CRM and Digital Marketing

 Introduction to CRM  

CRM stands for customer relationship management — this includes the  type of service you provide, the interactions you have, and the resources  you share to match customer needs. A CRM model is a framework for how  your company will manage these customer relationships, from acquisition  to retention. The better you understand potential and current customers,  solve their pain points, and build trust/rapport, the more likely they’ll stick  around. 

A CRM model outlines the steps you’ll be taking to win a customer’s trust  and nurture it over time. And implementing this type of model has  multiple benefits — not just for sales, but across departments: 

∙ Build quality customer relationships and increase their loyalty to  your company.

∙ Understand customer wants/needs and personalize the customer  experience. 

∙ Create a competitive advantage as you serve customers better than  your competitors. 

However, the ultimate benefit of a CRM model is that it can lead to stable  revenue. 

What is a CRM Model? 

Your company has a serious problem. Customers are leaving left and right,  taking streams of revenue with them. You can’t figure out what’s going on  — your product/service receives great reviews, your sales team is  qualifying prospects every day, and people are reading the material sent by  marketing. 

Your company might have all the right elements to be successful, but if  you’re not investing time and effort into relationships with  potential/current customers, you can kiss their business goodbye. 

It’s not rocket science — when customers don’t feel valued or even hear  from your company on a regular basis, they head over to a competitor who  will. If this is the case, your company might just be in need of a CRM  model. 

It’s important to note that a CRM model and a CRM tool are two different things. Yes, this can be confusing, but a CRM tool is software that’s  designed to store and manage your customer data. Consider it a type of  intelligent database that’s built around relationships. A CRM tool can be  used to support your CRM model.

A CRM model outlines the steps you’ll be taking to win a customer’s trust  and nurture it over time. And implementing this type of model has  multiple benefits — not just for sales, but across departments: 

∙ Build quality customer relationships and increase their loyalty to  your company. 

∙ Understand customer wants/needs and personalize the customer  experience. 

∙ Create a competitive advantage as you serve customers better than  your competitors. 

However, the ultimate benefit of a CRM model is that it can lead to stable  revenue. 

3 common CRM models 

Many CRM models have been created over the years, but they all pretty  much have the same message: Learn everything you can about individual  customers in the prospecting stage of the sales funnel and use this  information to provide an amazing experience throughout the life of the  customer. 

Let’s now break down three common customer relationship management  (CRM) models and discuss how their capabilities can help you strengthen  relationships with customers. Even though these CRM models are similar,  that doesn’t mean they’re not valuable in their own way. Some you might  find more pertinent to your business: 

∙ IDIC CRM model 

∙ Buttle’s CRM Value Chain model 

∙ Payne & Frow’s Five-Step Process model

Below we provide a quick summary about how each model works. 

1. IDIC CRM model 

The IDIC CRM model is an excellent framework for discovering and using  your customers’ needs and values as the foundation for how you interact  with every customer. 

How it works: 

Developed by Peppers and Rogers in 2004, the IDIC model is made up of  four actions to strengthen personal relationships, from prospects to  customers. 

∙ Identify individual customers. Develop an understanding of what  their business struggles with and what they value. Divide into  segments. 

∙ Differentiate customers. Use the information about your customer  segments to sort customers by their value to your business (now and  in the future) and by their specific needs. 

∙ Interact with customers. Armed with in-depth knowledge about  your customer, demonstrate that you understand their needs on an  individual level. 

∙ Customize for customers. Take what you know about your  customers and customize your offerings to meet their needs and  values. 

With the IDIC model, you gain important insights on what’s essential to  your customer’s happiness and what personalizations you can offer to help  achieve that.

2. Buttle’s CRM Value Chain Model 

While every customer is important, not every customer is created equal.  According to the 80/20 rule in sales, 20% of your customers provide 80% of  your profits. 

With Buttle’s CRM value chain model, offer extra attention and service to  your most valuable customers. 

How it works: 

Designed to be used as a platform when developing CRM strategies, the  CRM Value Chain is a five-step process focused on “strategically  significant customers.” 

These types of customers are treated differently from other customers as  they generate more revenue and make for better referrals. With this model,  you can develop quality, long-term relationships with your most valuable  customers. 

∙ Customer portfolio analysis. Also known as CPA, this step helps  you identify your most valuable customers. 

∙ Customer intimacy. Now that you have a list of “strategically  significant customers,” find out what they need to determine how  you can best serve them. Customer data can give these insights. 

∙ Network development. Satisfying top customers is a team effort.  Work closely with marketing, support, and vendors outside of your  company. 

∙ Value proposition development. Combine your network with your  product/service and offer significant value for your top customers.  Plan to provide things like product add-on discounts, exclusive  resources via email, and one-on-one consulting sessions.

∙ Managing the relationship. With these foundations in place,  nurture customer relationships over the long term. 

The CRM Value Chain doesn’t mean you should ignore your other  customers. However, it does mean that you should make extra efforts to  serve truly invested customers. Consider these customers to be the bread  and butter of your business. These efforts ensure that your most valuable  customers stick with your company, which ultimately impacts your  company’s bottom line. 

3. Payne & Frow’s Five-step Process Model 

Eighty-seven percent of customers think brands need to put more effort  into providing a consistent experience. Payne & Frow’s Five-Step Process  Model ensures that the customer experience is consistent across all  departments (not just sales) thanks to the third process (multi-channel  integration process). 

How it works: 

The five processes of the model are categorized as follows: 

∙ Strategy development. Divided into two strategies, this process first  looks at business strategy, determining the vision of your  product/service and how it competes in the industry. Customer  strategy means that you outline the characteristics of your current  and potential customers. 

∙ Value creation. This process looks at the value customers bring to  your business, as well as the value you bring to your customers.  Create a value proposition based on this information. 

∙ Multichannel integration. In this process, every department works  together. When every department (such as marketing, sales, and 

support) are all on the same page and understand the value that your  company is bringing to the table, your customers receive a cohesive  experience. 

∙ Performance assessment. Analyze how well your value proposition  is performing. Is revenue up? Are your customers happy? Are your  reps engaged with customers? With different departments? 

∙ Information management. Also called “Data Repository,” this  process supports the other processes and includes IT systems,  analysis tools, front-office applications, and back-office applications. 

Although each of these models is similar, they work better for different  business setups. For example, maybe your business revenue is supported  by only a handful of customers. The CRM Value Chain Model might be the  best relationship framework for your company. 

Or, if your product/service solves a complex need in your industry, use the  IDIC model. No matter what model you choose (do your research), you’ll  need a tool to ensure that relationship management is successful. This is  where CRM software comes in. 

Use a CRM tool to support your CRM model 

Managing customer relationships is no simple task. Not only do you have  to keep up with customer expectations, you also want  

to exceed expectations and make your customers want to stick with your  company for the long term. 

But how do you organize contact information, data, customer questions,  etc., AND make sure it’s easily accessible to reps for every customer  interaction? A CRM tool makes this management easy.

Here are just a few ways you can use a CRM tool to support your CRM  model: 

Organize customer info. A CRM gives sales reps the ability to record  customer calls, track emails, and automatically move information into the  customer’s record. Reps can then refer back to this information at any time,  such as before customer check-in calls. As a result, customer  conversations have a personal touch and the customer feels valued. 

Easily access data. Valuable customer data is available right within your  CRM to offer insights about each customer and personalize your value  propositions. Data is automatically pulled into sales reports so you can  view things like response time and call outcome. In addition, if you have a  mobile CRM, your reps can refer to data while visiting with customers. 

Work with marketing & support: CRM integrations with marketing  automation software and support platforms ensure that conversations are  consistent across channels/departments and no communication falls  through the cracks. Every department understands what customer needs  are and the measures being taken by each department to meet those needs. 

For example, marketing can view what top customers are asking sales and  support. They can then take this information to create helpful resources  (e.g., whitepapers, blog posts, and reports) to send to these customers. 

2.2 Introduction to e-commerce: 

In general, people understand E-commerce as just shopping on internet.  The technical term says trading on Internet but e-commerce has a much  broader scope and encompasses many more business activities other than  just web shopping. In E-commerce not only Internet is used but other  media is equally have contribution to complete the processes on it.

A good definition of e-commerce would mention the use of electronic data  transmission to implement or enhance any business process.  

E-commerce is mainly associated with buying and selling over the Internet,  or conducting any transaction involving the transfer of ownership or rights  to use goods or services through a computer-mediated network.  

A more complete definition is: E-commerce is the use of electronic  communications and digital information processing technology in business  transactions to create, transform, and redefine relationships for value  creation between or among organizations, and between organizations and  individuals. 

Basically there are two types of Commerce: 

1. Traditional Commerce  

2. Electronic Commerce 

The commerce where transaction happens physicaly within customer and  seller is termed as Traditional commerce while the commerce in which  transaction is done using various electronic payment modes is called as the  electronic commerce. 

Following are the differentiating points for Traditional Commerce and E Commerce

Sr.   No.	Traditional Commerce	E-Commerce
1	Needs communication   between person to person.	Llittle dependency on person to  person information exchange as it  uses electronic media to exchange

		information.
2	Synchronous communication  happens in this type of   transaction. Manual   intervention is major	Asynchronous communication  happens as electronic media and  internet plays important role..
3	Maintaining standard   practices in traditional   commerce is difficult.	A uniform strategy can be easily  established and maintain in e commerce.
4	Convincing customer is   challenging task.ie seller has  to move to customer..	In e-Commerce or Electronic  Market, there is no convincing,  customer chooses an option to  purchase.
5	Unavailability of a uniform  platform	Customer gets all information on  one platform.
6	Quality of product can be  checked and verified	No guarantee about quality of  product.

In the broadest sense, E-Commerce refers to all online transactions. Just as  e-commerce increases sales opportunities for the seller, it increases  purchasing opportunities for the buyer. Ultimately its beneficial for both.  Businesses can use e-commerce in their purchasing processes to identify  new suppliers and business partners. E-Commerce provides buyers with a  wider range of choices than traditional commerce, because they can  consider many different products and services from a wider variety of 

sellers. E-Commerce can make products and services available in remote  areas. 

Advantages of E-Commerce 

E-Commerce is beneficial not only for seller and customer but its also  beneficial for society ,environmental sustainability point of view. 

Advantages to Organizations 

∙ Using e-commerce, organizations can get opportunities to develop  business at national as well as international level. With minimum  capital investment. An organization can easily locate more  customers, best suppliers, and suitable business partners across the  globe. 

∙ E-commerce helps organizations to reduce the cost to create process,  distribute, retrieve and manage the paper based information by  digitizing the information. 

∙ E-commerce improves the brand image of the company. ∙ E-commerce helps organization to provide better customer services. 

∙ E-commerce helps to simplify the business processes and makes  them faster and efficient. 

∙ E-commerce reduces the paper work. 

∙ E-commerce increases the productivity of organizations. It supports  "pull" type supply management. In "pull" type supply management,  a business process starts when a request comes from a customer and  it uses just-in-time manufacturing way. 

Advantages to Customers 

∙ It provides 24x7 support. Customers can enquire about a product or  service and place orders anytime, anywhere from any location.

∙ E-commerce application provides users with more options and  quicker delivery of products. 

∙ E-commerce application provides users with more options to  compare and select the cheaper and better options. 

∙ A customer can put review comments about a product and can see  what others are buying, or see the review comments of other  customers before making a final purchase. 

∙ E-commerce provides options of virtual auctions. 

∙ It provides readily available information. A customer can see the  relevant detailed information within seconds, rather than waiting for  days or weeks. 

∙ E-Commerce increases the competition among organizations and as  a result, organizations provides substantial discounts to customers. 

Advantages to Society 

∙ Customers need not travel to shop a product, thus less traffic on road  and low air pollution. 

∙ E-commerce helps in reducing the cost of products, so less affluent  people can also afford the products. 

∙ E-commerce has enabled rural areas to access services and products,  which are otherwise not available to them. 

∙ E-commerce helps the government to deliver public services such as  healthcare, education, social services at a reduced cost and in an  improved manner.