customer type will be handled throughout the CRM process.

FOR EXAMPLE: Headway Themes sells an online product. They have 2 different pricing levels.

The lowest pricing level is for consumers, offering a base level version of the product. This customer receives less dedicated customer service, in the form of access to an online support community where customers help each other . These customers are a lower priority, due to the fact theyll likely only purchase the product once for personal use. The higher pricing level is for B2B customers. These are developers who use the product to customize, and then resell to their clients. This pricing level is much higher, so these customers receive lifetime dedicated customer support. These are also Headway Themes repeat buyers.

Step 4: Select a CRM Software to Measure Performance

Most of the businesses will choose a CRM software to measure the performance of their strategy. The best CRM software solutions include Saas (software as a service delivered online). This means there is no longer a costly need of an in-house IT team and server space.

Step 5: Continue to Re-engage Customers

Customer engagement is a hard task to bring to perfection. Three of the most used forms of customer reengagement in the CRM Process are; customer satisfaction surveys, emails and social media. With surveys One can measure customer satisfaction strategically throughout the CRM process.

With email- For most customers, keeping in touch with an email newsletter about once a week, or twice a month is more than enough. Should send only important communications, like the top articles featured on the site With social media - Dont over tweet, or overload social feeds on Facebook. Be the face behind the brand, and youll see true success in your CRM process.

Here's how the CRM process actually works in an organization.

CRM- Information
Information is one of the most important assets of an organization (Robert, 2003).
The information managers should try to understand the type of customers serviced by the organization. This will help them in formulating a strategic plan. Information itself can be of several types. Descriptive information identifies the existing condition of a specific information. Procedural information refers to knowledge about a particular process in order to achieve the needs of the customer

 * Once the type of information has been identified, based on its type, it can be used for experimenting, decision making, problem solving and investigation. * The importance of this information increases manifold if the right kind of information is available to the decision maker at the right time for strategy planning and forecasting. * Technology for managing this information is also an important issue without which there would be a distorted flow of information.

 Identify the existing and potential issues in managing information Define the method of information flow Retain people to become more literate on the new information technologies, which will be integrated into the business processes of the organization.

 Firstly, every organization has to identify the various sources of information inflow. Then it has to find a way to create a common channel which can collectively capture this information and direct it to the appropriate channel for filtering process, where all the irrelevant data gets eliminated and the relevant data passes onto the various stages of the business flow within the organization on way to its destination. This information is now a knowledge base of the organization.

Implication of INFORMATION in CRM

It can serve as a useful reference to the top management to record, track and correct the anomalies of their current strategies and policies, helping them in implementing corrective measures towards strategy planning.